Lending your gear out

[machinehead]

I have lent my combo recently with no problems but it's to a sensible person.

I lent a combo about 20 years ago and, despite phone calls and chasing up, I never got it back.

Best to be careful.

Frank

[Noisyjon]

It's such a personal decision and can be a tough one.

I leant my Mesa Boogie 2x15", 800W, cab to a mate once and he blew one of the speakers as he needed to 'give it some grunt' as he put it!
Thank goodness I didn't need it soon after and he paid for the repair. If it was a gig where I followed and needed it I would have been stuffed.

Another time we were the openers at a heavy metal all dayer and all the bands on the first half of the day wanted to use my amp & cab. I didn't want to put it through the mill like that so said I couldn't hang around and politely told them No.

From my experiences it will always be a 'Sorry, No' from me on this subject at a gig.

JTB

[mike257]

[quote name='jonthebass' post='437120' date='Mar 17 2009, 12:29 PM']I leant my Mesa Boogie 2x15", 800W, cab to a mate once and he blew one of the speakers as he needed to 'give it some grunt' as he put it![/quote]

Jesus H Christ, what was he putting through it to blow one of those?

I've been on the receiving end of having gear blown up by other people, and having to pay out (a not insignificant amount) to our local rip-off amp tech for repairs myself. Consequentially, I don't do head sharing, except on very rare occasions with friends I know and trust. I'm happy to share my cabs though, when you're one of four or five bands on a gig, you don't want to be tripping over five lots of bass cabs on stage!

The worst things are what we used to term 'sticks and a smile' bands - usually with an average age of seventeen, who stroll in to the venue with three gig bags, one pair of drumsticks, and a whole lot of wishful thinking! DI boxes all round then, boys!

[SteveO]

I lend my gear out all the time. My rig is pretty much permanently installed at the local venue, we get rehersal space for free and it's only worth about 100 quid, so whenever anyone wants to borrow then I always say OK (plus the resident sound guy is our singer and I trust him to look after it) the way I see it I've had much more than the rig's value worth of rehersal time and free entry to gigs (although I do get dragged in to marshall the occasional gig if there's a big crowd). it's all karma. I also have my first bass (crappy CK squier) out on permanent loan to people who wanna learn the bass. if after a few months they wanna stick with it then I'll help them look for a bass for them and pass the squier on. I have no expectation whatsoever of getting it back in one piece, and the satisfaction of helping people get into music more than pays for the intrinsic value of the instrument (which again is gonna be less than a ton).

saying that, there's no way I'd loan out gear that I wasn't prepared to loose. When I manage to save enough penger for my dream 'ray I'll not be lending that out, but I'll always keep a 'knacker' for loaning.

[Noisyjon]

[quote name='mike257' post='437925' date='Mar 18 2009, 12:25 AM']...Jesus H Christ, what was he putting through it to blow one of those?...[/quote]

I believe it was an Ampeg SVT2 Pro with distortion pedals and turned flat out
He doesn't play/gig any more, thank f*ck!

[dangerboy]

I don't loan gear out often, but I always let everyone use my amp at gigs, and when I promote gigs I demand that one bassplayer provide the rig for all the bands to use (same with drums). It's London, space is at a premium in the little venue, most people don't have transport and no-one wants to watch drumkits and bass amps being lugged around between bands.

Thankfully our night is in big demand with bands, so we can tell non-sharers to get lost.

On loaning - I don't lend out things that matter greatly, but cheap basses and pedals can be shared around if needed.

[Jack]

All the bass stuff Ive lent out to people has been returned with no hassles.


Of course, Ive never lent anyone any bass stuff, never will either. Backline sharing is a different matter though, sometimes it just makes sense, and if I'm there anyway I dont see why not. The exception is the people who EXPECT to use my rig. That's a no for you, sir.

Edited March 18, 2009 by Jack

[mike257]

[quote name='Jack' post='438608' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:05 PM']The exception is the people who EXPECT to use my rig.[/quote]

Exactly the problem. I'm actually sharing my rig with someone tomorrow, but they emailed me well in advance saying their amp was in for repair, and they weren't 100% sure it'd be back in time. If someone's stuck like that, and they've bothered to ask, I don't mind so much.

I remember one gig, a guy took offence because our guitarist wouldn't lend him his Orange head. He stormed off with his bandmates, calling us all kinds of a***holes, and then got back in his car, went literally half a mile back to his practice room and was back in 5 minutes with his own tasty expensive valve head. I mean, why buy nice kit, and not bother using it?? They'd brought virtually no gear along. It mystifies me. We got the evils all night off him and his band, even though we were sharing cabs and shells with them.

Morrison was right, people [i]are[/i] strange!