Back up Amp - or nothing ?

[jrixn1]

ZipCar (or similar) is another option for a back-up car, if you're in a city where they operate. Sign up in advance though, as they run a document check which takes a couple of days to process.

[Doddy]

3 hours ago, fretmeister said:

If I’m getting paid then I take a spare head, And a spare bass, and I’ve always got a di  available.

Anything else isn’t professional.

 

I guess I'm not professional then as I never take a spare amp and, depending on the gig, I don't always have a spare bass.

[Al Krow]

8 minutes ago, Doddy said:

I guess I'm not professional then as I never take a spare amp and, depending on the gig, I don't always have a spare bass.

Yup, you and me both! In fact no spare bass, no spare amp, no spare PA, no spare transport.

Completely amazed that such an amateur approach has had no issues doing multiple paid gigs over many years. 

We do have two (excellent) vocalists though, so I guess that counts as a spare...

[stewblack]

It's a matter choice that's all. If I feel that I'm unprofessional by being unprepared for something going wrong it doesn't mean that anyone else is. 

We all choose our definition of professional. 

You may have been fine so far, you may be fine for ever after. But if something goes wrong and stops the whole show while you fiddle around trying to find what's wrong, rather than grabbing a spare, my bet is that will be the last time you travel with no back up. 

My take is, its not about me, it's about the people or person paying me. 

[Cuzzie]

2 minutes ago, stewblack said:

It's a matter choice that's all. If I feel that I'm unprofessional by being unprepared for something going wrong it doesn't mean that anyone else is. 

We all choose our definition of professional. 

You may have been fine so far, you may be fine for ever after. But if something goes wrong and stops the whole show while you fiddle around trying to find what's wrong, rather than grabbing a spare, my bet is that will be the last time you travel with no back up. 

My take is, its not about me, it's about the people or person paying me. 

Nicely put

The old adage:

fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Or the 6 P’s Proper Preparation Prevents Pi55 Poor Performance

Edited February 21, 2021 by Cuzzie

[Lozz196]

The only time I ever needed a backup bass

 

Was when I hadn’t brought one with me

 

Lesson learned

[Al Krow]

20 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

The only time I ever needed a backup bass

Was when I hadn’t brought one with me

Lesson learned

What happened to make you need a back-up bass? Genuine question - other than spare battery, can't imagine a string going and I'm regularly using my gigging basses at home and I would know if there was a hint of a problem with them.

41 minutes ago, stewblack said:

You may have been fine so far, you may be fine for ever after. But if something goes wrong and stops the whole show while you fiddle around trying to find what's wrong, rather than grabbing a spare, my bet is that will be the last time you travel with no back up. 

Agreed - but what this boils down to is a difference in view of risk and the adequacy of a Plan B.

Some folk don't take out insurance at all because they don't see it as necessary. Others will have a higher excess to cut down on premiums. Obviously if you get burgled and you don't have insurance you will regret it. On the other hand you could save a lifetime of additional premiums and never get burgled. Both valid choices for grown-ups to take.

FWIW - the only thing that has regularly featured for us is our lead guitarist breaking a string. Yup we've now insisted he takes a spare guitar and spare strings. Oh and the sky didn't fall in and nor did we cease to get any bookings and our vocalist handled the audience with ease when his string did break the first few times and he had to restring without a back-up guitar. I'm completely with @NancyJohnson in not getting over-stressed about low risk items and audience reactions. But each to their own.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

You are correct - it is about mitigating risk in a situation - correct me if i am wrong, but the bands you play have 2 guitarists - 1 acoustic 1 electric, bass, drums, vocals x2 and sometimes you have wind instruments depending on which one of your bands is playing.

That is a whole wall of sound which can easily fill in for potential issues - lead guitar breaks a string, the rhythm of the song carries on with the rhythm guitar, lead singist has a coughing fit or something, second/other singer steps in.

Go down to a three piece - any one element goes down, the whole bottom falls out the songs. When i was doing hip hop multiple modalities for the backing tracks and there were 3 of us, everyone learnt everyone else’s lines for an instant drop in - its what necessary

[stewblack]

Al, you're using an argument technique, contradicting something I didn't say. I never said the sky would fall in nor that you couldn't cover the gap in proceedings. 

[Lozz196]

28 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

What happened to make you need a back-up bass? Genuine question - other than spare battery, can't imagine a string going and I'm regularly using my gigging basses at home and I would know if there was a hint of a problem with them.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Lozz196

[Al Krow]

16 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Al, you're using an argument technique, contradicting something I didn't say. I never said the sky would fall in nor that you couldn't cover the gap in proceedings. 

Sorry Stew, the "sky falling in" comment wasn't at all in response to your comment (apologies if it seemed to be) but was rather picking up on what Paul (NancyJ) had said earlier.

[la bam]

I've had basses go down, three times. Only once at a gig, but a quick swap and everything resumed in 10 seconds.

Once I broke a string at a gig in a covers band. It was 20 years ago, never happened before or since. Wasnt even particularly an energetic song. Quick swap, job done.

Once, one cheap bass I'd bought just gave up in the house noodling. Some wiring inside had come loose.

Basses can go easily. Jack inputs can sometimes be brittle and break due to constant plugging and unplugging. Mine went down (albeit at practice) it was a yamaha bb424x.

Again, it could fall off a stand, you could drop it, it could get damaged in transit, punters, clumsy band members...

[Lozz196]

Cant seem to reply on the above, but to answer the question Bas, it was a strange one. Before setting off for the gig I plugged in and tested the (passive Precision) bass as I always do, tuned it, all was ok. Got to the gig, plugged in on soundcheck, nothing. Tried different leads, nothing. Soundman opened it up and there was a shorting issue on the jack that he didn’t have the tools to fix. So I had to borrow a bass. Made worse by the fact that the first band on the bill had flown over from Germany and I was meant to be lending them my bass. So as said, lesson learned, only happened once to me, I don’t intend on it happening again.

[Al Krow]

33 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

You are correct - it is about mitigating risk in a situation - correct me if i am wrong, but the bands you play have 2 guitarists - 1 acoustic 1 electric, bass, drums, vocals x2 and sometimes you have wind instruments depending on which one of your bands is playing.

That is a whole wall of sound which can easily fill in for potential issues - lead guitar breaks a string, the rhythm of the song carries on with the rhythm guitar, lead singist has a coughing fit or something, second/other singer steps in.

Go down to a three piece - any one element goes down, the whole bottom falls out the songs. When i was doing hip hop multiple modalities for the backing tracks and there were 3 of us, everyone learnt everyone else’s lines for an instant drop in - its what necessary

Dang Cuzzie - can't disagree with any of that. That's twice in 24 hours. I'd best go sit down... 😂

[gazhowe]

I've had one bass failure (Stingray battery during the opening number) and three amp failures (Trace Elliot AH400SMX x 2, SWR Workingman's 180 x 1).  I didn't have a spare amp at the time and luckily the Trace Elliot failures were both during sound checks at local gigs so I was able to borrow an amp.  Since then I've taken a spare amp to all non-local gigs.

The SWR was loaned to a friend at short notice as a backup as he suspected his amp was developing an intermittent fault.  When I asked the next morning how they gig had gone he said "It was great but the amp blew up during the 2nd set".  I asked why didn't you just use mine, to which he replied "I was using it at the time".  Unlucky for both of us. 😂😂

Edited February 21, 2021 by gazhowe

[Cuzzie]

11 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Dang Cuzzie - can't disagree with any of that. That's twice in 24 hours. I'd best go sit down... 😂

Don’t rest - keep walking the path to enlightenment 

[Al Krow]

9 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Don’t rest - keep walking the path to enlightenment 

Sadly classed as non-essential travel 😁

[Cuzzie]

5 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Sadly classed as non-essential travel 😁

Even Boris makes an exception for you on this matter

[Jack]

I've had two basses go at gigs. Once was when I stepped on the cable from my Precision and pulled half the scratch plate out. Controls, jack everything. No way that could be fixed at a gig. I have a photo somewhere, it's horrible. It's also why I went wireless. I also once had the internal jack on my Bongo so that it was super loose and really intermittent. That could be fixed on a gig (in fact I did during a set break) but it would have been maybe around 5 minutes of downtime between songs that I really didn't want at a big outdoor scooter rally with lots of Paul Wellend lookalikes shouting for the next Oasis singalong. People always mention professionalism in these kinds of threads and I do get it but my bands aren't on that level! It's more the ire of bandmates, embarrassment in front of punters, complete lack of willing to fix anything on a dark stage in a rush and under pressure, all of that jazz. I'd much rather calmly walk over to the pile-o-carp on stage and pull out a spare wotsit.

 

My philosophy is that anything absolutely crucial to me playing bass on that gig gets a backup. So for me that's a bass, di box, tuner, 1 each instrument and xlr cable. I go through the PA anyway, so no need for an amp. If my wireless goes I have the cable, if my Helix goes there's the DI. I have used any of this stuff exactly once. Both my rack rig and my mixer are in identical 4-space racks and so inevitably I once managed to load only the mixer by some weird mistake. Got to the gig, got annoyed at myself. Plugged into mixer, dialed in a nice rock tone using the Sansamp emulator on there, nobody cared. I do have one thing in triplicate but that's by accident really, both the wireless and the Helix have a tuner, and I have one in my bag too. 

 

No spare strap (I can sit), no spare microphone (we can do without my paltry vocals anyway), no spare effects pedals (people manage without for whole careers, I can manage one gig), no spare lights (I'm ugly). One of my bands stopped carrying a spare mixer when, at a garden party, we just plugged the singer into a speaker going straight mic>cable>speaker. The other has a tiny, battered old Behringer 4 channel in the PA cable box. I'd plug into a wedge monitor and use it as backline with no mixer. No need for spare speakers, we can turn a wedge into a main easy enough, etc etc. I really believe that you can go too far with this stuff, some people are clearly carrying 2 of everything and that's not really something I'm interested in. Of course, every situation is different. I said I can do without a spare mic because my vocals aren't critical. If yours are then who am I to judge? Bring a spare mic!

[Cuzzie]

15 minutes ago, Jack said:

I've had two basses go at gigs. Once was when I stepped on the cable from my Precision and pulled half the scratch plate out. Controls, jack everything. No way that could be fixed at a gig. I have a photo somewhere, it's horrible. It's also why I went wireless. I also once had the internal jack on my Bongo so that it was super loose and really intermittent. That could be fixed on a gig (in fact I did during a set break) but it would have been maybe around 5 minutes of downtime between songs that I really didn't want at a big outdoor scooter rally with lots of Paul Wellend lookalikes shouting for the next Oasis singalong. People always mention professionalism in these kinds of threads and I do get it but my bands aren't on that level! It's more the ire of bandmates, embarrassment in front of punters, complete lack of willing to fix anything on a dark stage in a rush and under pressure, all of that jazz. I'd much rather calmly walk over to the pile-o-carp on stage and pull out a spare wotsit.

 

My philosophy is that anything absolutely crucial to me playing bass on that gig gets a backup. So for me that's a bass, di box, tuner, 1 each instrument and xlr cable. I go through the PA anyway, so no need for an amp. If my wireless goes I have the cable, if my Helix goes there's the DI. I have used any of this stuff exactly once. Both my rack rig and my mixer are in identical 4-space racks and so inevitably I once managed to load only the mixer by some weird mistake. Got to the gig, got annoyed at myself. Plugged into mixer, dialed in a nice rock tone using the Sansamp emulator on there, nobody cared. I do have one thing in triplicate but that's by accident really, both the wireless and the Helix have a tuner, and I have one in my bag too. 

 

No spare strap (I can sit), no spare microphone (we can do without my paltry vocals anyway), no spare effects pedals (people manage without for whole careers, I can manage one gig), no spare lights (I'm ugly). One of my bands stopped carrying a spare mixer when, at a garden party, we just plugged the singer into a speaker going straight mic>cable>speaker. The other has a tiny, battered old Behringer 4 channel in the PA cable box. I'd plug into a wedge monitor and use it as backline with no mixer. No need for spare speakers, we can turn a wedge into a main easy enough, etc etc. I really believe that you can go too far with this stuff, some people are clearly carrying 2 of everything and that's not really something I'm interested in. Of course, every situation is different. I said I can do without a spare mic because my vocals aren't critical. If yours are then who am I to judge? Bring a spare mic!

Sounds professional to me covering eventualities.

Microphones are a funny one - cardioid, super cardioid, on axis, off axis what vocals do best with what - singing/vocals i would always take my own especially nowadays with the old transmission of droplets which i was never keen on ages ago anyway, hence using my own.

[Steve Browning]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

 

In my case, a machine head 'ear' sheared off when I was tuning before going on stage. Have always carried a spare from the day I could afford two basses. Couple of instances of crackly pots too.

[Doddy]

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

It's a matter choice that's all. If I feel that I'm unprofessional by being unprepared for something going wrong it doesn't mean that anyone else is. 

We all choose our definition of professional. 

You may have been fine so far, you may be fine for ever after. But if something goes wrong and stops the whole show while you fiddle around trying to find what's wrong, rather than grabbing a spare, my bet is that will be the last time you travel with no back up. 

My take is, its not about me, it's about the people or person paying me. 

I agree that it's about the people hiring you, as well as your own reputation, and you need to be prepared. I'll never argue that. What I will argue is that not carrying a spare everything is unprofessional. Not all gigs allow you the luxury of taking backups for all your gear.

Things go wrong, but it's how you handle it that makes the difference. If you run a DI in your signal chain, then if the amp goes down you'll still have a signal out front, so you can carry on (all be it unideally). If a pedal goes down, a quick bypass of your board will sort it in seconds. If a string snaps, you might not have chance to stop and pick up another bass if you're in the middle of a 30 minute medley or something, so you need to carry on and rethink your playing.

What is unprofessional is these things happening and then you panic and stop playing while you are fannying about to fix them.

 

[Cuzzie]

4 minutes ago, Doddy said:

I agree that it's about the people hiring you, as well as your own reputation, and you need to be prepared. I'll never argue that. What I will argue is that not carrying a spare everything is unprofessional. Not all gigs allow you the luxury of taking backups for all your gear.

Things go wrong, but it's how you handle it that makes the difference. If you run a DI in your signal chain, then if the amp goes down you'll still have a signal out front, so you can carry on (all be it unideally). If a pedal goes down, a quick bypass of your board will sort it in seconds. If a string snaps, you might not have chance to stop and pick up another bass if you're in the middle of a 30 minute medley or something, so you need to carry on and rethink your playing.

What is unprofessional is these things happening and then you panic and stop playing while you are fannying about to fix them.

 

It’s exactly the points - it’s a solution for the circumstances - if your amp goes down, and you have DI to PA - job done.

If your amp goes down and amp to cab easily your only means of amplification, no PA - then what?

Re-thinking playing is exactly right as well - some songs I do ‘normal’ tuning some in a drop tuning-one bass I was using didn’t have the drop tuner so incase I forgot to tune between songs I practiced playing the songs in both tunings - and predictably I forgot to tune, but muddled through.

Professionalism in this instance is just about being the best you can be for yours and others enjoyment and being the best prepared for the same reasons.

[Doddy]

1 hour ago, Cuzzie said:

If your amp goes down and amp to cab easily your only means of amplification, no PA - then what?

Most bands are going to have at least a small PA for the vocals, so if need be you can go through that. It's not ideal, but it will get you through the gig.  

 

[Cuzzie]

1 minute ago, Doddy said:

Most bands are going to have at least a small PA for the vocals, so if need be you can go through that. It's not ideal, but it will get you through the gig.  

 

Not disputed - people need to do what’s correct for them