Back up bass, yes or no?

[martthebass]

34 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

I’ve had a strap button work loose and nearly fall out.  Strap locks are all well and good, but no use if the strap button itself falls out. 

Think the worst I had was turn up to a gig with a strap without locks and the main and back up basses both had schaller pins…..

Thank God for gaffa tape.

 

[PaulWarning]

13 hours ago, JoeEvans said:

Has anyone had a bass failure during a gig that wasn't a broken string or a dead battery? I'm curious as to what the possible failure modes might be.

about 2 months ago, a bad connection on the output socket, I always take a spare everything, the band looks really bad if they cant complete the gig.

 

I've seen this twice, once a bassist's string broke and he took about 10 minutes putting another one on while the rest of the band stood around looking really uncomfortable, a multi band bill as well so they'd only got 40 minutes anyway, and he refused to use someone else's bass! 😕

Another time one of the guitarists broke a string and unbelievably for a guitarist, didn't have a spare, again took about 10 minutes to put a new sting on, it looks really really bad 

[Lozz196]

At a gig I played earlier in the year our lead guitarist broke 2 strings (at separate times). No backup guitar. We had to have an on-stage discussion about what songs we could do with just one guitar. It was a real shame as we were playing & sounding great. Our 35min set really suffered because of it.

[peteb]

2 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

At a gig I played earlier in the year our lead guitarist broke 2 strings (at separate times). No backup guitar. We had to have an on-stage discussion about what songs we could do with just one guitar. It was a real shame as we were playing & sounding great. Our 35min set really suffered because of it.

 

A guitarist not bringing a spare is unforgivable - I've gigged for more than 45 years and only once broken a bass string, while I've played gigs where the guitar player has broken three strings on one show (fortunately he had a couple of spare guitars and the guitarist from the other band changed a string for him while he was playing the other guitar). 

 

I will nearly always bring a spare bass, but on the occasional gig it just isn't practical. Whenever I find myself obliged to bring just one bass, I make sure that it is a passive. 

 

Edited September 23 by peteb

[martthebass]

31 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

At a gig I played earlier in the year our lead guitarist broke 2 strings (at separate times). No backup guitar. We had to have an on-stage discussion about what songs we could do with just one guitar. It was a real shame as we were playing & sounding great. Our 35min set really suffered because of it.

Yup, our guitarist always takes a backup. His old main axe had a habit of losing a string in the first number. He uses an EBMM Petrucci now which seems bomb proof.

[Dan Dare]

I take two basses to gigs, because one is tuned a semitone flat. Our singer has a penchant for Eb and Chic's Good Times doesn't sound good without the pedal note (the fingering is also a pig on an instrument tuned EADG). So I suppose I carry a spare as it could be retuned to conventional if needed. Having said that, I've never needed a spare bass in 50 years of playing. I carry a couple of old sets of strings, so I can replace one that breaks without the replacement sounding too twangy. Never broken a string on a gig, either.

[Bassfinger]

I lug a backup bass to gigs,simply because it's quicker and easier than replacing a string.

[Rosie C]

On 23/09/2024 at 06:51, JoeEvans said:

Has anyone had a bass failure during a gig that wasn't a broken string or a dead battery? I'm curious as to what the possible failure modes might be.

 

I've not had a failure on my bass guitar. On my upright though, collapsed end pin - at the biggest gig we'd played to date. I spent the set very carefully balancing the bass on a stack of plastic beer glasses. 

Edited September 24 by Rosie C

[JoeEvans]

29 minutes ago, Rosie C said:

 

I've not had a failure on my bass guitar. On my upright though, collapsed end pin - at the biggest gig we'd played to date. I spent the set very carefully balancing the bass on a stack of plastic beer glasses. 

I did a double bass gig with it sat on a pile of books once - stripped thread on the end-pin screw. I switched to a wooden end pin after that, more secure and I think it sounds a bit better too.

[BigRedX]

I don't actually have a suitable backup bass for the Eastwood Hooky at the moment. For important gigs I take the Burns Barracuda but some of the songs would be challenging to play if I needed to use it.

[Kev]

16 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I don't actually have a suitable backup bass for the Eastwood Hooky at the moment. For important gigs I take the Burns Barracuda but some of the songs would be challenging to play if I needed to use it.

By important gigs, do you mean paid gigs or just gigs you consider bigger/better?

 

What I mean to say is, if you're playing a paid gig that isn't that important to you and something goes wrong rendering your bass unplayable, you're comfortable just sitting out the rest of the job? And would you still expect to be paid the full fee?

Edited September 24 by Kev

[BigRedX]

All my band's gigs are paid. The spare basses come out for those where we are being paid more than just expenses and aren't local. I check all my gear between gigs and practices and luckily I've never needed to use the spare for the Hooky at an actual gig.

 

But where do you draw the line with backup equipment? I notice that although plenty of people on here have a backup amp very few have backup cabs and IME cabs are far more likely to fail than amps. 

 

And what about the PA? I turned up at a gig on Friday at 4.30 expecting to load in and sound check only to find the house PA in bits and the engineer frantically rewiring things. It took until 7.30 before he even got a sound out of it, and we didn't get to set up and sound check until 9.00pm, and after all that the sound for the most part was appalling, I felt embarrassed to be on stage, and TBH wished that the PA problems had turned out to be terminal so we could have all gone home instead. Sometimes you just have to accept that technical issues have conspired against you.

[Jo.gwillim]

On 23/09/2024 at 06:51, JoeEvans said:

Has anyone had a bass failure during a gig that wasn't a broken string or a dead battery? I'm curious as to what the possible failure modes might be.

There's a local pub we play in that had some horrendous electrics.  The buzz that the stage lights were giving off was playing havoc with my single coil jazz.  Back up p bass came out of the car and all was fine.  Apart from 3 broken A strings when I was playing hard enough to blister my fingers after every gig no other probs.  I've got a traveller bass for backup which doesn't take up much room on my back seat.  

[Kev]

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

All my band's gigs are paid. The spare basses come out for those where we are being paid more than just expenses and aren't local. I check all my gear between gigs and practices and luckily I've never needed to use the spare for the Hooky at an actual gig.

 

But where do you draw the line with backup equipment? I notice that although plenty of people on here have a backup amp very few have backup cabs and IME cabs are far more likely to fail than amps. 

 

And what about the PA? I turned up at a gig on Friday at 4.30 expecting to load in and sound check only to find the house PA in bits and the engineer frantically rewiring things. It took until 7.30 before he even got a sound out of it, and we didn't get to set up and sound check until 9.00pm, and after all that the sound for the most part was appalling, I felt embarrassed to be on stage, and TBH wished that the PA problems had turned out to be terminal so we could have all gone home instead. Sometimes you just have to accept that technical issues have conspired against you.

 

A bass is the easiest thing to bring a backup of and remains fully in your control.  Any other failure, amp/cab/pedals etc, it's more than plausible that the sound tech can cover you for that, even if it's just straight DI to FoH, depending on the type of gig. If it's a gig where you are running everything, then yes a backup line needs to be drawn somewhere, but ultimately if something in your control fails, I assume you would not charge for the gig.

 

Re the PA example, obviously any equipment that isn't yours is beyond your control and responsibility, so doesn't really enter into it.

[BigRedX]

6 minutes ago, Kev said:

A bass is the easiest thing to bring a backup of and remains fully in your control.  Any other failure, amp/cab/pedals etc, it's more than plausible that the sound tech can cover you for that, even if it's just straight DI to FoH, depending on the type of gig. If it's a gig where you are running everything, then yes a backup line needs to be drawn somewhere, but ultimately if something in your control fails, I assume you would not charge for the gig.

 

Re the PA example, obviously any equipment that isn't yours is beyond your control and responsibility, so doesn't really enter into it.

 

Except that in order to make most gigs worthwhile financially we need to fit the whole band plus our instruments into a single car. It's a good job we don't use any backline because we'd never do it. Personally I'd rather take an extra box of T-Shirts to sell than a back-up bass. And before anyone says that if the band band didn't play we wouldn't sell any merch, you would be surprised. We sold stuff to people who didn't arrive in time to catch any of our set at festival gigs before.

[Kev]

5 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Except that in order to make most gigs worthwhile financially we need to fit the whole band plus our instruments into a single car. It's a good job we don't use any backline because we'd never do it. Personally I'd rather take an extra box of T-Shirts to sell than a back-up bass. And before anyone says that if the band band didn't play we wouldn't sell any merch, you would be surprised. We sold stuff to people who didn't arrive in time to catch any of our set at festival gigs before.

So just to be clear, if you didn't take a backup bass, your bass went "wrong" during the first track and you had to sit out the rest of the gig (or the band had to stop performing), you would expect to get the full fee?  And you wouldn't worry about any damage to your reputation?

[BigRedX]

2 minutes ago, Kev said:

So just to be clear, if you didn't take a backup bass, your bass went "wrong" during the first track and you had to sit out the rest of the gig (or the band had to stop performing), you would expect to get the full fee?  And you wouldn't worry about any damage to your reputation?

 

TBH I could probably get away with looking like I was playing and the majority of the audience would be none the wiser.

 

Having said that I don't know what people do to their basses that is likely to make them fail. The only equipment problems I've had in 50 years of playing in bands are a few string breakages, mostly down to faulty manufacturing of the strings and why I never change strings unless I know I'm doing at least 2 rehearsals before I'll be using them at a gig.

[Woodinblack]

51 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

And what about the PA? I turned up at a gig on Friday at 4.30 expecting to load in and sound check only to find the house PA in bits and the engineer frantically rewiring things.

 

Well I have been stung by that so I bring mine for certain gigs where apparently there is supposed to be one. Being in a cover band obviously we 95% of the time use our own PA, but there are multiband mini festivals in the summer that have a PA. One specific one, I took the PA to and there was a massive professional PA to plug into and do the sound, turns out they were the last band and the guy just liked doing PA, it was great. So the following year they said 'we have a PA', so I assumed it was the same thing. Turned it it was again the last band, but a different last band with two small behringer speakers and an 8 channel analogue mixer, and the sound was terrible. SO I bring mine in case.

[Kev]

5 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Having said that I don't know what people do to their basses that is likely to make them fail. The only equipment problems I've had in 50 years of playing in bands are a few string breakages, mostly down to faulty manufacturing of the strings and why I never change strings unless I know I'm doing at least 2 rehearsals before I'll be using them at a gig.

Thankfully, I have never had the misfortune of a bass going wrong during a gig.

 

I have in rehearsal though.  Broken string (not since I stopped using DR!), failed strap button and failed jack.  I also had an odd situation with silence from a preamp once that never recurred.  I use pretty decent gear and baby it, but these things can still happen.  I'd never take that risk during a live performance of any kind, and given both my current live projects are played to a strict set time with backing tracks, I wouldn't have time to change a string or diagnose mid set, however easy it may be to resolve in rehearsal.  Quickly switching basses keeps the show running and the professional image intact 👍🏻

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

My answer, as it has always been in the many threads on BC covering this subject, is have a back-up.

I did go to a rehearsal the other week with just one bass and it wasn’t a nice feeling. 

[PaulWarning]

being a belt and braces sort of guy, as well as a spare bass I takes a spare amp, which would also do for and emergency PA, and use 2 small cabs (2 x 8 and 1 x 10) I think I've got everything covered 😎

[Lozz196]

I lent a bassist from a band who were supporting us my bass when he had the unfortunate accident of warming up backstage and the bass slipped from his grasp with the lead still connected, and the jack & plug both broke. 

[Rosie C]

16 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

At a gig I played earlier in the year our lead guitarist broke 2 strings (at separate times). No backup guitar. 

 

One of the many reasons I play mandolin instead of 6-string guitar - every string has a spare 😉 

(and apologies for making light of your difficult gig)

 

[Chienmortbb]

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. when one of my basses was active only, I always took a passive bass as backup. That bass is long gone and my current active bass has a passive setting. I have never broken a string and wonder how had you have to play to do so.

 

Next gig is about a mile away so should I or shouldn't I? The answer is yes as I am now wondering about something I have never worried about...

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, Rosie C said:

 

One of the many reasons I play mandolin instead of 6-string guitar - every string has a spare 😉 

(and apologies for making light of your difficult gig)

 

I’ll mention that to him Rosie, this may well be a diverted career path