Equipment failures - always the worst time!

[Jakester]

Just got back from a fun gig, made somewhat scary by my pedalboard simply giving up the ghost moments before we started! 

 

For this particular gig, I use both electric and upright, and I'd recently rationalised my pedals down to a HX Stomp and drive pedal, with an always on tuner and a MIDI pedal to change presets on the Stomp.

 

It's worked fine since I had that setup, the only previous hiccup being the power doubler cable worked its way almost imperceptibly out of the connection, giving some horrible noises. Once pushed back in though, all good! 

 

Used absolutely fine last weekend with no issues. Get on stage in a very rushed setup (15 mins to set up a 45-piece orchestra!) only to find no sound. Quick diagnostics suggest it's the pedals (direct into amp works); and for some reason, it's the Stomp. 

 

Ended up bypassing it completely and going direct into the amp; interesting swapping between DB and electric that way! One tune which called for swap mid-tune just had to be played electric.

 

The other issue was when the first tune started I realised I hadn't actually tuned up on stage, so had to mute the amp, unplug, reroute into the always on tuner, tune, and then plug back into the amp before the bass solo part!

 

Bit of a faff is understating it. Also meant no time to really EQ as it was all done on the Stomp, so DB was on edge of feeding back (because no HPF) and electric sounded very harsh until I'd tamed it later on.

 

Still, blasted through the gig and got good feedback from the organisers, so can't say fairer than that! 

 

Someone's potato-phone cam footage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

[Staggering on]

20 minutes ago, Jakester said:

Just got back from a fun gig, made somewhat scary by my pedalboard simply giving up the ghost moments before we started! 

 

For this particular gig, I use both electric and upright, and I'd recently rationalised my pedals down to a HX Stomp and drive pedal, with an always on tuner and a MIDI pedal to change presets on the Stomp.

 

It's worked fine since I had that setup, the only previous hiccup being the power doubler cable worked its way almost imperceptibly out of the connection, giving some horrible noises. Once pushed back in though, all good! 

 

Used absolutely fine last weekend with no issues. Get on stage in a very rushed setup (15 mins to set up a 45-piece orchestra!) only to find no sound. Quick diagnostics suggest it's the pedals (direct into amp works); and for some reason, it's the Stomp. 

 

Ended up bypassing it completely and going direct into the amp; interesting swapping between DB and electric that way! One tune which called for swap mid-tune just had to be played electric.

 

The other issue was when the first tune started I realised I hadn't actually tuned up on stage, so had to mute the amp, unplug, reroute into the always on tuner, tune, and then plug back into the amp before the bass solo part!

 

Bit of a faff is understating it. Also meant no time to really EQ as it was all done on the Stomp, so DB was on edge of feeding back (because no HPF) and electric sounded very harsh until I'd tamed it later on.

 

Still, blasted through the gig and got good feedback from the organisers, so can't say fairer than that! 

 

Someone's potato-phone cam footage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Looks like a lot of fun, I'd love a gig like that.😊👏

Edited Saturday at 16:38 by Staggering on

[Beedster]

In my experience when equipment does fail it's rarely in the comfort of a home practice  

[mikegatward]

Did you find the root cause of the Stomp failure ?

[Jakester]

23 minutes ago, Staggering on said:

 

Looks like a lot of fun, I'd love a gig like that.😊👏

It really is! 😁

 

15 minutes ago, Beedster said:

In my experience when equipment does fail it's rarely in the comfort of a home practice  

 

Yep, strange it’s been fine on other gigs and rehearsals though!

 

4 minutes ago, mikegatward said:

Did you find the root cause of the Stomp failure ?

 

Not yet, just got home and can’t face it! Will check it out tomorrow. 

[jensenmann]

I had an open air gig at Christmas and right in the middle of soundcheck my TE GP12 SMX head died on me. Luckily it was just 10 minutes from home so I was heading back to grab the next amp. This time I took the larger TE AH600SMX (great to have enough amps...). I played the show and after the encore I left the stage just to hear some ugly noises coming out of my rig and the next amp died. I have no clue what happened there. Most likely the mains supply was flawed in some ways. Anyway, that was an expensive gig....

[TimR]

16 minutes ago, jensenmann said:

I had an open air gig at Christmas and right in the middle of soundcheck my TE GP12 SMX head died on me. Luckily it was just 10 minutes from home so I was heading back to grab the next amp. This time I took the larger TE AH600SMX (great to have enough amps...). I played the show and after the encore I left the stage just to hear some ugly noises coming out of my rig and the next amp died. I have no clue what happened there. Most likely the mains supply was flawed in some ways. Anyway, that was an expensive gig....

 

Hopefully it's just the internal fuse.

 

I played an outside gig once where all the gear went completely beserk. Traced the issue to the band being supplied from several daisy-chained extension leads. About 400m in total. A lot of voltage sag when we turned on the lights. 

[Boodang]

Nightmare!! Always happens when you least need it. Many moons ago I was doing a gig when the guitarist's pedal board failed. Rummaging in my gig bag I had one of those early zoom pedals which I quickly reprogrammed for his use. Currently the backup is a pod bass express which runs on batteries.

[ProjeKtWEREWOLF]

When I was a teenager, my SWR Workingman's amp head would 'fuse' every few months of gigging. I'd forever be needing to source spares for the removable fuse in the back of the amp. 

 

I had it looked at by techs who never found an explanation.  It was never really pushed, volume-wise either.  

 

I gave it to a friend when I switched to drums. Stupid.

[Jakester]

23 hours ago, mikegatward said:

Did you find the root cause of the Stomp failure ?

 

And, wouldn'tcha know it, reassembled the pedalboard back home and presto, no problems at all. Very strange. 

 

It has reminded me of the risk of having a single potential catastrophic point of failure in the signal chain though, so I think I'm going to be introducing a bit of redundancy going forward, at the risk of going back to a larger pedalboard (which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place!!)

[Rosie C]

On 18/01/2025 at 16:43, Beedster said:

In my experience when equipment does fail it's rarely in the comfort of a home practice  

 

Very true. My most recent was just before Christmas - guesting on piano accordion with our town brass band, and having learned a dozen carols from the Salvation Army carol book, which includes tunes in D♭ and G♭ key signatures. At the start of the second tune, an internal part attached by wax detached and that was my gig over.

 

Of course if I'd been playing bass this would not have happened!

 

Edited Sunday at 17:37 by Rosie C

[Jo.gwillim]

The only thing that's let me down gigging is loose cable screws in speakon connectors. Checked all my speaker leads afterwards, lots of loose screws. Worth a quarterly check. I usually put 2 leads from the amp to the cab now. 

Non gigging faults have been gk legacy 800 and bergantino forte hp. Both ice power module faults 😕

[Judo Chop]

Does a toddler leaving chocolate ice cream on top of my vented amp head count as equipment failure?

[Jo.gwillim]

1 minute ago, Judo Chop said:

Does a toddler leaving chocolate ice cream on top of my vented amp head count as equipment failure?

Bet that came to a sticky end 

[bigthumb]

The only failure I can recall at a gig was when my Ampeg SVT Pro4 went bang many years ago during a sound check. Thankfully I had an Ashdown ABM as backup which saved my bacon. 

I had a Markbass head go bang at a rehearsal, only the second time I used it as well! Ampeg was repaired but no such luck with the Markbass. 

[Judo Chop]

1 minute ago, Jo.gwillim said:

Bet that came to a sticky end 

A really sticky, crackly broken end.

And my amp doesn't work anymore either

[Elfrasho]

My stomp very occasionally  starts up with no output at all. Tuner works, but theres no signal being sent outwards. not sure if its a glitch of the unit or maybe just an anomoly of my preset but a quick off and on has always fixed it.

[Paul S]

My one and only dalliance with the world of tube amps - a Mesa Boogie Four:88.  The very first time I used it in anger one of the valves blew during soundcheck and it took most of the pcb with it.  It wasn't a cheap repair.  Had a back up amp in the boot so all good in that respect.  Truth be told I preferred the sound of my trusty old Trace Elliot anyway.

[chriswareham]

3 hours ago, Paul S said:

My one and only dalliance with the world of tube amps - a Mesa Boogie Four:88.  The very first time I used it in anger one of the valves blew during soundcheck and it took most of the pcb with it.  It wasn't a cheap repair.  Had a back up amp in the boot so all good in that respect.  Truth be told I preferred the sound of my trusty old Trace Elliot anyway.

 

Mesa Boogie refuse to provide schematics, service manuals or spares so techs tend to hate them. They're also not very easy to work on because they're very complex and the cabling inside makes access to most of the boards a nightmare. It seems they want all repairs to go through the mothership in California, which is somewhat ... inconvenient ... to anyone outside the US.

[Bluewine]

My wireless will fail at times

Line 6 G-50. When that happens I ditch the whole board and go bass to amp.

 

Daryl

Edited yesterday at 04:03 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

4 hours ago, chriswareham said:

 

Mesa Boogie refuse to provide schematics, service manuals or spares so techs tend to hate them. They're also not very easy to work on because they're very complex and the cabling inside makes access to most of the boards a nightmare. It seems they want all repairs to go through the mothership in California, which is somewhat ... inconvenient ... to anyone outside the US.

 

Some Fender tube combos are hard to work on too.

 

Daryl

[AMV001]

9 hours ago, chriswareham said:

 

Mesa Boogie refuse to provide schematics, service manuals or spares so techs tend to hate them. They're also not very easy to work on because they're very complex and the cabling inside makes access to most of the boards a nightmare. It seems they want all repairs to go through the mothership in California, which is somewhat ... inconvenient ... to anyone outside the US.

Is this a recent policy i.e. since Gibson took ownership of the brand?  Because there used to be a number of authorised Mesa Boogie service centres in the UK. I was referred to one by Westside Distribution, who were the Mesa distributors over here for a long time.

[SICbass]

14 hours ago, Judo Chop said:

Does a toddler leaving chocolate ice cream on top of my vented amp head count as equipment failure?

A more cynical person might suggest that the equipment failure was a condom, but I couldn’t possibly say….

 

For the sake of full transparency, I have two kids.

[Happy Jack]

17 hours ago, Jakester said:

 

And, wouldn'tcha know it, reassembled the pedalboard back home and presto, no problems at all. Very strange. 

 

Bin there, dun that, got too fat for the t-shirt.

 

As a complete numpty when it comes to electrickery, one thing I've learned about pedal boards is that sometimes they develop some sort of [non-technical gibberish alert] standing wave in the power supply which acts as a roadblock to the signal. There's nothing wrong with any of the pedals, or any of the cables, or the power supply, but the problem won't go away until you completely disconnect every single thing and then start over.

 

The first time this happened I thought someone was playing tricks on me. By the third or fourth time it was just routine ...

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

15 hours ago, Elfrasho said:

My stomp very occasionally  starts up with no output at all. Tuner works, but theres no signal being sent outwards. not sure if its a glitch of the unit or maybe just an anomoly of my preset but a quick off and on has always fixed it.

 

 

I've seen stomps randomly stop and need a reset several times.