Embarrassing rookie errors….

[Skinnyman]

Forgetting that I’d strung a bass with BEAD strings (as an experiment prior to buying a fiver) and trying to tune it as EADG.

Wondering why the PA was dead and, in the process of trying to track down the issue, turning up every gain and volume knob to max before spotting that the master Mute button had been pressed and….

[Wombat]

My HX Stomp ‘died’ during a gig. Lights on but no output. 3 songs left so pulled my cable out and went straight to the desk (small pub, no back line).

Spent the rest of the gig wondering how expensive it was going to be, and then how I was going to replace it for the wedding gig we had the following weekend.

Got home, had a sleepless night, but in the morning realised I’d pushed the volume down when I put the tuner on! 🤦‍♂️.

Did make me realise that a ‘spare would be a good idea!

[Elfrasho]

5 minutes ago, Wombat said:

My HX Stomp ‘died’ during a gig. Lights on but no output. 3 songs left so pulled my cable out and went straight to the desk (small pub, no back line).

Spent the rest of the gig wondering how expensive it was going to be, and then how I was going to replace it for the wedding gig we had the following weekend.

Got home, had a sleepless night, but in the morning realised I’d pushed the volume down when I put the tuner on! 🤦‍♂️.

Did make me realise that a ‘spare would be a good idea!

 

I disable the volume knob for this exact reason!

[Wombat]

Yup, I’ve always left it as ‘I’m the sound man’ and sometimes I need a little more without tweaking the desk. And the desk is set for me to have the stomp at 12 o’clock generally. Possibly need to rethink that logic…

[chris_b]

I bought a flight cased Peavey 215. The seller helped me load it into my hatchback, but when I got home I found it was so heavy I couldn't get it out of the boot!! In the end a neighbour had to help.

 

I was very red faced after this one. There were 2 gigs, one was called Blues On The Farm and the other was called Blues At The Farm. I went to the wrong one! I turned up at Blues On The Farm in Billericay to discover I was the only person there. The band was waiting for me at Blues At The Farm, in frigging Chichester, 156 km, a 2+hr drive and 4 counties away!!!! It was a festival and fortunately the 2 bands after us were already there and didn't mind going on early!!

[Lozz196]

40 minutes ago, Skinnyman said:

Wondering why the PA was dead and, in the process of trying to track down the issue, turning up every gain and volume knob to max before spotting that the master Mute button had been pressed and….

Same here, on my Ashdown RM500. More than once! And more than twice!!

 

I`ve now typed up an instruction on that Dymo ticker-tape stuff and stuck it on the front panel saying to check the mute button if no sound.

[Rosie C]

45 minutes ago, Skinnyman said:

Wondering why the PA was dead and, in the process of trying to track down the issue, turning up every gain and volume knob to max before spotting that the master Mute button had been pressed and….

 

Similar to wondering why my amp is silent, when the Speakon cable is still in my bag.

 

[itu]

Singer: PA sounds strange. 

Me: Cables? 

S: Yes, connected to PA and speaker. 

Me: Is the power ON? 

S: some words that cannot be used here. 

[colleya]

Noticed at half time that one of the PA tops wasn't showing the little blue power light. Waited until the rest of the band were looking the other way before flipping the switch on the back.....

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

Did make me realise that a ‘spare would be a good idea!

What’s the matter with you man? You can’t go around dropping the ‘S’ word so casually.

Don’t you realise there’s a huge amount of people here who don’t believe in taking ‘a duplicate’ of anything!

They’ve never needed it and it will never happen to them don’tcha know 😎😂

[HeadlessBassist]

Went to a friend's studio to train up a new trio drummer, and wondered for two hours why my TC Electronic Plethora Tone Print pedal was bypassing fine, but silent when switched on... I'd got the input and output cables plugged in back to front. Duh!

 

 

[Wombat]

The great thing about IEMs is that you can play several songs in a pub and not know you didn’t put the PA faders up till one of the band not wearing them tentatively says ‘it’s a bit quiet’…

[Joe Nation]

Gently lambasted someone on the "newbie fret buzz" thread about which way to turn the truss rod nut (left or clockwise), then promptly went and tightened my truss rod when it needed loosening. Muppet.

[Judo Chop]

Wondering why my amp isn't working before noticing there's no cable in my bass.

[SICbass]

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

My HX Stomp ‘died’ during a gig. Lights on but no output. 3 songs left so pulled my cable out and went straight to the desk (small pub, no back line).

Spent the rest of the gig wondering how expensive it was going to be, and then how I was going to replace it for the wedding gig we had the following weekend.

Got home, had a sleepless night, but in the morning realised I’d pushed the volume down when I put the tuner on! 🤦‍♂️.

Did make me realise that a ‘spare would be a good idea!

What? A spare you?

 

[Wombat]

I’m easily replaced! 😂

[Steve Browning]

I have two examples. 

 

My very first gig. I set everything up and go to tune my bass, only to realise I had left it at home. 

 

Touring in Germany. Nice big stage and superb foh sound man. Soundcheck goes well, but the bass is non existent as we start playing. I can hear the bass from the foh but nothing on stage. 

 

Finally, after 3 songs, I found I hadn't thrown the standby switch. Did that and all was well!!

[Mrbigstuff]

1 hour ago, HeadlessBassist said:

Went to a friend's studio to train up a new trio drummer, and wondered for two hours why my TC Electronic Plethora Tone Print pedal was bypassing fine, but silent when switched on... I'd got the input and output cables plugged in back to front. Duh!

 

 

Did the exact same thing with a fuzz pedal!

[Lozz196]

Panicked at Rebellion when setting up, no volume from the bass at all, due to start in less than a minute. Hadn’t pushed the jack plug from my lead fully into the tuner.

[Steve Browning]

Similar panic for me.  Tartan Heart festival, being broadcast on BBC. Supplied backline. We're rushed to go on stage, so I plug into the supplied Peavey head and it goes through some routine of lights, like a car stereo demo mode.

 

The bass made a sound and I didn't dare touch anything. Couldn't immediately see what any control did.

Edited 37 minutes ago by Steve Browning

[Geek99]

2 hours ago, Joe Nation said:

Gently lambasted someone on the "newbie fret buzz" thread about which way to turn the truss rod nut (left or clockwise), then promptly went and tightened my truss rod when it needed loosening. Muppet.

How does one “gently lambast”? 
it’s like “lightly deep-fried” 

[chris_b]

None of us will get bigger than this.

 

A few years ago I played with an ex-ELO guitarist. ELO were playing a packed Wembley Stadium. The keys player was first on stage and had to press a button on the keys which kicked off a preprogrammed introduction and the first song. The whole band would join in at various points.  It was pitch dark on stage, about 70,000 people started cheering and the keys player hit the delete button! That was it. No backup, no introduction and no first song.

[HeadlessBassist]

3 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

What’s the matter with you man? You can’t go around dropping the ‘S’ word so casually.

Don’t you realise there’s a huge amount of people here who don’t believe in taking ‘a duplicate’ of anything!

They’ve never needed it and it will never happen to them don’tcha know 😎😂

 

Of course, there's another very dangerous connotation linked with the word, "spare"... 

BC'ers may be inspired to feed their GAS addiction with such heinous thoughts as, "I could really do with a backup **insert name of piece of equipment here**  "THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN THE NEXT 30 SECONDS..."