Murphy's Law and Equipment Failures

[Lonnybass]

In an attempt to make myself feel better, please post all of your Murphy's Law experiences about equipment failures, breakdowns, malfunctions, irreparable damage or other frustrating events that always seem to happen at the worst possible time (ie. preamp goes down a day before a session and the only certified repair shop is an hour away, but closes in 30 minutes; truss rod snaps during a setup necessitating a replacement neck, power amp doesn't turn on after load-in).

Lonnybass

[JTE]

Um, not many. But that's probably because I'm anal about maintenance. Once a month I go through everything and make sure screws and nuts are tight, things are clean, etc. I carry spares for just about everything too. I am anal about rolling cables up at the end of gigs.

The few "Murphy's Law" moments in my life have been:

A. The one time I used an Ever-ready battery anything critical. I put a NeverReady alkaline in my StingRay, and after about two months it crapped out on stage. Funny thing, it sounded like a blown speaker, and it was back in the olden days when I didn't take two basses to gigs (ca 1980). Drove me crazy for the whole gig, as I get a year or more out of Duracells.

B. Powered up my rig, the LED in the power switch lights up, but no sound. I double checked the inputs, the outputs, everything. No signal at the amp at all. Trouble-shooting lead me to the amp as the culprit. I tore it apart (an Eded WT-400 so it has about a hundred very small screws of different sizes), replaced the tube, cleaned it, and checked it out. It seemed fine at the bar table when I plugged it in, but not on stage... Only when I checked the outlet did I find that the outlet was wired incorrectly so the power switch LED had enough current to light, but not to do anything else for the amp... If only I'd checked the outlets like I always do, but this was a regular gig at a place we'd played once a month for two years...

Funniest was the time we decided to try reconfiguring our bass bins and the power amps. The guitarist (who owned the PA) and our very experienced sound guy decided to try to get more power by bridging the Crown K amps for the subs. Halway through our closing medley of "Life In The Fast Lane"/"Give Up The Funk"/"Thank You (Fallteinme Be Mice Elf, Again)", we smelled smoke on stage. Then we saw flames coming from one of the bass bins. We'd fried the voice coil of the 18" EV speaker and the cone caught on fire!

jte

[ggunn]

Originally Posted by Lonnybass

In an attempt to make myself feel better, please post all of your Murphy's Law experiences about equipment failures, breakdowns, malfunctions, irreparable damage or other frustrating events that always seem to happen at the worst possible time (ie. preamp goes down a day before a session and the only certified repair shop is an hour away, but closes in 30 minutes; truss rod snaps during a setup necessitating a replacement neck, power amp doesn't turn on after load-in).

Lonnybass

It was our band's big debut (we had been rehearsing twice a week for over a year, and it was our first gig). We had the middle slot between two big draw cover bands (we were original). The place was packed; people were standing on tables in the back. There must've been 500 folks in that 300 person venue.

The lead singer's brother steps out onstage in a white tuxedo and gives us this great buildup. People are screaming for us. Adrenaline is flowing full force.

It's time! The drummer counts it off for our big opening number... "One...two... one two three" "STOP!!!" the lead guitarist yells. He just broke a string. It's a hardtail Strat, and the last time he replaced that string, he lost the little cup that holds the rivet, so he just ran it through the bare wood. Now the rivet is buried in the wood, blocking the hole. He has no backup guitar.

AAAAARRRRGGGH!

The two of us managed to dig the old rivet out and get the string changed, but there was at least 10 minutes of dead air that the lead singer's brother tried to cover with an impromptu standup comedy routine, which he had never attempted before. It was pretty bad.

The show went on, but Murphy spoiled our Big Moment.

[guitar ed]

I don't play out, so I have no onstage or recording faux-pas to relate. But I do have some Murphy's Law kinds of things I use.

1) I believe in the perverse law of reality. Prepare for the worst, and it won't happen. Don't prepare for it, and it will.

2) It doesn't matter what you do, you are going to be wrong. Ask any married man.

3) Don't eat anything the cook won't eat.

Have fun.

edg

[beyondhairy]

when a friend tells you "bring ur own amp" do it....


we played at this club last week, and my friend played there a while ago, he hates GK..... they had a GK head, so when he said "Bring ur own amp" i figured "eh, he hates them, what ever" turns out that thing over drives ever time u even touch a string..... ugh.... such a bad night..... sound guy sucked real bad too....

[Pilgrim]

It was 1972, and I had a two-night gig to play starting Monday evening. I got up Saturday AM, picked up my 1963 P to run a few notes and the neck was bent forward. The truss rod had snapped.

The closest music store that had a neck for it was in Spokane, 80 miles away. They had a tech there, but they closed in just under two hours.

I called my best friend and asked if he wanted to go to Spokane. He asked "When?" I answered "Step out your door- I'll be there." I was driving a 1966 GTO, and came sliding to a stop in front of his house a couple of minutes later.

We flew at 80 to 90+ on that 2-lane all the way to Spokane. I remember that on one straight, I passed five cars in one group...flat out in third with the glass pack mufflers singing a mighty 389-cubic-inch song.

We made the 80-mile trip in 62 minutes, and got to the music store in time to have a new neck put on it. That's why my '63 has a '72 neck.

It was one of the most memorable trips I've ever made. I guess the fact that I remember it so clearly 37 years later proves that.

[FallenAbom]

A few years ago I was gigging with an all original band it was our first show. No one had ever heard of us, or the other band we were playing with, so needless to say it was our friends/relatives and the normal bar flys there.

Anyhow, when we took the stage the floor was dead all except our wives. We played some of our songs with no real luck in getting people on the floor, but around the 4th song in the set we had a lot of people start migrating there way up to the front (AWESOME). By the 6th song we were set, most of the people were on the floor and we had 14 songs to go (WOOHOO).

So we start going into our song "The Path" which is really mellow but kicks up really nice half way through. We get to the break down and I start playing my nifty little run when I hear POP! And my sound goes completely dead. Ran to the amp and started checking things out .... speaker ok / battery ok / pedals ok yada yada.... the bands still going during this whole process and the crowd seems to still be digging it.... I start checking my amp when I hear the guitar run go from a nice A minor pent to... wet noodle strings.

My amp ended up being completely blown, I had no backup, and the other band wouldnt let us borrow theres (yeah, we never worked with them again). And the guitarist (who had a wolfgang peavy with the floyd rose) some how had the tremolo screws stripped and PULLED OUT of the wood by the tension of the strings....

After that, we called it a night.... very disapointing..... surprised the singers wireless didnt blow and the drummers hads didnt bust.

BTW... Dont even ask about the screws being pulled from the tremolo... to this day we still haven't figured that one out.

[WickedPissah]

Closest I've came to Murphy's Law cursing my stuff was when a relative named Murphy dropped my amp and took a chunk out of the black stuff that encases the speaker.

[Microbass]

My worst would've been when my valve amp crapped out right before we went on... I had played it that day before the gig, and sound checked... Tech tells me it was a dud valve (14years old in fairness. Gave me an excuise to get some nice JJs!! )

And of course that time I never brought a 2nd bass... I snap a string... Luckily I got to borrow a 3/4 P-bass copy, with a furry pink strap!

I also bought a wireless kit to enable full venue freedom... Of course I didn't think to tape the receiver pack to my strap... One foul jump into the air has my battery, the batt cover and the pack flying across the stage and into the crowd... Gads.

[JTE]

One other good story... We had an outdoor gig at a local park. We get there and set up, and wait for the keyboard player (he lived about 100 miles north). Couldn't get him on his phones, no mesage, even called his Dad.... So we start without him. Second song is is Freddie King's "Tore Down". Drummer counts it off, and we start. But my A string doesn't feel right. The core wire broke, but the windings are still in place so the string is still on the bass, but nothing there. I yank it out of the way and start refiguring the riff on the other three strings, but there was those few seconds that was one guitar all alone under the drums and vocals...

Then the guitar solo starts, and when Duane steps on his overdrive box, his whole pedal board dies. Now it's just bass (fumbling around to play the riff without the A string) and drums. Duane quickly plugged straight in to his amp, but it's set REAL clean, so it was the weirdest guitar solo for "Tore Down" I've ever heard- A Telecaster through a clean Mesa Blue Angel 4x10.

jte

[Richland123]

Through the years, I have had many things go wrong at the worst times. My most recent issues all involve amps over the last few months. We were playing for a large private event. I just had a new power supply tube put into my 1974 Music Man One-Thirty bass head. In the middle of the last set, a blue flame comes shooting out of the back of the amp and it went down. I quickly ran my guitar cable directly into the board and we finished the night, albeit with some strange bass tones through the monitors. I took the Music Man to get fixed and after two months the shop gave up and gave it back to me. For some strange reason it started to work again.

I decided after 35 years with never a problem, I should buy a new amp. I ordered a brand new Acoustic B600H bass head a month ago and said if something can go wrong, it will for me even with a new amp. Truer words were never spoken. In the middle of our third gig with my brand new amp, it started to act strangely, on the fourth gig, it had no power at all. The next day, I set it up at home and it worked fine. Now, I have to trade it in for another new Acoustic head and hope that this one will work.

[illmusician]

Once, playing on the east coast in Boston we showed up to a bar that had 2 sockets for 4x115 PA cabs, 1600 watt power amp, 2 guitars, 3 mics on drum, 3 mics for us, and my eden wt800 2x 410XST rig. We blew 2 fuses that were glass filament old school style then the bar owner shut off the florescents, neons and pulled a stronger fuse for the stage we play our first song and the Main mic accidentally fell through the clip and when it hit, the spike killed the entire bar... everything. The owner was pissed but was actually genuine in his concerns for our safety as this wasn't long after the Rhode Island Station nightclub fire, so maybe it was liability but he was nice about it. We packed up and promised to play when it was fixed, but i think he got shut down when the inspectors came and saw glass fuses still in use.

We now include a demand for minimum 6 outlets in our contract rider.

[MadMan118]

The more **** in your signal chain, the more **** there is to (and will) break.