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Anyone bring a spare MIXER to gigs?

rockdoc11

rockdoc11

Sep 2, 2000
791
2,069
#1
Here's what I realized after a recent gig. We have lots of back-up and redundancy in my band's gear.

If a main speaker goes out, we still have the other, plus we can turn a monitor around.

If the mains power amp goes down, I keep a Crate Powerblock in my car. Plus I only use half of my bass rig's power amp, so there's back up there.

We have several monitors, so we could lose one with little problem.

We've got extra mics, so no problem.

We've got extra cords and cables of all sorts, so no problem.

The only critical gear we have for which there is absolutely no back up is . . . the mixer. I realized today that if the mixer crapped out, we'd be screwed.

I've got a little baby mini six channel mixer that I'm going to start throwing in the car now that I've scared myself!

Does anybody else approach my level of "gear crap-out" phobia?

:crying:
 
#2
if you are playing a gig for drinks, or for a few hundred bucks, I dont see the need. But If you are serious, playing out as much as possible, and really have the need for your gigs to go super smooth no matter what, then the more gear the better
 
#3
Not me. I'm from the school of buy good stuf, take care of it and it will take care of you.

The last time I broke a string was about 35 years ago. I've never fried and amp or blown a speaker...never had a battery die on me, never had a cord go bad...

Had a car blow a radiator hose on the way to a gig once...

You do have spare vehicle parts with you...don't you?
:D
 
#4
I own 2 mixers and my band has 4. We always carry a back-up in the trailer. We have a gig 70 miles from home every Thursday during the summer where we leave the other 2 mixers along with one of our 3 PA rigs, bass amp, guitar amps, and a drum set. We carry spare EVERYTHING.
 
#5
Steve said:
You do have spare vehicle parts with you...don't you?
:D
Click to expand...
I have a spare tire...or what passes for spare tires these days. Maybe a couple fuses.

The good thing about a mixer is that it's so rare that anything goes out to where you can't still use it. Maybe you'll lose a channel or a send or something, but it's rare that you can't work around it. I've seen mixers have problems, but it's rare I've seen the entire mixer go out. Maybe in the event of a catastrophic event like a direct lightning hit or a wiring mishap. But that's extremely rare.

Still, it doesn't hurt to carry a small backup just in case if you have room.
 
#6
We always carry a spare mixer with us, but we've never needed it. When we bought our new mixer we just kept the old one in the trailer, just in case.

JimmyM is right on about an entire mixing board going down, extremely rare.

Better safe than sorry.:)
 
#10
Yeah, my main mixer is a Soundcraft fx16, but I also take an F1 16.2 along, "just in case"... I know people say it's rare for a whole mixer to go down, but most Soundcraft mixers use external power supplies, so if that bit the dust the mixer is done, too...


- georgestrings
 
#12
rockdoc11 said:
Here's what I realized after a recent gig. We have lots of back-up and redundancy in my band's gear.

If a main speaker goes out, we still have the other, plus we can turn a monitor around.

If the mains power amp goes down, I keep a Crate Powerblock in my car. Plus I only use half of my bass rig's power amp, so there's back up there.

We have several monitors, so we could lose one with little problem.

We've got extra mics, so no problem.

We've got extra cords and cables of all sorts, so no problem.

The only critical gear we have for which there is absolutely no back up is . . . the mixer. I realized today that if the mixer crapped out, we'd be screwed.

I've got a little baby mini six channel mixer that I'm going to start throwing in the car now that I've scared myself!

Does anybody else approach my level of "gear crap-out" phobia?

:crying:
Click to expand...

My idea of a spare mixer is a swizzle stick and a small bottle of 7UP
 
#17
dcr said:
It could happen. I also carry a BIG flashlight and a .45 with me too........





dcr
Click to expand...
I too have spare....change. Wasn't there a song that went.....BACK THAT AMP UP or something like that?
I always carry a back up rig and back up board for pa as well as a back up amp and B/U speakers & cords, but If you do not have the room or a trailer to do so then it's understandable. I was on a multi-band gig not long ago and the main mixer just shut down for no reason, so I went to my trailer and took mine out and was a hero that night. So you never know what might happen, but it's very good for us BASSists to be heros. :D
 
#18
I live in Northern NY State and it's colder than a witch's....Well you know. Anyway, we had a gig a few months back and it was 15 below for a few days before hand. We unloaded and set the amp rack up and when we opened the rack the amps instantly started to FROST UP! (the equipment is stored in our trailer, outside). We got a fan on it for about 45 minutes but had to start our sound check, as soon as we fired up the rack the sub amp, a Peavey GSP3500, and 2X18s went POP!!! Yeah, we carry xtra stuff, (we had 2 backup 15" subs and a few xtra amps) It's almost a phobia not having backup stuff.
 

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