Feeling Dumb

[Spidey2112]

We're clearly all idiots on this bus...

Please do not let me drive... wife always tells me, whichever way I think I should turn, do the opposite and we'll be home by dinner.

 

[ArtechnikA]

Okay I very definitely do things like this regularly. I often hit the MB 500's power button instead of the mute.

I took a bottle of Liquid Paper and painted a nice white line on the top surface in line with the Mute. Not visible out front, easy to spot from above.

 

[kmon]

I remember playing a whole 3 hour rehearsal cursing the anemic output of a bass I had just bought.

Later discovered my amp was accidentally set to active mode the whole time. Bass was passive. Why I never noticed this while jacking with knobs and muttering to myself the whole time is beyond me...

 

[ardgedee]

Trying to tune my bass one night, tuner not working

One end of cord plugged into tuner, one end plugged in amp input.

So was the amp in tune? Hardly anybody bothers to check.

 

[1st Bass]

Sometimes it works out in one’s favor. I answered a Craigslist ad and examined an electric chainsaw advertised for $35. Ran fine but didn’t cut.
Yep. Chain was installed backward. Good saw. They were glad to get rid of it, and I didn’t say a word.

 

[JRA]

there is nothing wrong with the instrument, the problem is with the tool holding the instrument.

unlike many, i always consider "user error" first! saves a lot of time and frustration.

 

[HardNHeavy]

do you "crackle" when not playing the bass, because then you might have a real problem..We all make goofy boo-boos sometimes.

 

[Tim Lombardi]

So, I was practicing the other day, and I could have sworn I heard a slight "crackle" and lost a bit of volume. I quickly determined my bridge pickup was not making signal. I kept playing as I normally use the neck pickup alone.

Today I get to investigating what might be broke on my bass. I'm sure some of ya'll are wondering what maker/model bass I have. It is an ESP LTD B4E. It has passive soap bar pickups and a 3-band equalizer. My assumption is the two large pot knobs are volume control for the bridge and neck pickups. I take the battery cover off, remove the battery. Take the back plate off looking for loose wires, bad solder connections, anything that might be obvious. Nothing pops out at me. I do a search for an ESP guitar owner manual.

After reviewing the manual, it turns out the front knob (what I thought was the neck pickup volume) is the master volume control and the rear knob (bridge pickup) is the blend control. So, there is nothing wrong with the instrument, the problem is with the tool holding the instrument.

Sigh.

 

[Tim Lombardi]

Perhaps I have it wrong, but I thought that if your instrument uses a battery and preamp that the pickups are active. Passive/active pickups???

 

[ardgedee]

Perhaps I have it wrong, but I thought that if your instrument uses a battery and preamp that the pickups are active. Passive/active pickups???

It can be a little confusing, but basically some pickups have electronics inside them in addition to the coil and magnet, and need to be powered. Those are active pickups.

You can have active pickups with or without a preamp, or passive pickups with or without a preamp. A preamp doesn't make a passive pickup active, and an active pickup without a preamp doesn't make it passive.

 

[CryingBass]

I have some basses with so many knobs/switches that if the count of such things was an indicator of talent I would be very talented ( hint: my talent is like 1 knob ).

Trust me, I forget what knob does what as often as I get them right the first time.

Just play a game of Knob Twister!

 

[ArtechnikA]

Perhaps I have it wrong, but I thought that if your instrument uses a battery and preamp that the pickups are active. Passive/active pickups???

No, common misconception...
Preamp makes the instrument 'active' -- most pickups are themselves passive.
What makes it confusing is that there _are_ active pickups - almost always EMG's. Those need a battery to work at all, because they contain their own preamps...

-Some- active basses have an active/passive bypass switch, that cuts the preamp out of the signal path entirely; these typically use a 'cut-only' tone control just like a passive bass. There are pros and cons to this approach. Note that for many/most of these, the 'passive' setting removes the preamp from the signal path, but the plug in the jack still switches the power...

 

[Engle]

I used to be a phone tech. I’d regularly get service calls for a reported dead handset. Walk in, notice the curly cord was unplugged, and click - fixed!

 

[ardgedee]

I used to be a phone tech. I’d regularly get service calls for a reported dead handset. Walk in, notice the curly cord was unplugged, and click - fixed!

Yup.

Though that will never stop people from getting crispy when you start with "Please check to make sure your computer is turned on" type questions.

 

[funkinbottom]

My list is long. For example, when I read the tread title, "Feeling Dumb" I thought it was a club I could join.

 

[sawzalot]

Oh yeah, I got a dumb one. The time years ago when I used two cabs, one driven by my SWR SM-400, the other by a crown DC-300. I managed to plug the speaker output of the crown into the speaker output of the SWR. When I looked around to see why I heard no sound, I quickly diagnosed my mistake based on the Magic Smoke coming out of the SWR.

 

[Oldbasslover]

So, I was practicing the other day, and I could have sworn I heard a slight "crackle" and lost a bit of volume. I quickly determined my bridge pickup was not making signal. I kept playing as I normally use the neck pickup alone.

Today I get to investigating what might be broke on my bass. I'm sure some of ya'll are wondering what maker/model bass I have. It is an ESP LTD B4E. It has passive soap bar pickups and a 3-band equalizer. My assumption is the two large pot knobs are volume control for the bridge and neck pickups. I take the battery cover off, remove the battery. Take the back plate off looking for loose wires, bad solder connections, anything that might be obvious. Nothing pops out at me. I do a search for an ESP guitar owner manual.

After reviewing the manual, it turns out the front knob (what I thought was the neck pickup volume) is the master volume control and the rear knob (bridge pickup) is the blend control. So, there is nothing wrong with the instrument, the problem is with the tool holding the instrument.

Sigh.

Although all 3 of my sons are grown men, after me telling them throughout their childhood, adolescence, and now adulthood, they still don’t frequently use manuals. When they call me with issues about any sort of equipment, I ask them if they read the manual. 9 times out of 10 the issue is addressed there…

For me with several of my basses, there are multiple switches and knobs, I always like to know what everyone of them does to best shape my tone. Remember what assume (ass-u-me) really means about pretty much everything in life.

However, I’m glad you found the problem, and… all of us have been there in one form or another.

 

[J Wilson]

So, I was practicing the other day, and I could have sworn I heard a slight "crackle" and lost a bit of volume. I quickly determined my bridge pickup was not making signal. I kept playing as I normally use the neck pickup alone.

Today I get to investigating what might be broke on my bass. I'm sure some of ya'll are wondering what maker/model bass I have. It is an ESP LTD B4E. It has passive soap bar pickups and a 3-band equalizer. My assumption is the two large pot knobs are volume control for the bridge and neck pickups. I take the battery cover off, remove the battery. Take the back plate off looking for loose wires, bad solder connections, anything that might be obvious. Nothing pops out at me. I do a search for an ESP guitar owner manual.

After reviewing the manual, it turns out the front knob (what I thought was the neck pickup volume) is the master volume control and the rear knob (bridge pickup) is the blend control. So, there is nothing wrong with the instrument, the problem is with the tool holding the instrument.

Sigh.

But hey, you did it OFFstage, no harm / no foul, and it was a 'learning experience'. Everybody has these moments, included here in my 'BEST OF TALKBASS: THE DOOFUSS CHRONICLES' . . . . .

'I plugged my guitar cable into one of those two jacks on the back, I'm not getting any sound . . . . '

'You CAN'T use a guitar cable for a speaker cable ? '

'Well why can't I use my leftover Alpine subs in my _____________ cabinet to replace the blown ones?'

"But I bought those Neutrik speaker cables for cheap on EBay. Fake Neutrik? It just made this wierd noise and now it won't do anything'

'How hard can it be, just to reach in their and pull the old transformer out? I work on cars . . . . '

'I want to rewire my Squier Precision for stereo, then split each of those, and run four amps, with separate effects on each'

'So I plugged my SM57 into that XLR on the back of the head, and I know the mic works, but I can't hear myself . . . . '

'I thought 2 x 4 ohms was 8 ohms . . . .'

And in the interest of Full Disclosure and fairness:

I'm on the bandstand back in the 80's. It's a hair after 9PM, and they're trying to count off the first song to get us rolling, except . . . the bass player is having a big problem:

I had one of the old Korg tuners, about the size of a transistor radio, on top of my head, and back then I'd run the bass through it: Bass-tuner input-tuner output-amp. Tuner's working, but I've got NO SOUND, and I'm sweating bullets, cursing more than a little, they're all giving me the 'GOT to GO' fisheye, it's a big train wreck. I'm trying everything I can think of, nothing.

Then the guitar player walks over with a spare cable, sticks one end in the amp input, the other end in the tuner output, and BINGO I'm good.

I had almost enough egg on my face for a Denver Omelette . . . . . and this is just one example in my own autobiographical Book of Applied Doofussness, which has many chapters !

 

[Raman]

I bought a brand new phone, but hadn't received the protective shell yet, so I use it with special care. The day before the case is due to arrive, the phone slips from my hands and falls badly, bouncing on different objects. When I pick it up, there's a major scratch running the whole length of the screen. I want to cry. I spend the next few days checking out ways to fix it. I finally try a solution where you sand the scratch down with diluted baking soda. As I'm doing it, bubbles appear on the screen... Wait, what? Only then do I realize that I never removed the thin plastic sheet that covers the screen for shipping. The actual screen underneath is completely fine.

I actually love those situations. It's like waking up from a nightmare. You wake up feeling devastated because something horrible happened, like you killed your dog by accident or something. And then you slowly realize that no, it was just a dream!

 

[singlemalt]

I bought a pristine pair of ski boots, $35, and the guys wife even delivered the package. He said they just never felt right for his feet….

They didn’t feel right to my feet either, because the liners were in the wrong boots. That left, right thing matters

Switched the liners to the correct boots and wore those boots for many many seasons, until the plastic gave up.