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Gear Disasters Thread

FangusKlot

FangusKlot

Inactive
Apr 8, 2015
112
71
Oddworld
#1
I wanna hear stories of gear being mishandled, abused, neglected, etc..

I have a couple to start off with:

When I first started playing, I had a tiny little amp that had a wall wart power supply. Jammin with my buddy, 15 minutes in and there is a burning plastic smell then the sound cuts out. Couple seconds later thheres a bright red flash from my crappy little amp and a puff of black smoke filling his tiny bedroom. Turns out I plugged the wrong power supply and completely fried my poor amp. I had owned it for an impressive three days!

another one:
I was running late for a gig, me and the gf are loading my gear. I thought everything was loaded, put the car in reverse. Feel a bump in the driveway, get out find I had ran over my pedal board! No damage to the board (homemade 3/4 inch plywood) but my compressor was badly damaged by the car frame landing on it after the initial bump and my ns2 was scratched pretty good. Out of eight pedals only one was totalled.

One more:
a guy burned me on a trade I did as a favor to him. I was just trying to help him get his band off the ground. Traded a randall half stack and an ibanez rg for a crappy five string. Anyhoo I end up in his band a few weeks later and we switched the lineup I joined on bass and later switched spots with the singer. The new bass player and ex singer quits the band so we brought In a new drummer so our current drummer (guy who burned me) could switch to bass (hes a WAY better bassist than drummer) guy pitches a fit and quits then tells me if I want the ibanez back I had to give him 400$. And 600$ for the half stack. Even though the fiver was only worth 150$, 200$ tops. So I calmly walked over to his basses and picked up his brand new 4 string frettless (forgot the brand, i'll have to ask him lol) and pete townshended that sucker into a million pieces, i'll bet hes still finding slivers of wood in wierd places cuz that sucker EXPLODED.
 
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#2
My first bass amp was a Behringer BX4410 Ultrabass 4x10 combo. Pretty decent solid state 450 watt combo, that sounded really good and looked incredible. I was proud as hell of that thing. I was coming home from band practice one night and had my wife helping me unload my gear. It came time to heft that combo out of the truck bed, and it was easily 100 pounds. I lifted one handle and she lifted the other, but she misjudged the tailgate of the bed, bringing the amp down onto the tailgate with the back inch and a half. She lost control of her side of the amp, and everything was so sudden that I lost control of my side as a result, sending the poor Behringer slamming perfectly and squarely face down onto the concrete garage floor. We both stood there silently staring at each other slack-jawed for what seemed like forever. When we reached over and picked it up, the metal speaker grill had popped off of the front, but there was no other visible damage. Kudos to the construction of that damned amp. The next day, I had pulled together the courage to plug it in, and it worked beautifully. A little wood glue, and some fresh screws, and the grille was back on it, like nothing had ever happened. Wish I had never sold that rig.
 
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#3
A band mate left the cord to his amp unwrapped and it ended up hanging out of his door dragging along the pavement as as drove down the freeway to the gig. By the time he got to the gig the plug was long gone.

I made the stupid mistake of playing around with the sounds on a keyboard I owned that was used on a regular gig. I loaded some new sounds into it, not knowing that I was replacing the sounds that were set at the factory. That night when the keyboard player punched up an organ sound he got oboes. The piano became some pitched African drum sound. It didn't work out too well. I got the stink-eye from him all night long as he hunted through the sounds for something he could use.
 
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#5
Hahaha said:
A band mate left the cord to his amp unwrapped and it ended up hanging out of his door dragging along the pavement as as drove down the freeway to the gig. By the time he got to the gig the plug was long gone.

I made the stupid mistake of playing around with the sounds on a keyboard I owned that was used on a regular gig. I loaded some new sounds into it, not knowing that I was replacing the sounds that were set at the factory. That night when the keyboard player punched up an organ sound he got oboes. The piano became some pitched African drum sound. It didn't work out too well. I got the stink-eye from him all night long as he hunted through the sounds for something he could use.
Click to expand...
That thing with the cord out the car door happened to me once. it was pretty funny.
 
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#8
Playing live once, the song started, but the bass came in after a few measures. I thought I would jump and land, in synchronization. As I landed however, one of the strap bolts came out, bass hits the floor. I loked ruh tahded.
 
#9
I had a recent bad experience "loaning" my amp rig for a multi-band event when the organizer's bass player failed to bring his amp (just the speaker). I had my rig (a BBE pre-amp running into a QSC power amp) in my car so I somewhat reluctantly allowed them to use it. Guy in the first band gets up, plugs in, and then SETS HIS DRINK on top of my amp box. Now, I'm standing there somewhat in disbelief that a fellow bassist (and a guy who's been playing for awhile) would maybe not consider the consequences of such an action, never mind the fact that he was using somebody else's gear.

Rather than interrupt their set, I went and grabbed a piece of cardboard and a marker and made a quick "NO DRINKS" sign which I intended to put on top of the amp as soon as their set was done. Literally a half a minute before the end of their final song, my amp cuts out completely. Now, I've gigged with the amp many times for hours with no issues and this guy wasn't pushing it hard for his 1 hour set - and he hadn't spilled his drink, so I was initially dumbfounded as to what happened. The room was hot (it was a bar on the beach) and we speculated that maybe the thermal protection kicked in (possibly the fan stopped running?). Luckily for the bands involved, by this time an extra amp had been procured so I could pack my now-seemingly-nonfunctioning amp back in the car.

As I packed up the amp, I found the likely cause of the problem - there are two holes in the top of my rack case, and I noticed water around them. Guess where the guy's drink was? Due to the hot room, condensation formed around his cold beverage and dripped down into my rack.

Thankfully, when I tried the amp out at home 2 days later, it all seemed to be working fine, and I just used it at an outdoor party yesterday for a few hours with no issues -- But that "NO DRINKS" sign now sits on top of the box!

John
 
#13
I have told this in several threads lately so here's the short version.

Got called last minute to sub for a band.... so last minute, in fact, they were already set up. I get there to play and there's a Peavey rig with one of those cabs they used to make with 15" and 2 8" or 10" speakers all in one. During the shown the singer kept telling me to turn up. I did a few times but then I figured that rig was getting all it wanted. Between songs he got pretty steamed and told me to turn up again. I told him that the right wasn't mine so I wasn't turning it up any more. He did. I hit a note. The top half of one of the small speakers literally blew off and back into the cab. Yes, I blew a speaker in half! I found it both funny and fascinating. The rest of the band? Not so much.
 
#14
JimmyThunder said:
COVERING THOSE TWO VENT HOLES ON TOP!?!?!?!
:eek:
;)
Click to expand...

Might have prevented this particular situation, although it might not have prevented a disaster if the drink was actually spilled. They weren't actually meant as "vent holes" - there used to be bolts there which I removed (but thinking of putting 'em back in).

Still, next time there will be a sign - if the sign is ignored, I will physically remove the offending drinks - in the middle of the set if necessary...
 
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#15
JimmyThunder said:
COVERING THOSE TWO VENT HOLES ON TOP!?!?!?!
:eek:
;)
Click to expand...

Might have prevented this particular situation, although it might not have prevented a disaster if the drink was actually spilled. They weren't actually meant as "vent holes" - there used to be bolts there which I removed (but thinking of putting 'em back in).

Still, next time there will be a sign - if the sign is ignored, I will physically remove the offending drinks - in the middle of the set if necessary...
 
#19
So...the drummer and I were moving a huge 18" Cerwin Vega sub (on casters)...drummer is walking backwards and trips...falls flat on his back...sub starts to topple over on top of him...I try to grab the sub...and me AND the sub both fall on top of the poor drummer (I weigh about 300 pounds I might add)...drummer gets a broken tail-bone...Sub was unharmed.
 

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