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Seeing others play barefoot scares me.

#181
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"Interviewer : I hear that you play barefoot on stage, that's pretty unique… how did you first start doing that?
SW : To be honest, even as a little kid I've always had a problem wearing shoes and I've always gone around with bare feet. There was no great plan; there was no great statement I was trying to make. I just carried on playing the guitar with bare feet as well. To the extent that, when I actually had to go up on stage and play for real, it was very uncomfortable for me to be wearing shoes… it just didn't feel right. So in my entire career, I think I've only ever done one or two shows where I had to wear shoes for whatever reason. But that's it. There's no great story behind it… I've always been sort of a hippie you know (laughs)…"
 
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#182
Some posters mentioned that you are safer with EMG or active type pickups. This is not true. Whether a bass has active or passive electronics and/or active or passive electronics, they all have a grounded bridge and strings. If for some reason the chassis ground becomes "hot" on your amp, you would still encounter a shock hazard.
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#183
Experiment #1. (Please do not try this at home.) Why am I not getting shocked? Because I am wearing shoes and standing on dry carpet. An old electrician taught me the trick of touching live wires with the back of your fingers. That way if you get shocked your fingers will close and push your hand away from the wire instead of grab on tighter to live wires. I am also using my right hand so if I do get shocked the current will not run across my heart. Electricity seeks the shortest travel path so it would go up my right arm and down my right side of my body.
 

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#184
Axtman said:
Some posters mentioned that you are safer with EMG or active type pickups. This is not true.
Click to expand...

Totally Bollocks. Not ANY active pickup. EMG's does wire differently. While it's not 100 percent proof, but so it's not wireless either. You have a mic stand and a mic and if you touch while adjusting the metal pole of the mic stand at the same time as your lips touching the mic cap...you don't even need to wear a bass. This is barefoot or not.

EMG does have passive pickups. Those must be earthed the regular way, there's no two ways about it.

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Now I told you were I got my idea from. It's nothing I got out of the blue. Now please it's up to you to show me a link anywhere where it says active EMGs should be still ground wired the normal way. For chrissake, how easy is it to confirm or debunk this idea?! It's a few clicks away, those EMG diagrams. Now here's a direct, unedited quote from the PDF above:

" 4) When installing EMG Active Pickups, DO NOT connect the bridge
ground wire. This wire is usually soldered to a volume or tone
control casing and goes to the bridge. This wire grounds the
strings and uses them and your body as a shield against hum and
buzz. It also creates a shock hazard.

EMG Pickups are shielded internally and DO NOT require string
grounding. This greatly reduces the possibility of reverse
polarity shock from microphones and other equipment."

I have no idea where you got your stance from, so please show me! I am the first to stand corrected!

As I have no idea how other "actives" solves their wiring diagram, I only put forward this. It's not proprietary, it can anyone do without license or infringing copyright. If EMG does it I don't get why some others shouldn't. And mind you, even they say "greatly reduces" not totally isolates, or 100 percent proof. No one can guarantee 100 percent proof before not anyone can foresee some clumsy handling with other gear at the same time. You get electric jolts anyway, in any other way should some wiring elsewhere get dodgy as in the ms Welders case, who just stepped on something barefoot, but held a mic in her hand. If she wore a bass with EMGs on, it sure as hell wouldn't help.

Now, Axtman, mail EMG and tell them go pound sand. Come back here with their replies, and let's all see what laughing stock you've turned into. After all this thread is in "humourous".
 
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#188
My apologies Honch. You are correct. After further research I have newly learned that EMG pickups are NOT wired to the bridge. I incorrectly assumed that EMG pickups were like other active pickups and wired to the bridge.

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#190
Now lets move on with the barefoot thingy. We sorted that one out then!

Like there are wrist bands you use when you're dealing with sensitive electric equipment such as computer parts that you connect as a wrist watch and connect to ground, are there similar mades for ankles?

;)
 
#191
Axtman said:
I have newly learned that EMG pickups are NOT wired to the bridge.
Click to expand...
beware and be wary, "EMG active pickups" don't forget the small important difference here. Since some of EMG pickup are passive, and requires the regular way... you can't get nitpicky enough. ;)

Likewise we should state "some of the Seymour Duncan active pickups" doesn't require bridge ground wire. Phew, sometimes one really have to be nit picky, downright anal, about semantics or otherwise all kinds of misunderstanding occurs. If I would state that all SD active pickups are wired the same regarding ground wire, it's me who would be that laughing stock. In case of SD it's dangerous to make such generalisations, and I would rather go with EMGs stance that all of their active pickups doesn't need ground wire to bridge. So there's no second guessing, but you'll need to watch/follow their diagrams anyway. It's party due to their solderless systems, that you can switch out just like that between pickups. If SD had the same switch out system and you should change active blackouts to something else you'll detect that some of the hum, some not.

Better to have a consistent policy all the way through. Since most people forgets to unlpug their jack in order to save battery anyway, it's kind of even more risky to introduce something else they have to think of on top of that... ;)

- - - -

Now.... barefoot...
which ones are the most hazardous to fatal jolts? Left handed people or right handed? Still barefoot...now from the bass only...:nailbiting:
 
#192
The barefoot thing, and what killed ms Welders on stage (see second post at page one) on stage is called:

STEP POTENTIAL

it occurs regardless of barefoot or not. Our HOOF footed friends, cows, horses, etc, in nature, dies from NEARBY lightning strikes and not a direct strike, because current comes creeping in the wet ground and goes up their front pair of legs and exits at their hind legs. I e passes through body, and heart. Step potential – happens when a current traveling through the ground goes up your leg, travels through you and then goes down the other leg and back into the ground. That is why Boy Scouts practice standing on one leg during a storm. They are attempting to decrease the likelihood that the current will go through them by having only one foot on the ground.

I think Ian Anderson would fare quite well, but that rod of metal he holds against his mouth all of the time, would render one legged standing quite futile, and moot.

3adc401839bbb9763a01f7e781cdd67b--jethro-tull-music-artists.jpg


But remember, although it doesn't rain inside on stage, stage can eventually become drained with spilled beer and sweat and every so slowly becoming that step potential. Live, with tube amps especially, one can buck all this by buying a very cheap RCD and connect everything to this. If some ground fault happens, it snaps at som mU not even a millisecond and the short will not have enough time to travel through the wires or floors.
 
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#193
Honch said:
The barefoot thing, and what killed ms Welders on stage (see second post at page one) on stage is called:

STEP POTENTIAL

it occurs regardless of barefoot or not. Our HOOF footed friends, cows, horses, etc, in nature, dies from NEARBY lightning strikes and not a direct strike, because current comes creeping in the wet ground and goes up their front pair of legs and exits at their hind legs. I e passes through body, and heart. Step potential – happens when a current traveling through the ground goes up your leg, travels through you and then goes down the other leg and back into the ground. That is why Boy Scouts practice standing on one leg during a storm. They are attempting to decrease the likelihood that the current will go through them by having only one foot on the ground.

I think Ian Anderson would fare quite well, but that rod of metal he holds against his mouth all of the time, would render one legged standing quite futile, and moot.

View attachment 2803473

But remember, although it doesn't rain inside on stage, stage can eventually become drained with spilled beer and sweat and every so slowly becoming that step potential. Live, with tube amps especially, one can buck all this by buying a very cheap RCD and connect everything to this. If some ground fault happens, it snaps at som mU not even a millisecond and the short will not have enough time to travel through the wires or floors.
Click to expand...
Being zapped by lightning, or being fried because you are close to the strike, is very different than being zapped on stage. It's a matter of the lightning having mega volts and mega watts which seem to have different rules. NM TECH does lightning research at it's Langmeir Labs facility. Shocks and it's effects on stage are better predicted than than lightning strikes in the middle of a field.
I believe th issue of playing barefoot on stage and cows being killed in a field are different subjects.
 
#195
Honch said:
Now lets move on with the barefoot thingy. We sorted that one out then!

Like there are wrist bands you use when you're dealing with sensitive electric equipment such as computer parts that you connect as a wrist watch and connect to ground, are there similar mades for ankles?

;)
Click to expand...
those wristbands are meant to prevent/equalize static voltage discharges. quite different than electric connectivity carrying significant current.
 
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#200
I've taken some electrical hits over the years which should have killed me
as dead as a stump...when I was a kid some joker left a house electrical box
open with a $20 on top of the Three Big Bolts...well, being like 8-9 years old,
reached on up for it and got ZAPPED! Hit the ground and just lay there a bit,
then got up, my right arm totally numb and useless, picked up a stick with my left,
knocked the $20 off, picked it up & stuck it in my pocket, then went home.
By the time I got to the house, most of the feeling & function had returned...
so I just kept my yap shut and enjoyed the money ;) Truly Lucky on that one.

About age 35 I was redoing a stove hookup, 240V, turned off the "KITCHEN" switch
in the box, went to remove a bolt with a pair of pliers and KAZOW!!
Wrench went flying when I got that zap...after I recovered, went and picked
the wrench up, it was welded open...

And about 4 years ago was changing out a regular 120V outlet, and again hit
the switched labeled BEDROOM, went to unscrew the screws and ZAP!!
Lights go out, I cuss, and my wife starts laughing because she saw me turn the
switch off in the box...and knowing my history with luck in general...couldn't help
but crack up and then holler back, "ARE YOU OK?? BWAH HAH HAH!"

There have been more incidents, but those are the most memorable...suffice it to
say that most of those zaps would have dropped a normal human...I'm just weird :)
 
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