That horrible moment when....

ICBM

Pete24v said:

My board went down mid song during a wedding gig a year ago, I simply reached into my gear bag and pulled out a Rook Royale pedal (drive and boost) that had a battery in it. 

I finished the song and first set with no problem, missed a bit of delay here and there..

I do the same. I always carry a single spare distortion pedal with a battery in it as the last ditch backup - not just for pedalboard failure. You can go into any available spare amp (including bass or keyboard), and if you absolutely have to you can even DI it with a bit of EQ'ing and it will still sound more like an electric guitar than nothing (assuming you use a dirty sound of course) to the average punter. If your most important effect is something else, take a spare one of those too.

Most of the punters won't notice much difference, but they *will* notice if you're trying to play overdriven sustaining lead lines with a clean sound .

dindude

If I were gigging again I'd just have a Vox Stomplab 1g in my back pocket. Costs £60, can get some half decent sounds out of it, dead simple to use, and in 2 seconds you can flip between going straight to amp (cab sim off) of straight to PA (cab sim on), depending upon the size of the problem.

shaunm

I was lucky, my bands music is Led Zep, Stone Roses, Pearl Jam style rock so plugging straight into my JCM covered pretty much all I needed (excluding delays and reverbs). 

The key for me was being able to control my drive and cleans through my hands and not using pedals. In some ways it was really good to just be back to basics. Having 300 people in front of you really helps you focus and work harder to play those lead lines with a cleaner amps than you normally would.

shaunm

A bit of an update. 

This is what ive ended up with

http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah219/Shaunm11/Mobile Uploads/F232F010-99FB-4AC8-90EF-5D2C9CA6B5A9_zpsmql3krka.jpg


The most basic board I've had in a long time. 

It was the wah Wah and a patch lead (connected between my delay and reverb) that caused the fault. I'd have never found both problems whilst playing a gig.

For the first time in years I am without a Wah and without a reverb pedal (by choice) and I feel suitably happy with what I have. 

ESBlonde

My main board is the lift off lid type and there is always a spare jack lead and a battery or two in there just in case! My rehearsal setup is a power supply with 5 out chain and four basic pedals with cheap moulded link leads , on big gigs that comes along and sits back stage just for insurance (as does the 20w practice amp).

bbill335

I blew an OT at a gig. Luckily, it was basically the end of our set but man, we didn't plan for any pyrotechnics or smoke effects and got them anyway!

shaunm said:

A bit of an update. 

This is what ive ended up with

http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah219/Shaunm11/Mobile Uploads/F232F010-99FB-4AC8-90EF-5D2C9CA6B5A9_zpsmql3krka.jpg


The most basic board I've had in a long time. 

It was the wah Wah and a patch lead (connected between my delay and reverb) that caused the fault. I'd have never found both problems whilst playing a gig.

For the first time in years I am without a Wah and without a reverb pedal (by choice) and I feel suitably happy with what I have. 

Buffer in front of a Fuzz Face! 

shaunm

bbill335 said:

I blew an OT at a gig. Luckily, it was basically the end of our set but man, we didn't plan for any pyrotechnics or smoke effects and got them anyway!

shaunm said:

A bit of an update. 

This is what ive ended up with

http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah219/Shaunm11/Mobile Uploads/F232F010-99FB-4AC8-90EF-5D2C9CA6B5A9_zpsmql3krka.jpg


The most basic board I've had in a long time. 

It was the wah Wah and a patch lead (connected between my delay and reverb) that caused the fault. I'd have never found both problems whilst playing a gig.

For the first time in years I am without a Wah and without a reverb pedal (by choice) and I feel suitably happy with what I have. 

Buffer in front of a Fuzz Face! 

Yes, with the BOG fuzzface it doesn't make any difference. It is a silicon pedal so that might be why.

I might be alone here but I love this version of the Fuzzface.

Cirrus

@shaunm this thread has brought back terrible memories for me.

- The time the loop switcher for my rack setup died 30 seconds before we were due to start, and I had to grab one overdrive out of the pedal tray, switch the 9v battery from my ebow into it, and go guitar->OD-> amp. No time to error check but afterward I couldn't find a single thing wrong with the rack (other than its size, weight, expense, impracticality and obsolescence).

- The time, two months later, when the entire rack died, this time in the outro of our first song. I had no 9v battery to hand so just had to go guitar->amp. Amp was AC30, so I had to crank it to get any distortion. Played "We Will Rock You" solo because that's what you do when you're using a cranked AC30.

In the end, it turned out to be a 4 way-extension lead I was using in the back to power the various rack units that needed 240v - something was intermittent in it, so if you held it at the wrong angle the power cut out. A simple thing, but it was enough to get me to go back to a pedalboard.

Of course, even if your gear is behaving pre-performance nerves can play tricks on you - from the legendary "accidentally leave wah on" thing, to the time we played BBC introducing on live radio and I forgot I'd rolled down the volume pot of my guitar - our first song started with about 4 seconds of panicked silence from me. Hellish.

sev112

i know nothing about electronics and had heard all sorts of stories about people getting electrocuted on stage etc etc 
So with a second hand amp and second hand effects and common pub electrics and multiple chains of extension leads etc etc,   i started off gigging with a RCD plug that my amp was plugged into 

Silence ...........

Took me ages to remember the RCD TEST/RESET button, after i had pulled every cable out