Dip stick moment

guitars4you

Just finished a check up set-up on a Custom Shop Strat - Shows how much we do via auto pilot

Felt weird when playing it - couldn't get intonation sorted - Couldn't initially see what was wrong - then realized I'd got the B + G strings back to front - Hence 013 as a G and 017 as a B

OOOOOPS !!!!!!!!!!!!

I suppose we all have such moments

ronnyb

Very uncomfortable when you get your g string back to front.

stonevibe

I've done similar in the past, you just have to laugh at yourself though. 

Stevepage

Dip stick moment for me-

Done half a show with a guitar with a locking trem. Realised one string wasn't sat in the saddle properly. Moved it in place, sent the whole guitar way out of tune. Didn't have any tools to fix it and no back up guitar. Had to play the rest of the set with a guitar that I couldn't tune. 

Awful.

ICBM

Ages ago I needed to do a quick electrical repair (I think the volume control had fallen in, from memory) on a Superstrat in a shop on a busy Saturday morning, so I just put it on the counter, loosened the strings, popped off the pickguard, fixed it, put the guard back, then tuned it up again - because the shop was really noisy, I couldn't hear what I was doing so I plugged into an old analogue tuner we kept under the counter and tuned up. Then I noticed that the Floyd was up at about 45º - I was a bit puzzled by that so without thinking about why, I pulled the arm up to see if the bridge was moving freely - and immediately broke two or three strings! With the customer standing watching...

It was then that it dawned on me that without being able to hear it, the tuner had locked onto some harmonics or other rather than the open strings and I'd tuned up it up to at least A or maybe B .

Cue having to restring it for free while the customer stood there with a "this guy has no idea what he's doing, and he's working on my guitar..." expression on his face. And not charging for the original fix. Oh well.

Dave_Vader

once did a silent tune on stage after dropping guitar quite hard before playing

the G was an octave too low and it sounded weird.

Only dawned on me as I launched into one of the weirdest solos I've ever played

I don't like tuner pedals

HandwrittenHero

I've managed to read "Standby On" as if it was literal on an amp (i.e. flick down to turn standby mode on...not up position is "standby" and down is "on") leading to a reasonable amount of panicked checking of everything.

On the tuner pedal score though as well...kicking one on and not realising is always fun (aka where did all my sound go)

Mark1960

My Strat has a mod done by a friend of mine which has a push / pull tone control which activates the bridge and middle pickups together giving a double coil type sound, however it only works on swich positions 4 and 5 (conventionally for out of phase and bridge) If the switch is set at mid position and the tone pot is activated (pulled) nothing comes out the guitar at all. First gig after the mod....yep no sound at all...... eventually twigged it, and blamed a loose pedal connection

guitars4you

HandwrittenHero said:

I've managed to read "Standby On" as if it was literal on an amp (i.e. flick down to turn standby mode on...not up position is "standby" and down is "on") leading to a reasonable amount of panicked checking of everything.

That reminds me of seeing Gary Moore with T Lizzy on the Red Rose Tour at Bingley Hall in Staffs

Guitar change 1/2 thru' a song - Gary pulled the guitar lead partly out of the amp, the way you do - Changed guitar and head down straight into the riff/song to continue - A second later, realizing something wrong, he looks at the amp, goes over to it and pushes the guitar lead back in

the_jaffa

I made a thread about one of mine:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/49541/note-to-self#latest

Pulled the whole board apart checking all the pedals, the patch cables and the power separately before spotting the actual problem 

clarkefan

the_jaffa said:

I made a thread about one of mine:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/49541/note-to-self#latest

Pulled the whole board apart checking all the pedals, the patch cables and the power separately before spotting the actual problem 

Brilliant! I had a similar WTF moment recently when I removed a neck pickup, then accidently knocked the selector switch to neck, and then disassembled half the gear trying to work out why there was no sound before I copped it

DrBob

When restringing a Strat once I brought the string up through the trem block and saddle and then started looking at the headstock as I fed the string through the tuner.
Not noticing that I had actually managed to pull the string up and over the trem arm that had swung in the way...

Blaendulais

restrung a prs with acoustic strings just couldnt tell why didnt feel right

drofluf

In my defence It was the time I’d restrung a guitar in 30 years

https://i.postimg.cc/nLgKWkn5/86-B643-E9-C25-F-4-C79-A984-75-F0-FAA3-FB7-F.jpg

and you can addd my inability to post pictures on to here to the list

EDIT or my lack of patience for it to work on an iPad 

ICBM

I've also done the classic 'connect new pedal the wrong way round' - one of those with the jacks reversed from normal - come to use it at a gig and think it was broken. Then the next day, test it and find it working fine, so strip it down to find the 'intermittent fault' before it shows up again at the next gig... nothing found at all after about an hour's work, then finally realise what I did wrong when I tried to hook it up to my pedalboard again and find that one of the cables doesn't reach the right jack... DOH.

skunkwerx

A few years ago a friend handed me a glass slide to try as I'd never used one before. So I popped it on my first finger and grabbed his guitar. 

Everything felt weird, but it took me a good few seconds to realise why.

I'd put the slide on my picking hand! Lol. 

Chris_J

Haha only a couple weeks ago I mixed the E and A up on my parlour. Short scale made it worse, as did tuning drop D.... Couldn't understand why my tuning was so bad.... Until I changed strings yesterday. Doh!

terada

oh Rodders

starwarsnosebleed

Last one i remember was plugging my Jag into my PC to record some stuff on my Reaper DAW. No sound at all.
Spent all afternoon and evening swapping patch leads, removing pedals, even reinstalling Reaper again.

Turns out id knocked the kill switch on the guitar.
Doh!!

crunchman

Chris_J said:

Haha only a couple weeks ago I mixed the E and A up on my parlour. Short scale made it worse, as did tuning drop D.... Couldn't understand why my tuning was so bad.... Until I changed strings yesterday. Doh!

D'Addario colour coded strings help a lot.

Not saying I haven't done silly things - I've plugged pedals in the wrong way round a few times - but I don't ever recall mixing up strings.

axisus

I wired up a sustainiac that didn't work, spent an age checking and double checking, pouring through the (ridiculous) amount of paperwork from the company. Scratched my head for several days then ....... checked the battery. It wuz flat!