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"Stupid stories!"


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Share with us your "stupid stories". Stuff that you've seen people do with sound equipment that was wrong, crazy, or just plain stupid.

 

Tonight I saw someone hook a snake return cable into the speaker output of a Mackie M-800. That poor amp had to drive all its power through 100 feet of thin, shielded snake cable to 4 wedge monitors daisy-chained, some of them hooked up with shielded guitar cables.

 

Hey, 1/4" is 1/4", right?

 

 

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A few years ago I spent a few weeks training a new guy so I could spend some time with my wife. His first night working all alone I get a frantic call on my cell phone:

 

All microphones were up, everything was PFL'd okay, wedges were fine, but nothing was coming out of the mains. Amps were on, cables were run, and he couldn't figure it out.

I left dinner (with my rather annoyed wife) and broke many traffic violations, as it was already 9:30 and shows start at 10:00. I run in the club, and within 10 seconds had the mains up and sounding fine....

problem = master fader wasn't turned up.

Live and learn.

 

-Matt

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A guy I knew called be up one day because he was having problems getting his new guitar rig going. It was a Marshall AVT 150 head and he was using an older crate cab. I asked him what was wrong and he said it worked fine when he got it but it just stopped and was giving off this "kinda burning like" smell. So I asked him how it was hooked up. He says that when he hooked it up the first time the low end was kind of dissapointing, so he took his brothers hartke bass amp and ran the marshall through it, after he turned it on it made a "real weird" noise and quit working and smelled bad. After a couple of minutes of trying to conrol my urge to breakout laughing, I told him that he should call Marshall (Korg) and ask if there is a service center somewhere close to see if it could be fixed. In a very alarmed voice he asked "What do you mean IF?", to which I replied that I'd be surprised If the components in his amp weren't a melted glob of goo at this point. The cool thing was that the hartke came through this working fine. go figure.

 

------------------

Mike

www.strangedaze4.net

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I drove 5 hours round trip on a service call to turn on a breaker feeding an amp rack in a resort ballroom system. I walked their "tech" through it and he assured me that the lights were on and the amps were working properly, just that the installation was really {censored}ed up. Maybe his lights were on but obviously nobody was home. They then asked me if the service call was covered under warranty!

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All our gear was set up for a gig. I come back into the venue 1/2 hour before our starting time and see that the speaker output of a peavey xr684 powered mixer is plugged into the input of my little Fender Princeton Chorus guitar amp. Apparently the other singer/guitarist just wanted to test out the pa without having to use the mains for some reason. He just figured he'd plug it into my guitar amp I guess... luckily it was okay.

 

Joe.

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Bonehead sound tech--the one smart thing he did was start dating the singer before I could fire him for sheer incompetence.

 

We hit at 9:30 in a 300 seat club that's a regular venue. It's packed. All through the first set, he's frantically twiddling EQs and pushing faders, with a stricken look on his face. At the break he grabs me: "There's something really wrong--I can't get Bill's guitar in the mix." I go back to Mixworld and throw a CD up. No output. None. I trace signal--there's output showing on the Ultracurve and Ultradyne, as well as on the board input and output meters. Check the snake connection. He's got that done-- (missed inserting the FOH EQ and processing at an earlier gig, and another time, forgot to hook the snake to the board outputs). Before heading for the stage to make sure that the breakout box--crossover interconnect is done, I eyeball the amp rack (Oprah) from my Mixworld vantage, looking for pilot lights. Monitor EQs--hot. DSP1100s--hot. Monitor amps--hot. Crossovers--hot.

 

At the bottom of Oprah are our four main amps: two Yorkville AP3000s (tops) and two AP3400s (subs). They're dark. No pilot lights; no signal lights. Four dead amps. He'd forgotten to turn them on, and had "mixed" an entire set with the mains--down.

 

I could go on about this guy for days, but I get pissed off remembering the time and effort I put into trying to train him. In the end, it was like teaching a chimpanzee to knit.

 

Phil

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Originally posted by bassknave:

Bonehead sound tech--the one smart thing he did was start dating the singer before I could fire him for sheer incompetence.


We hit at 9:30 in a 300 seat club that's a regular venue. It's packed. All through the first set, he's frantically twiddling EQs and pushing faders, with a stricken look on his face. At the break he grabs me: "There's something really wrong--I can't get Bill's guitar in the mix." I go back to Mixworld and throw a CD up. No output. None. I trace signal--there's output showing on the Ultracurve and Ultradyne, as well as on the board input and output meters. Check the snake connection. He's got that done-- (missed inserting the FOH EQ and processing at an earlier gig, and another time, forgot to hook the snake to the board outputs). Before heading for the stage to make sure that the breakout box--crossover interconnect is done, I eyeball the amp rack (Oprah) from my Mixworld vantage, looking for pilot lights. Monitor EQs--hot. DSP1100s--hot. Monitor amps--hot. Crossovers--hot.


At the bottom of Oprah are our four main amps: two Yorkville AP3000s (tops) and two AP3400s (subs). They're dark. No pilot lights; no signal lights. Four dead amps. He'd forgotten to turn them on, and had "mixed" an entire set with the mains--down.


I could go on about this guy for days, but I get pissed off remembering the time and effort I put into trying to train him. In the end, it was like teaching a chimpanzee to knit.


Phil

 

Except,you might get a {censored}ty sweater out of the other deal!

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I once mixed a big outdoor show for a band that had fired me as a player a few months back. Hey, I'm a Buddhist, don't need any extra karma, right? Turn the other cheek stuff, you know. Besides, all that money.... it's show BUSINESS, not show friends, isn't it?

 

Anyway, I hooked up my rig, fired it up, put a mix CD through it as the crowd began to grow. Everything seemed fine, until the band got up and began to play. First kick on the bass drum, system went down. Came right back up, knocked down by the kick again.

 

Took me forever to figure it out while the band fumed and assumed I was pulling some {censored} for revenge. Turned out the apartment complex "electrician" had hooked up the main power to the photocell circuit on an overhead street lamp. Not very many amps available! The crossover was muting every time the voltage dropped, then coming back up after the built-in time delay.

 

It's not much fun arguing that you're an imbecile, not a bastard in front of 5 guys that want to kick your ass. Even my apprentice thought I was guilty as charged. He said you're much too smart to not figure that out right away. Ouch!

 

Terry D.

 

$$$TD1$$$

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Hey, I have to share one more story, a confession, really. Perhaps it will explain why my apprentice thought so badly of me in the last story.

 

Once upon a time, I owned the only studio in a mid-sized Texas college town. I also promoted the occasional concert from time to time. As it happened, my services were engaged to provide sound reinforcement for a famous Texas artist to play at a large fraternity / sorority party. I signed a contract for a substantial amount of money.

 

Now, more money is always better, so it occured to me that if I could get one of my label artists on the bill for this show (did I mention I had a small record label?) then I could move some product and make some serious cash, er, I mean help the young musicians. So I approached the sorority people and offered the band as an opener at no extra charge. The lady I talked to thought it a fine idea.

 

Until the next day, when I was informed that someone's boyfriend's band would be opening instead. I pointed out that I was under no obligation to provide sound for the additional act and they pointed out that they'd just tear up my contract and hire someone else if I didn't play ball.

 

Well, you know, sometimes negotiation is required and I can usually talk the shine off a shoe. So I met with the boyfriend's band and told them there were no hard feelings, but I needed a favor. I pointed out that I ran the only studio in town, was the only promoter, controlled most of the club entertainment, etc. etc. and that I would be VERY GRATEFUL to them if they'd just let my guys open for them, that is, 3 bands for the price of one. They said, and I quote, "Fuck you!"

 

Somehow they got the idea that I'd be vindictive. In fact, they suspected foul play so they asked to send someone to give me cues on their sound. I grumbled about someone inexperienced getting in the way, etc. etc. but eventually I said, what the hell, you win some, you lose some, sure, send a guy.

 

On gig day, I let the guy up on the sound platform. After a brief conversation, I determined he didn't know his ass from his elbow running sound. So I did the headliner's sound check myself, and then, as a goodwill gesture, magnanimously turned the sound over to him for his buddies show. I may have accidentally reduced the gain on the main EQ as I turned the console over to him. I say may have because I was paying attention to the light board, which had the unusual feature that day of controlling a harmonizer that was set to 1/4 step flat and inserted into the main vocal channel. Whenever their singer hit a really high note, I toggled a switch that somehow caused his high note to be really flat. Of course he was blissfully unaware of this because he was listening to my very nice monitor system on the stage which did not have the harmonizer in it.

 

He seemed quite confused by all the booing that ensued. :)

 

In no time at all, the crowd was chanting for the headliner to come up. The guest "soundguy" was really pissed about the weak sound and his singer's pitch problems, but clueless as to how I had caused it and in what to do about it. In fairness to him, he didn't have much time to figure it out before his band was booed off the stage and my goons escorted him down from the mix tower. As he left, I gave him a brief lecture on how this could all have been avoided if we'd all worked together to help each other out.

 

Later, I met his band backstage and they seemed upset. Being relatively peaceful college types, I guess it didn't occur to them to pound my sorry ass and instead one of them threw a coke at me. Strangely, one of my hired rent-a-cops saw the whole thing and did nothing. I chewed him out later.

 

Anyway, perhaps this was not the best approach. It sure as hell was fun. Almost made up for all those records I didn't sell.

 

I'm much nicer now, really I am. :)

 

Terry D.

 

$$$TD2$$$

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Mr Knobs,

 

Do not let guilt get the best of you... this little lesson has been taught before!

 

While providing sound for a large Northern California festival, a band who lead guitarist had always been rude to my monitor guy was scheduled to play. True to form, he was rude (really rude) again so we inserted an SPX-90 on his guitar channel in the monitor system only. Since the lead guitar was really hot in the side fills (did I mention he was really rude?) We decided to theach him the "don't get mad... get even" lesson, so during one of his "blistering" solos, punched in a half step down pitch shift into his channel for a couple of notes only. Being a guitar player, he assumed he missed so he corrected, but the correction just made matters worse. Now he was totally lost and the look of sheer panic ensued. He knew my monitor engineer did something but didn't know what. Now my monitor guy could get away with it because he is 6'-3" and 260 lbs... no problem. The guitarist was sure it was going to happen again so he played all his solos as rhythem parts!!! My monitor guy and I have been partners in the sound company for over 25 years.

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Hey, I'm full of stupid stories, especially about pyro.

 

In the hair band days, I thought it might be a great idea to use some stage pyro to toss myself up in the air at the beginning of the show. I know, I know, sounds stupid already but I really just wanted a little boost off the drum riser on my way down to the stage.

 

I took two concussion mortars and put a 2x4 across them. Now I'm not entirely stupid, and I didn't want to break my ankles or anything else, so I rehearsed it over and over with increasing large charges. Of course the first little amounts didn't even budge me, but with patience I achieved a balance between pain and performance that ended up being a paltry 3-4 ft which would have been enough for the effect I wanted.

 

I say, would have been, because the first time I tried it at a live show, the igniter failed in one of the two mortars so only one went off. I've had it described many times to me over the years from people who saw it, but all I saw was the world suddenly spin around before I was slammed into the stage. My guitar fell on top of me and really rang my bell. I didn't know my name and couldn't count fingers correctly for a few minutes after that.

 

The crowd got a kick out of it, in a "Spinal Tap" sort of way, or so I'm told.

 

Terry D.

 

P. S. I know the topic specifies "sound equipment" but if you've ever heard a concussion mortar go off, you know it's the ultimate "sound equipment." ;)

 

$$$TD3$$$

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OK, one more. Then I'll stop, really. ;)

 

Before Peter Frampton ruined it for everyone, I used to use a talk box on some tunes. I had a little 30w TB that I made myself from a compression driver and a plastic tube. By pressing a foot switch, I could reroute my amp output from the normal speaker to the talk box. The tube snaked up my mike stand to end up taped to a Shure SM81 that I'd also sing through, either function being heard through a wedge in front of me.

 

One fine night, I commenced my talk box solo by stepping on the button and heard nothing. In my panic, I thought it was because the band was too loud so I quickly reached back and cranked up my 100w amp a bit more. I was wrong. I didn't hear anything because the damn switch on my mike was turned off. The 100w amp blew the 30 watt driver to smoke and foil, which shot right up the tube and into my mouth and lungs, producing quite a coughing fit with smoke blowing out my nose.

 

It was pretty impressive and the crowd cheered for more, but there was no more to give. The next day I bought a 200w 2" throat driver that was to eventually loosen my teeth and make me cough up blood after each gig, but the tone was bitchin' and I never blew that one out and still have it to this day.

 

Does this qualify as stupid? ;)

 

Terry D.

 

$$$TD4$$$

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Oh wait, I lied.

 

I once worked FOH for Joe King Carrasco, a party rocker who liked to stage dive into the audience and put on a hell of a show. I asked him if there was any special effect he'd like from the sound or lights. He told me he liked to dump confetti into the audience at the end of his show.

 

Well, I'd never been asked for that before, and had no idea how to do it. A big net, like with balloons? A CO2 pipe? I didn't have any of that stuff, I had a bunch of concussion mortars. So I sent a roadie to buy some bags of confetti and I stuffed it all tightly into my mortars, mounted up on the light trusses aiming toward the crowd. At the agreed upon moment, the light guy fired the pyro.

 

I guess I forgot that confetti was flammable. Anyway, it made a gigantic noise that surprised and stopped the band dead in their tracks, and rained down flaming confetti onto a large section of the audience. I think everyone was pretty surprised, especially me. People were patting out flaming confetti on their hair and clothes, but no one was seriously injured, luckily for me.

 

It was quite pretty coming down, though. :)

 

Terry D.

 

$$$TD5$$$

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Not nearly in the Terry class (and not about Pyro, either), but mildly amusing:

 

Had an excellent young GTR player in the early days of my current band. He used an Arion pedal tuner, which he had set up on his pedal board. He would typically use my (then) Sabine to do his initial tuning before we hit the stage, then hand it off to me.

 

We kicked off the night with "Life in the Fast Lane," and it was a total trainwreck. When he'd turned on my tuner, he'd also hit the "transpose" button and wound up tuning to something in the neighborhood of Eb, as had I. Other GTR and KB were in standard tuning.

 

Phil

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Here's one on the tuning but it was done as a joke. Very popular country/gospel act from the 70's and 80's was at the time filling concerts halls acros the country. A good friend of mine played bass and trumpet for them. They were on the road 7 a week and playing the noraml road tricks on each other. My friend always seemed to keep the upper hand. They were doing Church Street Station one night for broadcast (you can still see this one from time to time on TV)

 

The band got together and tuned everything, including the piano up a 1/2 step, but tuned his bass down 1 full step. So they were 1 1/2 steps apart. Before tapping began he picked up the bass and did a quick check, obviously he knew it was out but not sure by how much. He spent the first set transposing everything on the fly but to a mystery key caue everyone else was already a half step high. On break he runs the bass back through the tuner and gets back to 440 thinking he has sloved the problem to find out he is still a 1/2 step out with the rest of the band. Ended up still doing a half step transpose all night. He never missed a note....kind of brought an end to the jokes too.

 

------------------

Snuffy Smith

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not sound related but still funny.

 

I used to play Guitar and vocal in a metal band and we were real serious.

we started getting gigs and most of the places were pretty small, one night on a cramped stage the bass player stood on the left of me starts doing this windmill thing with his hair, his heads all over the place and it looks great in the strobes his hair was down to his arse.

suddenly my guitar is ripped from my grasp and drags me toward the bass player, whilst spinning his hair hes managed to get it caught around the tuning pegs on my pointy headstock.

he was well and truelly stuck we had to stop the gig so that he could cut some of his hair from the pegs.

the crowd went wild

but for the wrong reasons

this was worthy of spinal tap. still cracks me up just thinkin about the drummers face when he realized what was happenin, not knowing to stop or carry on playing.!!!

 

------------------

it's not my fault...it was like that when i got here

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Not as big time as most, but it happened just last night:

 

 

How can so many things happen in such a short time?

 

Gig: Charity walk-a-thon fundraiser for Cancer at the new high school. Cool, right? A freeby, Karma,

PR all that good stuff. Set up by a friend (I'll call him Doug, since that is his name) who has sat in

with us for years and had an old-time Tin Pan Alley band on the side (he sings, plays trumpet &

harmonica). Plus a drummer, 2nd horn (some kinda sax/clarinet with testicles thing) and 2nd guitar.

We've all played together before for similar purposes.

 

The fun begins: We all meet at a local watering hole (it's Wisconsin- there's one on every corner) I

know we're scheduled for 9:00pm but I ask how long we play. 1 hour. Shoot, for this rag tag bunch it

takes that long just to get cookin good! I had asked ahead about sound. The new high school has all

the PA we need (Ithrew my PA gear in the van just in case).

 

Did I mention the freezing rain, lightning & thunder?

 

We get there and the lot is packed (grade school musical in the auditorium, we're in the gym). Load

in wet & cold. There is a barbershop chorus finishing up as we gather behind the stage. I eye up the

SR, 5 mics, monitors, FOH- looks OK. We start to throw our gear up on the porta-stage and I ask the

cowboy running sound (from behind the stage) where to plug in. Deer in headlights. They have one

power cord running to their PA rack. He sends cowboy #2 (they had the hats!) running for more

power cord. Meanwhile we place the mics, get set up, etc.

 

Now we're 15 minutes into our time with no power. I ask Doug if he has a set list- it's all Tin Pan

Alley from 1928 thru 1932! (Bye-Bye Blackbird, Ain't She Sweet etc.) My partner has played this

stuff, and I can muddle thru (it's harder now that he bought a fretless bass), but not an entire set!

 

"Doug- where's the R&B"?

"I didn't know you were coming".

"You asked me three weeks ago"!

 

Doug shrugs.

 

Power arrives, we plug in, my partners bass does not work. Amp OK- bass guitar is down. It's

showtime, so my partner starts singing the bass parts!

 

There is nothing coming out of the monitors. I go behind the stage and point this out to the sound

cowboys. They said they turned off the monitors during the barbershop chorus because they were

feeding back. I urged them to give it the old high school try. They got some sound to come out of the

monitors ( I had to relay this to them from the stage, as they had no clue as to what they were

doing).

 

We muddle through the first tune, the next is Ain't She Sweet in E-flat! I'm on the stage, thinking how

stupid I look and sound, so I wander behind the stage as though to check on something, and just sit

down in a chair until that tune is over.

 

I spy the Mom from our local Mom & Pop, and she offers to drive down to the store in the freezing

rain and grab a replacement bass. if there was one in the school, the cowboys did not know about it.

 

All the while there are people walking in circles on an upper level track, people in bleachers, kids

throwing frisbee and beachballs people camped in tents for the night....

 

Next tune is Bill Bailey in C. I can handle this. Now, I'm wireless (and trying to fill in the bass parts

as best I can) so I figger to spice things up a bit, I'll join the walkers on the mezzanine. Trouble was,

as I got further away from the group, i was hearing the music a half a beat off of the actual

performance, so I was playing to what I heard and throwing everyone off onstage.

 

I get back to the stage ASAP! Next tune is Kansas City (as a concession to me I guess) my partner

sings lead as I basically play the bass parts, except for my lead breaks, which sound thin without any

bass. We start another post-1932 song (Don't Think Twice in ablues ala Gatemouth Brown) when the

replacement bass arrives! Yay! Dave straps it on, gets one string close to pitch and finishes out the

last 45 seconds of the tune.

 

Then the organizer comes up and says that's it for our time. There is going to be some ceremony

and drawings and we're welcome to play some more in an hour.

 

As I'm packing I hear one cowboy ask the other "Which one of these is the monitors"?

 

I'm packed up in record time. I join my wife in the bleachers (she could feel my pain) and was

chatting with a friend about the nightmare I was having when lightning killed the power to the

building. Emergency lights came on and I tuned to my pal and said "Good thing we got our set in

before the power died"!

 

Loaded out in the freezing rain, thunder, lightning, picked up my daughter and her friends, played

Dad-taxi for an hour and went home.

I gat my regular gig tonight. I'm in charge of the sound, the set list, the power, everything...and my

partner knows he better have his equipment in working order and bring backup.

 

 

 

Karlos

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