Members modulusman Posted May 25, 2008 Members Share Posted May 25, 2008 I just got back from a gig last night. When we got there to set up, it had been raining for several hours and there wasn't any grass, so it was a mud pit. After we dragged all the gear/stage through the mud, we started setting it up. Then I remembered I forgot the tie downs for the stack. We were going to start in 30 mins, and my house it 45 mins away. So we had to go without. We started and got half way through the first set with no major advents. I went to go get a drink, and a 10 year old kid walks up to the borrowed PA, and turns off the DRPA, which caused a loud "BANG" that blew every single speaker, caused one of the stacks to fall, and one of the subs even shot a VC at the audience. Never leave your PA unattended around kids. Did you kill the little bastard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members srp72ee Posted May 26, 2008 Members Share Posted May 26, 2008 I just got back from a gig last night. When we got there to set up, it had been raining for several hours and there wasn't any grass, so it was a mud pit. After we dragged all the gear/stage through the mud, we started setting it up. Then I remembered I forgot the tie downs for the stack. We were going to start in 30 mins, and my house it 45 mins away. So we had to go without. We started and got half way through the first set with no major advents. I went to go get a drink, and a 10 year old kid walks up to the borrowed PA, and turns off the DRPA, which caused a loud "BANG" that blew every single speaker, caused one of the stacks to fall, and one of the subs even shot a VC at the audience. Never leave your PA unattended around kids. I have my DRPA on a small UPS and I'm considering getting a sheet metal clip fabricated to mount under the rack screws to cover the power switch. I've also considered opening the unit up and bypassing the power switch completely!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 26, 2008 Members Share Posted May 26, 2008 A properly sized amp won't damage a sub driver from a transient like that. Actually won't damage any driver except for possibly a HF driver unless grossly powered. Remember my comments about unexpected accidents? Good to learn from other people's misfortune rather than your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted May 26, 2008 CMS Author Share Posted May 26, 2008 Today, a (pro) throw-together band is playing a large festival I am doing and the bandleader places set lists for the guys, but it's all songs they haven't played together or in some cases didn't even know. He did it just to see the expressions on their faces... nobody wanted to admit they didn't know what was going on and the band leader milked it for what it was worth. Nicely played joke, I'm sure the rest of the band will eventually get even. Yeah, payback's a bitch....like when the rest of the band starts playing every song a half-step up or down from the correct key...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mogwix Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 I'm sure everyone's had this happen at least once. I'm mixing a charity event in a community hall to a crowd of maybe 300, multiple young rock and metal bands on the bill with little to no time set aside for changeover. The third band finishes their set and start frantically throwing their {censored} off the stage while the fourth is rushing to get their {censored} on stage and working. I swap the mics on the kit and rearrange guitar and vocal mics and plug in the bass DI as soon as the fourth band is on stage and in position. I head back to FOH and wait for the band to get ready. I get the drummer to give me a quick line check (one of the tom mics sounded fuzzy for the last band so I had the drummer give me some quick hits to check it through headphones... the mic was fine) and as I'm doing that this extremely loud, high pitched feedback comes out of nowhere and EVERYBODY (including the band) turns and looks at me, holding their ears. Knowing exactly what it was I stand there and do nothing, someone behind me shouts at me "DUDE WHAT THE {censored}" I calmly grab the talkback mic and say "Could the guitarist please mute his guitar." He does and the feedback stops... ... TOTALLY my fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members srp72ee Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 Luckily I was only in attendance at this event...I had nothing to do with the sound... In between sets, one of the performers needed to used the mens room. While in the mens room his wireless pack was accidently switched on. The SR guy also took a break and was not at the board when the mic was turned on. Needless to say, I don't know what brand the mic was, but it picked up everything! The crowd was about in tears laughing when he came out. Luckily he was a good sport about it and was able to poke fun at himself when he returned to the stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Al Poulin Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 Luckily I was only in attendance at this event...I had nothing to do with the sound... In between sets, one of the performers needed to used the mens room. While in the mens room his wireless pack was accidently switched on. The SR guy also took a break and was not at the board when the mic was turned on. Needless to say, I don't know what brand the mic was, but it picked up everything! The crowd was about in tears laughing when he came out. Luckily he was a good sport about it and was able to poke fun at himself when he returned to the stage. It could have turned out worse... Two of the bandmates could have been having a conversation together in the mens room : ''F_ckin' {censored}ty crowd tonight eh John?'' ''No {censored}. See that group of fat chicks at the first table?'' ''Never mind the fat chicks, every idiot in this crowd looks like the result of redneck relatives having orgies.'' ''No {censored}!... Oh God, did you see the look on the manager's face when I asked for our money up front. That fat f_ck and his even fatter wife didn't even notice we've been stealing {censored} from their bar.'' ''Morons. I'd do their daughter though...'' ''Yeah, I've been checking out that little ho too...'' So you ready for the next set?'' ''Hell yeah!'' Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members styxer06 Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 I'll add my 2 cents. our band didn't play out much in the early 90's, and was asked to do a show to help a local online provider. getting online was free but the money we generated and the following we had kept him alive. well he was the website owner and a DJ..... he had the lights, big pa, and "other stuff" we had a few cabinets and a poweredbox. well he offered to help(run the board and lights for us. alot of the equipment was his anyway). at the time we never needed a sound guy. well he got such a kick doing it. He pulled all the stops. he decided to try all the presets on a ART FXR unit during our set. yeah it was GREAT. then the disco twirling light came on......Not cool doing a metallica cover unless your at a strip club. then to top it off he had a fog machine that he hit once in a blue moon, which was fine. well having our set list he saw that our last song was highway to hell! What better song to blow the singers voice to shreds after a hard night. well our first "sound guy" hit that damn button of the fog machine soo many times, you could not even see us. we got this gig I might add at a low income housing complex that had a nice room with a little stage for valentines dance. surrounded by apartment all around. well he hit that button one too many times and somehow the fire alarm goes off at the end of the song. people are running for the door! the fire department shows up....no key to unlock the panel to shut off the alarm. 35 min later the maintenance guy on call shows up. the alarm still going off. just a few of us still there(yes I tore down the equipment during that time.) and the guy just walks bye me with a glare..... needless to say we did a few shows for the guy, and we kept the acessories available to a minimum. But boy did the online chat about that night carried the band for years. I don't have the luck MrKnobs has Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dogoth Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 I used to do FOH in a venue that was on what I'd call the Branson circuit. The patrons consisted mainly of older folks (AKA blue hairs (or as one fellow said "it's like swimming in a sea of Q tips)). One night on a particularly low volume show (high volume was 94 - 95 peaks) I kept hearing this upper mid squeal. It seemed like it happened when the singer would walk into the audience (to schmooz) and the band would lay way back and vamp. OK I dial out a touch of 2.5 - 4k and see if that works. The squeal continues throuought the night. My mix was pretty good and sooo low in volume, I just couldn't figure out the feedback (It really sounded like it was the room and not the stage). After the show all channels are muted and I'm playing walk out music and one of the customers walks by and adjust their hearing aid and SQUEAL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 27, 2008 Members Share Posted May 27, 2008 After the show all channels are muted and I'm playing walk out music and one of the customers walks by and adjust their hearing aid and SQUEAL! Yup, this happens with my lighting designer's hearing aid too. Drives me absolutely nuts when it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FalseRevRG Posted June 15, 2008 Members Share Posted June 15, 2008 well, this one isn't actually live sound-related, but it was A/V for an event i was working, so maybe that counts... we set up a projector that was running a powerpoint presentation, and we also ran a line to a confidence monitor next to the speaker's podium. for some reason, we could get a picture, but it was very dim with no actual color. i think we spent an hour trying to figure it out. we tried another monitor, same problem. tried reversing the horizontal and vertical at both ends of the snake, only made things worse. we tried 3 or 4 different BNC-->VGA connectors, none of those worked. after all that, we finally decided to try running another 100' cable from FOH to the monitor....still didn't work! finally someone noticed that 3 of the BNC barrels we were using to connect the cable to the VGA adaptor were basically just shells, with nothing electrically connecting them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted June 15, 2008 Members Share Posted June 15, 2008 I've had a broken/missing VGA pin on a source cause odd problems... unfortunately it's impossible to fix a broken pin when there is no backup machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philw44 Posted June 27, 2008 Members Share Posted June 27, 2008 I was doing sound for this solo-acoustic guy the other week and he said to me down the mic "okay for this track i need loads of vocal reverb and delay - i want it to sound massive" So there i am, poised at my lexicon & auxiliary sends for when he begins the track...Then he carries on speaking saying "Wheres the reverb and delay, i need more? come on hurry up!" and generally getting arsey.Anyway i gave in and just thought i'd let him introduce the song awash with about 10seconds of delay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpaceNorman Posted June 27, 2008 Members Share Posted June 27, 2008 Today, a (pro) throw-together band is playing a large festival I am doing and the bandleader places set lists for the guys, but it's all songs they haven't played together or in some cases didn't even know. He did it just to see the expressions on their faces... nobody wanted to admit they didn't know what was going on and the band leader milked it for what it was worth. Nicely played joke, I'm sure the rest of the band will eventually get even. I played with an old bass player who claim to fame was that he knew "half a verse and most of the chorus" of pretty much any pop/rock tune you could name. On really, really dead nights - he'd bet tables drinks that he could cover any request. As the keyboard player ... I was along for the ride. A good round of "Stump the Band" can be fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members lifeloverwg Posted June 27, 2008 Members Share Posted June 27, 2008 I'll confess to my most recent stupid moment.... We were booked to play a summer concert series at ISU a couple weeks ago so I contact the University tech guy to advance the show and find out they have an older JBL SR system and an A&H GL2400 at FOH with monitors mixed from there. No problem, I mix their monitors from FOH most the time. He's a nice guy and assures me they will have all cabling and a full Shure mic assortment. Sounds good. We arrive at 3:15 to unload for our agreed upon 5:00 sound check which will leave time for the opener to set up and for us to catch dinner before our 7:00 showtime. The sound crew (of 2) have all the big stuff set out, but nothings hooked up so we go to check into our rooms to stay out of their way while they get ready. An hour later, the opener arrives but nothing much has changed stage wise so we start setting up our gear anyway. Head tech dude disappears and 40 minutes later helper dude is still running speaker cables. I figure somebody better do something or openers are going to be totally hosed. So I start patching in FOH and the band starts running cables to the snake. Kinda funky, but we deal with it. Sound dude returns at this point and the full "Shure assortment" turns out to be our choice of SM58s or SM57s plus a Beta 52. Well, at least I threw in our vocal mics....... Not the end of the world, but it's the last time I'll go without our full mic kit. We finally get ready to sound check and helper dude has totally hosed up the drum loom. Time is ticking and I'm trying to get things straightened out via talkback from 100' out. I'm all set except for floor tom but I'm getting flustered and pissed off. My voice is raising in level asking where the hell is the floor tom? Drummer yells back "I DON'T HAVE A FLOOR TOM". Huh....... that's weird, she loves her floor tom. Oh well I guess we forgot it or something. Let's get on with it time is ticking. There's more to this story, but to cut to the chase. We do a quick sound check and leave for a very quick dinner and leave the opener to sound dude. Opener plays, we go on and have a great show to a small but appreciative crowd that buys lots of Cds and bathes us all in compliments. We go to a local bar that has an open mic night for drinks after the show and I ask the drummer WTF? Where was your floor tom? She replys WTFAYTA, it was right on stage with no damn mic on it all show long. What we have here is a failure to communicate! That and a lack of a drum riser for me see anything at the time and a flustered mind. Still, you'd think I'd notice at some point... Oh well, nobody got hurt. Winston Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tocs100 Posted July 21, 2008 Members Share Posted July 21, 2008 Of the two terror-tales in my sig, the 2nd one is a roadtrip with at least a couple good laughs.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted October 6, 2008 Moderators Share Posted October 6, 2008 Interesting that this thread is in both the archives and in the normal forum. Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mogwix Posted October 7, 2008 Members Share Posted October 7, 2008 it deserves no less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DBR Posted October 7, 2008 Members Share Posted October 7, 2008 Here's one for ya. Just happened the other day. Setting up my gear to the board, I was trying to setup the Aux sends to the EQ. I received a phone call in the middle of the setup, which got me sidetracked. After the call, I went back to what I thought I was doing. I was hooking up the direct out to the EQ and wondered why all the hum and no signal. Stupid DBR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LinuxMercedes Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 Glad to see this thread is still alive...it's been awesome reading it, but there went about three days of productivity =] I've got a few stories to tell, but nothing like MrKnobs =] I guess I'll start with a short one--the time where I almost fell asleep at the console =] I'd come home from a retreat earlier that day, and I was supposed to run sound for a prayer meeting at my church. Some live music (keys, bass, drums, vox) and a mic for the prayer leader, etc. Which was all great, but I was so tired...and I'm sitting buried in warm gear, with the warm console right next to me =] I'd doze off listening to the prayers, and just listen for the "amen" part when I actually had to do stuff. Fortunately the system isn't prone to feedback or anything, so it went off without much of a hitch. Then again, I was almost asleep half the time, so what do I know? =] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 Many years ago, I did one of the most embarrasing things at a show. I was mixing FOH for a Windham Hill music event (I did all the Windham Hill shows in the area at that time) with 5 acts in a 2500 seat (IA crew) theatre and we were all really tired. Load-in was noon after a 4 hour drive and there were 5 soundchecks. The music is beyond easy listening, really mellow. About 2 hours into the show I doze off and my head hits the console (didn't cause any changes in the show, missed the faders) but scared the hell out of me and a couple of the audience members sitting behind FOH. Had a hell of a bump and almost knocked myself out. After the 3-1/2 hour event, we load out and drive away. I tell my monitor guy what happened and he's laughing so hard there's tears in his eyes... he also fell asleep at monitor world but was undetected. We were so tired that we pulled the rig off the road and slept for a few hours only 10 or so miles away from the venue. No way we could stay awake. This is not so funny, I knew a local sound guy who worked for a competitor who was so tired after a gig that he fell asleep at the wheel and went off the road into a canyon. Died at the scene. One of our local IA guys was driving home from a shed gig and didn't see a train coming at a grade crossing and was killed instantly. The moral here is to be aware of fatigue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stevie j Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 I was working at a high school musical tribute gig on saturday and the Lampie plugged into my ring without me knowing.It turns out some of his lights were dodgy, and half way through the show, half his lights and my whole PA shut down with a bang. Leaving 800 10-year old girls singing along to nothing.He got an earful after that gig, I have a string of gigs coming up where I'm working with him. Its taught me to double check everyone's work no matter how good they claim they are. He told me he is a tech in a local A/B-class venue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 He plugged his lights into your non-dimmed sound power? How did he dim his lights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bryan316 Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 My lead guitarist got clothes-lined by one of his absolutely DRUNK friends, locking him in a makeshift chokehold and falling backwards. The two of them bounced off his guitar rig, and made one of my PA stacks wobble back and forth. Thought my headstock was about to be speared through his chest. I hate people who cannot control their drinking. Get drunk. Don't get stupid drunk. Doing a block party. No stage, just set up on the street. We used caution tape to block off the area around the stage so the ignorant braindamaged children on the block (you will never understand how retarded all these kids are) don't skateboard or bike through our gear and all the cables laying everywhere. Well... I shoulda taped some spinning cop lights as well, cuz apparently bright yellow tape isn't visible to retarded children. Kid bikes right into the tape, and clotheslines himself off his own bike. PWND by wimpy, flexible caution tape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stevie j Posted October 9, 2008 Members Share Posted October 9, 2008 He didn't. He forgot his dimmer packs and blinded the front 3 rows. He was also responsible for bringing the PA, (I was just in to work it, I'm freelance and he's employed by the director of the act). He forgot the poles for the speakers and we had to set tables on the subs to put the tops on. I warned him several times about H&S and the possibility of being sued if one of the cast/audience/me goes up in smoke. He told me he didn't care because the director was employing him and had the insurance. It wanted to punch him, because my reputation relies on the gigs going well, and I don't want to see anyone fried because of careless mistakes or blatant negligence. I warned him not to try anything like that in future shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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