That horrible moment when....

shaunm

You are doing your album launch, 300 people have come to see you, you get past the first two songs and then..... your pedal board dies!!! 

I need to get to the bottom of why and what happened but ultimately it resulted in a massive loss of volume from my amp. When I stepped on my drive pedals everything was tinny and high end only. 

In the end I needed to unplug the board and go straight into the amp which was not ideal as I had no delays or reverbs for some spacey stuff at points. 

To be fair, the gig went down well and nobody noticed other than me and the band but wow was that annoying. Especially at a showcase gig!

professorben

Sounds like you just saved a ton of money on a board. 

siraxeman

What died specifically? Had a couple of annoying panic moments before a gig started when no sound was coming out eventually tracked it down to a dodgy patch cable. .which takes some finding when you have quite a few pedals on your board....especiallywhen at fist yyou dont even realise its a patch cable thsts the culprit. 

shaunm

siraxeman said:

What died specifically? Had a couple of annoying panic moments before a gig started when no sound was coming out eventually tracked it down to a dodgy patch cable. .which takes some finding when you have quite a few pedals on your board....especiallywhen at fist yyou dont even realise its a patch cable thsts the culprit. 

And that is the problem. Mid set there was no opportunity to do anything so I just kicked the entire board to one side. I suspect it will be something and nothing. 

It started at soundcheck when I put my delay and reverb through the loop. The amp went very quiet. I put everything into the front of the amp and it worked. 

Then two songs in it was like the amp lost power, it was thin and lifeless even though it's a JCM 800 on about half volume (so it really shouldn't be powerless or clean). 

At this point I unplugged the board and went straight into the amp. That worked fine but it did make a few songs a little tricky especially with no delay or reverb.

So a few things to investigate today, the loop and each pedal and lead.

Danny1969

I had the same yesterday (borrowed rig I don't own any pedals yet)

Start by pulling out the last patch lead going to the input of the last pedal, touch that if live then put it back and pull out patch lead going into 2nd to last pedal, touch that if live repeat etc ..... that's how I found which one was bad yesterday

Also keep a bag of those cheap and cheerful coloured ones you can buy for less than a pound each. Any sign of trouble just change every single patch cable .... you can do that in less than 30 secs on most boards I would have thought

shaunm

Danny1969 said:

I had the same yesterday (borrowed rig I don't own any pedals yet)

Start by pulling out the last patch lead going to the input of the last pedal, touch that if live then put it back and pull out patch lead going into 2nd to last pedal, touch that if live repeat etc ..... that's how I found which one was bad yesterday

Also keep a bag of those cheap and cheerful coloured ones you can buy for less than a pound each. Any sign of trouble just change every single patch cable .... you can do that in less than 30 secs on most boards I would have thought

Yes, that's today's job. It was only because it was mid set that it was an issue. Today I will build a new board with a just a Tuner, OCD, reverb and delay. 

menamestom

I had this at a gig at the weekend.  I've moved to a small 4 pedal nano board, and consequently didn't use my Voodoo labs power supply.  So I had a wall wart going into a daisychain and the connection lost power.  Taped it up and it did it again so has to split the central pin a bit for a better contact, but still it makes me much more nervous than a kettle lead into a proper power supply.   I've had it with patch leads as well in the past, it's seriously frustrating.

Hopefully when I get the Helix these issues will be no more.

sgosden

Oh I feel your pain, have had to ditch the bored and go straight into amp 10 seconds into first song.
A good way to find out the drummer used 'the swirly noises' and me going back over to my board as markers in songs. He was quite lost.

TheMarlin

Some of my mini pedals seem to push patch cables out, particularly my Moore Rat.   

DesVegas

Well played for doing the rest if the set without the board. Damn frustrating though as who doesn't like playing live in a wash of delays and reverbs.

Sporky

DesVegas said:

who doesn't like playing live in a wash of delays and reverbs.

No-one whose opinion matters.

JezWynd

the gig went down well and nobody noticed other than me and the band

This is the important bit. Congrats on a successful gig/showcase.

shaunm

JezWynd said:

the gig went down well and nobody noticed other than me and the band

This is the important bit. Congrats on a successful gig/showcase.

Thanks @JezWynd ;

It keeps you on your toes when something happens like this as there's nothing left to rely on other than guitar playing. 

The new board will reflect this. 5/6 pedals and that's the essentials only.

newi123

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8dZwXnMrRU

Seems appropriate..........

Reverend

I once saw a band at KOKO spend twenty minutes of their 45 minute set trying to find the fault on two pedal boards, each about 150 x 75 cm. Not the best gig ever. 

Dungus

Been there. Do you have a Wah pedal that was on by accident? I did that one haha. The more gigs you play, the more chances there are of bad things happening. Playing lots and touring can be very hard, especially if you're not very technically inclined or don't have a lot of money to constantly replace broken things. Bad gigs in front of lots of people means you're doing something right, though; you're getting out there, making a name for yourself, getting a lot of good use out of your gear, rocking hard and piling up the memories that will stay with you

deano

shaunm said:

JezWynd said:

the gig went down well and nobody noticed other than me and the band

This is the important bit. Congrats on a successful gig/showcase.

Thanks @JezWynd ;

It keeps you on your toes when something happens like this as there's nothing left to rely on other than guitar playing. 

The new board will reflect this. 5/6 pedals and that's the essentials only.

I have to partly disagree with you here. It isn't a question of reducing the number of effects. You still have a single set-up, a single effect box of each type, hence you will still have a single point of failure. If any part of your chain breaks you will have a problem. What you need is to add in redundancy.

If I sound a bit I.T. and techy, that's because I am. I'm paid to make sure banks systems don't stop working when something goes wrong. If it does then it get's fixed and redundancy built in to ensure there is a workaround. That's what you need to consider - a workaround.

I bet you have a few guitars with you when playing live and if a string pops you just swap to another guitar to get you through things. It might not be the right sounding guitar, but it makes a noise when you strum it and it does a job. Can I suggest you do the same with the rest of your chain. Get a cheap, used multifx and set it up to give you some resemblance of your sound, have it powered up up and cables going to your amp. If the worse happens to your effects board you just switch over to your multifx and you will be working. Not perfectly but enough to get you through.

You can apply the same thinking with your amp. A cheap tranny and it will get you through if you need it to. Chances you won't, but that is why you have insurance. Redundancy is your friend.

Danny1969

The redundancy thing is a good idea for important gigs. A heck of a lot of gigs I do are just pub gigs and I go in as light as possible ... if something breaks it's not the end of the world. In fact I've done about 80 gigs on an HT5 which has a duff half of heater in one valve .... needs a decent warm up before it works :0

For the good money corporate \ wedding stuff though I generally use my rack which contains 2 x pre amps and 2 x monoblock power amps ..all re-patchable from the front .... I've had one side of the power amp go before but so far not a pre amp
We also carry a spare analog snake and ol skool analog desk in the van in case the digital desk and CAT 5 stage rack goes down ... got monitors of sufficient quality that they can double as FOH speakers if need be, spare mic's and spare leads for everything

I think @deano s idea of a multi effects set up with the right delays and whatever would be a good shout in an emergency ... not as good as the pedals but better than dry - straight in the amp ... specially as you can pick up a decent one for about £140 these days 

vasselmeyer

I have a  fallback, even for pub gigs. I have a Zoom G3 with  patches set up for either my amp in case my pedalboard goes down) or with direct patches in case my amp goes off.

Vaiai

Flyrig is a good backup option - small and has delay, reverb and boost - can go direct to PA too!

Pete24v

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.. 

The board problem was a failed George L cable. Swapped out before the 2nd set.