In which my guitar dies at a big gig.

bluechargeboy

So I was delighted to be asked to support Jah Wobble last night. Did the usual pre-gig battery checks, all cables good, etc.

Get to our soundcheck and all I get is a farty whimper through the PA.

After the usual panicked cable swapping we decide the guitar pre-amp is not OK. Fortunately when this happened before I bought a Seymour Duncan soundhole pickup, so I fitted it with a bit of discreet tape to stop it moving. Gig saved and it sounds pretty decent!

Last time it was the RCA jack connecting the pickup to the preamp that died. Beginning to think I need to buy MIL-spec tested guitars that can withstand machine gun vibration or Ariane 5 rocket launch conditions.

Always have a backup!!!

thomasross20

Could you have mic'd it up as a last resort?

cj73

If you hadn't mentioned the tape I'd never have noticed.  

TheMarlin

Nice PJ's!

congrats on a cool supporting gig. Gonna did out my Jah Wobble vinyl....

bluechargeboy

cj73 said:

If you hadn't mentioned the tape I'd never have noticed.  

I know, it looks factory-fitted IMO.

bluechargeboy

thomasross20 said:

Could you have mic'd it up as a last resort?

@thomasross20 I have mic'd up my guitar exactly once and it was a hideous experience as you have to keep still! But yes, that would have been plan C.

Tonight I'll be using my Larrivee. They took one of them to the International Space Station so they must be robust, riiiiiight?

pintspiller

The stripey tape looks much better than the brown parcel tape i generally use to stick things

thomasross20

What Larrivee do you have again? 
Beautiful guitars!

Ah so it was more to do with no movement lol... 

bluechargeboy

@thomasross20 It is a DV-03 dreadnought:


(ignore the MTB shoes spoiling the scene)

It sounds MAGNIFICENT. Definitely my go-to recording guitar, when we use a ribbon mic and I do keep still!

Si_

That's why you always need a backup plan. Well done:)

thomasross20

Nice!! Can't beat a Larrivee!!

Troy

What tape?

bluechargeboy

Troy said:

What tape?

It was some safety tape for the stage that I found on top of Jah Wobble's bass amp. don't tell him.

bluechargeboy

@thomasross20 This is my Larrivee after two years of (ab)use, I think it's holding up quite well!

thomasross20

Damn sexy guitar!

groovie

Have a wisdom for backup nous, and tasty trousers.

DesVegas

A wow and a yes to Jah Wobble .. some of my favourite basslines are his.. via The Orb and PiL

ICBM

A bit late to this since I was on holiday, but…

If you use an electro-acoustic live and depend on it, *always* carry some sort of backup like this. The fact that it happened to a Takamine - which are among the most reliable electros in my experience - proves it can happen to anything, and unless you have some means of completely bypassing the electrics in the guitar you're stuffed.

Good solution and the tape looked fine . Gaffer-taping an SM57 flat to the front of the guitar with enough tape to stop it moving also works… although it sounds 'interesting' .

thomasross20

How "interesting"?

I don't think there's much chance of my K&K dying... passive is the way to go!

ICBM

thomasross20 said:

I don't think there's much chance of my K&K dying... passive is the way to go!

One of the great things about the K&K is that there are three sensors which I'm almost certain are in parallel, so even if one died (highly unlikely anyway) the system would still work. The weak point is the endpin jack - unfortunately they are not perfectly reliable.

The older Taylor Expression system was the opposite of this, it has multiple sensors which are connected in series, so if one dies (not that uncommon) the whole thing stops working. Very poor design.

I entirely agree that passive is the way to go - with an external preamp if you need it - mainly because it keeps the number of failure points that you can't easily bypass to the minimum. But I know I'm paranoid .

thomasross20

What have you seen that happens to the K&K jack? That sucks to hear. 

I've only got an Orchid DI to go into a PA. There's no mute button on phase button on it.... 
I wonder if I should get another DI box with more on it. 

Also, I'm not sure if I should rely on PA or get an acoustic amp. A bit too much of a luxury?

By the way, Stoked Jones have one of those PA speakers that is like a big cylinder standing up straight (@Vaiai - what is it?) - sounded great and very compact!!