So, you think you're dumber than me, huh...

[paleolith54]

Love my Crowdster, had it for about a year, never could quite get the boominess out of it. Others had noted similar tendencies, so really didn't give it much in the way of diagnostic thought. Figured it came with the territory.

Last night, while adjusting knobs for the thousandth time, I realized that for the past year I had been turning the wrong knobs: I'd had the bass and treble reversed.

Doh!

I now know you can't reduce boominess by boosting bass and cutting treble.

It's actually a testament to the guitar that it sounded as good as it did (and everyone who heard it liked it) with a moron like me driving.

Can you top that?

[tom]

wondering what was wrong with my amp that it sounded so dang bright and thin, then realized, after some other trouble shooting that the wah was on:o

[GDane1]

Played "Shine" in drop D tuning, then when right into "She's So Cold" without tuning up. Thought the bass player or other guitarist were hitting wrong notes!!! Ooops it was me. Only barely worked since dropped tuning gives you a dominant 7th sound on bar chords, just felt like every chord had tension. I'm sure no one's done this before!!

[chriswhite]

I had just bought Pro-Tools and an M-Box 2 and spent about a week trying to get my mic working. I had the 48v button pressed, I tried different mics (dynamic and condenser), different cables and nothing worked. I could plug my guitar in and it would work just fine. I was on the Digidesign forums and I was about to send it in for repair (assuming I got a lemon) and my friend stopped me before that and asked if he could come and look at it.

He unplugged the mic and plugged it back in and it worked perfectly and has ever since. That was 2 years ago. I assume that I hadn't pushed the cable in all the way.

[guitarzan]

wondering what was wrong with my amp that it sounded so dang bright and thin, then realized, after some other trouble shooting that the wah was on:o

I played an entire gig like this and couldn't figure out why everything was so awful. Then after the last tune when we were all just blowing over the tunes, I went to turn my wah on and actually turned it off. sheesh.

[dannopelli]

This is one of the funniest threads I have ever read!

(I know I have done the wah thing a few times for sure!)

[FFOGG]

I did same with a Boss Power Wah ...4 songs though w/ vicious ugly fuzz wah during an Eagles medley .... starting with Take it Easy and ending with Love will keep us Alive ...got alot of dirty lo0ks from the singer

[bud]

Anybody ever plug-in there PowerBridge equipped Anderson and neglect to insert the cable all the way? Piezo through overdrive is not my desert island tone. It only took a song to figure out what was going on:o

[dplight]

wondering what was wrong with my amp that it sounded so dang bright and thin, then realized, after some other trouble shooting that the wah was on:o

I've done that a couple of times. Once adjusting my amp for the best tone (still pretty bad) I could before realizing the wah was on.

[picnic]

Sometimes I get NO sound out of the amp. I check my settings on the guitar, pedalboard and amp. When I check the amp is when I discover I'm plugged into a different amp.
This happens pretty often. Should I seek medical help?

Of course when I received my first TA, I didn't know about the fretguard. First reaction was, "Where are the frets? This isn't the guitar I ordered!" Things are better now.

[ckofahl]

I'm way too smart to respond in anyway to this thread!:eek: Ooops, guess I already did!:D

[mdrs]

I'm way too smart to respond in anyway to this thread!:eek: Ooops, guess I already did!:D

While not into Metal, my son won tickets to see Metallica in a pre tour "dress rehersal" show before they went on their St. Anger tour. So, we flew cross country, and made the "big show" which was in The Filmore in San Francisco. About four songs into the show, they start/stopped one of the songs four times before they figured out that Kirt was tuned wrong...............

Done the wah pedal thing...........:)

[MapleGuitar]

Just a few months ago, we're between songs in the middle of a gig. And I suddenly have no sound. So I begin to panic: tapping pedals, unplugging and replugging cables, turning the amp on and off, etc. Then realized I had accidentally set all three of the mini switches on my Cagun Red Drop Top with Switcheroo to the middle position. I.e., all pickups off.

[Pietro]

So I start the last song in the service and I'm playing, the band kicks in, everything is smokin', get to the 2nd chorus, turn around for a moment during an instrumental break, and the bass player says "capo!".

I played the whole song in the wrong key, and the band just slid up 3 notes with me.

I've one the wah thing, too... But my favorite is forgetting I have the mute turned on on my acoustic pre-amp, having to troubleshoot at the beginning of a solo gig, and just unplugging everything and grabbing a DI box.

Noticed my retarded-ness in the middle of the first song, said "doh" to myself, and moved on...

[pipedwho]

Yeah, done the capo thing a few times!

The worst time was when I'd left the capo on the 4th fret and ended up singing a whole song 4 steps up - yes, my head voice got a workout that day, and no, it was not pretty. :eek: I quickly worked out why none of the other instruments (or singers) joined in.

[coaltrain]

Once I thought I was a little out of tune, kept trying to tune it up quick by ear but it just kept getting worse, took a break and tuned with a tuner, plugged back in and it still sounded bad and that was when I noticed my tremolo pedal was on.

A couple weeks ago I bought these cool black picks, big mistake. Took a break, went back up on stage, I could not find my pick because it was black and the lights were now low, got a new pick and started the set and something sounded like crap. I kept looking at my chord fingerings and they looked right, then I saw that I had placed the pick in the strings right around the heal of the neck.

Jeff

[marzzz]

Fairly new amp was beginning to sound very weak and distorted (not in a good way) even in the clean channel. Was all set to start swapping out tubes when I finally realized the battery in my Tone Press had suddenly gone bad....

[Ray K.]

Sometimes I think I've done just about every "bonehead" thing that can happen live.

Recently, got on stage for the first set and no sound in my ears (IEM's)! I'm trying to remain professionally calm while bending down and checking every cable on the pedalboard, checking belt pack battery levels, signaling FOH/Monitor World ...you name it. Finally found that my guitar wireless transmitter on my pedalboard had gotten turned off.

How? I had replaced one of my effects pedals. The newer one had the power supply jack at the top of the pedal enclosure instead of the side like the previous pedal. The power jack/cable was sticking out right in line and within a fraction of an inch of the power button of the transmitter. Yep, when I stepped on the pedal, it killed the power to the transmitter.

Hehe...I just have to laugh at myself sometimes! :)

Ray K.

[strat56]

Had a Rivera R100-212 hat I used rarely because it was so loud. I brought it to an outdoor gig, plugged it in turned flipped the power switch waited for it to warm up, nothing, checked the tubes, all lit up, checked the guitar volume and the amp channel volume, switched channels, nothing. Unplugged the pedal board and plugged straight in, nothing, tired a different cord, nothing. Unplugged it and packed it up and used my 30 watt amp for the gig.

Took the amp to the shop the next week, dropped it off, told the guy it was dead, he said OK, I can get to it in a couple weeks. Two weeks later he calls, me, nothing wrong with the amp, it fired right up and worked fine. I picked it up, paid the bench check fee and as I was putting it in the car to take it home, I happened to look at the front.

I realized in a moment what the problem had been, I'd turned on the power switch but left it on stand by :eek: :eek: :eek:

In my defense, at the time my main gigging amp was a Rivera R30-12 which did not have a stand by switch. All I had to do was turn it on and let it warm up.

This happened about 10 years ago and I've never told this story to anyone.

[Kevin]

I bought one of those Wii Fit video games about a year and a half ago but I haven't lost any weight. I know this thing can't be broken cause I have never taken it out of the box ! Wonder how much longer till I start loosing weight !:) :)

[GuitArtMan]

This happened about 20 years ago. My wife and I are caravanning up to Disneyland with some friends. We had pre-paid tickets that also got us free parking. We're about a half hour from home when we realize, we don't have the tickets. We flag our friends down (this was in the days before cell phones) and let them know that we are turning around to go back and get the tickets and that we'll meet them in the park later. We'll we get back home and after each of has made the obligatory pit stop head back off to Disneyland. Guess what? Yep, we get about 15 minutes away when we realize - we left the ticket at home again!

We eventually did make it to Disneyland and did hook up with out friends and had a great time, but talk about feeling stupid!

[Roy (maybe)]

At the gig, having a wonderful time.

The band is sounding and singing great. I start the song, “Drive My Car” by the Beatles. I play the opening riff perfectly and with fire—in the wrong key!!!!

What now??

And I had just been thinking the night before that I was so comfortable on stage, mistakes don’t matter any more to me.

We got about 3 words into the lyrics and the band is trying so hard to figure out what is happening—and it’s me. I knew we were dead. So I just hollered into the mic, “Hold it, hold it!” The band stops and everything in the room goes dead quiet…and everyone is looking at me. So I just say, “I just started this song in the wrong key and I love this song so let’s start it again in the right key, and it goes like this.” Fortunately, I did play it right this time. Song sound good and it worked out great - the second time. After the gig was over the guy who hired us tipped us extra—go figure.

Perhaps screwing up is just as cool as not…as long as it is not constant state of consciousness, you’re good.

[Casper]

I love being in a crowded gig.. your friends, your wife, her friends..the agent..
You look at the set and discover that you and your guitar are playing the first notes of the tune..and you completley clam. the looks from the band are priceless, the ribbing you get is worse..then theres being on stage in front of a crowd and having your friend in the front row mouth "your zipper is down!" his didn't all happen in one night, but with my luck, I'm suprised it hasn't...:p

[Babow2]

First, I admit to +1 on the wah wah mistake.

About 2 years ago, we set up for a gig. I had my trusty Mesa Mark IV head all ready to rock. I set up everything, and no sound. Nothing. I checked all the things you all have mentioned, I mean I checked every switch, battery, guitar cable and tube. Everything. Dead, period. Fortunately, I had a small Crate Powerblock amp as an emergency back up. I grab it out of the car, and start moving all the cables over to it, power down the Mesa, etc... The very last thing I do is to move my FX loop cables. Lo and behold, I hadn't pushed the FX return cable all the way into the Mesa, so signal wasn't getting back to the amp from the FX unit. Crap... by then everything was moved to the lousy little Crate and we were late. So, my pennance was to forego using the Mark IV.

At least i didn't have the wah on for THAT GIG!

[Roy (maybe)]

I do believe that it is now law in 12 states that wah pedals cannot be sold without an led that lights up, blinks in three colors and waves a flags if it is left on.

We have all done this one, I am sure.

[Babow2]

I solved my Wah idiocy. I have a loop station on my pedalboard and each pedal is on its own loop. So, I have the obligatory, legally required light that says if the loop is in/out. So, no matter how the pedal is set, if it is out of the loop, it can't make me sound worse than I do in my natural state. So, i can't blame it on that anymore.......

[mdrs]

In order to NEVER be caught with my "wah on", I simply set my amp up to go for that screamy, thin, whiney tone FULL TIME.


The only problem?

When I do kick my wah on, dogs howl for miles around.

...........workin on that................:cool:

[Charlie J]

Awesome stories! Newbie here so might as well start with my lameness...too many stories of clams but 2 pop to mind: (ive done the drop D thing before more times than I can remember).

-playing an acoustic set, go to start a song and I'm playing.....nothing coming out of the house, not in the monitors nothing. I stop, make eye contact with soundguy, start again...still nothing. So i go to the mic and say "hey, could i please get some volume here?" and he says through his mic at the board "yeah you could if you plugged your guitar in!" Doh-----

-playing a song just me on guitar, keyboardist and sax playing a solo. In the previous song they keyboardist had his "transpose" key on....so when he started, the sax player knew by his ear right away to change the key of the song.....not me, I plunked away in the charted key for a verse and chorus:( I barked out "you guys are playing in the wrong key"....they said "we know, we adjusted, you need to change keys"....I slowly turned my volume off and did air guitar the rest of the tune. We still laugh at this 15 years later.....

[Dr. Ellwood]

We did a outside gig a few years ago in downtown Detroit, the equipment was rental and the sound tecks just grabbed your cable and plugged you in to a direct box and away you go!! WELL... about a quarter of the way into the first tune I was having a difficult time hearing the amp? so I was jumping up and down and pointing at the inst monitors and trying to get them to pump up my amp in the mix!! NOTHING happened! SO... then I started searching for the amp... and AH HAA!! found it!! walked back and just cranked it up!! went back to the mic and NOTHING!!... next thing, a sound teck walked up to me and said WHAT!! .... then he told me I was turning up the WRONG AMP!!!! the amp I was going through was not even in sight, buried back in the pile of other junk behind us!! DOH!!!!

[Drew]

One time I was playing at a church and I was using a POD plugged in to the PA. We had very little time to set up and rehearse and the other musicians are all ready to go. However, I'm plugged in and getting no sound.

The sound man says I should be good as he says everything on the board is fine. I see all the lights on my POD, so it appears to be working. I'm starting to panic as I have no real back-up and I'm getting unsympathetic looks from the rest of the band.

Eventually I realize I've plugged my guitar into the headphone jack of the POD. I plugged in to the guitar input, wiped the sweat from my brow and all was fine.

[gotGASbad]

I have two really bad, stupid habits:

I can calmly set up my whole rig, get everything ready, all plugged in, all lights on, all batteries good. . . .but no sound. I have failed to plug the head into the quad box. I do this at least once a month.

I trust my brain to remember how to play this songs on our setlist even when I can't consiously remember them. However, while I nearly always get the riff right I have a terrible habit of starting in the wrong key!!!!! It's a horrible feeling when you do a whole intro on your own, then the vocals come in and it's ALL WRONG!!!

In fact, just this Saturday gone I was playing at our regular Saturday gig and suddenly no sound! I thought I'd done a shabby job when I replaced the input jack on my HDT that afternoon. . . but no, my wireless receiver had fallen off the amp and the power supply had come out!!!!!

You think with such a regular habit of doing stupid things that you'd get used to that falling feeling in your stomach when things go wrong on stage, but no. . . . live and learn? Apparently not for me!