Tempting fate....

[Penfold42]

...so we all seem to carry backup but have you ever used it?

Just seems strange we carry it....but is it ever used in anger?
Never used it.....carry it but never used it.
Carried two amps at one point with a spare pair of speakers......but never used it.

Any stories then?

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Tempting fate too right...i aint even answering.... :D




















Nope, never been used...now wheres my wood to touch :D

[Mark Wild]

Nope, never been used...now wheres my wood to touch :D

Gross man lol

[Twinspin]

Never used it.....carry it but never used it.
Carried two amps at one point with a spare pair of speakers......but never used it

Dont say that Tone those words might come back to haunt you, Your gear might break down on the next gig. :p :D

[Penfold42]

Dont say that Tone your gear might break down on the next gig. :p :D

Which is why I have back up....:sj:

[Shaun]

Used the spare speaker at one time. Nothing else though. *fingers crossed*

[Charlie Brown]

Yes!

One time I didn't take backup equipment (2 years ago) my maplins speakers packed up and I had 200 school kids booing for an hour until Dad turned up with an old guitar amp! Good times. :D

[Tony Scott]

Superstitious lot aren't you?

I once had a complete 4kW system taken out, a 230v live cable came loose in a mixer and touched the signal which took out the processors, amps and every driver in the rig... :(

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Superstitious lot aren't you?

I once had a complete 4kW system taken out, a 230v live cable came loose in a mixer and touched the signal which took out the processors, amps and every driver in the rig... :(

lol....so what did you do...get the back-up out of the van? ;)

[Penfold42]

lol....so what did you do...get the back-up out of the van? ;)

:lol:

[Excalibur]

...so we all seem to carry backup but have you ever used it?

Just seems strange we carry it....but is it ever used in anger?
Never used it.....carry it but never used it.
Carried two amps at one point with a spare pair of speakers......but never used it.

Any stories then?
Oh yuss. I bought a new mixer, treated myself. Loads of bells and whistles, nice and shiny. It arrived on Thursday, and I took it out of the box, admired it, and put it away. On Friday, I took it, along with the old one, to a gig. Put the old one to one side, and started to get to grips with the shiny new one................................ which did five songs, and the power supply went mammaries skywards!!!! :bang: :bang:

Good job the old one was sat there. :D :D :D :D

[djdave01]

unless im going a major distance from home, the only backup i take is an ipod.

unless you've got a huge van, its impractical to take spare everything.

in 20 years, ive had one problem, a mixer packed in at a gig. i just connected the cd player direct to the amp and carried on. I couldnt use a mic or mix music but i got through the night.

[CRAZY K]

Superstitious lot aren't you?

I once had a complete 4kW system taken out, a 230v live cable came loose in a mixer and touched the signal which took out the processors, amps and every driver in the rig... :(

Strewth Tony, thats a mega problem.:eek:

Did you have a spare 4kw rig in the van:D

[Jonathan Ford]

I had a nightmare on New Years Eve this year. I set up in the early evening, left the laptop playing background music and cleared off home for a couple of hours.

When I got back, the venue were playing there own music. Turns out the charger has died, and the laptop is dead. Of course, the venue didn't give me a call to let me know! Not a massive problem, as I have back up. Get my twin CD player (CDN22) and the CD's from the car and crack on. Five tracks in, one side of the player goes dead...nothing on the display, no sound...stone dead. I can't do NYE on one CD deck...but fortunately live about a mile from the venue. I left a pre-mixed CD playing on the good deck, and dashed home to pick up an ancient Technics single CD deck that I used to carry around when I was on vinyl. It looked dreadful, and was hardly the smoothest experience, but I got through!

[Pazz]

I only take a backup of my music collection on separate hard disk although I do advertise that I carry a backup laptop, I only ever bring this with me if I'm doing Karaoke.

I have also advertised that I can switch to the CD Players if my laptop goes down but never take these now as I just haven't got the space in the van to transport the extra equipment or the time at my events to setup the extras.

I have had a few near misses though, once my amplifier had lost power during a wedding and I was frantically checking all the leads. In the end I decided to switch all power off and back on again and luckily this worked (as i do not have a backup amp :confused: :o - just cannot afford one. Would like active speakers then I could use my passives and amp as backup.

Another occasion my laptop's screen had a colour problem and this really hampered my performance as I could hardly see anything no matter how I tried to compensate by adjusting colours etc. I didn't have a backup laptop or CD Player with me either Aaarrgghh! A long day that was and put the laptop straight in for repair after this.

My biggest downfall is not learning from these incidents and I still do not carry much backup gear with me :bang: :Censored: . I must do this or else the inevitable will happen one day:eek:

[Danno13]

I had to swap to my backup mixer, when my 3 month old X500 went bang in the middle of a gig. I've also done half a night on CD when my PC played up once, and a whole night once when the hard drive with all my music on died!!

Oh, and I swapped an EVL spin for a spair one just the other week when a bolt went missing that held the reflector dish in the right place - so no light was coming out of it!

So yeah, I'd never risk not having backup.

[DazzyD]

I was doing a wedding gig one day (it was a Saturday dinner-time to-late afternoon gig) and I was using a StudioMaster that I'd only bought that week. After about 15 mins, the left channel went off. I checked all cables, restarted it, everything but nothing worked so I switched it to my trusty modified G742 backup powered mixer (which still serves me well today!) and did the gig with that.

On the Monday I took the StudioMaster back to the shop where I'd bought it and explained what had happened. They had their techy-guy check it out and his verdict was "It's been fried inside!". After some testing, it turns out there was a faulty component inside which had overheated, burned out and took out half the mixer in the process. Mind you, I did notice a burning smell at the gig but I put it down to the newness of the machine - I didn't realise it was actually being fried!

I've had a few incidents with minor equipment (lighting, microphones, cables) in the past but nothing too drastic but, then again, drastic enough to know the importance of backup! And, before anyone pulls me on this, I know I had a saga with the laptop crashing last month and not having backup but I again must stress that I was working for someone else and it wasn't my kit! ;)

[Tony Scott]

lol....so what did you do...get the back-up out of the van? ;)


Strewth Tony, thats a mega problem.:eek:

Did you have a spare 4kw rig in the van:D

If only... :(

My only back-up was a single 15" powered full range cab and a single cd player which limped along whilst I waited for a fellow DJ arrived with his kit...

... it was an hour into the gig and the music was only off for about 10 minutes so it could have been much worse, still cost me over £1200 to replace/repair it all. :(