I was doing a gig last night. Right in the middle of a song, my bass cuts out. At first I thought that my instrument cable got pulled out of the jack. I exaimined that and found it not to be the case. I looked at my power amp and saw the signal lights were still coming on, so I knew that I didn't blow that. I knew that I couldn't have blown all four speakers in my cabinet right there. I pulled the cord out of the active input of my preamp and put it in the passive - still nothing. I then walked behind my cab and saw that the speaker cord is pulled out about a quarter of an inch. I pushed it in and gave myself a little shock. Sound started coming out of my cab again and all was well.
Luckily I was D.I.ed to the board, so I continued playing after my stage volume cut out, but I was scared as hell that something went kaput in my rig. I have a Speakon end going to my power amp, but the end going to the cab is 1/4 inch. I might have to invest in some dual Speakon-ended cables. All of the vibration on stage actually loosened the cable end out of the cabinet's input jack.
"He's the electric horseman, you better back off!" - old sKool making a reference to the culturally relevant 1979 film.
They make 1/4" jacks that have a built-in clamp so the plug won't come out... but Speakons are still better, if you have the cash. On the speaker cab side, when you plug an energized speaker cable in, you the "hot" tip actually touches the ground speaker contact, and can short completely between hot and ground for a split second.... I've seen it blow amps.
Probably a thread for tech sector, though.-------->JMS
songsmith wrote:
Probably a thread for tech sector, though.-------->JMS
Yeah, I was considering putting this in the tech sector, but since the general theme was about how I looked dumb pulling cables out and shocking myself, I'd thought that I'd put it here. Ahh, the high points and low points of being a musician.
"He's the electric horseman, you better back off!" - old sKool making a reference to the culturally relevant 1979 film.
Save your money on the NL-4 and get the NL-2; looks and feels like its four pin bretheren, but cheaper. Unless you are planning on a biamped rig that uses one four pinner.
songsmith wrote:On the speaker cab side, when you plug an energized speaker cable in, you the "hot" tip actually touches the ground speaker contact, and can short completely between hot and ground for a split second.... I've seen it blow amps.
Probably a thread for tech sector, though.-------->JMS
Ditto....you are lucky you didn't blow your amp, Paul.
...Oh, the freedom of the day that yielded to no rule or time...
If you did blow your amp Paul, then you could buy my Eden rig! (Warning: This is a sales pitch!) This goes for anyone else who is in need of a good bass rig.
Actually, my next bass-related purchase is either going to be a rack tuner or a Warwick Corvette. Hopefully it's the Warwick, but I'll have to see what my funds look like in the next couple of weeks after I take care of my car's inspection, fuel prices, and decide how much money I'm going to have to spend this summer to take two courses at college.
More available funds = New Bass
Less available funds = Tuner
LMAO
"He's the electric horseman, you better back off!" - old sKool making a reference to the culturally relevant 1979 film.
