ampage Tech Humor

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Jon 5/4/2005 5:27 AM 7 0
Heres one for the stage techs

Once did a gig in a smallish church, we put in a good size sound rig along with lights. We got everything running and did the usual line checks. Everything was fine until the first band did their sound check. They were half way thru the 1st song, a hard rock number when all the stage power cut out and half the lights as well (never seen a guitarst move so quickly to switch his amp off to save his tubes).

The power came back on by itself after a few seconds and they resumed playing, until the problem happened again.

Took us an hour to figure out that the sparky that wired up the place had put the lights running across the back of the sage thru the same 10A breaker as the stage power, which is where we were getting power for the sound. Every time the song got a bit loud the breaker would pop, and then reset of its own accord.

Shows what the guy wiring the place thought of church bands

 
PB 8/21/2005 12:17 AM 9 0
I suppose it was inevitable that my bassist, Dave, would eventually get his own back on me for all the jokes about him being an ex-drummer,...
"How do you know when the singer is knocking on the door?"



Answer: "Doesn't know when to come in!"

Yeah thanks D,....

 
PB 8/21/2005 12:54 AM 33 0
I normally only deal with music gear,. organs keyboards amps etc,.. and kept getting pestered by a friend of a really good friend and customer of mine, to fix his incredibly old tube Hi-Fi. My customer eventually persuaded me to have a go at it, pointing out that the guy was a real pain in the a$$ about his precious tube amps. The thing was really past it, the output transformer had fried and the replacement parts were so hideously expensive that he almost had a fit when I gave him the quote.
"Can't you just use other less expensive parts?" he asked.
I thought for a moment and said that I could possibly get the price down a fair bit but it might not ever sound the same. He happily agreed and I set to work.
I left all the tubes in place and ripped out the whole of the rest of the thing's guts, replacing it with a solid state preamp and a chip 2x50 watt output stage, complete with a large resistor in the un-mute legs so it turned on rather slowly.
I then put leds under all the tubes, powered using a feed from that same leg,... the effect was visually convincing, very pretty, so I phoned the guy to say it was done and my old friend brought him round the back of the shop that afternoon.
I booted it up on the bench in front of him with an old deck and one of my old Pink Floyd albums on it.
He shook his head and I guessed I'd blown a couple of days hard graft,... but no,... to our amazement he just smiled and said,
"You just can't beat that true vintage sound can you."
Then he paid up and took it away.
He still boasts about his old "original" sound and his audiophile mates love it,....
Some you win,.....
We haven't the heart to tell him,... he's happy!

 
Vince Iannone 9/22/2005 3:01 PM 21 0
Years ago, I got a call from a singer I knew. "We're practicing and all of a sudden all this smoke comes puring out of Eddie's amp. It's still smoking like a bastard now." I asked him how long it had been since Eddie turned the amp off. "Just a second," he said. And in the background I heard him shout, "Vice sez to turn it off!".

 
Peter, Sweden 10/6/2005 9:18 AM 12 0
Working as an amp- and guitar tech in Sweden a customer had me change the nut/saddle on his Yamaha guitar wich suffered from to low action. Then i found out the shop were out of pre fabricated spares in plastic, the typical choice for a budget guitar. So instead of having the guitar lying around at the shop waiting for me getting the cheap plastic from my supplier, I decided to give the customer a bone nut made from a blank (better but more expensive, much more work intensive) for the same price as we had agreed on for the cheap plastic.

When the owner of the Yamaha turned up the next day I told him: -I was out of plastic nuts, so you got a bone nut at the same price, congratulations!!!
-Whats a bone nut?, the customer replied.
-It makes your guitar sound great and is probably made from something like a small part of the hip of a dead cow, I answered.
-The customers face turned hostile: -Hey, what the xxx have you done, I´m a vegan! (I then rapidly had to remove the perfect, handmade bone nut, the customer left in anger without a nut on his guitar, never saw him again!

 
Andrew 12/17/2005 8:27 PM 20 0
I used to frequent the local dump in days gone by with an eye open for any old electronic bits, one day I was talking to the manager and spied a box on the floor in the office, asked him what it was, turns out a lady had dropped off her old "broken" amp, because when she had called the local electronics shop they had told her it wasnt worth repairing and she should buy a new one. I asked what the problem was and was told that the lady said the left channel wasn't working. so I offered up $5 for it and walked off with a nice, fairly new Denon amp in original box and plastic bag, foam end caps and manual. I got it home, plugged a CD player and some speakers in to it, hit play, sure enough, no sound out of the left speaker. Hmmm maybe if I just turn this balence control to the middle and sure enough....... good as new :)

 
Peter, UK 12/24/2005 2:21 AM 8 0
Similar story to the last one, I rescued a Cambridge Audio hifi amp from the tip the other day. Crackles when you turn the volume control. £2 for a new dual pot at most. Otherwise in perfect working order, the stuff people throw away...

 
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ampage Tech Humor