Shotgun Troubleshooting

[Dom Franco]

What do you do when you set up at a gig and get no sound out of your amp, mic or your steel guitar?

I start sweating and wish I had given myself more time for setup, tuning and soundcheck, then I go into mad scientist troubleshooting mode.

Is the amp on? pilot light... hum coming from speaker?... test guitar cables,
to and from volume pedal, then effects units, swap cables, try everything again!
(it's always the last thing you check that fixes the problem)

This has happened to me quite a few times during my 50+ years of giging. So
I have learned the hard way to always carry a spare of everything: Cables, effects, microphones, even amps and a backup steel guitar and of course spare strings.

This is always inconvienent, but when there is an audience waiting for you to start playing it becomes a nightmare. Especially as a solo artist! When I was playing with a band it was not as bad of a problem. The guys had a special song ready to play if I broke
a string on my pedal steel... and I could usually replace that pesky G# to A .011 string in less than 3 minutes. Several times one of the other guys amps blew, and I had a spare channel to plug in to, or rigged up something to fix it.

But yesterday is happened to me again at a solo gig. I had already sound checked everything, tuned up and had plenty of time to use the restroom and wash my hands.
Then when I sat down to play nothing but buzz from the amp... oh no!
I swapped a few cords nothing changed... I had to SHOTGUN it! (in other words swap everything at once) The audience was waiting for me to start. So I pulled out a brand new guitar cable and plugged directly from the steel to another channel on my PA system (no volume pedal or effects) Thank God I have a volume control on my steel guitar... and was able to be dynamic with my picking intensity.

The gig went fine and the audience loved it, and my steel actually sounded amazing with flat eq and no reverb!

As soon as my performance was over I checked everything out, and all I found was one short jumper cable in one of my effects boxes was not inserted all the way in, so it was intermittent and worked during my warm up, and then lost connection when I sat down to play!

Lesson Learned "make sure each cable plug is fully inserted into the jack"

[Dave Hopping]

Amen!

Things like racks and pedalboards where the components are always connected to each other and to the power source have this mean little habit of having the connections--especially wall warts--work loose during transport and loading. Gotten to where I check the back of my rack every time I move it.

[Larry Dering]

Dom I love that story. Happened to me this week at rehearsal on equipment that worked fine the day before. After a couple swaps of cables and buffers I gave up and moved on to another steel and equipment I had set up. Later after everyone was gone I tested and retried the same stuff and no problem. I still don't know where it faulted.

[Donny Hinson]

1. Turn amp on.

2. Turn amp up.

3. Plug cord into amp input jack and touch tip with your finger.

4. If no sound, remove that cord and plug in another cord and touch tip again. If still no sound, problem is in the amp.

5. And if it buzzes like hell and scares everybody in the building, the amp is working.

[Dom Franco]

Donny Hinson,
Yes... but in this case, the, amp was buzzing but only intermittently, so I suspected my signal chain from steel thru all my effects boxes and I just ran out of time to check them one at a time. And YES the noise was loud and scaring me and the audience...

[Ian Rae]

It's always the last thing you try that fixes it.

[Brooks Montgomery]

It's always the last thing you try that fixes it.

Ha! So set up backwards and save time!

Lately for me the gremlin was the nuts on the digital delay pedal input and output were loose and caused shorting.

[Bobby D. Jones]

On My first house gig back from Covid 19 an 0**&&^%%$##$.
I checked and played the whole set up at home. Tore down loaded and went to gig.
They had removed the ramp to the stage some time during the shut down. In getting my gear on stage without the ramp my Evens AH200 fell of my seat on the hand truck about 12" in its padded case to the floor.
When I set up no sound. I started checking connections through my Dobro simulator, delay pedal to amp. One of the band members though he was helping. things went downhill from there.
Scott Buffington of Evans and I have been on the phone a lot the last few days.
My AH200 is not repairable, I have it insured, Now to see how much the insurance company will cover.

[Jim Eaton]

I watched one of the really good guitar players I have worked with over the years go through every cable & connection on his REALLY big pedalboard for about 25 min's with out finding anything wrong and still no sound! I looked behind his Fender Bandmaster Reverb amp and he had not plugged the amp head into the speaker cab. When he wasn't looking I plugged it in. Told him to try it again. Worked fine! Never did tell him what I did! JE:-)>

[Bobby D. Jones]

Now for the rest of the story.
I had amp. insured for the price I paid used. Got check from the insurance company and in the bank. Now the hunt for another amp.