The Steel Guitar Forum

A little off-topic...but, I usually take an extra shirt to each gig
...ever since the white shirt and bbq sauce incident.

I've taken a backup amp to every electric gig since the mid-70's. Learned that lesson VERY early.

I've preached it to every student...and every bandmate that has asked to borrow MY spare (which has happened at least a couple dozen times).

Spare volume pedal, and an extra pair of Skeletor underpants, but just one amp.

My LTD-400 failed in 1981, power transistors blew, and took EVM/15L voice-coil to the bad place. The extra pair of briefs came in handy.

"Don't leave home without 'em."

Never hauled more than one amp except back in late 80's, early 90's using pseudo stereo clean amp, dirty amp rigs.

Old faithful NV400 never let me down nor have the Mosvalve rack amps since the 90's.

I have enough load with my gear without dragging around another amp just for insurance. If it quits, who cares? I can always go into the mains...or it might be a relief to all if I just have to lay out altogether.

Spare volume pedal, picks, bars, cables etc. sometimes, yes but not amps.

Of course professional touring high profile bands need spare gear because they can't afford not to...but that's not me now nor likely in the near future.

To add to my "backup amp" reasoning -

I can't stand the sound of pedal steel, 6 string or electric whatever - except keyboards designed for the purpose - plugged into the mains, even with a "Sansamp" type unit.

An amp is as much a musical instrument as a guitar and more prone to failure. Carrying a backup amp is insurance that you can still get close to "your sound".

I do find far fewer steel players carry backup amps than 6-string players; but I've also noticed less concern with amp tone, quality etc among steel players, who often play $4-5,000 guitars through relatively cheap amps, with most amp discussion centered on "clean replacement speakers" Tone of both guitar and amp seem to fall far below "mechanical precision" and "loud/clean" on the priority chart.

Just my observations.

Primary amp is a Evans SE300, then set a NV 112 on the other side of the stage. Works out nice. Spreads the sound.

I have never had an amp fail. Bill Kahle does my Fenders, and Mike Zaite, Dr, Z, does his amps, 40 years of no worries!

A few years ago I had a 15" JBL Speaker Recone fail on its first gig out.
The guy screwed up something with the speaker-wire grommets (that is what he told me when I took it back).
It worked for the first two songs of a one-set, multi-band gig, then went dead.
There was an RMS practice amp backstage that I went and found while the band played on.

When my Steelaire quite on stage someone found me a powered monitor to play out of.
It was better than nothing except Quilters Amp Rescue Program, which is nothing...

I have never had an amp fail. Bill Kahle does my Fenders, and Mike Zaite, Dr, Z, does his amps, 40 years of no worries!

Keeping amps in good repair is the most important thing and significantly reduces the need for a spare. But most players simply don't have their tube amps serviced properly.

But when amps ARE kept in good shape luck becomes the big issue.

As a player/tech I had a tube caddy with me at all gigs, along with a field service kit (soldering gear, common parts, tools etc) and there were countless times I replaced one power tube in a player's amp that had been nuked by a mic stand, replaced fuses - and missing fuse holders, an item that - At least in the past - used to be a common "sabotage" item swiped by members of other bands.

I did field repairs on speaker cones, swapped reverb pans, replaced power cord plugs - ALL for players that didn't carry spares.


Every amp owner should (at bare minimum) carry spare fuses (tape them inside your cabinet) - and tube amp owners should have one spare each of every tube in his amp(s).


If you've never had anything happen all I can say is you're very lucky. I don't know of another player that's gigged regularly for 40 years and never had an amp failure. Most have some sort of "non-usable" issue at least once a year if they play a couple times a week.

I build my own amps, so of course I always have a Quilter block in my gig bag!

I thought my NV 112 shot craps one time Borrowed an amp but no deal. Come to find out my Hilton Pedal power cord was broken at the edge of the case. As I am always early at a gig I repaired the cord and played the rest of the night.The moral of the story is always prove the trouble before you try to fix it.

I have never had an amp fail.

I used to say that...then it happened...

Lucky for me we were just finishing a set at a big fundraising event and the live auction was about to begin. The venue was less than 10 miles from home, so I had time to go pick up another amp.

It doesn't take much effort to grab a little Cube 80XL and take it to the gig as a spare.

Lee, from South Texas