On 2/21/2010 1:48 PM, -MIKE- wrote:

The was always the temptation to break into a machine or reach for test
equipment...
when 80 percent of the time, the darn thing just wasn't plugged in. :-)

First rule of troubleshooting any electronic equipment: "Check the voltage."

Just before mixing the last and headline act of the night at a festival
sound gig many years ago, the pianist/band leader (Rice Graduate, EE
major to boot) couldn't get us a sound out of his rig so suddenly
started dismantling it onstage (being the famous inventor of the
particular piano pickup system he uses) while the now mostly drunk,
angry festival crowd was on the verge of rebellion, being that he was
also an hour late to the gig to start with.

I had initially tried to quiz him, over his monitor, if it was plugged
in (I was in a tower about 150' away), but was curtly cut off in mid
sentence.

Well, after that brief exchange from the little lounge lizard, he was on
his on as far as I was concerned ... and, as colorblind as I am, I never
saw such a red face, even from that distance, when he finally snapped to
the fact that it wasn't, with 2500 folks watching his every move for the
45 minutes it took him to figure it out.

Normally and notoriously, an ass to deal with, he was most humble for
the rest of the, much shortened, show ... go figure.

Sometimes there's justice in the world ...

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)