Ever step on the wrong pedal?

[JTJ]

Anyone ever step on the wrong pedal during a show or somewhere? I was playing the other day and it was a real broken down smooth melody line in the middle of the song and I was trying to turn on a loop with my chorus and I accidentally hit the button beside it on my looper that turned on my fuzz factory.(low lit stages are tricky sometimes lol.):facepalm We laughed about it afterwards but it definitely was a oh dang moment.

[petermelton]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize. I just kept thinking man my tone is really bright tonight and I've turned my treble down to zero! Even the bass player noticed. And yeah, we had a good laugh about it after.
You're not alone.

[tdk8709]

I did something similar a couple of times (missed the delay and hit the fuzz or missed a drive and hit the pog) I quickly got a true bypass looper and haven't done it since.

[Magicpad]

^^^

+1. Definitely did the wah thing before, lol

Biggest thing is to keep playing, not look embarassed.... pretend it was all part of the show.

[Citizen_Insane]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize. I just kept thinking man my tone is really bright tonight and I've turned my treble down to zero! Even the bass player noticed. And yeah, we had a good laugh about it after.
You're not alone.
That happened to me at sound check one time. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. Luckily I noticed when I accidentally kicked my wah and got my settings fixed before we played.

[jordiesaenz]

I've accidentally had my tuner on before. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any signal!

[The_Wretched]

I was playing at church once and had my rat turned on by mistake. i was tuning and when i turned the tuner off... i was supposed to play a soft arpeggio. it wasn't!!! lol. it was during a quite and slow song. soft part of the song... everyone looked back.

[Franklin]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize. I just kept thinking man my tone is really bright tonight and I've turned my treble down to zero! Even the bass player noticed. And yeah, we had a good laugh about it after.
You're not alone.

Yup. I was stoned. The stage was dark. We had 5 mins to set up and go. My wah pedal was on, but I couldn't tell what the issue was as it was a back line amp. So I turn the tone knob all the way off as we're playing I'm trying to fiddle with the amp, sweat pouring down.

That 5 mins before I figured out what was wrong was really scary.

Drugs are bad people, okay? :bong

[mikendzel]

I've done everything from stepping on the wrong pedal (or more than one pedal at the same time) to forgetting to hit the standby switch, to forgetting to plug my speaker cab in. I've cranked on the wrong tuner trying to tune on the fly. I've jumped off a drum riser and managed to unstrap my guitar mid air. I've pulled my amp/keyboard amp/cymbal stand over with my guitar chord. Choked on chewing gum while singing a song. Tripped. Hit the bass players headstock with my tooth. Dropped my only pick through a dock. Shocked myself. You name it....

If you play enough shows, you're bound to do something stupid! Don't forget to have a laugh about it! When you stop laughing, hang it up.

Once our acoustic player asked if a wire was good, and I joking replied to lick it and see. POP!!!! I still laugh thinking about that one!!!!

[tonegangster]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize. I just kept thinking man my tone is really bright tonight and I've turned my treble down to zero! Even the bass player noticed. And yeah, we had a good laugh about it after.
You're not alone.

:agreeI did this also. Left it on in the treble position and could not figure out why I would squeel in front of the monitors.:bonk

[FenderBigot]

I did the wah thing once too... now I have a wah with a bright green LED on both sides of it!

I just redid my entire board putting more space between all of my pedals... I have stepped on a wrong switch in the past and felt like an unprofessional hack because of it... not gonna happen again!

[The Kid]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize. I just kept thinking man my tone is really bright tonight and I've turned my treble down to zero! Even the bass player noticed. And yeah, we had a good laugh about it after.
You're not alone.

I've done that with the wah! Never for a whole set though. There's always that confused few seconds...

[buddyboy69]

I use a boss me50. If you step on the left 2 at the same time it goes to the tuner and there is no sound. If you hit the 2 right ones at the same time it goes to preset mode and the preset is blaring loud. Hitting the tuner happens all the time when im going for the overdrive. Actually one of the reasons i want to go back to boxes. Going to hit that o.d. for a screaming solo and suddenly theres nothing there, is pretty anticlimactic. followed by the stumbling to get it back on and i look like im an idiot. Thanks boss.

[Andy J.]

Yep, the wah thing sounds familiar - only in rehearsals though, thankfully never at a gig.

One previous version of my board had my tuner right next to the boost switch on my Box of Rock... Not for long: sudden silences instead of a loud guitar leads was not an arrangement idea that neither I nor my bandmates appreciated.

Oh, and this: I've jumped off a drum riser and managed to unstrap my guitar mid air.I've jumped off a drum riser and managed to break my ONLY strap in two - played the rest of the gig with one leg on a monitor.

I've ALSO jumped off a drum riser and torn the ACL in my knee - good thing it was during the encore: played the remainders of the song lying on my back and afterwards told bandmates to take away my guitar, leave me lying there and get me a bag of ice for the knee...

[Occam]

I've had pedals on and been "damn, why is my tone so different today" till it finally hit me I have a fuzz on but my guitar volume down.
I've also come really close to falling down when trying to hit a pedal...it's bound to happen one day.

[cheameup]

not so much with pedals but with pick ups selection a few times in gigs , going from the clean ,apreggio ,neck pu part of the song into the 1st chugg bridge PU heavy section of the night , smack into channel 3 on my amp, the drummer,bass and singer all go off into outer space and I have a medium overdrive sound instead of a huge recto sound. damn my bridge pu is turned down to 2

[kstrat62]

Don't try to tune with your wah on, it's not real accurate! Done it. Another time, 1st song, I'm supposed to play this HUGE distorted riff. The drummer counts off 1,2,3,4, and nothing comes out of my amp. We try again, nothing. I check the standby switch this time, all good. DUH!!!

[Porrig]

Yup - sometimes it turns out pretty good. Other times, not so much.

[chrisrnps]

Took the guitar amp out of bypass, ready to go....

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE....

:eek:

What is that HORRIBLE SCREECHING? Augh!

Amp broken? Short somewhere? What the...

Bad cable? Other bad cable? No...

Why does it sound like some sort of oscilla...

Wha...

Fuzzgod II "Wrath" button engaged, doing its self-oscillation trick like it's supposed to, working exactly as designed?

Ah, right. Sorry 'bout that, folks. :facepalm

[bilbal]

my tuner (mute) is next to my boost... it happens :)

[mmolteratx]

Used to happen all the time at gigs. I try to space everything out now. The ultra compact pedalboards don't work for me.

[sodapopinski]

yup, it sucks when it happens. I have my tuner connected to my solo channel, I would sometimes forget to turn the tuner off so when I would switch to the solo channel it would all be muted.

[JTJ]

I was playing at church once and had my rat turned on by mistake. i was tuning and when i turned the tuner off... i was supposed to play a soft arpeggio. it wasn't!!! lol. it was during a quite and slow song. soft part of the song... everyone looked back.
Thats where I was playing when my fuzz erupted lol.
I have also done it where I could not get any sound at all and been checking all my cables and stuff and it ended up being my volume pedal was turned down. That was a pretty good one looking back. I now have tape across the top of it saying "place foot here"

[BluesHarp]

I've done everything from stepping on the wrong pedal (or more than one pedal at the same time) to forgetting to hit the standby switch, to forgetting to plug my speaker cab in. I've cranked on the wrong tuner trying to tune on the fly. I've jumped off a drum riser and managed to unstrap my guitar mid air. I've pulled my amp/keyboard amp/cymbal stand over with my guitar chord. Choked on chewing gum while singing a song. Tripped. Hit the bass players headstock with my tooth. Dropped my only pick through a dock. Shocked myself. You name it....

If you play enough shows, you're bound to do something stupid! Don't forget to have a laugh about it! When you stop laughing, hang it up.

Once our acoustic player asked if a wire was good, and I joking replied to lick it and see. POP!!!! I still laugh thinking about that one!!!!

Pop! :facepalm Thats SO funny! :rotflmao


I have left my volume pedal down.. wah engaged.. tuned the guitar with a univibe on :messedup, and stepped on my cable to either break it or unplug it.

I have dropped a mic and banged my head on something picking it.. ive tripped coming up on stage. Ive belched into the mic while play harmonica ( knew I shouldnt have eaten that burrito 20 minutes before :puh ).

I had a mic shock me while playing harp into it.. every time my hands hit the mic it shocked me and I jumped. Sound guy couldn't figure out what was wrong so I did the whole song that way.. must have been funny as hell to the front row everytime I jumped.. lmao

The best funny Ive seen was when I was a kid.. this fiery minister was preaching hell, fire, & brimstone.. he backed up mid sentence to fall backwards over the 2 tier keyboard rack and from there into the drum set. I remember looking into the pile of drums to see his legs and hearing him say without missing a beat.. "oooh.. I feel the Lord!! " and then he finished the last bit of his sermon while acting like he meant to do that.

I remember laughing a hair too loud for a second :omg and having my mom shoot me a dirty look.. good times. :D

[L_Totti]

I've cranked on the wrong tuner trying to tune on the fly.


It has happened to me too :facepalm:facepalm:facepalm:facepalm

[smallstoner]

I played half a set once with my wah turned on and didn't realize.

This happens to me more often than I want to admit, although it usually only takes a minute or two to figure out what's going on. Still embarrassing. I really need to get a wah with a light on it.

[The_Wretched]

Another funny one... i've stepped on my input cable from guitar to first pedal in chain... no sound. Until I see it barely plugged out... not fun!

[frontingbravery]

yup! stepped on a muff once during a ballad. I've been trying to forget ever since.

[yerbluesrob]

I love it when I spend 15 minutes trying to figure out why I've got no sound until I realize my guitar isn't plugged in. Wah Wah Wah......

[mcdonaldkd]

my tuner (mute) is next to my boost... it happens :)

This just happened to me. My tuner is below my boost, and I missed the boost and clipped the tuner. Things got real quiet, real quick.

[TheReverendCommon]

I've done everything from stepping on the wrong pedal (or more than one pedal at the same time) to forgetting to hit the standby switch, to forgetting to plug my speaker cab in. I've cranked on the wrong tuner trying to tune on the fly. I've jumped off a drum riser and managed to unstrap my guitar mid air. I've pulled my amp/keyboard amp/cymbal stand over with my guitar chord. Choked on chewing gum while singing a song. Tripped. Hit the bass players headstock with my tooth. Dropped my only pick through a dock. Shocked myself. You name it....

If you play enough shows, you're bound to do something stupid! Don't forget to have a laugh about it! When you stop laughing, hang it up.

Once our acoustic player asked if a wire was good, and I joking replied to lick it and see. POP!!!! I still laugh thinking about that one!!!!

i've also bled out on stage due to a wrong step... and i totally agree, you play on stage long enough, you will do something wrong, best advice is to laugh about it... it WILL happen

[rsm]

nah, my tech does all the changes for me...

j/k

not since going to a Nova System or G-System rig, easy to see what is on and off, and current status just by looking (with all the lights). though early on I did forget (once) to change the input level for a different guitar and didn't know wtf was up for awhile (no clipping as that would have been obvious, just enough to throw off the sound a bit too much). now I have sticky notes with the levels in the guitar cases where I can see them easily, and I can navigate to set them fairly fast - which if not careful is another chance to mess something up too.

[Dashface]

For the Floyd act I've always had to have a reversed wah ready to go to make the seagull noise in Echoes... I was always terrified I'd accidentally kick it on and cause an ear-shattering squawk.

...Eventually I put it in its own bypass loop so I don't have to worry :D

[josh_w]

Definitely! Recently though I've been holding my tap too long and sending it into looper mode when I'm simply trying to just tap in the tempo. Super annoying!

[6Tones]

I left a pedal ON when it should have been OFF.
Worse :)

[The Kid]

yup! stepped on a muff once during a ballad. I've been trying to forget ever since.

If you play a ballad correctly, the muff should come after...

[jazzfromhell]

I've done the wah-thing and I've probably hit a few pedals by mistake but easily the biggest cock-up of my playing career was playing a VERY wrong chord during a very delicate intro in front of 60.000 people.

The song starts with the other guitarist playing a short line with a clean tone which is solidly in the key of Am, and at the end of that line Im supposed to come in with an equally clean, simple open Am chord. No problem, we've played this song hundreds of times. The song was also a little bit famous at the time and we had done a video of it so quite a few people had heard it (at least those in the European metalscene around 2001).

Now, he plays his line and I play a confident, rock-solid.....E major chord!!!!!!!!!
The whole band and parts of the audience stares at me in disbelief for a second before breaking out in a laughing attack.
I felt a bit silly. I remember thinking something along the lines of "Lord, now is a good time to strike me down".....

[teleclem]

That's why wahs should have LEDs haha

[matthornet]

Yes... I stepped on the boost into a clean solid state amp instead of the drive at the beginning of a solo... imagine the loud clean sound playing the lead solo. Nightmare.

[nevernamed]

I too have been guilty of leaving the wah on, wondering why things sounded off.

[New_Guy]

I use a midi controller and instant access switches so I kinda turn stuff on and off like on a pedalboard. My main controller shows the song name on a display while my old unit just says 9 8 4...

My main controller broke a switch during rehersal and I ended up on stage with the old one. We started a ballad where I play a clean intro. When singer and bassist come in I normally activate my mod pro which gives me a nice boss dimension chorus emulation with 20% wet. In this case I happened to be in the wrong preset so what i really called up was a vibe with 8 semitones range set to 100% wet. I normally use that in solos to emulate the steve v ai whammy attacks which I can't do with my vintage trem...

Audience like o__o
singer like o__o
bassist like x__x

I'm like "crap I need to fix myself" :drown
Nervous as I was first I muted myself, hit a wrong preset switch then, turning on distortion without me realizing.
Then I thought "ah, the dimension chorus" ...

What happened then I call "return of the vibrato from hell" at full throttle...
I paniced and moved towards my rig, with the speakers next to it, causing feedback like crazy

singer like x__x
bassist like :facepalm
audience like :messedup

We started all over then...