Expensive Mistakes

A place to chronicle various dumbass maneuvers we occasionally pull from time to time.

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Welp I destoyed my new VT Bass DI already.

Plugged it in to my pedalboard PSU by feel, stupidly forgetting the PSU was upside-down from that perspective.

It survived a surprisingly long time at 18V :slight_smile:

Going to wait for it to stop smelling like burnt component and take it apart. Hopefully can fix it.

Time to order a new soldering station! I wanted one anyway, good time to order a Growling Krizzly kit too maybe.

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Do previous spouses count, or is this just about music gear?

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Should probably stick to gear because expensive spouse mistakes essentially have no upper bound on cost.

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Ouch :grimacing:

Doing fine so far as I wouldn’t count starting to play bass guitar as a mistake, even though it is expensive :sweat_smile:

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Ugh… see that is why I get sweaty hands every time I try to “fix” something hardware-related :man_shrugging:

But, I see a new thread coming up chronicling your repair approaches :smile:

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… oh man. The places this thread can go!!

Touring?
Being in a band??
Taking up music???

I jest, I jest.

I had an upright bass that I was renting from the college while I was there. I drove a Jeep Cherokee at the time (worst car I’ve ever owned).
I had to lay the bass on its back, and its headstock was so long it extended up between the seats with the scroll box (the headstock of an upright) resting on the panel between the front seats.
I drove home from a gig.
When I opened it up to practice it the next day the scroll box had snapped off where it joins the neck. The strings were loose and dangling in the gig bag. It was like a decapitated body. It was awful.
My bass teacher (also the head of the jazz department I was in) never let me forget that I cost the department a cool $2,000 for that fix.

But!
I’ve never put any weight against the scroll/peg box EVER again.
Support the weight under the back of the bass. I usually have 3-4 throw pillows in my car just in case I need to move an upright bass around.

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Somehow, the ambition must be not to feature in this thread at all :joy:

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I got two of those, stupid, stupid, stupid mistakes (well, got 3 great girls out of one of them, but now she wants me dead :wink:)

Ouch, @howard, so sorry to hear that, i was hoping for many more promising reviews.

Or at least I hope you can find one for another great deal. No luck here, best used price is around $170 right now, so my hunt may be a long one.

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The thing is awesome, highly recommended. I’m definitely going to try and fix it.

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GAH how awful!

Ok so far @Gio is winning :slight_smile:

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not so bad …

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I was kind of looking for an excuse. Also to buy a nice Hakko soldering iron, always kind of wanted one when I was last doing any electronic stuff.

Oh BTW @terb I saw this (suggested mod from the maker of the Krizzly):

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about soldering stations, I use a chinese Yihua 936 since a few years. works incredibly perfectly.

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I had one really similar to that one before getting rid of it when cleaning out unused stuff a few years back. I wish I’d kept it. A lot of really high quality and inexpensive electronics tools from China these days.

Went with a Hakko FX600 this time around.

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Glad to be winning at something.
Sad to be winning at this.

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This thread has great potential.

:rofl: :joy: :rofl:

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My most expensive mistake in music is not one that directly cost me money, but it indirectly changed the course of my life. It’s one of those things that you look back on and have to ask yourself how different your life might have turned out had you done it differently.

Some of you already know this story, since I have shared it previously. It’s something that I regret deeply…

As an adolescent, I wanted to play drums, but couldn’t afford lessons, and there was no way I would be allowed to have a drum kit in the house. I had natural rhythm and just needed an outlet.
When I started high school, I joined the band as a percussionist just for the purpose of getting drum lessons and access to drums and symbols so I could turn my rhythm into noise. In my mind, all the drummers have to do is make noise while all the other kids have to actually learn and play music. I was wrong in my thinking, of course.
The band director, Mr. Burton had different plans. He insisted that EVERYONE, including the percussionists must learn to read music and music theory. I belligerently refused. Mr. Burton sternly insisted. Little did I know at the time, the kind Mr. Burton was trying to give me a gift that I could cherish for the rest of my life… the gift of music.
That’s when I made the Expensive Mistake…
On a fall Chicago day, in the 3rd floor music room, with the windows open to let in the cool breeze, Mr. Burton admonished everyone, including the percussionists, to study the hard cover music theory textbook that had been provided to the band members. I stubbornly argued that drummers don’t need to know music theory (imagine this 14 year old trying to tell a professional musician what’s what in music). He gently argued back that yes indeed I should learn theory, and that it would serve me well in a musical career, regardless of what instrument I played.
I disagreed.
He insisted.
I stubbornly refused.
He insisted more sternly.
I flung the hard cover music theory textbook though one of the open 3rd story windows.
That’s the end of the story. I was out of the band, suspended from school for several days, and have not picked up a pair of drum sticks since. Who knows what direction my life could have gone if I had listened to Mr. Burton, who was just trying to help me.
Regrets,

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most expensive dumbass mistake I made, (besides my previous legal issues costing me 6 years of my life), musically, when I just had started playing bass, I traded a vintage 1969 Gibson EB-0, a bass I got from the guy who Made it himself here in kalamazoo, and I traded it for a schecter diamond series 4…plus I gave the guy my Gibson G-60 vintage tube amp…didn’t know what I had

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I believe it was almost 4 grand worth of equipment…for a 500 dollar bass…dumb

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