Backup Equipment

I have had a number of problems with keyboards over the years, but never had a failure at the gig (yet). However, I am often concerned as to what I would do. I have recorded all the accompaniments for the songs I do, and carry them on my iPhone, loaded in BackTrax. Plugging my iPhone into my PA system, I could then sing along to these tracks in the event of a total failure.

However, when I started using just the onboard speakers of my Pa900 for small jobs, I wondered what I would do. The Mackie SRM150 is a great solution, and I now carry that with me whether I use it or not.

What precautions do you take?

All songs performed "recorded" and this took a while to do a few weeks in studio,on KB, Laptop, Smart Phone,Thumb Drive, mixer w/fx for vocals,...& I always have at least two powered speakers with me depending on the gig...so if anything occurs your backed up to continue the show.

I think of the most common thing to fail and I go from there. Most common, cables, then adaptors, then PA power.
I carry a plastic toolbox with extra wires, pedals ,adaptors, mic, and extension cords. I also carry a backup powered mixer. Small Carvin XP800. As for the keyboard , no. If that goes and I doubt it ever will, Its just going to be DJ time. I could do some Kareoke with recorded tracks but I'm just not comfortable doing that.
I still have the BK7M sitting around and thinking of selling it. Keeping it for a backup is probably not worth it. But then again at one point I did have 3 G1000's. Thinking it was going to be my forever board. HA!

I don't think it makes any sense duplicating your keyboard...maybe a similar board...as an example a Roland G70 and a BK9...or a PSR s950 and a Tyros2..

If you own a laptop, you have the best back up, no matter what fails for you..

As for sound systems...I have never had a single failure with my Cubes in 29 years, I only carry two for stereo..

Keyboard wise, the MS would not boot one night on stage and I didn't have a keypad to move the request for booting..

The band sound system had a tweeter blow out and was very evident..Good thing we are always in stereo (two units)..

Keyboard wise ..I always had more than one keyboard...not because I needed a backup....just that I wanted more than one..

Now that we all have smart phones..the show can always go on..I have 32 gigs of MP3's on board my phone and can go to you tube for any request....and voice recognition works great..I say the request and play the song..

On arranger jobs, I always have a 2nd keyboard on top for adding piano and/or bass parts in real time. I can always finish the job on that 2nd keyboard.

As far as amplification, I keep an old Peavy Minx in the car, and a Mixpad 9. If everything goes out, I put all inputs into the mixpad and that into the Peavy. If the job is big, I line out of the Peavy. If it is under 100 people, the Peavy does the job.

All associated back-up batteries, cords...even 3-prong adapters are in an emergency bag I have in the car.

Have had failures over the years, but have always been able to patch and limp through.

I would suppose that dining rooms-where I play the most, are easier to work with less equipment. In fact, I usually only add an arranger a couple of busy nights a week to add a little variety.

Whatever it takes...


Russ

I have a backup G70. Bought used at a great price (once upon a time, people were almost giving them away! LOL)...

But as I use that one keyboard for EVERYTHING, it made sense. I had a PCB failure in the early days of my G70, but fortunately I coaxed it to work for a week, while my local store I bought the G70 got spares. Turned out they couldn't really find what was wrong locally, so Roland sent ALL replacement boards for it, and the tech replaced out the lot just to make sure it was all good.

Even did that under warranty (which was only a week or so from running out!) and all I had to pay was the bench fee. Awesome service, Roland!

But it was a wakeup call for a backup...

Now I am transitioning to the BK-9, I'll probably sell one of the G70's and get another BK-9. If you base your ENTIRE show around one piece of gear, especially one that few stores stock, it pays to have a backup. I do keep recordings of all my songs on MP3's and CD's, should something go wrong on a gig, but so far, so good.

Plus, it's nice to have one in the house for playing around on, rehearsal and working out new stuff, while the other sits in the car ready to go... Just grab the USB stick and go!

I have backups to backup the backups - can't have too many backups.

Gary