Ideas to help condense set up/tear down time

[KaosCill8r]

If you are taking longer than the drummer, then it's too long. I read about a bigband drummer switching to trombone because it was taking too long to tear down. He said by the time he was finished, the rest of the band had picked up all the hot chicks and fucked off.

[waltdogg]

1. Keep everything in one bag or case

2. Keep each type of cable together

3. Keep your cables coiled and tied

4. Connect your rig the same way every time

5. Know your pedal and amp settings

Between keeping all my cables neat and stacked in the order they'll be coming out of my pedal case and not fiddling with settings beyond adjusting a skewed knob here or there I can stack up my two cabs, two heads and get my board going in 10 minutes tops. Same for tear down; cables always get unplugged, coiled, tied, and stacked in the same order as before, amps and cabs are moved off to the side in 10 minutes as well.

[rfurtkamp]

Get video of your setup/teardown, and watch it.

Chances are you're doing something significantly slowly that will be obvious if you analyze it like a performance you can improve.

Same way people look at their golf swing or whatever.

[Iommic Pope]

honestly the best trick I've learned in like 15+ years of playing shows with crappy cumbersome gear? TUNER LAST IN THE CHAIN.

Takes about twenty seconds for my amp to warm up. While that's happening, I'm tuning. If nothing's going through to my tuner then I know there's a problem with my pedals or guitar.

That's actually a really good idea.
I remember having a patch cable fuck out on me one night years ago.
That would have streamlined the troubleshooting.

yeah the only thing more painful than a long set up time is the band before you take ages to pack off stage. The number of bass rigs I've moved myself while some guy stands there talking to his friends...

Fuck.
That is lameballs.

[daseb]

Yeah its something I always do. Some people reckon it doesnt tune as accurately or whatever but I mean, for the kind of music I play doubt anyone notices.

Keeping stuff in the order it comes out and goes back in is a really good call too.

I keep spare extension cords and leads and stuff in my car too. Anything else would get stolen.

[Disarm D'arcy]

Velcro cable ties are the most significant improvement I've made over the years.

[fever606]

Lots of good suggestions so far... Years of shows and rigging taught me the only thing I can think to add right now: consider coiling you cables over/under... it takes no more time to pack up and takes less time to deploy because you're not sitting there unspooling your 20' of cable back to the amp one handful at a time. This, coupled with velcro cable ties (double D knows what's up) will make you the cable ninja.

Oh, and one last thought... give some consideration to cable length. Not in the "tone suck" sense, but more in the "if I stand in one place and don't jump around then do I really need a 15' cable going from my guitar to my pedalboard?" sense. Less cable equals less time.

[skullservant]

Good suggestions all, I appreciate it.

I have been using cable ties for about the past month or so and it has really helped significantly.
I also have a splitter first thing in my chain that goes to my tuner, so I know if the tuner isn't picking anything up its either my cable or my guitar.

I think step one for me is going to be going back to a pedal train and making that pedal train a hub for everything else, so it's literally plug in the board, plug in the guitar to the board, and plug the amp into the board. In the same sense I can also make myself a footswitch for the science and just run another cable from the pedal board to the head instead of having the footswitch that came with it. That would save some time.

Part of my load in dilemma is that the cases for my EGC's are flight cases so they don't have shoulder straps, and I kind of refuse to use a soft case with them which leads me with 2 total trips to the car- guitar/pedalboard and head/cab.

Part of me considered going the shiv combo route but I really refuse to spend anymore cash on amps. My favorite load ins have been combo amp in one hand, pedalboard in other hand, amp on back.

[goroth]

Dude, just get a v-cart or similar.

[skullservant]

Yassss

[AxAxSxS]

Velcro cable ties are the most significant improvement I've made over the years.

This.

Also staging ahead of time and getting gear ready to go is crucial.
We normally bounce about 15 minutes into the band before us's set, and start unloading and setting up drum stands and whatever. Any thing that can be done ahead of time off the stage. For larger venues that have a gear room, we load in early and do the same thing but in the storage. We help the band before us off if they need it.

[rfurtkamp]

With the level of gear you're talking about (flight case stuff), no hand cart is suicidal. And get the band to help you like they help the drummer.

[waltdogg]

Also. Find out if one of your pedals works like a power brick/splitter. Lots of tuner pedals do that now. This way if you're still One-Spoting it, you just have to find the top of your tuner instead of the daisy chain end. Then daisy chain from your tuner. This cut down on time not having to fiddle with the end of the adapter making sure it was angled in a way that it would not get stepped on because the female end of a daisy chain is straight and the male end of a One-Spot is angled.

[skullservant]

Forgot to time my setup yesterday, but tearing it down and packing it up exactly how I assembled it only took 5:30, which is a lot better than I thought. Working on getting power supply so that I can have one less thing to plug in. Junction box that I am planning also will make things easier

[D.o.S.]

Dont play live.