GEAR – Part 2: Borrowing Gear

When you play shows, sometimes you borrow gear to make things run smoother. When you’re recording, you may want to borrow gear to get a specific sound. This is a great practice that can save time and money for everyone involved as long as you don’t fuck with the gear you are sharing. I’ll break it down into some common areas of gear sharing:

Drum Kit: When you’re using someone else's kit, you should be using your own breakables, i.e. snare drum, cymbals, kick pedal (anything that will get a fuck load of wear and tear during the course of a show or recording session). As a side note to the front stage players, don’t jump off the front of the fucking kick drum when it isn’t your drummer’s kit. Use your god-damn brain.

Amps/Speaker cabinets: Please, for the love of all that is holy, check your wattage and ohm settings for compatibility between amps and cabinets. Having shit mismatched can really fuck things up. If you aren’t sure what any of that means, you probably shouldn’t borrow someone’s stuff, ‘cause you might fuck it up. This applies even more so to any people traveling overseas. Read this.

Those are the two most common categories for sharing, but there are a couple others that occur occasionally:

Guitars: I will usually avoid asking to borrow a guitar the way I avoid a used condom on the sidewalk. If you must, then make sure you follow these rules:

*Don’t fuck with the tuning – I don’t mean don’t tune it. In live situations, don’t change the overall tuning of the guitar, ie. Put it in Drop D or tune it a half step down. That shit can fuck with the intonation of the guitar, and it’s not fair to the owner, especially if they are also going to be using it that night. When borrowing for recording, you have a bit more leeway, as long as you give the guitar back to the owner in the shape you received it.

*Don’t beat the guitar up - It’s not yours, asshole.

*If you break a string, replace it.

Snare drums: This is particularly shitty. It is by far the most abused piece of gear on stage, and it’s only a matter of time until that skin breaks. The same rules for borrowing a guitar apply to this:

*Don’t fuck with the tuning – For live shows, little tweaks are ok, any overall tone change is not. Same as above for recording. Just get it back to the owner the way you got it.

*Don’t beat it up more than you have to.

*If you break the skin, replace it.

This last rule actually applies to most every situation of borrowing gear: If you break it, fix it or replace it. I know this sucks. I’ve had to do it. Even if it was random and not necessarily your fault, you are still responsible for any damage while it’s under your care.

Next week: Some more stuff about things.