Playing in the sun

[The Ozzk]

I figure I'd share my experience since I never had that problem before, and to be honest I was completely oblivious to it.

Most of the time we guitar players play at night or in a shaded area. But I wasn't prepared for what happened a couple of weeks ago at an outdoors gig.

The sun directly above us made my pedalboard completely invisible .

What I mean by that is that with the direct sunlight it was impossible to know what was on and what wasn't... tuning??? forget about it... The only pedal I could tell was on or off was an OFA modded Boss (blue LED)...

Like the warrior that I am, I adapted pretty quickly. Short tuning by ear, used only a wah, the OFA, and delay at tap tempo... Was that more than enough??? absolutely.... But it wasn't an ideal situation.

I wasn't prepared for that and I hate to be unprepared.

So if you are playing in the sun, especially in the summer when the penetration angle of the sun is close to 90 degrees, protect your pedalboard with some sort of shade so you are able to see what's going on. I wish I had been aware of that. Gig turned out awesome BTW

 

[jon1917]

Live in Ireland so don't have a clue what your on about.

 

[trobdcso]

Live in Ireland so don't have a clue what your on about.

Ha ha ha.

 

[Nudge68]

same happened to me once, great that you overcame, got it together and delivered

cheers,

Matt.

 

[HOT TUBES 70]

BTW .... in most of my modded pedals i swap out the 3 mm led for the larger 5 mm LED , and reduce the resistor size to help make them brighter for reason's like Ozzk has just explained ...


i do what i can eh !!!

 

[SuperBeaver]

Live in Ireland so don't have a clue what your on about.

Northern Ireland's just as bad. More likely the rain would fry your power supply...

 

[HOT TUBES 70]

The rain thing ... i can't help you with , your on your own there !! Ha !!!!

 

[Reckless_Life]

I thought every rockstar had a pair of sunglasses?

 

[80s dude]

You can also put in white LEDs.... them suckers are BRIGHT!

 

[bvoris]

The rain thing ... i can't help you with , your on your own there !! Ha !!!!

No pedal condoms?

 

[HOT TUBES 70]

No pedal condoms?

I'm working out a deal with DUREX right now !!

 

[Jason77]

Yeah, LEDs and sun don't mix well. That said, if you're playing on a stage that has a decent lighting setup and the whole stage gets flooded in red light, you can forget about seeing your pedals LEDs then also.

 

[Adwex]

I figure I'd share my experience since I never had that problem before, and to be honest I was completely oblivious to it.

Most of the time we guitar players play at night or in a shaded area. But I wasn't prepared for what happened a couple of weeks ago at an outdoors gig.

The sun directly above us made my pedalboard completely invisible .

What I mean by that is that with the direct sunlight it was impossible to know what was on and what wasn't... tuning??? forget about it... The only pedal I could tell was on or off was an OFA modded Boss (blue LED)...

Like the warrior that I am, I adapted pretty quickly. Short tuning by ear, used only a wah, the OFA, and delay at tap tempo... Was that more than enough??? absolutely.... But it wasn't an ideal situation.

I wasn't prepared for that and I hate to be unprepared.

So if you are playing in the sun, especially in the summer when the penetration angle of the sun is close to 90 degrees, protect your pedalboard with some sort of shade so you are able to see what's going on. I wish I had been aware of that. Gig turned out awesome BTW

Same thing happened to me once, I had to get on my knees and block the glare with my hand to see the tuner.
It was a pain in the ass, and I looked like an idiot.

 

[diesect20022000]

No pedal condoms?

i've actualy used real condoms on my boards before live because we got pretty drunk and rowdy "back" then

can't say how well it'd work for rain but it entertained the crowd while i set up and it worked wonders for beer splashes and the occasional urine.