What Are Some Noob or Bad Habits Y'all Have with Playing/Gear?

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I hold my pick in a weird way which has probably held back my skill with certain techniques

Way too late for me to bother trying to re-learn "the proper way" now
I have slowly been working on this one as well.
 
Effects send and return. I literally always hook them up reversed, first

It's like Schrodinger's Loop, there's a quantum superposition that is always incorrect
i put a piece of red tape on both ends of the return cable for this very reason - red\return
 
when playing live i get too focused on my board to the point that i'm almost shoegazing. need to work harder on crowd focus. and playing. my playing sucks. but really the crowd thing.
 
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when playing live i get too focused on my board to the point that i'm almost shoegazing. need to work harder on crowd focus. and playing. my playing sucks. but really the crowd thing.

I found the more difficult the music, the more I had to focus on playing vs the crowd.

One of the reasons I liked playing hair metal, rhythm guitar, and occasionally lead vocals back in the day...the music was easier than prog or death; having to sing helped me keep track of where I was in the song, and having to talk to the crowd forced me to work on it. It's not as easy as it looks, good frontmen just make it look easy...

One time I got in trouble, I thought I had heard the bass player had broken up with his girlfriend, so at the end of the first set, I announced something like, "We're going on break, get some more drinks and food, and be sure to stick around for our next set. Hey ladies, I have some good news that many of you have been waiting to hear; our bass player (first name) is newly single and looking to mingle.' I left the stage for our break. Turns out it wasn't true, and his longtime girlfriend was at the show with her friends...bass player was pissed, and wanted to kick my ass; it was the drummer who just got dumped by his girl...so I had to correct it in our second set, that it was our drummer not the bass player who was single. The bass player and his girlfriend never liked me after that. I may have some of the details wrong, but that was basically it. The drummer hooked up with a new girl after the show.
 
I have left my amp on several times, in standby, after taking an intermission from Madison Square Bedroom. I get focused on something else, wake up the next day and realize I was burning tube heaters all night. Don't drink and jam kids. :no:
Been there done that after drinking and jamming in the basement (arena) LOL! Only to notice a day or two later the amp was still on standby. Still get confused when using the amp's loop inputs as well.
 
I didn't know that was a problem. I use my middle finger all the time. 🖕 What other finger would I use?



Better than sharp I guess :dunno:

But seriously, if you are going to use a 9v, at least get something decent like Energizer or maybe Duracell. Better tonez with Energizer for sure.
I have a collection of NOS batteries. I roll them in pedals for the best tone.
 
OK here’s one: Turn on the amp (still on Standby), get all your cabling/etc set up, tune up the guitar…and then proceed to play acoustically for 30+ minutes before you decide to take a quick break to pee/beer/etc. I never even took it off fuckin Standby. Dumbass.
 
Everytime I change my G-String, I walk out of the laundry room donning a "Tonez" G-String and forget my guitar needs the update, not me.
 
OK here’s one: Turn on the amp (still on Standby), get all your cabling/etc set up, tune up the guitar…and then proceed to play acoustically for 30+ minutes before you decide to take a quick break to pee/beer/etc. I never even took it off fuckin Standby. Dumbass.

30 minutes?
I'm pretty much deaf and would have noticed way before that long :ROFLMAO:
 
when playing live i get too focused on my board to the point that i'm almost shoegazing. need to work harder on crowd focus. and playing. my playing sucks. but really the crowd thing.
Some good advice I got a long time ago was to find someone way in the back of the room barely paying attention, and try to make eye contact with them. I always try to do that a few times at every gig, and I feel like it makes a difference.
 
One thing that drives me nuts... recording in my tight shitty space, rolling my chair just a little here and there doing my thing only to find out later my chair rolled over my good fkn cable, not once but over and over... hate that shit.

As for bad habit, definitely leaning my guitar up against this or that "real quick" then walk away... I still do it... just not a good idea though lol
 
One thing that drives me nuts... recording in my tight shitty space, rolling my chair just a little here and there doing my thing only to find out later my chair rolled over my good fkn cable, not once but over and over... hate that shit.

As for bad habit, definitely leaning my guitar up against this or that "real quick" then walk away... I still do it... just not a good idea though lol
Definitely relate to this one.
 
I pulled a noob move yesterday afternoon. Plugged in, turned the amp on and the sound was sputtering in and out. I thought shit a tube or something must be failing. Went to a different amp and same shit. I started checking cables, connections, etc. After diagnosing for a while I finally found the problem. My noise gate was turned all the way up. :LOL:
 
This only happened once, but when I had Fryette loop mod my D60, at one point later on the "loop defeat" switch got flipped on accident

If that switch is defeated and you plug anything at all in to the fx loop, you get no sound at all. Thought my amp had died; felt really dumb when I called them and they asked me to check the switch lmao
 
Man…there is LOT that I can relate to here!

I’ve had the no sound coming from my amp thing so many times that it turned out to be on stand by….more times than I can count and once, recently, I troubleshot every connection before I realized the guitar was not plugged in!

As far as noob things I do when playing, I put my fretting hand pinky behind the fretboard all the time. I know you aren’t supposed to, but have been doing it for over 40 years at this point.

I also switch the angle of my pick when doing fast alternate picking to almost perpendicular to the strings….been doing this forever too.

Neither has hindered me doing what I love best…thrashy rhythm, but I know I do it wrong.
 
Not realizing the guitar has a FR and turning pegs instead of fine tuners at GC. Bonking my headstock on .. everything. Accidentally launching my new favorite pick into the eternal ether
 
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