# Musician electrocuted on stage



## JD (Nov 26, 2014)

Not good. What's worse is how the press covers such things-
*"but initial reports cited faulty wiring on a microphone as the cause of the electric shock."
*
What, were pins 2 & 3 reversed?

Report- http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/ne...er-getting-electrocuted-onstage-in-argentina/

Maybe I shouldn't say "what's worse." After all, being electrocuted counts as bad as it gets.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Nov 26, 2014)

Not first - posted about a minister who was electrocuted by mic and baptismal font a few years ago.


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## MNicolai (Nov 26, 2014)

There have been other incidents as well. Could be a small variety of causes. Possible he was in contact with something energized when he grounded himself with the mic. Couple old photos of him show him playing guitar, and certain styles of guitar amps under certain electrical conditions have been known in the past to generate potentially fatal shocks.

Mike Sokol has documented what is one of the more frequent causes of guitar-to-microphone shock hazards in this article. Another possible explanation is the ominous "death capacitor", a capacitor found in specific, older amplifiers, which may fail such that it energizes the chassis and subsequently the pickups on the guitar. Touch the pickups with one hand and put your lips on the microphone and bad things happens.


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## JD (Nov 26, 2014)

Yes, "The Capacitor of Death", as we used to call it, was very common on older tube amps. On the back there would be a "hum" or "ground" switch that would route the one lead to either side of the AC line cord depending on the setting of the switch. The other end of the cap went to the chassis. Usually something around .01 mfd. Didn't need to fail in order to give a good shock, and I knew more than one musician who would rub their strings against the mic to see if there were sparks before singing into it. Add a little sweat and you could really get whacked. You can always tell if a band has one because they will be popping the GFI's for stage power.


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## kenact (Nov 26, 2014)

I have to admit to INADVERTANTLY trying to electrocute my brother, many years ago. I had an old Ampeg Gemini VI Guitar Amp with the standby switch miswired (not by me). I would get a shock touching the strings of my guitar and my microphone, which was plugged into a small PA. I took the lazy man's approach andran a direct ground from my amp to the PA. My brother forgot to do that one night, and ended up on his butt as he was getting up to sing his first lyric. Fortunately, it was only the end of the NIGHT for him. I did fix the amp the next day.


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## AlexDonkle (Nov 27, 2014)

JD said:


> You can always tell if a band has one because they will be popping the GFI's for stage power.



GFCI's used for typical stage power? I always assumed those were limited to power in showrooms built around "wet" shows. Never seen them used on a normal stage, but they could certainly help prevent issues like this one.


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## venuetech (Nov 27, 2014)

A related thread
Musician severely shocked by microphone.

Also


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## JD (Nov 27, 2014)

AlexDonkle said:


> GFCI's used for typical stage power? I always assumed those were limited to power in showrooms built around "wet" shows. Never seen them used on a normal stage, but they could certainly help prevent issues like this one.


When it comes to live rock bands, somehow the stage always seems to end up wet 
I used to offer to do "cap-ectomies" for free for the bands I traveled with (Remove cap, replace power cable with 3 conductor/prong.) About half accepted the offer, but the other half refused and had concerns about it changing the sound of their amp. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water, as they used to say. With large tanks of water boiling for dry ice fog (the rage back in the day) I always used the precursor to GFCIs (the GFI) for stage power. 
"Hey, I got no power!?"..... "Flip your stinking hum switch."


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