Tools For Your Gear Bag

Recently, a visitor asked for a list of things for their gear bag.  I’ve listed what I use as well as what I found others using as seem to best fit the church environment.  Here you go;

Tools:

1. Swiss Army Knife or Leatherman multi-tool.  You just need something you can quickly put out of your pocket for tightening, cutting, etc.
2. Headphones.  I use my E2’s.  Some people like the can style.  Sometimes you need to isolate a sound so use headphones.
3. Tape measure.  If you need to measure small spaces and don’t have a measure on you, remember that your thumb width is ~1 inch and your finger width (fingers spread out – pinky tip to thumb tip) is about ~8 inches.
4. Phillips and regular head screwdrivers
5. Hex-head screwdrivers
6. Vise grips or crescent wrench.  Works also as weapon when threatening guitarist on stage to turn down their amp.
7. Small penlight for hard to reach places.
8. Large flashlight.

Tape:

1. White tape for writing on stuff like mixing boards.
2. Black Gaffer tape
3. Electrical tape

Adapters:

1. 1/8” stereo jack to ¼” stereo plug adapter
2. ¼” stereo jack to 1/8” stereo plug adapter
3. Dual-RCA to Mini-TRS cable
4. 3-prong to 2-prong electrical adapter (NOT FOR LIFTING GROUND)

Equipment:

1. SPL meter
2. Multi-cable tester.  I use the Ebtech.  Prices vary by brand.  Ebtech gives a great display as far as pin errors.
3. Soldering kit
4. Edison outlet tester

Other:

1. A pad of paper and pen/pencil
2. Black Sharpie marker
3. Calculator
4. Leather gloves; useful for load-ins and load-outs.
5. Music CD’s that fit the genre of music.  If you need to fill some dead air with music, such as time to solve a technical problem, you’ve got something to play.
6. USB flash drive.  Guest speakers bring laptops and stuff comes up where a flash drive would be easier than “is there some way we can connect to the church’s network?”  You might want to keep a spare in the sound booth that you only use to transfer files so you can easily clean if a virus arises.