Here is a good video on how to use a volt ohm meter. He explains in one example 4:34 how to test for continuity. (circuit has little or no resistance between two points)

This is very important when troubleshooting a circuit. One example is you might find ” a short” which is slang that means the same thing as no resistance. And you may find it where you shouldn’t find it. You will know this either by experience or by looking at a wiring diagram/schematic.

A good example of a “short” where it shouldn’t be is you touch one lead to a part of a transistor (the collector) and touch the other lead to the emitter of the transistor while it’s out of the circuit and you get zero ohms. You have a shorted transistor. (we are talking a silicone pnp or npn).

Most musicians starting out are not going to be testing transistors, they will be using a meter to check for open guitar cords, mic cables, guitar wiring, etc. The same principle still applies only from a different direction. If you place one lead on a guitar cable tip, go to the other end and place the meter lead on the tip and get zero ohms, you have a good connection. If it’s open (infinity or no beep if set to continuity).

It’s all the same theory, one is simple to understand, as you move in to components other things come in to play but it will still boil down to these simple tests.

Watch this video, he will touch on the different parts of the meter and what it does.

Here’s a good basic video on multimeters. If you don’t have one yet I always recommend buying the best one you can afford. You can’t go wrong with Fluke. They are like black face Fender amps, know of a bad one? :) My Fluke, I can throw across the room, have it on ohms and mistakenly test an AC wall source…still works fine!  Here’s a good deal on a Fluke. .

The cheap ones are not so forgiving. I’m not familiar with the one he shows in the video, here’s the link if you want to check it out.  It has nice reviews.

If you already have one and want to make sure you know how to use it properly, videos like this are a good resource.

Video Transcript

this is just a quick video will show you how to test the speaker see if it’s working or not the speaker is committed a small guitar amp it’s hard to wash 8-inch so first of all we want to respect the colon checked there’s no rips or tears check that middle part isn’t broken then next we’re going to use a multimeter and test the resistance across the back to terminals so we put her two probes the multimeter when we’re on the resistance setting on to the back to terminals and we can see that we’re getting well some limited resistance I mean there’s no connection to the wire inside the voice coil is actually burnt toast so we’re going to talk to speaker for one that works just to show you what the reading should be for native speaker we should expect something in the region similar to that in a 6.9 arms other speaker so that was actually but if you don’t have a multimeter i’m going to show you another way to do it if you have will say a nine volt battery you can put it across the two terminals and the speakership column should move either in rush there’s a good voice columns here you can see nothing as tall as happening so I’m testing the good one in here both that noise can see that the corn is moving out whenever we have a little bit of characters so the two quick questions to test the speaker

Think of your repair gear like having good music equipment. Sure, you can show up at the recording date with a cheap guitar with bad keys and get it done. But you know if you have a quality guitar with good tuners, you will be able to concentrate on your recording, not your equipment. Get good repair equipment right away and it will take care of you for years. Not only for gear but around the house also!