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the worst setup u ever used! (pg. 2)
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| Nemesis44 |
The worst setup I ever played on has to be the worst nightmare for most of the DJs here.
Two Techs Mk2 of different colours (Ok that's not a big deal) both with eratic pitch so that the decks did not keep the same speed. One had pitch adjuster sticking the whole time due to beverages that had been spilt on it. The deck spindle on this deck was slightly bent too so rather than spinning it sort of wobbled.
The mixer was a Blue dog with a headphone jack snapped in the phones socket. No EQs and no knobs on the mixer and just about everything that could bleed was. I did manage to get the headphone jack out only to find that the cueing was not loud enough.
They had very cleverly put a sub woofer type thing as a monitor so all you got was this rumble. I ended up matching on the fly with no phones which was actually quite a useful experience.
The natives were pretty damn hostile, one girl in particular said she was going to bottle me if I didn't play Ultra Nate - Free for her (which had been played before anyways although not by me). A group of beer boy bedroom DJs who could all do better and wanted to have a go. Then got hostile because I said no.
I felt like pinching myself to see if I would wake up but no such luck.
Needless to say, acheived one of the worst nights ever technically but fortunately everyone was so drunk they probably don't remember.
They also underpaid me.
After that I told my agent that in no uncertain terms would I ever go back there. Although they did ask to have me back.
Nem rocks gently back and fourth comforting himself as he did not wish to recal this episode. ;)
Cheers
Nem |
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| Dj Thy |
You guys are all spoiled :D
Worst setup ever :
2 beltdriven turntables with reversed pitch (slider up = pitch up) that was not regular at all (imagine, jumps up to +2, back to -5 and up to +4 in one smooth motion of the slider). Incase you wonder, a JB Systems Disco2000. Noname needles who where bent. No need to say I didn't use the TT's
Mixer, no EQ, all the fader knobs were gone, only the metal attachs were there. 4 channel mixer, 2 channels working due to spillt cola over it. Mixer not cleaned, so sticky as hell. Headphone out only one side working, so not too much of a problem. Meters not working.
One double cdj, with one of the two decks crapped out. Display on the working deck not working. For the rest it was ok.
To replace the broken cd player. A third consumer players was added. A dvd player, no pitch. Pausing a track would result in skipping back to the start of the track. Starting time after pressing play, between 2 and 3 seconds.
Place : underground gig in untreated STONE cave. Reverb all over the place. No booth monitor. Booth was set in the worst spot you can imagine sonically : huge buildup of bass and cancellation of high freqs due to standing waves.
And you know what's worse? I had fun. The crowd was going mad (in the right way). All they cared was the music and the ambience, which was excellent.
It's when you live such humbling experiences that you really understand what dj'ing is all about imo : the music and the people loving it. |
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| Nemesis44 |
You think you had it bad... when I was young all of the promoters used to come and beat us just before a gig, and then threaten to do things to our families of we dared to beat match properly... :D j/k by the way...
| quote: | Originally posted by Dj Thy
It's when you live such humbling experiences that you really understand what dj'ing is all about imo : the music and the people loving it. |
Absolutely!
Cheers
Nem |
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| Freak |
one of the last times i did a party room in a club the muppet dj the nite before had snapped one of the cd trays off by walking into it:rolleyes: so only one cd tray was there.... he neglected to tell me this..
No turntables in that room either as it is purely used for party/girlie stuff..
A Formula sound mixer- i hate these with a passion
Doorman went and got his cd walkman- no im not joking- so i was using one cd walkman (ie- no cueing or pitch) and one half of a twin denon all nite (from 9:30 to 2:00am....)then the mic cable decided to break -:rolleyes: which is a pretty essential part of most commercial club nites- but especially a party room..normally it wouldnt be a problem as i carrry a spare cable- but formula sound in their wisdom decided to use jack plugs for mic inputs instead of XLRs -:rolleyes:
As i use 99% vinyl on a normal nite it pisses me off when i have dodgy turntables that kind of drift or blatantly dont hold pitch very well....even more annoying is when an earth comes loose or gets noisy.... that happened a few saturdays ago in front of 1600 people- so much crackling and noise you couldnt hear the tune..
or howabout the time (same club- 1600 people on a packed saturday nite) that the fire alarm from the bar upstairs which is linked to the clubs one (the club is three stories underground) decided to go off every 25 mins from 9pm to 3:am...when this happens it cuts the music channels on the mixer and only leaves the mic channels open- leading to awkward moments while they reset the fire alarm... was happening all nite.
Tonnes more horror stories- far too many to list- something normally goes wrong most weeks
Like i said, all adds to your experience and in the long run makes you a better dj as im sure nem will agree with. |
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| Dj Thy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nemesis44
You think you had it bad... when I was young all of the promoters used to come and beat us just before a gig, and then threaten to do things to our families of we dared to beat match properly... :D j/k by the way...
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I'm actually pretty huge, so they don't dare to threaten me :D
But you're right, some guys dare to ask you not to play too good when doing a warm up or so, cuz it could harm the reputation of the big star dj they paid a lot to bring in. |
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| Nemesis44 |
Hey Thy,
He he... there was kind of an irony in that as I too am well perhaps not huge in height but quite thick set. The main people that give me aggro is usually drunk women. Blokes don't give me any grief in most cases.
I have been in the same situation as you with regards to playing 'down' as it were. In the early days as a resident I used to be very respectful of the headliners and would always play music that said nothing about anything. I have lost a couple of residencies over pure DJ politics as the guys who would 'close the night' would often get intimidated by me. I like to try and mix well and harmonically, by doing that you can make quite an ordinary selection of records sound good.
Thankfully I get to headline a fair bit now and can play what I want.
It's worth keeping the parts of the night relevant though, so if you are a warm up DJ, play music that fits that part of the night. Not for the sake of the ego of the headliner but for the crowd. Often if it's too full on to start with people tend not to like it and get bored.
Hey Freak,
Aye, Nem agrees. I find though that when you feelance the problems as such are in most cases a headache for the residents and not you but there is always something. I have done my time in some more commercial clubs too (ex-1st Leasuire employee) and as such you tend to have more responsibility over what happens as it's 'your' club so to speak. Light Jocks seem to have it pretty bad too...
What never fails to amaze me though is how some people can get a 1200 into the state that they have. In some cases blatant deck abuse. Further more, how some clubs fail to do anything about it. This does tend to be the older generation of club owners though who think that people would come whatever you did and all you have to do is play a CD all night.
What would be really interesting is to hear would be horror stories of feuds between rival DJs... they can get really out of order and sometimes even cost a lot of money.
Cheers
Nemski |
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| Breeze |
| Worse set up was when i played on Monday night at a very nice club. but they had a ty mixer set up and the whole hour and a half my mix was dog ! It was just all bass sounding the moniters where all u can hear is bass not music . o well these things happen. |
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| Freak |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nemesis44
I have done my time in some more commercial clubs too (ex-1st Leasuire employee) and as such you tend to have more responsibility over what happens as it's 'your' club so to speak. Light Jocks seem to have it pretty bad too...
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lol
My wages are payed by luminar.....:tongue3 :crazy: i know exactly what you are on about....
Dj feuds....hmm nice topic....
as the business is largely built on backstabbing its common as you know..
one of the guys i used to warm up for took offence to me wanting work of my own and working towards that- final staw was when i was offered an xmas and new yrs eve that he thought should be his..havent spoken since...
To be honest its the one aspect of the business i hate the most- all the bitching and politics.
I just want to go in, play, do a good job and go home and leave all the bitching to other people.
hey nem- how did you break out of the commercial club scene into the non commercial scene if ya get what i mean...Something that interests me.
Pm me if youd rather keep it offline. |
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| djHollen |
| this has been the most interesting and enlightening threads ive ever read on TA. :nervous: |
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| vandit42 |
worst setup: my first setup.
i bought the stanton spincycle package. i thought it was such a great deal. headphones, 2 carts, 2 direct drive turntables, and a pretty good mixer.
the decks were two pieces of . they were the weakest direct drive turntables that i've ever used. i'm pretty sure there are some belt driven tables out there that have more torque than the str8-30s. the headphones looked like they came out of a cereal box. the mixer- that was the only thing that was descent.
bottom line: don't buy the stanton spincycle package. unless you don't really care (meaning you spin dj sammy and darude records) |
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| DJ Lazy |
The worst setup I ever used was Prodigy Childs old setup, of 2 Gemini XL500's mk2s, and a PMX 60 mixer...
Its not as bad as some of you guys have played on, but when any deck fluctuates, it doesn't matter whether they are technics or soundlabs, its still a pain in the ass... :rolleyes: |
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| Prodigy Child |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ Lazy
The worst setup I ever used was Prodigy Childs old setup, of 2 Gemini XL500's mk2s, and a PMX 60 mixer...
Its not as bad as some of you guys have played on, but when any deck fluctuates, it doesn't matter whether they are technics or soundlabs, its still a pain in the ass... :rolleyes: |
:sadgreen: ...thanks man...thanks.
Well hes right, they were , the decks were pretty good when I first got them, but then time took a toll on them, as for the mixer, I'm gonna smash it or use it as an anchor if I go fishing or some , but that setup is gone forever, long live my Techs and my sketchy DJX. |
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