Went to a do last night...DJ's rig crashed

gjm · Post by **gjm** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:53 am

...because her laptop went into hibernation during the set. Lucky she had an mp3 player on hand. I had a little chuckle. I guess she was not paying that much attention to the crowd and her paying job for the night. If only I could make money that easily.

nbinder · Post by **nbinder** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:17 am

Making mistakes has nothing to do with not caring at all.

ubermnd · Post by **ubermnd** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:45 am

saw a similar cock-up once where the guy hadn't turned off his system sounds. there was an embarrassing few minutes where the windows 'donk' kept coming through the sound system really fucking loud, whilst he frantically tried to kill it.

bit of a schoolboy error really.

Da hand · Post by **Da hand** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:14 am

nbinder wrote:Making mistakes has nothing to do with not caring at all.

That is true, but then again her laptop went into hibernation. How long do you figure she didn't touch her laptop?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:57 am

Da hand wrote:
nbinder wrote:Making mistakes has nothing to do with not caring at all.
That is true, but then again her laptop went into hibernation. How long do you figure she didn't touch her laptop?

Anywhere between 1 minute and 3 hours, depending on the settings.

pepezabala · Post by **pepezabala** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:07 am

shit happens. We had it even worse one time: My mate had a replacement pc-laptop for a short time that would hum a loud brzzzzz when the power chord was plugged in - so we had to play with him on batteries. On one gig we made soundcheck, went away, came back to play and when the concert started he noticed that his machine was off and would not boot, because battery was without charge. haha. he would charge it for 20 minutes, then be able to play for 5-10 minutes.

Da hand · Post by **Da hand** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:46 am

He he, the buzz story made me think of when I bought my new laptop in August. Everything was fine at home, but when I brought it to my first gig the laptop / soundcard produced a buzz when it was plugged into the DJ mixer - no matter if the sound was on or not.

Luckily I had my vinyl with me as back up, but all my new stuff was in my Ableton set. All through my set I tried to figure out the buzz problem with the club tech and we finally solved it by bypassing the ground on the laptop power plug (my old laptop had a two-prong plug).

I got everything working in time to play the last song of my set from my laptop LOL.

nbinder · Post by **nbinder** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:53 am

Da hand wrote:
nbinder wrote:Making mistakes has nothing to do with not caring at all.
That is true, but then again her laptop went into hibernation. How long do you figure she didn't touch her laptop?

Three possibilities:
a) very very nervous
b) didn't know how to fix that
c) thought it wouldn't happen again if she just moved the mouse once in a while

Anyway looking back she will most probably also think that it was pretty silly, but in a stress situation you react different. Anyone ever really playing live with 3 hands of things to do at the same time knows what I mean. For some DJs playing 2 records at the same time is a similar challenge

rozling · Post by **rozling** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:58 am

Da hand wrote:and we finally solved it by bypassing the ground on the laptop power plug (my old laptop had a two-prong plug).

Just be careful about that - the ground is there for a reason (you not dying - my last DJ set ended up in my laptop taking a Bacardi & Coke bath). Use a ground loop isolator - I got one designed for use in cars for about €20.

Once I was doing my DJ thing and pulled off a nice intro* and my mate happened to be in the club. He ran up to give me mad props, and we were laughing about is when there was a loud "de-de-ding!!!" over the PA. I had been re-ripping a CD of some stuff I'd bought on iTunes - all my system sounds were off but somehow iTunes sounds were enabled AND leaking through my Traveler's output.

We just looked at each other like

, looked at the crowd, everyone was 100% oblivious... it was funny tho!

*actually one of my best, mainly because I'd thought it up up on the fly about 1min beforehand and managed to set it up in that time which is ONLY possible with Live. Basically I took the 1st bar of the song (Crazy by Gnarls Barkley which was huge at the time with the crowd) and made a clip of those distinctive 1/4 note beats on the intro looping at 32nds, then something like 16ths/8ths. Then as the previous song comes to an end you loop the 32nds so it sounds like a percussive element, then as you flip on the slower clips in the song becomes more recognisable. I'd say it'd be effective with pitch shift warping mode too... I and my mate loved it anyway

gjm · Post by **gjm** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 5:28 pm

She was clearly embarrassed, which makes me think it was the first time it had happened. Still, at least she was prepared for her rig going down.

It was a fancy dress Christmas party for one of those womens gyms. My wife recently quite her job there as a trainer so we were invited along. Wifey was off doing her social networking, so I got to dance with a whole bunch of still over weight 50-70 yr old gals. What a hoot. Among other things, I got to show them the 'Lawn Mower' dance and the 'Cowboy lassoing a calf' dance. Trust me, these will make you popular in almost any setting

Anyways, I paid quite a lot of attention to the DJ and the crowd and noticed a couple of things.

1. Most of the night she looked like she was writing and reading emails. There was no sign of 'energy' in the delivery of her show.

2. Apart from the smoke machine and the lights, she had ALOT of gear stacked on a frame that was about 1.2 meters high, but touched nothing except the laptop and the wireless mic. I didn't want to snoop, but it seemed complicated. She was not using Live.

3. The sound through the PA was horrible. This surprised me. It was just a 'dead' sound. The PA was a part of her rig. I got to wondering how important the sound quality is. Probably most people would not care, but even on a subliminal level, having really good quality sound must affect the sub conscious.

4. I also noticed that nobody cared what the DJ was doing. It was kind of like she went unnoticed, except for my interest. Maybe it was the crowd. Nobody could care less that the DJ stood half slumped, one hand on the mouse, the other hand on her hip, frozen, like playing that game stuck in the mud. It was like she had nothing to do, or, not understood that she could have had a lot to do with interacting with the dancers. Basically, she didn't have a 'show', if you know what I mean. I am not a DJ, but it kinda made me want to have a go, give it a try somehow. Not sure though what kind of gear I would need though.

Anyways, it made me appreciate the DJ's job and the role they have a little better.

silverlulu · Post by **silverlulu** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 6:28 pm

maybe he battery died, and so went in to hybernation.

she probably had the power cable plugged in, but it fell out she may not have notice it change to battery power. my laptop battery is so fucked that if you unplug my power from my laptop it dies within a minute and you get very little warning.

maybe she needs a new battery.

luv2spin31 · Post by **luv2spin31** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:28 pm

that is why i still play with my turntable, because you can't be to dependent on laptops

Da hand · Post by **Da hand** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:53 pm

luv2spin31 wrote:that is why i still play with my turntable, because you can't be to dependent on laptops

He he, we can always get into turntable horror stories as well - cartridges only playing left or right channel, missing slip mats, ground wires chopped off, needles skipping, etc...

Nothing is foolproof. As a performer, always expect the unexpected.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:07 pm

Control Panel Power Options

Hum-X Hum Eliminator