First DJ set – questions!

Shy FX, he plays drum n bass/jungle right ?

benjturner, post: 44203, member: 15211 wrote:
– What’s the basic set-up likely to be? I’m playing at The Junction in Cambridge so it’s an established venue – I’ve currently got Traktor and Numark Mixtrack Pro so is that going to suffice?

Since you mentioned it’s an established venue, I take it they have at least basic Pro DJ Setup, ex. Pioneer CDJ’s and in-house mixer (ex. DJM series), your setup is more than suffice, but that’s bring us to your second question…

benjturner, post: 44203, member: 15211 wrote:
– Also, I’m playing in-between two other DJs so how does that work – as in how will we do the laptop/decks changeover?

Your first time right ? How long you gonna be spinning ? 1 hour ? It’s not worth it to bring your own gears, First you have it to tuck it around with you until its time for you to play, Second you have to hook it up, more than likely during the DJ before you playing, so you can imagined the hassle, in the dark, you have to figured it out which socket to plug into the house mixer, dont count on the in-house tech to help you out, or EVEN the DJ before you, they prolly just gonna look at you and give you a WTF look !, if you not comfortable with the venues ( aka you go there a lot, you know the owner, all the DJ’s, from the bouncer to the bartender), stick with just BOC (Bring your own CD’s)

PS: And since the headliner playin dnb/jungle genre, might be a good idea try to stick with the genre close to it, maybe some light breakbeat, or some tribal,. throw in some light dubstep/trap here and there ( I dont think trance genre match too well, imo)

It’s probably worth a trip to the venue ahead of the night, just to check out where everything is, what gear they’ve got and how/if your gear would fit in the booth. Don’t forget to read Phil’s article about staying on the right side of the sound engineer…take spare cables, headphone connectors, power adapters!

Good luck!

Take all the advice that all these guys above gave you …
yeah its going to be difficult, you can’t just show up with your cd’s and start playin on CDJ, IF you never experienced the CDJ before (especially if its CDJ 100 LOLOllolol…)

If you are truly serious about it, rent a cdj/djm set (900s or 2000s) for a day and practive the h*ll out of it.

If possbile get a least your playlist for the night into RekordBox and make sure it is all analyzed. Then prepare two usb sticks with your music. Check with the venue what gear they have exactly and we might be able to give you some more tips and tricks.

Greetinx,
C.

Terry_42, post: 44282, member: 1843 wrote: Hmm the only thing IMHO is that you get overwhelmed with looking where everything is.
I think CDJs are quite the same as any controller, even the Nexus (have to use the Nexus setup once a month currently…) and even more limiting than most controller. I give you that the Mixtrack is far from it as it has much less buttons, but if you just ignore the ones you do not need… It is not like CDJs are any kind of voodoo.

🙂 It is not like CDJs are any kind of voodoo, hehe. like!

I think the lesson here is taking the gig without asking these questions. Depending on space, you may be able to set your controller up early. You may also not be allowed to use it at all. Like those above, I would not recommend going in blind. Using a new piece of kit, regardless of how easy it is to use, is not something you want to do the first time playing out. If you have to use CD-J’s, get some and practice. Rental is pretty cheap here, not sure how it is there. If you are allowed to bring your gear, it is not hard to hook up to the house mixer, but you will need to understand how everything connects and how to make sure you will be playing into the correct channel.

All of that being said, congrats on the gig, and I would like to hear how it goes afterwords.

I did a little Google on Cambridge Junction (Google is still your friend remember!).

Apparently there are three “rooms”, J1 thru J3. Only one has mention of a sound system (J2) and all it say it has 2 CD playback options. Nothing on brands though. It’s got a Yamaha LS9 FoH mixer and lots of other stuff. Bases on seating capacity J2 and J3 are not where you are probably gonna be. The most likely place will be J1 with a big stage and standing room for 850 people. There is a PA there by the look of it. But no DJ booth or anything.

So, I am guessing they will either use the house PA or a rented one. There will be a summing mixer (of some kind, not important which) that will allow for all the DJ’s to plug in gear if need be. For setups like that there is usually a crew setting up and doing primary sound checks. This would be a great opportunity to get friendly with the sounds guys AND get a better idea of how easy/hard it would be to bring your own controller, what cabling you’d need to hook up if you did. If you are nice to the sound guys then they will be nice to you. Just keep in mind that setting up a sound system is always a job done in way too little time, so they are on the clock. Make your questions clever and short and don’t ask more than you really must.

Now, the fact that they say they are not CDJs (by the way, it is easier to ask what exactly IS there, rather than what is NOT there), does not by any means imply that there will any type of controller there. And let’s hope not. You’d be looking at correct drivers, mappings and a whole lot of other potential pitfalls that you can’t really check til you are actual up there to perform.

If there are other CD-players (just not CDJs by Pioneer) we are back at the original discussion. As said: Play = play, cue = cue and pitch fader = pitch fader. Nothing to freak out about. One button that is VERY important (I kid you not) that you will not find on a controller but is essential to playing on CD players, is the EJECT button. It is in different places on different machines. Make sure to locate it first thing and to commit it to memory. You don’t want to be caught having to rush to switch CDs and not being able to instinctively hit the eject button. Nor do you want to hit the eject button accidentally (although virtually all CD players are protected from tossing out the CD while playing, but you don’t want to hit eject on that CD that you have just cued to perfection). If you can find out exact brand and model and don’t feel like or aren’t able to rent some stuff to play with for an afternoon, you can at least find an online copy of the manual and read that through.

So, make sure you get the goods on what gear will be there, find out what time the techies are setting up and planning a sound check and ask if you can show up during set up to have a quick look at the stage and gear. I think, for your peace of mind it would be nicer if you were able to bring your own gear, keeping all the things the others have said here about that in mind.

Preparation is the key, Grasshopper! The better prepared, the less the chance of being caught off guard and the easier it is to handle unexpected circumstances.

Greetinx and good luck,
C.