DJ Vintage
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DJ Vintage
ModeratorHi,
I prefer balanced connections when available (but that is just me), so I would get TRS to XLR cables. Connect your monitor(s) to the RCA booth out and I think you are ready to go. No sound card needed, the sound will go from your computer through the USB port to the master outputs and booth output.
Good luck!
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey Shawn,
Congrats! Great progress you are making.
There is quite a bit of info on preparing for gigs on the forum and blog. Things like preparing your collection, playlists and such, so I’ll let that one go for now.
I do have a few other things that might be helpful for you.
I am gonna be assuming you will be plugging your SX into the house system? In which case be sure you have the right cables with you. I personally believe that if you play out, you are responsible for the gear you bring. So if the PA breaks down, tough luck, but the clubs’ problem, not yours. If your controller or laptop concks out, that IS your problem.
Depending on what equipment the clubs have, there are several ways to go about ensuring that you can keep on playing even if something happens to your gear. Switching over to the house gear is always an option. You may want to inventory what the places you’d be playing at have gear-wise. Then you can make an action plan for each place.
If they only have old skool CD-players for example, you can make a set of CD’s that you can carry with you. If they have more modern CDJs for example that take USB devices, you could take USB sticks or external hard drives (depending on the size of your collection 🙂 and even have your tracks prepared properly (Rekordbox for Pioneer CDJs for example).
Obviously having a spare laptop is a great, but expensive backup solution, as is a second controller, but perhaps you kept your mixtrack pro, which would be well suited for the purpose. Personally I am thinking of getting an iDJ Pro as my backup. With the iPad holding my tracks, it would solve both my laptop or controller break down situations, just swap the controller and fire up the iPad and off I go.
Finally I would most definitely recommend going around the clubs that this company provides DJs for. Maybe you can get one of your more veteran colleagues to go with you. Ask them if you can practice during off hours a bit with their house gear, so if it ever happens you’ll know what you are faced with and can jump right in. Also a nice chance to bond with a fellow jock who can probably fill you in on the gear and to get some extra practice in on “foreign” gear. It will also give you a chance to figure out if you will need a booth monitor or not.
Finally, prepare seperate check lists for each venue and be religious about following it. Only last week I tossed some stuff together for a live sound gig, because “I’ve been doing this forever, sure I can forget doing my check list for once”, only to find I forgot a (thank god minor) piece of equipment.
Good luck & be sure to post what your first night went like.
The real final word:
“The moment you are NOT nervous for a gig anymore, it is time to quit because you probably stopped caring.”Greetinx,
C.ModeratorIt is a tricky one.
If it is the eq on the input channels of the house mixer I usually leave them at 0 (12 o’clock) and do all my eq-ing from my mixer/controller.
If it is the EQ on the output channels of the house mixer they may just be set to adjust for the room acoustics and touching them might turn out to be a really bad idea. If you are a venue owner you preferably want to “sound out” a room and have output EQ (parametric) to compensate for the acoustics and then lock and seal those.
“They are active and have their own mixer” … sounds like the speakers have their own eq built-in. If that is the case, they are probably 2 or 3-band regular (not parametric) tone control and totally unsuited for room compensation. So I would leave them at 0 and do everything from your controller/mixer.
If, like Terry, you plan on doing a sound check, keep in mind that an empty room sounds completely different from the same room filled with people :), so make sure to do a quick run through the house once the crowd is in to make any adjustments.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey Elmgroove,
Most live sound mixers (like the Yamaha) will have balanced line inputs, the green ones. They usually have the advantage of a gain knob (notice it is lacking on the red channel). Lack of a gain knon need not be a big problem as you can control the input to the mixer with your mixer’s or controller’s master volume. Often they will also have a more limited tone control (EQ). This is also no problem, since you’ll use the EQ on your mixer/controller.
Even though, like Terry said, if you use short leads you should not have any problems with rca connectors, I would always opt for balanced cables if possible. Mechanically they are usually more sturdy too (both connector and cable).
If you need to hook up to a club mixer you might not have much choice, more often than not it will just be RCA’s on the line/aux inputs.
It DOES pay to get a really decent pair of sturdy RCA cables and not use a set you have laying around from your home stereo set.
Good luck & greetinx,
C.ModeratorI have the MC6000 which in essence is the 4-channel version of the MC3000 (or rather the other way around, but that’s nitpicking). Although I haven’t tested the 3000, I understand it is a little less crowded and cramped than the 6000. And being cramped is really the only gripe I have with the 6000. I would say that makes the 3000 a very nice controller. With the price of Traktor 2 upgrades these days, not having the full software package come with the controller is hardly an issue anymore.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey Jan,
Although I personally am not a very big fan of iTunes (as it is as restrictive as all other Apple products – I DO own a MacBook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone LOL, it works fine if you want to do it the way Apple intended), it is good to hear you are finding your way with it.
For question #3, you can “lock” tracks in Traktor to prevent stuff from being written over. Unfortunately I am not exactly sure what tags that entails. I know for a fact it includes BPM and beatgrid. Anything else you might need to check out.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey Michael,
If you are sure you need two, then the NPM5s are a decent buy for the money. Although there are quite a few others in that price range. There are plenty of reviews on the blog. Just search for speakers and you should be able to find some articles.
From the specs, I would say they are gonna be a tad underpowered. With just one 5″ speaker and a 20W amp powering 2 speakers, I am not sure you are gonna get that rich bass experience you would probably be looking for. You could augment your set with a subwoofer of course, but then you might be better off getting a 2.1 set to begin with. Don’t think Numark make a sub that matches the npm5s.
The NPM5s, like most “studio”-type monitors, aren’t really suited for anything else than sit on a shelf, although with a grill over the speaker fronts a little less vulnerable than the fully open ones (like KRK Rokit series for example).
If you only need one (I only use one and my headphone, no need for stereo really), you might want to check out the npm100. Great as a monitor for practice, but sturdy enough to take with you as a booth speaker.Or you can check out small (active) PA speakers. You can contemplate getting a pair of used ones, just make sure you get them from a reputable source. 8″ – 10″ would be a nice size. The good thing about those is you can use ‘m when your friends start asking you to play at their parties :-). Omnitronic have one for example that is an 8″ with 80W RMS. It’s your typical entry level PA stuff, the same manufacturer that does Citronics & American DJ I think. Don’t expect wonders, but they will most definitely give you (a lot) more low end and body than the NPM5s, I am sure.
I guess it depends a bit on if you want it to sound nice or more “clubby” too.
Last but not least. If you read some more threads on speakers, there is one rule that still stands: “you get what you pay for!”.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey Charlie 🙂
Good luck with your plans. Keep us posted.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorI don’t know the jogs on the RMX2, but I think the ones on the MC2000 are the same as the ones on the MC3000 and MC6000. Having worked with the MC6000 for a fair bit, I have to say they feel nice and direct. They are conductive, so no clicks or pressing down on the platters.
Think I heard somewhere that, like the SC2900s, the platters are connected directly to the “pickup” that sends the signal to the PC, rather than through little gears or so. Apparently that makes for a more direct control and responsiveness.
Might wanna read up on that 🙂
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorNo sweat … there is just such a crazy amount of gear out there … think there are over 160 !!! controllers in the 2012 roundup or something.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorYoo DJ Cube, DJ2GO compared to the other controllers that were suggested here? Totally different ball park. The DJ2GO reminds me of the control panel of the “old” dual CD players. The jogwheels weren’t worth much. Especially the thingie where you can place your finger I think is yikes. The good news is, regardless of how little your budget is, it will always fit (53 euro here in Holland).
The bad news is, no mention of them on the Serato supported controller page. So guessing that is a no go.
Quote from the Numark product page to which you place a link in your last message:
- Includes integrated VirtualDJ LE Lite Software
- Also works with VirtualDJ Pro, Traktor, djay and PCDJ (each sold separately)
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHi,
Thanks for the heads up. One of the things I absolutely HATE about iTunes is that it only gives up control very reluctantly. I have found out the way to open iTunes with a seperate library (which is the way I’d want to go) only to find that it automatically pulls in everything I ever bought in the store. When you want to delete those, it tells you they will be gone, also from your other libraries and other iCloud devices!
I have the accidental delete covered. My entire collection (mostly in complete albums and all in lossless format) is on a big old NAS (4 disk). Also on the NAS is my batch converted MP3 collection, all correctly tagged and bpm-ed. The MP3 collection has been imported into Traktor (a while ago) and has been totally analyzed and (for the most part) de-duplicated :-). Let’s call this my operational collection. It sits on two syncronized external hard disks.
I have a 1 TB external HD emptied out and will make a copy of my operational collection there. This is where I will start deleting files from.Since I will keep my current operational collections on external HD, I can always find a file I might have accidentally deleted through the explorer in Traktor and import them into my new and improved and WAY smaller collection :-).
I don’t think I am being either lazy or complacent. I am just trying to find if a tool exists that prevents all the unnecessary mouse clicks and movements. I’ll give iTunes another shot, but it remains the most user unfriendly piece of software I have ever encountered. I am also looking into winamp, apparently there is an intro scan plugin for it. Not sure how easy the delete functionality would work with that.
I am very interested in finding out some more about organizing files, so I’ll PM you about it sometimes soon.
Thanks again and greetinx,
C.ModeratorI would love to share your confidence in cloud streaming your music at gigs. I may be too old :), but I am pretty positive it won’t happen for me. For starters I don’t want to be dependent on any kind of wireless connection for a thing like a succesful gig. Secondly, I don’t want my DJ laptop anywhere near online. I carry my stuff on my laptop, a spare hard disk, two USB sticks and still have a set of CD’s as backup. So no, no cloud based gigging for me lol.
As far as backups go, good tips from Kevin and hopefully I can add a few things I consider best practice.
- Starting at the beginnning, if you can’t use your laptop exclusively for DJ-ing, go dual boot and have a seperate install for DJ-ing. This prevents any problems caused with the other stuff you might do on your laptop to influence your DJ setup.
- Once you have your DJ setup the way you want it, backup up a so-called image of your install to an external HD or network drive (NAS). This allows you to restore the laptop to working state really quickly. After making major changes (like new software, upgraded software, different hardware) always update your image.
- Once that is done, turn off all network devices on the laptop (for the DJ install) and don’t activate them unless you need to upgrade/update your software.
- Keep a copy of your music directory also on the HD and make sure to update as soon as you have made significant changes (several tools can automatically do this for you). Preferably keep the HD in a different physical location as your laptop.
This way you will have a good starting point if things go wrong, your install image. Your music library (and you might include the files and settings created by your DJ software too) are safe on a seperate HD and can easily be restored. And without an active network/internet connection, no worries about obnoxious virus scanners starting their scans in the middle of a gig, viruses, malware, drive-by’s, key recorders, “dirty” mp3s, etx.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorOh, read that wrong, thought you were going the other way lol.
Yeah, you’d want to take your gear then I suppose. Again, good flightcases should stand you fine, especially if you make sure when you check them in they are marked fragile/sensitive. After all, studio crews, bands but also medical teams travel with gear all the time.
If you don’t have cases yet, you might want to look at metal (aluminimum?) or ABS cases instead of wood. Both are slightly sturdier in that they’d sooner dent than break like wood and, not unimportant when you are charged by the kilo, lighter.
In the old days, they would give you some leeway in taking stuff on board, but that is a big nono these days.
Good luck m8 and I hope you realize the weather sucks over in this part of Europe LOL.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorI mean really, guys ??? Nobody?
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