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Have nightmares about DJ'ing? Mine came true, twice...
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Have nightmares about DJ'ing? Mine came true, twice...

DJ DisGrace 2:58 PM - 17 June, 2013
What a weekend....

Friday night around 12:15 I start to notice the bass kicks in my headphones are all distorted. Check the gain knobs, seems ok, everything looks fine on my SSL GUI. Then all of a sudden, music stops! The waveforms are stopped, but turntables still going. Quickly switch to internal mode, hit play, still no sound, started to get boo'ed at this point. So I close SSL and restart, load a track, and it works.... for about 10 seconds, then cuts out again! This time a dude yells out "WTF???" loud enough for the whole club to hear. I immediately assume it was my hard drive, so I load a song from my backup crates on my internal. Still no sound....

I scramble for my SSL CD with some backup tracks in my bag, throw it in the CDJ (that I almost put away because I didn't plan on using it). Even though the CD is a couple years old, it still had Usher and Wil.I.Am OMG on it, so that kept the crowd happy for now. I start trouble shooting, look at my scopes, no circles at all, so I think it must be the USB cable? Switch out my brand new USB cable for the original silver USB that came with my SL-1 box in 2005. Everything now works....

So it seems that the USB cable came loose (my MBP is a 2008 unibody, and the USB jacks have been giving me grief with certain USB sticks and my iPod charger), but only loose enough for my SSL box to stop working as a sound card. The GUI still showed that a Rane device was plugged in. Very strange.

Saturday night I get to the club, laugh with the owner and sound guy that I had a bad USB cable at the club down the street right at primetime, and got boo'ed. Who knew that a USB cable could 'go bad', I say. This time I have my iPod queued up ready to go, just in case...

Start setting up, eager to play some new tracks I just added to my hard drive an hour ago at home. Hard drive doesn't show up in Finder.... Break out my backup power supply, no dice. Try my backup FW cable, no good. Try USB cable, nothing. Restart my laptop, but the drive just won't mount. I finally give up and break out my back up drive, which I just updated friday night. The new tracks I had downloaded earlier were still in my downloads folder, so I added those quickly before getting started. Then when I get home at the end of the night, the ;broken' drive mounted right away! wth?

I have always been known as the guys with a back up everything in my bag. Hard drive, cables, power supplies, adapters, etc. However, after hundreds of gig with zero problems, you start get complacent. I never hook up my SL box power supply, I never hook up the thru cables to play off a CD, I never hook up my iPod. Thankfully I till carry a back up drive, back up cables, and a CD with a few tunes. From no on, I also hook up my iPod with a track cued up ready to go. It may only take 2 minutes to hook it up on the fly, but that will e the longest two minutes of your life!

Moral of the story: back up your drive regularly, have a back up source (iPod, phone) ready to go with the click of a button, and always use that original silver USB cable!!!
DJ DisGrace 3:11 PM - 17 June, 2013
I forgot to mention that I've always had actual, legit, bad dreams about this kind of stuff. In the vinyl days, there would be no sound, and I couldn't read the labels on the house mixer to be able to make the correct adjustments. Now that everything is digital, I have nightmares about music cutting out, or the song ending and I can't type properly to find a song to play next.... Anyone else have bad dreams like this.

The worst part is, I've been a semi-retired dj for a couple years (these gigs are just some one-off fill-in guest spots over the summer) and I finally stopped having these dreams a couple months ago. I think it's safe to assume these dreams will be back...
 6 3:25 PM - 17 June, 2013
You're such a disgrace to the dj community! :P

nm
phatbob 3:25 PM - 17 June, 2013
What a sucky weekend, but at least you managed to finish the gigs, thanks to:

A: Being prepared

B: Knowing your equipment

This thread should be a sticky, as a lesson to all beginners, as to how things should be done.
ral 3:42 PM - 17 June, 2013
my main dj laptop died - 5 years running without a problem - glad that it didnt happen on a gig -

apple genius says its the logic board - paid $310 (just 3 mos warranty) - we'll see how it goes when its back

i guess this will be my backup laptop now - gotta get a new one and/or refurbish
Joshua Carl 6:17 PM - 17 June, 2013
knocks on wood.
FunkyRob 6:43 PM - 17 June, 2013
I've had #2 happen to me before.

Get home home and suddenly external HD starts to work with no reasonable explanation.
R-Tistic 8:15 PM - 17 June, 2013
I DJ'd a day party with B-Hen yesterday. The spot (former Do-Over Hollywood location) has a Pioneer 800 + SL3. Worked fine for me. We switch out, and instead of the usual RCA - Aux transition with me playing on Virtual DJ (which I also use as backup), I just decide to talk. I talk for 30 seconds, random yappin, it works, gets em hype. And I see his left deck works, so I'm like "drop it...." and he's like "Nah, not yet...the right side isn't playing."

I had to talk for another minute until I just said fuckit, it's a day party...they don't boo us anyway. We try to figure it out, and...nothing. He finally plays somethingo n the left side, but right side wasn't working. We switch RCA cables, nothing. I play my mix through AUX, he switches Serato boxes...NOTHING.

He reboots, and 30 min after he was set to play, it FINALLY works. SMH.
CMOS 8:42 PM - 17 June, 2013
I had an issue where my Mac wouldn't recognize either the 57 that was in the booth, or my boys SL3. No matter what I tried, couldn't get it to see either of those devices.

Had my SL1 with me but had to rush to get it hooked up to the mixer so I could use it stand alone.


Never got to try that 57 again, but my boy brought his SL3 over the next day and it worked just fine.


Musta been Gremlins.
Joshua Carl 9:34 PM - 17 June, 2013
Just curious.

Everyone is restarting/shutdown their macs at every gig?

The few times I did not is when I had some hiccups
So I always try to remember to do a complete off/on cycle
DJ DisGrace 9:48 PM - 17 June, 2013
Quote:
Just curious.

Everyone is restarting/shutdown their macs at every gig?

The few times I did not is when I had some hiccups
So I always try to remember to do a complete off/on cycle

Yea, always shut down at home before I leave and start fresh at the gig.

Quote:
Musta been Gremlins.

Hadn't considered this.... Ordered a new drive anyway!
DJMark 9:57 PM - 17 June, 2013
Quote:
Just curious.

Everyone is restarting/shutdown their macs at every gig?

The few times I did not is when I had some hiccups
So I always try to remember to do a complete off/on cycle


Yep excellent advice. Freshly booting before any real-time/performance-intensive computer use is always a good idea. And Mac OS (possibly also the hardware itself) seems to be far from free of sleep-related bugs/issues.

My own last "DJ nightmare" was last fall in a DJ booth that had gotten a bit of water on it (with equipment powered on) from the first big rain of the season helping to reveal a minor roof leak...right above the booth.

After drying everything off, everything was fine from 10pm opening until 1:05am. Suddenly music stops - resumes - stops - resumes - STOPS. Computer through all of that looks like it's playing audio normally until the final STOP (perhaps 5-6 seconds after the first interruption) and the screen goes into "preview deck mode" looking as though the USB cable was unplugged.

Fortunately I have a CD at the ready and get music going.... Do a reboot of the computer while that plays, everything looks normal when I get SL/ME back up...mix from the CD into a song from the computer...about a minute in *BAM* same as before, stop-resume-stop-resume-STOP/interface disconnects. Fortunately second track on CD is auto-cued so getting that going was super-quick.

But...now the computer will not reconnect to the mixer (TTM57) at all. My backup laptop also won't connect. Changing out the USB cable had no effect. Music is playing but no video (a big deal in this place). There's an old SL-1 interface in the booth, I connect that as quickly as possible, and that works (and I get through the rest of the night incident-free using that). After closing I cleared the problem with the TTM57 by simply power-cycling it...it was perfectly fine after that and worked fine for months after that (it was recently replaced by a 62).
Laz219 12:41 AM - 18 June, 2013
I've had a DJM-800 start going crazy while warming up and a quick power cycle cleared it and everything was back to normal. Really puts you on edge the rest of the night though.

Same thing with some CDJs I regularly use, they work fine all night but then suddenly all buttons just stop responding. Quick power cycle and it's back to normal.

The dream about not being able to type properly? I've had that constantly, song is ending and I just don't seem to be able to find another track.
Mr. Goodkat 2:47 AM - 18 June, 2013
when everything crashes and i cant play at all, i take it as DJ god is saying hang it up.
DJ Reflex 2:47 AM - 18 June, 2013
Quote:
The dream about not being able to type properly? I've had that constantly, song is ending and I just don't seem to be able to find another track.


I was playing a short edit from barbangerz Sat. night at a wedding not realizing that the song is only a minute and a half long! All the sudden the song ends and I didn't have anything loaded up. "Shout out to the bride and groom..." while I scrambled to get the music back on track. d'oh
Laz219 3:16 AM - 18 June, 2013
I get that occasionally, I never used to have the track time column displayed. After grabbing the wrong versions once or twice, I made sure that column is always displayed.
djnak 4:42 AM - 18 June, 2013
Quote:
I've had #2 happen to me before.

Get home home and suddenly external HD starts to work with no reasonable explanation.


Ive found with firewire drives if they get stuck (not mounting) plugging in the usb and connecting that will quickly get the drive reconized and mounted....then unmount and remount with firewire
DJMark 8:17 AM - 18 June, 2013
Quote:
I've had a DJM-800 start going crazy while warming up and a quick power cycle cleared it and everything was back to normal. Really puts you on edge the rest of the night though.


Really sucks when you have to engage the "wrong" side of the brain when DJ-ing. Especially in front of an audience...

I've had numerous experiences with Pioneer mixers and CD players that lead me to believe their power-supplies (at least on some products) aren't well-designed (over-sensitive to voltage fluctuations). I'd probably put their stuff on regulated power sources if for some reason I was compelled to install them. The old dual-deck CMX-3000 CD player was kind of infamous for that, and I've seen that on I think all the bigger DJM-series mixers through the 800.
stevie o 2:25 PM - 18 June, 2013
iPod with lengthy mix plugged into the aux port is more important than anything at a gig. Machines break. Having a mix ready on the fly long enough to fix the problem is always better than hundreds of people staring at you.
Joshua Carl 3:45 PM - 18 June, 2013
I also keep 3 records in my udg sleeve
They are probably the quickest way to get out of a nightmare with decks.
(Provided you don't have a iPod failsafe in place)

Sadly most of the good control vinyl has too obscure music on it, so flipping it might clear your floor quicker than a crash.

On CDjs, the few times I've used them, I made a cd with a 30 minute control tone, and 2 15 minute mega mixes each. ( so 4 total)

Plan b is a must have in your rig, even more so now that the ball is out of our hands processing-wise
phonze 3:57 PM - 18 June, 2013
I've had problems with a 57 at the venue where my mac wouldn't recognize it. Luckily had my SL3 with me. Then the left turntable didn't work. So had to instant double all night. Other then that, I've been pretty lucky.
Frankie Glasses 4:53 PM - 18 June, 2013
I literally had a nightmare last night...
Dreamed that i was going through my gig calendar and had a contract for a wedding on June 15th....I started to think hmm that's coming up.. Realized it passed and today was
June 17th!!!! Faaaack!! How could i have missed this!!! Started to panic!!! Checked my phone for missed calls on that day!!! Craaaaaap!!!!
Immediately woke up and was relieved, sort of. Got up to double check my calendar at 2:30am this morning to make sure it was a dream. Still a little on edge.
DJDynasty 5:07 PM - 18 June, 2013
Yes I suffer from the same. Nightmares "images of an empty dancefloor" are one. Standing in at an abrupt silence is another. This past weekend an hour before closing all the power went out. As soon as it happened the first thing I thought was some technical issue with signal\drive but quickly noticed the power whole building was out. Upon further checking there were 11,000 out of power behind that. Probably lightning related. But I kind of got a free pass living the "standing in silence nightmare" image I have.
stevie o 6:16 PM - 18 June, 2013
My real nightmare was at a place called bar none on 3rd street in manhattan. Around the corner from Webster Hall. DJ autograph knows the place well. I was hired to DJ all night. 10-4. That's not even the nightmare part. I was used to that. The DJ booth had 1 broken technic and a radio shack mixer. The tonearm was torn off. Oh I should mention this was around 2001-2003. PS (pre serato). There was 1 CD player and it was shit. I think a Stanton or worse. Now I was a vinyl DJ but had some CDs at the time. Never enough to do a whole gig with. Especially with 1 CD player. I was told to make it work. There was a 6 cd changer on the floor. I hooked it up along with the piece of shit Stanton and go through the entire night like that. The crowd danced all night and to this day I have no idea how I did it. Beat matching to a cd changer with no pitch control. Not easy. For 6 hours. Plus the manager kept telling me to turn the music down. The neighbors were complaining. I should get an out if jail free card for that night.
Laz219 1:20 AM - 19 June, 2013
One thing that does always make me think- is all these solutions are dependent on it NOT being the mixer that breaks down. I know carrying a backup mixer is not an option for most, but it just does stand out that if it was the mixer that fried- with ipods, phones, cds, vinyl...it's game over.
Anybody have their backup solutions for this?
DJ Reflex 3:26 AM - 19 June, 2013
I created a cable that connects iPhone (headphone jack) directly into the XLR connection on my Mackies. A cord, bit of soldering, and a couple resistors makes a pretty good back-up in a pinch!

www.rane.com
stevie o 3:23 PM - 19 June, 2013
They sell those cables at most online audio stores. I use them in my home studio to connect my macs output to an XlR input on my interface
DJ Reflex 4:05 PM - 19 June, 2013
Yeah, but if you bridge a stereo iPod signal into a mono XLR connection straight, you'll end up frying something.
Taipanic 5:13 PM - 19 June, 2013
Back in the all-vinyl days,
Opening night, 1200 people in the club, 600 in line outside. New DJ booth on 2nd floor mezzanine. System turned up, turntable vibration was so bad it made them unplayable. Had to have my light guy hold each turntable an inch or two off of the counter - for 6 hours! Next day we had to have 30 ft poles cemented into the ground that went up for each turntable, as I had previously recommended. Over the years have had so much stuff break in clubs, most of the time unnoticed by the crowd - mixin' & fixin'!
Last year, did a NYE party on the other side of the state and left my main hard drive home. Luckily, I had my backup drive, while not totally up to date, was current enough for a NYE crowd. Was so mad at myself about that, was unknown by anyone else though.
Joshua Carl 5:20 PM - 19 June, 2013
if only these came out earlier: www.djresource.eu
RonDu 5:23 PM - 19 June, 2013
2 Incidents pre-serato, one after

First one, I drove 2 hours to do a corporate event only to find out my mixer wasn't working! I was cool and calm about that because my boy lended me his mixer coincidently and i started to set it up. By this time it's way past the start time because i was busy troubleshooting mines. Now with it all set up, no sound. Only sound came through the headphone jack. So I had to play the whole night with a cord going from the headphone jack to my amp. No cueing and I had to use the faders on each channel as a crossover. Audio was kinda $h*tty at times because of where the audio was coming from but I was able to fix it with a lil EQ'ing. Got booked for a wedding after that.

Second gig, one of my b*ll$h*t Stanton CDJs got stuck and wouldn't open. Since I had doubles of every CD (like vinyl) I was able to use the one side and pick up where I left off. However, I had to use the echo effect after EVERY song before I skipped to the next song and give a small speech or big up someone since there was no way of mixing. While doing this I borrowed a screw driver from the establishment and was able to dismantle the other CD player, fix the CD bay drive, put it back together and then use it again all while playing on one CD player.

3rd gig, I had Serato and Serato would not acknowledge the drive. When it did acknowledge it the audio kept dropping and freezing. Boy did I get booed! Ended up using Serato via Windows Explorer. I don't know how that happened.
DJ Reflex 6:07 PM - 19 June, 2013
Quote:
Had to have my light guy hold each turntable an inch or two off of the counter - for 6 hours!



LOL - Been there too! Dance floor was so bouncy that the needles kept flying off the records!

I had a wedding a few years back where my computer (a desktop built into my case at the time) would not even start up. Just a blank screen upon boot sequence. Thankfully the venue palyed dinner music while I was under the hood tearing apart this computer. Turns out that the battery on the motherboard came loose. I wedged a pen cap in the socket to keep the battery in place and played all night. No one knew that my ghetto computer was causing me to sweat bullets all night!
Joshua Carl 9:26 PM - 19 June, 2013
A few years back, pre SeRato. We were at Wmc watching dj Dan, feelgood, and some other excellent talent, I wanna say Wmc 01 maybe?
We get rappin with these dudes. Bartenders and owners from other Miami spots.
Apparently they have the industry after hours house and say being your records, we have a full rig by the pool.

Well, as anyone knows you have to have a shovel capable of shoveling 80% of the bullshit people talk in the club; especially in the VIP.

So, (pre redbull) at 6am we goto to this dudes house, it's amazing. Huge reef 10 foot tall double doors, not quite a mansion, but dope.

We each had maybe 4o records each, sort of a fuck all set in case you ever get called to play at the Wmc, u don't NOT want to have records
So obviously these were some of the best in our collection
And some excellent promos we had got on day 1 of the conference.

Nightmare 1
You have 2 minutes to play a song.
At about 2 minutes the record would LITERALLY start to warp right before your eyes.
And not just a little.
A lot of the promos were on such thin, almost see trough vinyl they looked like pieces of modern art after.

After an hour the house was packed.
All the stereo types.
Dudes with pitbulls
Coke heads
Topless coke whores
Bro dancers
Old dudes everyone seems to love
Bottomless coke whores
Midget fanny packs( couldn't resist)

Nightmare 2
Coke
It's one thing, having never done a drug in my life to have some juiced up people at the party..
But being drug-free and by NO EXAGGERATION the ONLY one NOT on something was a nightmare. Never mind I was in Miami, knew 3 people, all of which where face deep in coke or a stripper.

But that gig lead to me meeting some cool people and ended up flying to south beach for some cool gigs until my contact fell off the grid.
R-Tistic 9:38 PM - 19 June, 2013
Quote:
My real nightmare was at a place called bar none on 3rd street in manhattan. Around the corner from Webster Hall. DJ autograph knows the place well. I was hired to DJ all night. 10-4. That's not even the nightmare part. I was used to that. The DJ booth had 1 broken technic and a radio shack mixer. The tonearm was torn off. Oh I should mention this was around 2001-2003. PS (pre serato). There was 1 CD player and it was shit. I think a Stanton or worse. Now I was a vinyl DJ but had some CDs at the time. Never enough to do a whole gig with. Especially with 1 CD player. I was told to make it work. There was a 6 cd changer on the floor. I hooked it up along with the piece of shit Stanton and go through the entire night like that. The crowd danced all night and to this day I have no idea how I did it. Beat matching to a cd changer with no pitch control. Not easy. For 6 hours. Plus the manager kept telling me to turn the music down. The neighbors were complaining. I should get an out if jail free card for that night.


Man, a LOT of DJ's would be like "fuck this, I'm just not gonna do it." Even I might if it was a serious enough event where folks would be on my head, not knowing how bad the setup was.
Laz219 11:07 PM - 19 June, 2013
Never had the drug thing to that extent JC, but I do know what you mean- pretty often I'd get people trying to offer me all kinds of stuff and they think I'm just trying to be polite by saying no, so keep pushing the point.
DJMark 11:13 PM - 19 June, 2013
Quote:
But being drug-free and by NO EXAGGERATION the ONLY one NOT on something was a nightmare.


I've experienced this a few times and it was indeed a really uncomfortable and surreal experience. Very difficult to DJ when completely disconnected from people like that.