ensuring a glitch-free performance?

Ok, I'm currently working as a live sound engineer & DJ in a VIP lounge in Tenerife. The night kicks off with solo singers performing covers of classic soul tracks and then there's a tribute to an old classic soul group with like 4 singers, for example the Drifters or the Four Tops etc. I have to do all the mic levels throughout the night play the backing tracks. When they finish I DJ for the rest of the night. It's generally an older audience of like 40+ so I don't really get to play everything I want but hey, I'm getting paid & I'm in the sun for the winter & it's not a booming night club so after a summer of destroying my ears at least I can give em a bit of a break.

ANYWAY, I have taken all the singers backing tracks and put them in Traktor so I can trigger them as required quickly & smoothly (before it was a complete shambles... mini discs, ipods & itunes on the house laptop was being used so the manager was all over the shop triggering the right tunes at the right time).
My concern is this; Traktor will sometimes glitch out on me, maybe like once every couple of months or so, like a 2-3 second stutter on the music. This I can handle in a general DJ situation as you can just hold your hands up and smile & the audience normally realise it's just a laptop glitch as you just carry on. However, I now have live singers relying on me so can't really afford to have Traktor glitch out on me. It's happened once already but luckily it was a strong performer who made a joke out of it by saying it was the remix and just carried on singing. But sometimes there are singers who aren't as strong talking wise and wouldn't be able to style it out or make a joke of it. They would just stand there looking confused and will just look stupid and that shit will come back on me.

SO, my question is this; what other steps can I take to ensure a glitch free performance? I have my latency set to around 7.ms. I am using a launchpad and a nanokontrol which run into a powered USB hub and the Audio 8 on it's own USB port. I am using a black Macbook 2.4, what USB port configuration would others use? i.e. would you have the Audio 8 on the front or back USB port?... I know there are issues with one of the ports sharing the screen or some shit. What would be more USB power intensive, the launchpad and nanokontrol with the hub, or the audio 8? Would anyone recommend using different software for this type of performance, maybe something more stable? Is there anything else anyone can recommend to minimise looking foolish with software glitching out?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Try swapping the USB ports used but the hub and Audio 8.

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Originally Posted by dodge

SO, my question is this; what other steps can I take to ensure a glitch free performance? I have my latency set to around 7.ms. I am using a launchpad and a nanokontrol which run into a powered USB hub and the Audio 8 on it's own USB port. I am using a black Macbook 2.4, what USB port configuration would others use? i.e. would you have the Audio 8 on the ....

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

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1stly, you said "any help". 2ndly, Your asking the wrong person because Traktor hates me. Its racist towards me only and wants to eat my children :p. But since I have dealt with the shit, maybe I could help lol. There's only so much you can do, I highly doubt you can fully ensure a non glitch performance or else there wouldn't be a bagillion youtube video's of DJ fails.

If your worried about distribution and power, you would think a good tip would be to get a $500 super powered ultra fast usb hub, you get my point.

What would be more USB power intensive? Whatever has the biggest volt usage or requirement. If you have the power adapters or the products boxes look on them. Search this thing called the interwebs, I heard its good.

Have a Traktor only laptop with plenty of power and a hard drive that makes Usain Bolt look slow. Update TSP, update windows/mac, update drivers.

Have your laptop blessed by a priest etc. before gigs, hold the holy water.

Buy a over priced miracle jesus cloth and rub it on your laptop before your gig. Its probably won't help your software but you will have more confidence with your performance. Or did I just ruin the secret?

Could you make Traktor glitch out? Then come up with a strategy for when it glitches during a performance. Perhaps you can make it blend my making a effects setup that sounds glitchy?

Maybe you could have a big red button on the side of your setup that when pressed instantly plays KC and the Sunshine Band.

If you require anymore Pro DJ tips :D Hit me up.
-Digi

Set your latency higher.
As you're not mixing it doesn't really matter how high it is.

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Originally Posted by Nicky H

Set your latency higher.
As you're not mixing it doesn't really matter how high it is.

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^^this

try 15ms and set it back to 7ms before you stard DJing

this might answer your energy managment questions
http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/07/1...rt-inequality/

i keep this cued in my ipod in case anything goes wrong.... :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxtmQDCyLE8

update to the most recent version, that solved it for me

Turn off unused hardware e.g Wifi cd drives vga and ethernet. This will all add to the efficentcy of your laptop. Lots of RAm. Traktor isnt really memory intensive but its allways good to have extra. I have a due core dell xps with 4 gigs of ddr3 and I have never had a probem.

Next thing only sign in using an admin account. This has changed a little in vista and 7 however when in an admin account you click on a nasty website its installled ur goodies and ur next performance might not even go ahead.

Look at your laptops power managment setting make sure it is on high performance. These same tips apply for mac users.

I use a windows PC and it doesnt crash. Apple OS is just as prone to virus's and has alot of known security exploits that apple takes too long to patch.

PS I am not a of either of anything apart from open source, And if mixxx was at a stage that it was a comptetitve product id use that

a mac with problems:eek: