So I was invited to DJ a gig for a fundraiser at a local bar last night, and I was told that there would be a sound system for me to plug into (amp, PA system, microphone, etc.)
It was fairly short notice, and I didn't really have a chance to check out the place beforehand. When I got there and was shown the DJ booth, I had to laugh. The mixer they had there was a no-name mixer which was at least 20 years old with some REALLY old Denon CD decks. There was so much dust on the mixer that after attempting to wipe off the dust, there was another layer of dust underneath. If I knew they had a mixer like this, I would have brought my Xone:62.
There was no booth monitor, and the booth could barely fit my S4. The sound sucked and I ended up having to mix through my headphones the entire night because I could hear anything.
I tested the mic they had beforehand as well, and I tried every possible technique I know to attempt to get it to sound to no avail (I have a great deal of experience with stage sound). There was so much feedback and noise coming out of that old mixer that it was completely unusable. This made me look bad as the MC was expecting a mic in the loud, crowded bar.
Also, I don't really enjoy mixing top 40 and I just ended up doing quick cuts between tracks for most of the night.
Seems like the best thing to happen during the night was my crowd reading. They seemed to like the classics, and so I tried to play as many of those as possible. I made a few mistakes in my mixing, but tbh I blame it on the fact that I couldn't hear anything.
Anyways, thoughts on this? Has anyone had a crazy night like this?
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