Hey guys
So this past weekend I had the joyful experience of a stomach virus that decided to only let me move from the bed to the bathroom and back for two days. I had to call out of the 2 year anniversary night of the gig I spin at cause, well, it would have just ended poorly for all.
They had a guest DJ booked. This DJ spins on Traktor. Apparently a nightmare ensued. The night started at 10:00PM. One of the guys that runs the event told him to be there early so they could set his stuff up, and then he could go do whatever he needed (he does audio work for a living, so keeps odd hours). Well, that didn't happen.
He showed up at 12:45AM. He tried to set up his stuff and, lo-and-behold, he has no sound card.
He's running his audio out of his headphone jack.
That's right. He has an RCA cable to 1/8".
Well, he plugs into the DI box to the board, gets nothing. He plugs into the DJ mixer, registers three green bars, five when they max the gain. He consistently blames everything on the venue, the other DJs and says "Why isn't Jared (that's me) here? He could make this work" to which I laugh cause I'd have told him he needed to get out and come back with CDs or an audio interface.
And this guy has a gold record hanging on his wall. It makes me die a little inside.
Another good one.
We book a laptop DJ who spins on a Hercules Rmx controller and Virtual DJ for a Saturday night. He calls me up Friday night (I'm drunk as fucking hell by 9:30) to ask me what kind of cables he needs for the club. I told him what we need on our end (1/4" into the DI box or phono to get into the DJ mixer) but I don't know what's on the back of his controller (I was surprised I was this eloquent while I could barely see).
Saturday he calls me around 6 to double check. Says the back of his controller has 1/4" and Phono. I said stereo 1/4" to 1/4" is easiest. He brought those.
Well, I plugged everything up, he maxes out all his volume and I am having a steady, normal conversation with him on the dance floor. He doesn't know why this is happening. I don't either cause, well, I am not programmed to know every DJ controller on the market. So I play around a little and look at him and say "This is how it's gonna be. Either spin on CDs or it's gonna be soft and people are going to not have fun." I told the guys that run the night, that was that.
He came up to me right before the night started and says "So, the back of the controller says that RCA is +4 and the 1/4" is -10. What does that mean?" I just shook my head and said "+4 is bigger than -10. It's louder". He got a little offended and I shrugged.
So, I left cause, well, I wasn't spinning, my girlfriend looked for parking for two hours and was going to have a nervous breakdown, and I had a headache, so, I got the best of the story the next day. During my friend John's set, VDJ just started looping a sample of "Throw your hands up in the air" randomly. The DJ didn't know it was him, he didn't know was to do, and he hard shut down his laptop.
And this was before he had his set.
So, unbeknownst to our lovely digital DJ, he didn't know that when you restart VDJ it doesn't save your audio settings. So, he restarted the program, fired it up, and away we go.
He starts playing, has his headphones on, and apparently the sound was so bad that people just walked right out of the room. After a quick "fix" it didn't sound like warm, steril death... instead just... well... death. It could only get so loud (cause why would anyone bring different kinds of cables), he did some "mashups" that had no discernible beats, and then he thought he did really well and wanted another gig.
And I have to defend laptop DJs in my scene.
The guys who run the night told me "You're the only laptop DJ we'll let spin here." And I have to do the whole "Well, let them talk to me cause I will make sure they know what they are doing, and will provide the cables just in case, and don't ever book these guys again" dance. It sucks.
So what have your run ins been with embarassingly bad laptop DJs?
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