DJ - Bring Serato Box and Laptop

[haze324]

I'm playing tonight at a trendy artsy spot in the design (arts) district in Miami. This place recently has had GZA from Wu-Tang perfom, DJ Premiere, and a few other hip-hop and soul/funk type artists. It's my first time playing there so I asked the person who got me the gig to find out what the club set up was so I knew what to bring. I'm figuring this place would only have turntables. The response from the manager was

"Tell him to bring his serato box and laptop, needles if uses vinyle or CD's if he uses CDJ's. We have a pioneer mixer, 2 Technic Turntables and 2 CDJ's"

I often see the question here if anyone is discriminated at clubs from using a controller, and people often reply "used whatever you can rock the crowd with". While that is an honest statement -- I find more club managers have the mentality of this guy. Serato and CDJ's or 1200's. Honestly speaking I could show up tonight with an Audio 8 and TSP and he probably wouldn't care or have have a clue, but having never been there I'm not sure if an S4 would fit in that booth or if they would be open to it since he's already telling me to bring SSL and needles or CD's.

I know it's different everywhere --- but in my experience (which isn't as much as others here) is that if you want to play at a club, then you should be using what the club expects you to play on. It makes getting gigs like this one that much easier.

[despo]

this is exactly the reason why i practice with bscly everything: turntables, cd players and my trusty s4. I'm not saying I have everything of that but i do own a S4 DVS and I do manual beatmatching with turntables and sometimes use the s4 in a similiar manner in which you would use CDJ's.

I think you should be able to rock a crowd on anything, be it a controller or anything else. Why didn't you simply tell them that you can rock a party with the provided gear but also ask them if perhaps you could bring a controller?

[papo]

I'm playing tonight at a trendy artsy spot in the design (arts) district in Miami.

got a new venue? nice.

I was thinking of heading over to Waxy's to hang for a little.

You got to keep me up-to-date homie!!!

[JesC]

dont forget you serato box, timecodes, slipmats & needles.

[DjZzeless]

When in rome...........

[guiltyblade]

Pretty much this is true for many places I see. I play on cdjs no software just cause my traktor program has failed on me so many times I can't count. Either crashing, skipping, or something else strange I can't trust it anymore.

I'm hoping getting an S2 will remedy it cause using timecode was just not working out for me at all. Always had a problem setting it up and getting it to work correctly.

But yes more often then not owners want that set up

[haze324]

got a new venue? nice.

I was thinking of heading over to Waxy's to hang for a little.

You got to keep me up-to-date homie!!!

I'm playing at both spots tonight. Cruise by Waxys for sure.

I'll hit you up in a bit.

[JesC]

a $200 investment in a used SL-1 box with add a notch to your dj belt. No harm of foul to learn another DVS system. Its like being able to use a PC and a Mac.

[jimdrake]

Does the manager really care?

It sounds to me more like he's bored of DJs asking what to bring and just copy-pastes a section of an email.

If the promoter is interested in a particular style of playing then that would have been on the cards from the beginning. If they let you get to the gig and have you set up and start playing and then say "oh I thought you were a scratch turntablist guru, why are you using traktor?" then, well...

Just do what you do. If you're all self contained then what club can't handle a pair of phono inputs? If you're worried about space then you can always just go on the plastic lid thing of the turntable?

[Ross]

Get an X1?