1st Gig Wisdom

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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1st Gig Wisdom

So I may be having my 1st “official” gig in a week or so and Im stoked. A friend was nice enough to invite me to play an opening set a local club.

I just got a new lappy and (based on info from you guys) ran out and got an LPD8 (rather than a nanopad). I also splurged on Crane and Audio 4 DJ. My point? I got a lot of new gear I’ve not road tested.

Im hoping none of the dreaded horror stories dont occur some Im trying to run as many tests as I can think of. I thought there was an article some time ago about stress testing your setup but I was unable to find it.

I’ll be (thanks to lots of info from the DJTT community) prepared with a backup set on CD and trying to apply the best DJ etiquette. I also may try to splurge on pro-quality CD duplication service for a promo and/or some business cards. Im trying to start playing out so Im going to have to promo myself (which I suck at)

Other than this…is there any wisdom you can impart on this green gigger and my opening night?

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When it comes to gear you haven’t road tested just test test and test it to the max as you can in the house. play with it for hours on end to get it thoroughly broke in. Before I would play i would have it all set up and just press loads of random buttons whilst only I can here as sometimes (with mine anyway) when i do too much suddenly in the middle of a set out of nowhere it kinda glitches a split second and is fine for the rest of the set but is still something I dont want happening anytime.

Just be really familiar with what your using and if you have cd’s with what you have planned or want to play in your set you should be alright. Just act fast if anything does happen slide in cd and act cool and if really nervous especially being a first gig dont try and fix the equipment this time unless you get it going perfect would be my advise incase it happens again and you wouldn’t want that especially if your not to familiar with your new equipment.

Enjoy your night and hope all goes well :slight_smile:

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Sounds like you’re pretty well-prepared. Just relax… and don’t drink too much! :smiley:

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Nah, i think you are pretty much set.

A4 DJ is stable audio interface. no harm to be done with crane either. so it all comes down to your midi controller. You have tested that, so your only pont in preparation might be

1)make sure you are ready to be switched (as you are opening, the plugging in hustle is out)

  1. dont overdo it with. you are opening dj. keep energy low, volume bit low— you know the stuf, you are frequent to theese boards.

so best of luck.

and report, how that went. :sunglasses:

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This.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a new DJ playing huge club bangers at 9:00. Try to keep the energy and BPMs a bit lower.

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yep im gonna go x2 on what was said. you are the opener. open. keep the tempo low and remember not to do crazy tricks.
dont bother spending money on cds. business cards might be smart, but you wont get them in time. remember to chat with the bartenders, bouncers and promoters. thank them for the opportunity.
keep your drinking controlled. think of it this way, djing is work. you need to be sober enough to work properly.

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If clubbers ask about your music, get their email addresses and send them a quick “thank you” with a link to a mix on SoundCloud or something similar. That way you start to gather a ready-made list of people you can email when you pay again - anywhere.

Get just 5 or 6 emails from every gig and play once a week and you have a few hundred people within 12 months who you can keep happy with mixes etc and who will hopefully come to your gigs when you inform them of them.

The more aggressively you can collect these email addresses, the better for your career…

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To get your name around, what i seen @ chase and status gig, they got a few fans/mates? to go round the que waiting to get in with one of those wristbands you get in clubs, the ones that you have to properly try to get it off, on it, it had a link for a free track & if you reffered 5 people to the link, you got another one.

I cant remember the site name ill try look it out for you but i thought it was a really good idea, wake up in the morning and you find a link on your wrist.

edit: Here you go, http://music-pin.com/
sure you have to pay for it though

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^^ last 3 posts.

SRSLY good ideas!!!

i was wondering recently how to grow my fanbase (i wasn’t really working on it, to be fair). And i like the simple idea> Taking their email, and send an email immeadiately after show, to thank them and add their adrress to yer book.

I’m gonna try it!

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Even better, set up a Facebook page and get them to Like you there, you get access to their friends too. You can put a Soundcloud mix on a Facebook PAge easy enough as a bit of bait.

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NAH FACEBOOK doesnt work… in my cz area, FB is overspammed with events, so nobody pays attention to invites anymore.

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Phil is it? Very simple idea that I think I will be doing! Thanks man…why didnt I think of this (I remember hearing it on one of the articles here)

And Hoodless…shit man that mp3 pin looks insane! Perhaps I may go that route soon but for the time being I think I have to do the poor-mans version.

Excellent stuff guys, thanks!

(side note: just heard there will be no mixer in the booth…guess you have to bring your own and I dont have one anymore. so…my gear better work. I think they’ve got tables and CDJs though…dont think that would do me any good without a mixer however)

I will definitely post how it goes.

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where are you doing this opening set? If its local Ill go support.

BTW if you want to make CDs…let me know. I gots a cd duplicator

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Thanks Jess, appreciate that man! Its in Surf City OC ( http://www.flightoc.com/ ). Its a sort of 3 friend bday combo. They rented the place and I get to open. Im being asked to play a HipHop playlist for just a bit then I can do EDM (since I dont have or play HipHop). If enough people show then they get to open an other room at the place.

Im getting super excited but my pessimistic nature is warning me against doing so. :slight_smile:

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To rvltion909 - yeah, bad form to post under my blog name so I re-registered under my real name. The new Roots album is great upfront warm-up hiphop by the way, I’m hammering it. I’d be getting excited if I were you, too. What’s the worst that could happen? :wink:

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Whats up folks!

So as promised Im back to post a little run down of the night and how it went. Hopefully any other 1st timers can benefit from anything I learned and what better place to list it than here at DJTT.

After being in too much of a rush to take the right direction freeway…I got there on time (sort of). Everybody was still setting up.

I got to the empty booth and saw only XLR plugs. (SHIT!!!). My setup consists of laptop/Traktor, NI Audio 4DJ, VCI-100, LPD8 & a CRANE. Per the advice of DJTT I brought along all the audio cables I could think of but I dont have any XLR plugs. Luckily the club Mgr was super cool and helpful and had a DJ800/CDJs on hand. He hooked it up and gave me some spare RCA’s to use too.

I fumbled around and eventually started getting sound. I’ll be honest and tell you I really dont understand fully how it worked but I think it was something like taking channels 1/2 & 3/4 out of the Audio 4DJ and plugging them into the line-in for channels 1 & 4 on the DJ800 mixer. The Mgr then explained how the “booth” monitor levels worked and how they usually keep the master level at 75%

He then said something that Im not sure if I misheard or just didnt understand. “I need it at 75% to feed my house”. Im not sure if this meant he needed it loud to bring people into the club, or if it was an electricity issue or what. :confused:

Anyway…I started playing at around 9 (which was what my friend told me would happen). The the master level was at 40%…because…I was still sort of figuring things out. The Mgr came back shortly after and asked if we were playing yet. I said yes and so he told me to turn it up. I turned it up to like 60%

About 20minutes into my set the HipHop DJ came in (he had a N7, laptop/Serrato setup). Here’s where all the “etiquette” you’ve been a nice good boy to learn and practice goes out the window.

He proceeds to talk to me about his setup and how he is going to make it work and where to place everything, etc.

note…booths are pretty damn crowded

This booth consisted of DJ800 mixer, 2 CDJs, my setup mentioned above, 2 1200’s a Rane mixer and an other laptop. Anyhow…he gets himself setup (asking me to hold wires and shit during the process of me playing) and proceeds to soundcheck over me.

People where just arriving and at 10 he was supposed to be on. I kept this schedule. He played until 12 which is when I was supposed to go on and open for and closing DJ. I got him a drink during his set which took him by surprise it looked like. He set me up to mix into the 4/4 hiphop closing track he had playing. Considering the the setup process I had a couple hours ago I told him to just let it play out then I’d start a long track to let play while he broke down before I started…(so I could actually play without focus on his breakdown process).

I played the song, he broke down and the closing DJ arrived…about an hour early so I didnt get to play at 12. The closing DJ gave the sound system a good workout and had a great set. He’s very established and has a following. Not sure what the agreement was for his timeslot but he let me have the last 45min to close out. He again setup a track to mixout for me (I told him to just let it play out). I had a little intro I made that I wanted to use. Is this considered bad form…I’ve seen it done both ways…mix in and pause to start your own thing.

Anyhow…about 75% of the crowd was a HipHop crowd so I got to try to play the last 45min to a crowd who was under the impression that I was going to change it up again and play HipHop. I was asked at least 5-10 times by different people (most drunk) if I was going to play HipHop. An interesting response I came across when telling them I dont play or have HipHop was “why!!!”. This was accompanied by a facial expression response as if I had just told them I dont drink alcohol…

I played about 3 tracks (each of them I was asked if HipHop was going to be played) then the club then said they were closing.

So overall great learning experience (not-so-much of a good time). I was able to pass out a couple cards and get some education.

Interesting points of the night:

-drunk girl coming INTO the booth and dancing for the whole set of the closing DJ

-drunk girl almost throwing up…leaving the booth and closing DJ then asking me “who the fuck was that” ( I thought HE knew her)

  • drunk girl coming back INTO the booth to dance some more…falling all over the place and me unpluging my gear, moving it and watching her like a hawk

-drunk girl being told to leave by my friend (birthday girl and event organizer)

  • drunk girl getting inches from a fight with my friend…my friend taking my advice and getting a bouncer

-drunk guy hating the 1hour+ of EDM, telling the DJ to “cut it out” while the dance floor was going off…then angrily asking me to play “Billy Jean” (I guess he was pissed that he came dressed in a black&white suite with a hat and not being able to bust out “Billy Jean” moves)

Lessons learned:

-come prepared with common cables (including XLR)

-things DO get spilled… (while breaking down for the night my bags were soaked…with something). Store your gear carefully inside booth storage compartments if available

  • my VCI would NOT stop “un-syncing” from the vibrations of the booth monitors (even after turning the sensitivity to the minimum).

  • last but not least for me…If I had to choose…Id rather be around a bunch of drugged up EDM fans than a bunch of drunk (anything). Ideally…a crowd of EDM music lovers.

Again though…good learning experience.

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Sounds like a great start to a career, with lots learned and lots to think about.

The manager would definitely have been telling you about how loud to start (I always start too quietly, that’s cost I’m a natural warm-up DJ I think…)

Just because other DJs don’t have etiquette, doesn’t mean you can’t!

For me it isn’t bad form to stop another person’s record. If you stop a 4/4 130BPM tune and then start another 4/4 130BPM tune that could easily have been crisply mixed it’s a bit pointless, but if you’ve got an intro ready, why not?

You’re right about drunk people and trying to keep your geat protected in the DJ booth. This might make you smile: Dealing with unwanted people in the DJ booth.

The number of times that “I though you knew him/her!” conversation goes on is unbelievable. It’s kind of not such a big deal… until things get stolen/broken.

Thanks for the tale!

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@ Phil

lol nice link! Yea the club owner had the bouncers come over a couple times telling the last DJ to turn down.

I also just remembered an other thing. A kid coming up asking to play his demo and saying he’d pay me. Thats a 1st.

Any ideas on the VCI and the platter sensitivity with the monitors issue? anybody? I know Ean and many others gig in big clubs with these so there’s got to be a solution?

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Two options:

  1. Put the VCI on something to absorb the shock. Foam, a folded up hoodie.
  2. Press both Scratch buttons together. This disables the jog wheels.
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So the vibrations cause the jog wheels to move and that causes it to get unsynced? Foam would probably be the easiest thing, but you can adjust the tension on the jog wheels by adjusting the collar on the shaft inside the jog wheel assembly. This will cause the jog wheels not to spin as easily though.