I went to the skate park today, for the third time, to practice. I hook my Mixtrack Pro (don’t laugh, I’m new, and it works for me!) up to my 4-channel front-/rear-amp and my mono sub-amp, connect the Mixtrack Pro to my laptop, start my car, open my doors and begin my set. I always do nonstop, unrehearsed sessions; I think today must’ve been four or five hours. Mostly house, some techno, some hip-hop, some dubstep, mostly house. The people skateboarding and biking seemed to like it. I had a few people come over and introduce themselves and mingle a bit.. other people gave thumbs up when I’d glance at them.
I’ve never even thought about the car, but I have been thinking about how to busk as a dj haha - but that sounds pretty dope - depending on the type of neighborhood, I bet they enjoyed it, too.
I’ve done this. I have an iPod adapter for my deck, which is actually just two female RCAs. the real fun comes when I go on road trips; the girlfriend drives, while I dj with a laptop at my feet (with the required car power adapter), the VCI-100 on my lap, and the Audio 4 stuck in the glovebox, along with a portable usb 2.0 hard drive. I’ve played for two hours at a time like this. It’s awesome!
I dunno, I guess I’m just sensitive…standing near the trunk with the car running would knock me over after about 5 minutes. I guess standing near the front of the car would solve that issue. shrug
My car is pretty good at killing the smell of exhaust fumes, but I can definitely understand why you’d ask that question.. If my car were burning oil or something, it’d be pretty horrible.
As for burning fuel, the first time I did this, I did a 2-hour set. I didn’t know how much gas I’d burn up, so I put in 10 gallons (half a tank, I was on E when I got to the station). After I finished up, I still appeared to have half a tank
So yesterday, I tried again. I put in about half a tank, did my 5 hour, and I think I maybe lost a gallon. More testing required, but it’s cold today and kinda raining. Yesterday it was about 66 outside and clear.
Here’s a pic of my old setup (it’s nothing to look at, but it works):
Two foldable TV dinner tables haha. They were killer on the back, and I didn’t have enough space for my game controllers so I couldn’t use cue points. To rectify the problem, I bought a 4’ folding table meant for camping that extends up to 36" high from overstock.com ($49 shipped), and built myself a Laptop stand:
With the new table, my Mixtrack is at the perfect height so I can control it without bending over at all, and my laptop is right at eye level so I don’t have to look down at it. The only issue I had yesterday was the brightness of the laptop screen; wearing white made it hard to see the screen because I could see my shirt’s reflection (glossy screen), but the problem disappeared around nightfall. I can replace the screen on my laptop but it wasn’t impossible, so I’ll just see how it goes. Besides, it makes it so I have to beatmatch by ear when I can’t see traktor clearly hah!
I’ll take pics of the new setup (I also bought 20’ cables so I could be further from the car).
And yea everyone seemed to enjoy it. People driving by slowed down to look and listen, people exercising (running/biking) gave smiles and waved. I even had a lady come up and ask if I wanted to perform at a blue’s festival in May. Erm… is it possible to mix Blues music?
Oh yeah, most cars won’t burn much gas just idling.
Many many ages ago when I was still in high school, my car was usually the stereo for outdoor field parties. It would run for hours and hardly any gas would be gone. Gas was also $1/gal back then, so it didn’t matter so much.
^ great news I was concerned that my gas gauge wasn’t updating properly or something. What kind of car did you do it out of? Cuz I’m starting to want a Tahoe -_-"
I started out in a Grand Prix back in the day, but sold it and also did the same with an S-10. Both were about the same.
It doesn’t take much gas to idle, its when you hit the gas to go faster. The bigger the car, the more gas you’re going to burn.
A bigger car will burn a bit more gas idling, but I still think you won’t notice it much. Just make sure you’re not smelling exhaust fumes. Passing out mid set would be bad.
In France we have a day (June 21st) that is like “Music day”.
With friends we have a plan :
• Taking one of the dad’s “papamobile”, which has a huge trunk.
• Make a booth inside it
• Mix while driving in Paris, with the trunk opened.
Beside obvious law related issues (but cops should be cool with that since it’s on a special day), we are facing issue about powering the speakers and the sub.
We’re not going to use the car audio, we need something loud, and we need a way to supply power to it for like 10 hours straight.
Any ideas ? We need something that we can rent, and that will do the job.
I don’t know of any equipment you can “borrow” to do that, but an aftermarket car stereo system can be wired to work as you intend to perform. You could get some decent sized speakers that give pronounced bass from a pawn shop and wire them to a car audio amp, so long as the resistance of the speakers matched the outputs of the amp, you should be alright. Where are you getting the “speakers and sub” from?
I don’t know, I don’t know anything about PA and stuff, but we will use what we can find or borrow something but for sure not going to buy loud speakers just for a day.
for speakers to project their sound, they have to be set into an enclosure (a box). I’d check local pawn shops or friends for speakers already in boxes (like the kind you’d find at a club), since I don’t know of any type of business that rents out for cheap. mine is set up just using my after-market car speakers. You can make a system similar to mine for not much if everyone chips in…
Not gonna laugh. I have a Mixtrack Pro I bring with me on business trips. Along with my MBP and M Audio AV40 monitors. All fit in my suitcase nicely. Plus the Mixtrack Pro is relatively inexpensive for me, so if it gets damaged in flight, I would not be too heartbroken.
I was concerned that my gas gauge wasn’t updating properly or something. What kind of car did you do it out of? Cuz I’m starting to want a Tahoe -_-"
mine is set up just using my after-market car speakers. You can make a system similar to mine for not much if everyone chips in…
