First Gig Tomorrow

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

First Gig Tomorrow

A bit of background first. I am 15, have been Djing with Traktor for 3 or 4 months now. I normally play Progressive House, Big room, Electro House and some Dubstep.I am competent at mixing, I watch my levels as I mix and use EQs for better blends. I come from a musical family and I am decent at phreasing my mixes. I DO USE SYNC, simply because it would be illogical and very time consuming to beatmatch with my current equipment, and it allows me to focus on phrasing and blending more.

So my good friend messaged me on Facebook asking if I was free saturday night. Turns out he wanted me to DJ his sister’s boyfriend’s 18th birthday party. A smallish thing with 40 people max.

I don’t actually have my own laptop yet, so I will be using either his sister’s or her boyfriend’s. This is the part I’m stressing about.

1)I want to know if I’ve forgotten anything I need to bring on an external harddrive to have things working flawlessly.

My list (so far):

  • Traktor Installer
  • Native Instruments folder from my PC
  • Music
  • ASIO4ALL driver
  • External Soundcard drivers
  • BCF 2000 drivers

I will also be bringing with me:

  • BFC 2000, not the best controller, but the only thing I have
  • M-Audio Jamlab external soundcard
  • AKG K240 Studio headphones
  • Spare iPod headphones as backup
  • iPod
  • Spare 1/4" lead
  • 2x 1/4" > RCA adaptors
  • Stereo splitter
  • RCA > 1/4" adaptor

2)Am I right in thinking this will be all I need to plug into an external amplifier?

My setup will go:

Laptop —> Amplifier —> Speakers
—> BCF 2000
—> External soundcard —> Headphones

I will have prerecorded mixes on my iPod ready to swap in should the laptop fail for any reason.

My next question is about song selection as the night progresses.
My plan is a load of Pretty Lights type chillout music for the first hour while people arrive, then moving into some Deep House while people are still drinking and whatnot.

When the girls start wanting to dance I’ll start playing some of the slower top 40, no remixes yet. Then when nearly everyone is on the floor some of the more upbeat stuff with maybe a few remixes.

When most are on the floor, the real singalong stuff like T.G.I.F and others.

Then, and only if It’s asked for I might play some Dubstep.

I’ll finish it off with some clubbier songs and some Progressive House to finish.

3) From people’s past experiences in Djing 18ths, will this plan go down well?

4) Judging from what I have read and heard from others, mixing technique does not matter with this type of croud and song selection is key. So I am assuming I should stay away from long blends and improvised build ups and cue point juggling. Am I correct?

Sorry for the wall of text :stuck_out_tongue:

2

well done! you have certainly done your homework

there is only one tiny flaw in your plan, for which (sadly) you can’t really be prepared. And that is stability and actual functionality of the host’s laptop. could you meet up with him today, or reeaaly early to ensure it actually works?

3

Thanks. I have been assured it’s a pretty good laptop, as his parents are fairly wealthy. And I will be arriving 4 hours early to setup and make sure everything is working. I might be able to get my hands on the laptop earlier in the day, I’ll see if I can.

4

Good luck Nathan.

Let us also know how the gig went.:slight_smile:

scamo

5

Make sure you have the right adaptors to connect your laptop to the amp.

Doesnt look like you have a 3.5mm to 1/4" or 3.5mm to phono in your gear.

6

I’ll get onto that before I go for sure.

7

good luck mate! one thing i would reccomend is smitten’s power script for windows laptops (if it is a windows that is, you didnt say) it doesnt matter how good the laptop is it could still give you bugs, here’s the link for the articke :

it doesnt make any permanent changes and can be prepared at home, copied onto a usb dongle and deleted from the laptop after the gig. turned out to be a lifesaver for me and definately worth having.

one other thing… im betting your m-audio soundcard is much better quality than your onboard one, so maybe use this for routing your master sound and monitor from the onboard.

again though… best of luck and let us know how you get on.

8

So you’ll be using asio4all to aggregate soundcards so you have one to monitor and one for master? This could be trouble. No chance at all of you setting up the day before? If you have any trouble you could then get a decent 2 channel soundcard?

9

I’ve decided to just cart my desktop along in the end. I use asio4all at home with no issues, no dropouts or anything.

The M-Audio soundcard us quite old, and I occasionally get crackling while monitoring. I wouldn’t want this on large speakers, and it doesn’t matter too much while cue’ing tracks in.

I was going to purchase an Audio 2 awhile ago, but then my Dad realised he had this he wasn’t using, so gave it to me. The BCF 2000 is from him too :slight_smile:

10

ok cool, work with what you’ve got mate :slight_smile: and smash it! just make sure that youre having a good time!

11

What your dad do with it?

12

Dont worry about it! 18ths are easy… they are usually too hammered to notice mistakes!

13

My dad plays solo in pubs every week, but with a backing track coming off of his mac. Turns out he has a very good Firewire soundcard, and can just use that instead.

14

Good luck to you sir!

15

I hope you get some drunk chick’s number!

Seriously though, can’t wait to hear details. Some of my favorite posts on this forum are “my first gig” posts. You definitely went about things the right way.

16

Thanks for all the support guys, heading off in about an hour. I’ll be sure to do a full write up of how it went down.

17

Best of luck.. Im sure you will smash it..

18

how did it go