Traktor DVS users, GO!
You roll up to a gig, plug in your soundcard with the TT’s 'n all that, get the midi controllers setup somewhere. No time to soundcheck.
Here comes your timeslot, control vinyl on, track loaded. Needle on record and all you get is traktor complaining; A wild oscilloscope and the signal level all over the shop.
What do YOU do? (Aside from panic)
take a step back and let my sound techs sort it out … oh wait.
Use the backup MIDI controller I’ve brought with me
switch the decks to internal playback and play with midi while i sort it.
slap some real vinyl on the deck and rock the crowd 
What would you do to sort it? Your checklist if you will.
If the needle’s not giving good signal, do you not think that would impact the sound coming from your vinyl just as much?
It would affect regular vinyl, just not as much (you wouldn’t get reverse song playback or anything along those lines).
Dust off records and needle/switch out needles and possibly the head shell.
Look at tonearm connections for oxidation.
Take a look at the turntable RCA’s and see how worn out they are. If they look like they haven’t been replaced in about 10 years then your better off syncing with your X1 for the rest of the night.
Always in my bag.
Absolutely the first thing to do. No question. Doesn’t even have to be midi, it can be the keyboard.tsi. It can still be in external Mixer mode as well.
That will prevent you trouble-shooting the timecode issue but, you put a at the end of your post so I know you realise that
The sound is not coming from the vinyl … but a shitty timecode signal is as bad as a shitty audio signal.
Totally agree.
Theres nothing in the short term you can do about crappy carts/contacts/headshells etc
Revert to Plan B
(and by Plan B i dont mean that guy thats makes records and looks like a fat kid at a wedding)
Buy serato
/fanboy post.
Bring your own carts (make sure and actually take them home again)
Shitty TTs are not your fault so not much you can do after that, just sync with your x1 the whole night
I’ve seen it happen a number of times; cart plays vinyl fine but is borked on timecode. But yeah if the cart is the only problem I’m golden. Extra cart in the box, play the other deck while I switch carts, and boom, done. Always carry an extra cart.
But yeah if I didn’t have an extra cart, it’s internal mixing time. But there’s always a crisis you can’t just recover from. What do you do if the electricity goes out? Carry a Victrola to every gig?
Im having this more and more at the moment. Techs are always fucked. Mostly playing mono sound, mostly due to bad contacts between headshell - tonearm. It takes too long to debug this shit too. Makes me look unprofessional.
The vinyl guys dont seem put off by it, but theyre playing mono sound and crappy sound at that. None of them seem to notice! I guess it means that MP3’s dont sound as bad, seeing as you skip that analogue step.
I need a foolproof checklist thats logical and quick to blast though these issues and bring back the DVS.
Carrying another headshell with decent needles is a good call, i’ll be packing them in future.
What can be done to quickly clean the tonearm connections at a gig?
this +1
bring a 1.5mm flat screwdriver, use it to scratch the dark bits off the contacts
back-up midi controller + back-up cd’s (ftw!) to every gig..
I had an issue at the one gig I played this year, and I’d brought my needles because i HAD to.
The sound coming one off the decks was mediocre, the timecode scope was very wonky - looked like a run-over-by-a-truck rugby ball. The tracking was mediocre too - about 50-60%, still playable for DVS though. My mate and I thought one of my concordes got shot.
After extensive testing at home it turned out must’ve been the deck there. Busted antiskating and tonearm weight was obvious while on site, most likely crap contacts as well. Amazingly enough, no issues with the cabling.
Bringing along a [ame=“Amazon.com: CAIG Laboratories DeoxIT DN5 Mini-Spray, Nonflammable 5% Solution 14 g : Electronics”]Amazon.com: DeoxIT® DN5 Mini-Spray, nonflammable 5% solution 14 g: Home Improvement@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414FDvqg8eL.@@AMEPARAM@@414FDvqg8eL[/ame] with 2-3 q-tips may be a bit much, what do you think?
If you’re lucky there’ll be an std-laden groupie that you can get to lick the contacts on the headshell for you. I know, I know, but just bear with me for a second :
As we all know, the saliva will improve the contact short term BUT the diseases will just melt everything that’s not metal, thus preventing the well known side-effects of that crappy trick. 
(seriously though. mini-deoxit can instead of the tube of breath mints.)
Otherwise, just a rehash:
*play w/ internal control
*swap carts a/b, ya never know, maybe it’ll be fine on the other deck somehow? Although I suppose that may be useless (you want a quick fix/workaround, not to precisely diagnose what’s busted). It’s a quick cross test so I’d do it anyway.
*check connections
sounds like a phone/line problem. Check the switches.
[ame=“Amazon.com”]Amazon.com: DEOXIT-Pen: Musical Instruments@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31BC0hi8zLL.@@AMEPARAM@@31BC0hi8zLL[/ame]
I used to keep one of these in the bag when I was gigging regularly.
Hasn’t anyone suggested turning up early, so these things don’t happen ?
I was gigging this weekend in a place i’ve never been to before. I took my own kit, but even so during the journey something happened to one of the decks causing one channel to fail … fortunately i took the TTX’s and was able to swap a tone arm/headshell/stylus in a few mins and went on to level check.
Stuff like this happens, but by getting in early i was able to set-up, relax and enjoy the build up, mingling with the punters, talking about preferred songs etc. and I was able to add a few of them into the mix (which made the punters very happy indeed).
I suppose it how serious you take your DJ’ing … for me it’s about paying the bills … so it has to be done right.
i got looked at really wierd first time i used the decks and i hadnt brought my own needles, am i wrong assuming this situation is based on the club having bad needles, or the person before having mistreated them, i always bring my own and have never run into the issue but i could almost always just use cdj’s timecoded, or preferably in HID, got the mappings all setup ready to go if i need to
I’ll give you my checklist for this situation…
With just a bad DVS signal I’ll do one of two things immediately…
First thing, needle/cart. I normally use my own anyway, but I always keep at least 2 spares on me that I know work, with 2 extra stylii on top of that (I’ve been known to blow my stylii when scratching a little intensely, hehe..)… Honestly my favorite cleaning tool for contacts, a pencil eraser!!! Has just enough rigidity to it to remove most crap without damaging/scratching the contacts.
Then it’s on to cables, making sure everything is connected properly and not worn out/broken connections.
Reset/replug in the interface.
Restart Traktor/computer… Sometime I’ll only reset traktor, sometimes I’ll go ahead and restart the entire computer just to be sure. This is honestly why I run a vinyl instead of running off the X1 when this initially happens.
That honestly goes through everything that could possibly be wrong. If something still cannot be figured out then there’s something going on that’s not going to get fixed during your set. At that point I’ll just run off the X1 and real vinyl the rest of the night… IMHO you should ALWAYS have at least enough vinyl/cds to run your entire set off of that night, computers crash, I’ve had it happen time and time again, analog will not fail you!!!