This is why I never use DVS in a club, just at home now, always controller when I play out. Too often it nearly failed on me, especially Serato which I actually found temperamental with sketchy decks.
In fairness I don’t really scratch so no great shakes.
wicked, thanks for the input guys 
The contact cleaner or pencil eraser is a good idea. I need some of this in my gig bag, next neccessary purchase.
I think im gonna bag an extra pair of sicmats for the bag too, I hate having shitmats on the tables at gigs.
hehe analog can fail you too if something is wrong with the power, or a cable, or a speaker, or … There’s always the possibility of something failing; best you can do is be as prepared as possible but keep a positive attitude when something does go wrong that you didn’t anticipate.
[quote=“Flash10UK”]
The contact cleaner or pencil eraser is a good idea. I need some of this in my gig bag, next neccessary purchase.
[/quote]Get the Deoxit pen … a pencil eraser will do in a pinch but it can make things worse, particularly if you’ve used it to erase stuff before.[quote]
I think im gonna bag an extra pair of sicmats for the bag too, I hate having shitmats on the tables at gigs. [/quote]Yeah always a good plan; my standard gear mantra was needles headphones and slipmats. Flashlight is a good idea too; I even carried around a headlamp for a while which was really nice when fiddling with wires in the dark.
Yes, but he was asking about Traktor failing, not a speaker, cable, or power.. If this is the case, using a controller and playing a track digitally is not the way to go IMHO because you may have to restart Traktor and/or the computer… But here, I’ll go into more stuff just to cover it a little more.
Another tip I normally setup… Carry an 1/8"-to-RCA with an iPod and hook it up to a line or aux input on the mixer. If you have a big issue, play a mix off the iPod until you can figure out the problem.
Now, I also do know that it could be the cable or power to the turntable/mixer could be the issue. If it’s the turntable, see newest tip above… If it’s the mixer, hopefully where you’re playing has a FoH mixer you can run an iPod on that for a few minutes while you fix the problem in the DJ setup. Most clubs will already have this connected to their FoH mixer, either just in case or for nights they don’t have DJs. If there’s an in-house sound guy, work with him and don’t lose your cool, even though I know some of them can be dicks. Regardless, he’s still there to help, he wants to fix the problem as quickly as you do cause he’s got a boss that’s going to come down his throat about any dead-air at the club.
I’ve been on both sides of this situation, and trust me, as a sound guy, if the DJ loses his cool cause he thinks my gear just screwed up his set (when a good 75% of the time, it’s not), guess how quickly I’m going to fix the problem and who gets shitty sound when it does get fixed? Yeah… Be a dick to him, and he’ll definitely be a dick back, and it’s going to make you look bad to the crowd, not him… Most sound guys are pretty knowledgable about DJ setups as well, so they may be able to think of something you didn’t, so work with them, not against.
I do have to completely agree on being as prepared as possible, keeping your cool and a positive attitude, and just work through it. I always carry enough adapters to go from RCA to 1/8", 1/4", and XLR as you never know what you’ll have to work with. I’ve had to plug straight into the XLRs that goto the amps before while I only had RCA outs on my mixer. My DJ bag always has the adapters, extra cables, slipmats, needles (extra carts and stylii), backup headphones with extension cable, stickers for marking records (turntablist style), flashlight, markers, enough vinyl for at least an hour set just in case computer crashes completely, even an external bootable hard drive with an entirely separate install of OSX and Traktor that I can run off of.
I have been lucky enough to not have Traktor crash on me in a serious way while on a gig, BUT I have had it crash completely while I was at the house an hour before a gig. So I ended up having to go completely analog and run vinyl for that night. Luckily I already had a set on vinyl that, like I said was in my DJ bag, would’ve been going with me regardless just in case of a serious crash at the gig. Oh, and I killed it that night, haha…
Be prepared for anything, learn the signal flow of your own gear and at least the basics of how a club system works. The more knowledgable you are on the subject the easier it is to stay calm and work through it.
If they had CDJs bring out my cd booklet and go with that.
if not and I had my laptop, yup internal mode 100%.
Or use my x1 that I always bring with me just in case.
Love it.
Umm…as to the OP’s question…it was SSL not TSP or FS2, but from experience, apparently my response to that happening is:
I don’t use a DVS anymore, but if that happened today, my response would be much simpler:
Honestly, having fewer things to re-map has become about the only reason I use external mode.
Same here.
It is just too much of a hassle to set up and take down. I only have TTs and timecode at home for my personal amusement and mixing pleasure- if I were to play out I’m syncing anyway so there’s no point using turntables and dealing with the hassle of setup.
Mostapha’s comment made my day, lmfao
I do what I can.
The funny thing was that apart from the people who saw me chuck the laptop in the corner, nobody knew what was going on.
And I wasn’t kidding…that was a 10 redbull night.
I found something I thought I’d mention on here.
Fiberglass pens: Pardon our interruption...
These little bad boys will take the crap off the tonearm connections in a jiffy with no residue left behind.