First Wedding!

[SonRise]

Last weekend was my first paying gig, and a wedding reception to boot!! If that wasn't frightening enough, the surround to cover the front of the setup, and hide all the unsightly cables was not ready, "Sorry mate, thought you said NEXT Weekend" was the only response I got from the guy designing and building the frontage!.

As luck would have it, I arrived to set-up as the decorations were still being put in place, explained to the groom about the fronatage, he was great, some banquet roll and a cardboard cupid on the front of the set up made an excellent stand in and looked entirely appropriate.

From there it all went downhill! all aet up and ready to go, music playing low in the background, and at the appointed time, Lights, Camera Action!! Sound quality attrocious!! Had I set something wrong? Cable in the wrong place? Checked everything I could. Everything seemed in order from a set-up point of view, But still no top end on the sound! All base, very muffled no mid tones, no treble.

Went to the front of the speakers, had a good listen only to discover BOTH Tweeters NOT working!!! Two people in the crowd realising my dilemma, approached and offered assistance, at this point I discover one of them is a Karaoke Jock in Ibiza, the other is a club DJ at the same resort, after much tweeking of knobs, upset comments from an increasingly agitated crowd, we manage to get a sound that could at best be described as Terrible, but at least some dancing is now taking place!!

Phoned my business partner - no answer, ended up having to part with all of the fee as a refund with the bride graciously giving me £35 for my time and at least attempting to solve the problem!

Has anyone else ever had both speakers fail? The speakers that failed were Brand new Skytec SKY300. Does anyone have any comments on this brand?

Weekend was lifted on Sunday at a Kids Party (Old Speakers Used - Jamo X770s) All had a great time, re booked for January.

[LastMinuteDJs.net]

Sounds like a nightmare mate... Look on the bright side, as the great philosopher's D:Ream once said - 'Things Can Only Get Better...'

Remember one of my first mobiles, an 18th Birthday Party. I was using some small pro sound speakers as it was a small venue. Unfortunately, my preference for loud on the Indie I was playing blew both speakers out of the water. At this point I didn't carry spare stuff (there's only so much you can fit in a car!!!). I did have an assistant on standby tho with equipment who within half an hour brought me the spare speakers.

Luckily, the venue had a sound system that I could play music from while I was waiting, to avoid extending the deadly silence....

Played some apt songs once I got going again:

Boom Boom Boom - Outhere Brothers (because thats what my speakers did)
Silence - Delerium (There was silence, now there's a better kind)

Then a song by Panic at the Disco which described exactly how I was feeling when they blew. The crowd saw the funny side of the songs I was playing and ended up being a great night.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

It's a bit unfortunate when things go wrong, but this is why you must carry some kind of backup with you.

I don't want to get into gear bashing, but Skytec don't have the greatest reputation in the world.

[Paul James Promotions]

Unfortunately, brands such as Skytec, RCL, Soundlab etc all use very cheap and unreliable HF units, back to the old 'pay for what you get'. If the boxes themselves look decent, I would upgrade to a pair of good compression drivers, would cost you around £100 - £150.

Regards,

Jamie

[Danno13]

Yep.. sorry to hear of your problems, but you really should have had some backup.. especially for someones wedding! Could you have not brought your old speakers along with you??

You're lucky you had understanding clients with todays compensation culture.

[SonRise]

Back-up of the main components that would be disastrous in a failure is a lesson that has been well and truly learned!!

I will be replacing over time a lot of the kit that is in use, and adding to it. Until now, my business partner has only ever done karaoke (hence tha name) but in order to have a competitive edge I felt the business needed to have a broader market appeal, which is why Disco's and Kids Party's have been added.

Unfortunately, I had no say in the equipment that was originally purchased as Gary was using it before we decided to enter into a business arrangement, but I will certainly make sure that I have a major input on all future purchases.

[Shaun]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune Sonrise. A valuable lesson learned. Back-up equipment is absolutely essential.

If you dont have room in your vehicle to carry extra speakers then buy some spare tweeters/compressions drivers and a spare woofer so you can at least do a quick on-site repair if need be.

[Shaun]

Forgot to add:

We've all made mistakes and had things go wrong at times. You'll be prepared next time Sonrise. Don't dwell to much on the gig mate, it's past now and you're next one will be perfect :)

[axeman]

Don't dwell to much on the gig mate, it's past now and you're next one will be perfect


excellent advice - don't let it fester in your mind, in years to come you will prob laugh about it, and post it in a DJ forum somewhere,

also Im pretty sure i dont need to mention the need to ensure your gear is upto the next job.

[Spirits High]

That'll be me changing my speakers then. Have been using Pro sounds for about a year now!

Time to upgrade and have them as spares me thinks!

[super-hero]

One of my first gigs, back in the days of vinyl. One of my turntables decided to speed up half way through a 7" record. It did this on every record. This meant you could only play about a minute and a half of song before it went silly. I mean it would go from 45rpm to 78rpm.

These are the things that happen when you are just starting out.

[BeerFunk]

Sounds like a nightmare, although I'm not so sure carrying a backup of every single piece of equipment is practical! I certainly don't, but I have spare equipment in the house which I can call upon if need be. I also have many DJ friends and associates to call on :)

[axeman]

what amp are you using?

[SonRise]

I just knew somebody would ask for specs!!

It is a Yamaha amp, it is not specifically designed for DJ use, it is designed for a band/vocals. That said it is 400w 8ohm amp, the speakers (Skytec) are only 300w, and I am aware of the obvious problem there, but as I said, I had no say in the equipment purchase, it was obtained before my involvement.

[CRAZY K]

That'll be me changing my speakers then. Have been using Pro sounds for about a year now!

Time to upgrade and have them as spares me thinks!


That'll be me changing my speakers then. Have been using Pro sounds for about a year now!

Time to upgrade and have them as spares me thinks!

HF units arent too clever with Skytecs especailly as in mine there was no Crossover when I got them. They are more mid frequency horns.

Jamie is dead right--I solved the problem by changing the drivers for some HF ones from Maplins :eek: introduced an HF crossover and actually they sound very usable for smaller gigs.Cost about £100 I guess--the bass end is actually half reasonable.

Trouble is if you had paid another £150 to start with you might have got something a lot better.

The biggest question is---Did you give them a good blasting at Home before the gig as they were new speakers.

If you did then thats really unlucky--

CRAZY K

[SonRise]

The biggest question is---Did you give them a good blasting at Home before the gig as they were new speakers.

If you did then thats really unlucky--

CRAZY K

The speakers were given a good blasting at our storage unit, no one around for miles, so could really wind them up, and see what they were capable of. At that point, the sound seemed fine, clear and no probs at all.