Good Gig, Bad Gig.

Thanks Peter.
I am no good with that kind of stuff and wouldn't attempt at fixing anything. I'll get my mate to look at it once tonight is out of the way. He's just cured my DB Technologies actives that I haven't used for years. I turned them on the other day and turning the volume buttons on them resulted in a lot of noise. He said that the volume pots or something were dry? It cost me £20.00!
The strange thing about this current problem is that I did 3 weddings last week. On Wednesday it was fine, Saturday I used the speakers as monitors and it was fine but then Sunday I encountered the problem. Testing yesterday at home and also at the venue for tonight's wedding and no problems?

I have the inputs on the mixer set as follows:

CH1 Denon - CH3 - VDJ - CH5 - VDJ - CH7 - Denon

CH6, CH7 and CH8 for the Denon right side wasn't giving full output and it was crackly through the headphones and also speaker yet any of the other channels were fine through both speakers so I know it's not the speaker.

I'll see how I get on tonight.

Was it one deck that was crackly or one mixer channel? I've known soundcard latency problems do that.

If it's the mixer input at fault it's probably just a capacitor or two drying out or a contaminant on the circuit board. Both are a doddle to put right.

I've repaired a couple of mixers with crackly audio that wasn't caused by faders or noisy pots & in both cases one or more capacitors needed changing. They were absolutely ancient though

3 weddings in a row for me, the first wedding was down in Colchester at the Wivenhoe Hotel.
The hotel is 5 hours away (very close friend’s wedding) so I travelled down the day before. I had organised with the hotel to store my gear in a locked office overnight as the function room was already being used.
Setup in the morning of the wedding with no issues, took a small setup with me as it had to fit in the car along with a passenger, the bride had requested no disco lights or lasers.
The wedding went without a hitch (from my end, loads of venue issues), The couple had provided me with a playlist that nobody liked so with their permission ignored it and has a full dance floor for most the night. I had been asked in advance to do a 30 minute SriLankan disco set, this had caused me lot of hassle and headache as I had no idea what do to, after so advice from other DJ’s and google I found some music and to my relief every song went down a treat.
The end of the night soon arrived, all in all a great success.

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The next wedding was local to me and in a back garden, the couple had bought their own marquee and put hay bails around for people to sit on, they had a outside catering van serving the food.
I was due to play background music from 4.30 and the first dance at 7. As is the same with most weddings the timings went out of the window and come 8 o’clock I was still in background mode (very bored as were most the guests)
Once I finally got going it was a big success with a healthy dance floor for most of the night, I had been given a playlist but again ignored most of it as nobody liked the music (with the grooms permission)

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The third wedding was at Sandhole Barn in Congleton.
I arrived bang on time only to find they were an hour behind; at least it was nice so I could sit outside in the sunshine.
The night itself was a bit flat, most people left early and the few that stayed we not up to much dancing. I kept a few on the dance floor most of the night but overall a bit of a let-down.
The venue staff told me they had been really quiet, nobody drinking.
The one saving grace was a sound limiter that was set to 90db was switched off!! I was dreading it being on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juski

Was it one deck that was crackly or one mixer channel? I've known soundcard latency problems do that.

If it's the mixer input at fault it's probably just a capacitor or two drying out or a contaminant on the circuit board. Both are a doddle to put right.

I've repaired a couple of mixers with crackly audio that wasn't caused by faders or noisy pots & in both cases one or more capacitors needed changing. They were absolutely ancient though

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The way I have my set up is a Denon HD2500 on the 1st and 4th faders on the mixer and VDJ set up on the 2nd and 3rd faders.
I noticed whilst cueing up something on the 4th fader for the Denon that I could hear something wasn't right via the headphones. I went out front and the sound coming from the speaker confirmed this. There was sound there but it was almost as if it was struggling.
At the time I couldn't do a lot although I did manage to select Ch 7 instead of Ch 8 on the 4th fader and switch the cable to there instead but the result was the same both on headphones and out front. I decided to leave that for the rest of the night and worked off one side of the Denon and VDJ instead. I suppose looking back I could have easily lost a channel from VDJ instead but didn't think at the time.

When I tested everything yesterday both a home and also at the venue, there were no problems whatsoever?
I will do some serious testing and replace the mixer if need be once tonight is over.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shakermaker Promotions

The way I have my set up is a Denon HD2500 on the 1st and 4th faders on the mixer and VDJ set up on the 2nd and 3rd faders.
I noticed whilst cueing up something on the 4th fader for the Denon that I could hear something wasn't right via the headphones. I went out front and the sound coming from the speaker confirmed this. There was sound there but it was almost as if it was struggling.
At the time I couldn't do a lot although I did manage to select Ch 7 instead of Ch 8 on the 4th fader and switch the cable to there instead but the result was the same both on headphones and out front. I decided to leave that for the rest of the night and worked off one side of the Denon and VDJ instead. I suppose looking back I could have easily lost a channel from VDJ instead but didn't think at the time.

When I tested everything yesterday both a home and also at the venue, there were no problems whatsoever?
I will do some serious testing and replace the mixer if need be once tonight is over.

---

If you ever manage to reproduce it, swap the HD2500 outputs across to the other inputs (i.e. swap deck 1 to the input deck2 was using & vice versa) and see if the issue moves with the swap. If it does, then it's your HD2500 output going wonky. If not, then it's the mixer at fault.

Swapping the HD2500 inputs was one of the first things I did and that was fine. Last night there were no problems with sound whatsoever and the problem didn't arise so I am still confused!

Talking of last night.....well, this will probably make you laugh. One of the longest and strangest weddings I have done for a long time.....scrub that....one of the longest and strangest weddings I have done EVER!!!

Before I go on to the night itself, here's how it came about..
At the last wedding fayre at my hotel residency I met a lady who I chatted to for ages. She asked lots of questions and I remember on the day that a couple of people got fed up waiting to speak to me because I was stuck with this lady. She ended up being the mother of the bride and was at the wedding fayre checking things out on their behalf. She seemed very interested and I took her details. The following day I emailed her a full quotation and that was that.
I didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks and seeing as it was a midweek wedding and extra income and also because she seemed very interested, I thought I'd chase it up. She replied, saying that she didn't require my services as "My husband has said he is sorting the DJ side of things out".

Ok, a bit disappointed to say the least, especially seeing as I had spent quite a bit of time with her going over everything but hey ho eh!
About 3 months later I get an email out of the blue from the lady asking if I still had avaiilability....well, of course I do, it's a Tuesday night wedding. I reply and tell her that the quotation still stands. She's fine with that and pays the booking fee. Now, after that it was email after email from her, asking me questions about this, that and the other. She was a classic case of a mother of the bride sticking her nose in. She wanted the Disco to run from 6.00pm - 11.30pm so I priced the booking on that but with it being midweek I discounted it ever so slightly. When I informed her that the hotel had said the music had to stop at 11.00pm she replied with "I assume a discount on the price is in order?" (she didn't get one because I told her I had already discounted the price and she EVENTUALLY came round to what I was saying).

Up until last week when I met the Bride & Groom for their pre-wedding meeting at the hotel, I'd never met them before or heard anything from them at all. The Mum was doing everything. I sat there in the meeting with the Bride & Groom, the Mum and 4 kids and trying to go over everything was hard work.

This is the main part of this - I was told that there would be 80 people attending the wedding. I set up on Monday afternoon to give me an opportunity to test the equipment following the sound issues and everything was fine. When I arrived at the hotel at 5.30pm I spoke to the C&B manager who I get on really well with and he was confused. He said that they were all in the bar at the time and were going into the room at 6.00pm. According to his information sheets there was never 80 attending and that the buffet was for 30. When I was in the room playing background music and they entered I counted 22 people. I thought "This is going to be a very long night" and I was correct. It dragged on and on and at the most I would say there were 30 people.

So, first dance planned for 7.30pm. I am playing lots of music for the kids that are there whilst everyone is sat down chatting. There is no atmosphere whatsoever and I am trying my hardest to create one. I announce over the mic about requests but nobody takes any notice of me at all. It is approaching 6.30pm and the first 30 minutes has passed as if the whole world is in slow motion...."What? 4 and a half hours to go?" I think to myself. The Groom comes over and asks if they can do their first dance NOW as the Bride doesn't feel very well.... Er, ok...no worries. Then the Mum comes over and says "They'd like to do their first dance in a moment" - I tell her that the Groom has already told me and she looks like she's a bit peeved off with that for some reason? Come on, it's THEIR day, not yours treacle!

I give them the big up and they do their first dance (Shania Twain - You're still the one). I ask everyone else to join them for the second dance (John Legend - All of me) but nobody moves. The Mum is too busy filming them on her iPad to get involved. I try everything to get this bunch up but they aren't interested. The night has only been going for 30 minutes yet the Groom informs me that his Nan and a couple of others are leaving so could I play a song for them. "No problem, anything in particular?" I ask...
"Have you got that chicken song?" comes the reply...."Do you mean the birdy song?" I ask...."That's the one!" he says...
(Is he serious!!???)....I put it on and what happens? Most of the people get out of their seats and on to the dance floor and start doing all of the actions....Deary me, it really IS one of those nights. For the next 20 minutes it is the cheesiest of cheese and then the Groom comes over again. He's been on his own since the first dance as his bride has gone up to the room because she feels sick. He tells me she's coming back down and asks if I could play a song for her and her Dad....Ok, no problem.

As he walks off the Mum comes over and says exactly the same thing. She also says "Can you make it Lady in Red please as I like that one". The Dad comes over as she is speaking to me and asks "Have you got Dance with my father by Luther Vandross?" - "Yes, would you prefer that?" I ask....."That'd be perfect" he says. The Mum once again seems put out by this and walks off. It's a lovely moment as he dances with his daughter and they are both in tears. He comes over afterwards and thanks me and he is still very teary. He tells me (I didn't ask) that he isn't her proper Dad as her real Mum and Dad were killed when she was little but he has looked after her since then and she thinks of him as her Dad. Blimey, this just gets better....Sad story though.

The whole situation gave me the impression that this would be an early finish. Surely the 20 or so people that looked like they didn't really want to be there wouldn't last out until 11.00pm? Surely the kids would knacker themselves out and all be asleep by 10.00pm at least? NOPE!!! Those 20 people on a Tuesday night saw the whole night out right until the end. The last song was More than a woman by the Bee Gees and then that was it. I decided I needed a beer and checked with the C&B manager that it would be ok for me to leave the equipment set up until the morning. We both went to the bar across the road for a couple of beers and then went back to the hotel for a couple more.

4 weddings in 6 days and I am done in now. Weekend off this week and then back on it next week.

If I can get through a night like that then I guess I can get through anything......can't I?

Not strictly true, actually it was a game of two audiences. 18th birthday, in a town centre bar with " interesting " access. Wait until vehicles are allowed into the pedestrianised area, park on double yellows, unload fifty yards, and carry kit upstairs. Then park the van in a nearby car park, and walk back to set up. If I ever work there again, forewarned is forearmed. The venue has a magnificent Martin system which you plug into, and it's perfect. Crystal clear, bassy, and the same volume everywhere. ( Probably why I often had more people dancing at the bar than the dancefloor at times )

I had an extensive playlist of bilge, which I got stuck into early on. The younger element ( who had asked for the :Censored: stuff ) treated it in the time honoured fashion. Total apathy. Ah well. Mum had intimated that she'd like a bit of 80's as well, where possible.

After the buffet ( which appeared to be for 500, not 50 :eek: ) she asked me to play for the older ones, as " they'll start the dancing, the young ones won't ". Regular readers will already see where this is heading. Yup, play 80's anthems for the over 18s, packed floor. Charts and playlist, :Tumble:

When I was packing up, someone commented that it had been more Mum's party than the daughter's. In truth, if the young ones had stayed home, I'd have had a better night.

While I'm slagging off said young ones, they often aren't very polite, or considerate nowadays, are they? The birthday girl in particular pushed her luck as far as it would go.

Ooh yes, before the gig, the venue asked if I had any " special requirements " ? A zimmer frame, and a crate of Brown Ale were the first things I thought of, but settled for a 13amp socket. :D

I've had nothing but polite young folks Peter - even the proms I've done this year were all far more civilised than drunk women in their latter years. Go figure.

So, last night was a gig I wasn't sure about. A roaring 20s themed 21st birthday for a young lady & about 100 of her closest friends. Except there were more than 100. More like 130 according to the hotel staff. The remit was a playlist which read more like a wedding disco than a 21st - and the background segments were to be covered with music in the theme of the 20s. I picked out some tunes from the Gatsby OST (three at most) while the rest were culled from a 'Gatsby Themed Party Album' and the rich seam of Postmodern Jukebox 20s style covers of contemporary songs.

I arrived in good time as usual but that wasn't early enough. With still half an hour til starting time about 30 people had already rolled up, standing in the way of me finishing setting up. Grrr. I slapped some background music on & set about tidying my cables. People started dancing to the Postmodern Jukebox cover of 'Careless Whisper' & the party girl's mother thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Heh.

Not much dancing took place before buffet time but people had travelled from far & wide to attend the party so that was understandable. Then after the buffet, party time! After a short speech on my mic from the birthday lady...

Fuller than a full full thing, and they just ate up the playlist items I had my doubts about earlier in the week - Ac/Dc - Whole Lotta Rosie & You Shook Me All Night Long - I think that's a seam I'm going to be sampling more of in future whenever rock is called for.

I interspersed the playlist with tracks of my own choosing & they went down a storm too.. modern gear not so much. Last track of the night was a 12" version of KC & The Sunshine Band - Celebration (birthday subject's choice) & it topped things off very nicely indeed.

I ran out of cards as I took the gear down, and I heard loads of people congratulating the mother of the birthday girl on an absolutely gobsmacking party. The decor, the ambience.. but most of all the music. I can't take all the credit for that but as we all know it's not so much what we play but when. As I explained to the girl's dad at the start of the night when he saw me setting up a laptop - the computer merely holds the music. It doesn't tell me what to play next. Nor do I decide the running order before the gig. Tsck!

Only one slight negative about the night.. somebody tried getting a request past me - Mr Saxobeat.. for the birthday girl's mother? I don't reckon! :lol: She was happy enough to ask me for tunes herself & her tastes definitely didn't lie that way.. but the way she threw herself around to 'Bang Bang' by Will.I.Am... erm.. maybe she did want it. Whatever - we did fine without it.

Tunes of the night: The 2 ACDC tracks, Kings of Leon - Sex On fire (Mr Brightside was asked for but nigh as damnit killed the floor - yay!).. Doop by Doop (!).. and of course Postmodern Jukebox - Careless Whisper. Absolutely brilliant.

Well. Every once in a while in a DJ's life a gig like tonight comes along. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of playing tunes for a lovely couple who came back to the UK from Canada, and their friends & family were certainly party animals... but tonight's lot put them in the dark. Oh boy did they ever.

Setup as usual... and the duty manager asked where my hazer was.. "put away" said I... "get it out again man, just be careful with it"... so I did.

Guests piled into the room ahead of the first dance at 7.30pm which passed everybody by so I filled, and filled.. and filled.. then the B&G appeared in the room to do some more mingling... and frankly I decided enough was enough.. take charge Justin.. so I announced them & the crowd generated an ear splitting applause.

More couples joined them on the floor, Mr Scruff the tog got some shots... and off we went on a musical journey the likes of which you don't often hear. Or maybe you do.. I don't. Buffet time arrived & I thought "ooo, I'll put some of that reggae stuff on - that'll make a change".. Whoops. There goes my fag break again. Blah blah blah.. I had something of a hellish looking playlist to work with which ranged from Rumer - Slow (REALLY?!) to The Foo Fighters.. with absolutely no cheese outlined. So I didn't play any actions songs whatsoever. (oh yes I did, but not what you'd call any of the usual suspects... see later.. )

The groomsmen went absolutely ape to Panjabi MC - Mundian To Bach Ke - it was on the playlist & I thought.. "mmmmm,... whatever" but OMG they went NUTS to it. I mentioned we'd be having a repeat of that moment later on... and the 2nd time the whole place was going for it, no word of a lie.

At some point I dusted off Chad Jackson - Hear The Drummer Get Wicked & even grandma was getting down to that. A proper spectacle. Out of there of course I felt it necessary to do the whole Fresh Prince of Bel Air (short) Theme tune & Jump On It... and we soon found ourselves in Chumawamba land... Then lots of jumping around to Jump Around.. so far so normal...

Went into a bit of an indiesh set around 11pm, really thinned the crowd out with Mr Brightside (it was on the playlist)... and worked in Greenday - Basket Case, Foo Fighters' 'Everlong' (playlisted) and ... Foo Fighters got some complaints to I just pointed at the groom rocking out..

A friend of the groom asked if I had 'A whole new world' from Aladdin - funnily enough I've got a wedding coming up where the bride's half are really into Disney & show tunes so yes I had it... and its time came just after Westlife - Flying without wings (playlisted).. Now then. The party were behind the couple all the way throughout the night as you'd reasonably expect at any wedding - but when I played the Aladdin tune it was something else altogether. You just couldn't make up how everybody responded to it. It was an awe inspiring sight.

From there, end of the night tunes went as follows - Westlife again (playlisted) - You Raise Me Up... into Mr Gangster himself - Theme from NY NY.. and that WAS to be the last song... except I had 2 minutes left so on came Hit The Road Jack... finished to a tumultuous applause.. and then the groom ran over asking for Bohemian Rhapsody. I quickly cleared it with the duty manager & off they went.

As I was taking the gear down the bride came over to thank me & said she'd lost count of how many people told her I was the best DJ they'd ever heard. I said "oh, those poor, poor drunk people".. and we had a laugh about it then she said "but seriously, you really are amazing. Thankyou".

And as I struggled to get my head out of the door on the way out...

A lot of tonight's success was down to the crowd. And the playlist. Yes there was a bit of crud on there but also stuff I wouldn't think of playing ordinarily (Panjabi MC for one). There were only 25 or so tracks on the list.. between those & guest requests.. I think I rather successfully filled in the gaps & had quite the fun time.

Looking back on when I plugged a laptop in at a gig for the first time last October, I've come a long way & I think it's at least in part to swapping ideas with you folks here. This time last year if you'd told me I'd be doing mostly wedding discos and loving it to bits I'd have laughed til I went blue in the face. Now? I wouldn't say no to making a living from this. Well almost.

Yet another wedding for me - with the Micron booth this week.
Don't get me wrong, it's a useful bit of kit, but I just prefer having a little space to breathe and spread my wings.

Bit of a strange one really. It's in a venue I've been to before (hence knowing to take the smaller rig....20 mins load in and load out :) ), in fact, the venue recommended me after the last party I did there.

B&G gave me a playlist consisting of around 20 songs, most of them of the Bon Jovi genre, plus a LOT of slow stuff. I'd met up with them a couple of times at the venue to go through things, and apart from absolutely no wedding cheese (the likes of YMCA), it was open season on anything (in fact, I was looking forward to a wedding with no action dances for a change).

I'd set up this afternoon so as not to disturb the wedding breakfast and left it uplit (see pic) and twinkling away. Looked a treat :)

Got back to the venue - 90 minutes of background until the first dance. Oh well, that's why CDPool do their 15 minute mixes every month. No problem.
First dance, followed by Bruno Mars Marry You (as always) - boom....full floor :)

And then they announced the buffet :Censored::Censored:.

Looking at the crowed, it was going to be standard fayre music such as a little Motown, 70's, 80's.......wrong!
The oldun's didn't really want to dance so that blew most of the Motown plans (I managed a couple of tracks which filled the floor), then people kept insisting on bringing it up to date.

OK - what do you want to hear?

Everything dear old Peter (and myself) detest about modern music.....bilge :( (and not many were dancing to it either). Kept playing what they were asking for.....not many tootsies on the floor. And then they all disappeared at 11:30 (I was booked until midnight), leaving just the newlyweds and a couple of mates). Oh well - finished off with the stuff they'd put on the playlist and called it a night 5 mins early (at the venue's request).

By all accounts - I played a good night (or that's what I was being told). Maybe it's just me with the type of music I was being asked to play - the modern stuff isn't my cup of tea apart from the real mainstream stuff. Personally thought it could have gone a lot better.

Never mind - next week's is a wedding by the seaside, with the traditional wedding fayre already requested :)
Added bonus, due to local byelaws (I'm in a big tent), I have to turn off at 10:30 (just when the party would normally be getting started).

As promised - a piccy of the Micron this evening. I'm loving the Jaguar light in the centre :)

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