That's highly likely to be the person who posted above you, ie Matthew. I'm covering one for him there, but it's end of May, and I don't think it's a wedding.Quote:
Originally Posted by drcarlos
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That's highly likely to be the person who posted above you, ie Matthew. I'm covering one for him there, but it's end of May, and I don't think it's a wedding.Quote:
Originally Posted by drcarlos
I did wonder when I read the post, I'm on best man duties for this one, best mate an all that, they booked the resident DJ as they knew i'd be too busy that day to handle that too (although i'd have done it for nowt).Quote:
Originally Posted by Excalibur
Be prepared for a wide range of musical tastes as the bride likes all sort from the usual ballads all the way through the Children of the night, with the groom being more into Rock and Metal, I can imagine it being quite an eclectic list.
They were struggling at the weekend with the background music and the first dance too, Although it's looking when we left James Arthur was leading.
Carl.
The world is small!Quote:
Originally Posted by drcarlos
Nah. The Forum is large. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by mattydj50
Friday night, 18th Birthday, large room, so took 15's, large booth, lights, laser, haze. Was looking forward to a busy night...... Nope 35 guests turned up, with a buffet for 100+ They did enjoy the music, but more interested in the :beer1: ... 5 Hours with only a couple of requests. Worst bit (other than the aching feet, and the lack of movement on the floor), having to scrape the car of 1am in the morning :(
Saturday afternoon, 2hr kids party with karaoke....
Since this was my first karaoke, decided to do a quick check at home in the morning (VDJ8) - All working as expected, normal songs playing fine on deck1, karaoke playing fine on deck2 (mc6000 mk1) Lyrics showing as expected etc....
Arrived at 11:00 (12:00 start), had to carry all the kit up some outside steps. Bearing in mind how hot it is today, rather sweaty at the end. (Glad I only took a wash light)
The room, nice size, but one size was fully glazed. No blinds. Sun beaming in. Rather more like a greenhouse. And my lights would be about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
Anyway, setup,onto the sound test.
Started VDJ8, it looked totally different, (Did not receive any prompt for updates etc, bearing in mind, I just tested this a few hours previous), As well as the layout being different, it has lost my controller settings, the channel mappings etc were out. Managed to fix by reselecting my controller.
Then onto a quick karaoke test, FFS, this had changed too, no lyrics were being displayed on the TV I provided...... For some reason the lyrics were now linked to the fader, So would only show when the relevant fader was maxed. Again, plenty of underbreath cursing, messing with settings, I got it working. Bang on the start time.
Started with current music which kids like, 1D, little mix etc, few 1 or 2 person karaoke requests, all moving along nicely.
A group of 4 come over, luckily I have a the quad wireless set which I purchased. Unfortunately, the blue channel seemed to have a dodgy connection. Worked occasionally. Lights up fine on the receiver, just nothing on the audio channel. Ended up running 3 mics, which worked well.
Speaking of intermittent working, my main mic (Freeport) which I had been using for an hour decided to start cutting out. Put in a brand new battery, the same. Ended up using one of the karaoke mics instead.
Feels like I've been jinxed today. No idea what happened to VDJ8, especially since no update warning. (Already had an update prior to Fridays gig, this worked fine, when I worked out where my playlists had moved to.
Time for a nice cool :beer1: or 2.
Got a couple of weeks now before my next gig, so might have a play with my freeport, and blue channel mic. Hopefully it's a one off. Time will tell.
Slow burner. 50th Birthday with a lovely playlist, which as normal didn't go as planned. Ah well. Mod, Ska, Tamla, Chart and Disco Cheese.
I was ably assisted by Matty, the teenage son of Davesounds, who played an absolute blinder. The lad is happy to help when I'm in the area, and he was worth his weight in gold. He'll make a cracking DJ soon, he's halfway there already.
The setup was cramped beyond belief, and yet again the Maui 5s were the answer. I honestly don't think it would have been safe to get tripods in, the only other option would have been speakers supported by the booth uprights.
So, we got going, two laptops, two controllers, with the VMS 2 running into a channel on the VMS 4. Wise decision. Matty had charge of the VMS 2 and distinguished himself admirably, particularly when he found a footy anthem for the birthday boy. It was being sung badly during the toast to the birthday boy, and Matty played it in without being asked. Nice one Matty, well done.
Early on, it looked as if nobody was interested, that we would die on our feet, and the list could be torn up. :( Birthday boy's wife, who was organising it asked for more modern stuff, whoopee, and I groaned inwardly. Shortly after that she suggested the cheesefest, and the floodgates opened. :jumping: Packed dancefloor, silly requests, and ear to ear grins on the DJs' faces. :D That was it, away we went for an hour until they were " cheesed off ". :coat: We brought it down a notch, and carried on with requests and anthems quite happily.
Eleven pm and the landlord asked us to keep it lower, as it was in a residential area, and noise was a concern. We were asked not to go past the midnight finish time I had on the sheet, even though the pub was packed, making the landlord a happy and slightly surprised bunny. He had expected a lot of punters to leave early, but it seems we kept the pub full of our clients and the regulars alike, nice one. :)
And then, the fly in the ointment. :( A five hour function, and a flood of requests with five minutes to go, followed by " one more, one more ".:mad: The venue was absolutely adamant about the finish time, so that was never going to happen. Strike me pink, but can't they ask earlier? :confused:
Pack up followed, and it was great having sober and biddable help. Two very happy DJs headed home, and I suspect Matty will be regaling Dave this morning with tales of the gig . Thanks again Matty, you did a fabulous job.
Trying not to go too far off topic here, but a little trick I've learned with VDJ8 from bitter experience. Sometimes it doesn't shut down properly, windows close and it looks like it's gone, but it's still running in the background. If you then hibernate your PC (like Windows 8 onwards does by default when you close the lid on your laptop), it'll still be running when you open the lid again at your gig. When you then click on the VDJ8 icon and start it, it can't open the database and config files because they're still locked by the dead copy of VDJ8 running in the background. It doesn't error or warn or do anything sensible though, it just reverts to default settings and continues - meaning all of your settings disappear, filter and virtual folders disappear and searching gets a bit messy and slow.Quote:
Originally Posted by fullcontact68
The fix is to close VDJ and either reboot to clear out any stuck processes or use task manager to kill any running instances of virtualdj.exe. Once you restart VDJ again you'll find everything is back where it should be.
Julian
Nothing new there then...lol
Friday night saw me at basingstoke football club , a wedding for my next door neighbours daughter.
Great venue with easy load in , one thing I did notice was the two gang socket hanging off the wall , however I had an extension lead , problem solved.
I had been given a CD for the first dance...........er OK , it started very normally with ed sheeran , and then went into a dance routine with cha cha slide , macarena, and grease , it was great.
Loads dancing all night , cheese was the order of the day , so I obliged..lol , a 11:00 finish , so I was back home at 12:15 , happy days.
Saturday night
A retirement party for a lady who worker as a doctors receptionist , the venue was the potters heron, ampfeild , nr romsey , again great access , and there it was.......the dreaded sound limiter , set to stupid low levels.
The power tripped was the guest of honour arrived , a large cheer and popoff goes my amp and lights , so after a hour of playing at a volume less than background the duty manager came up and said , just plug in to a hidden socket about 20 feet away , not on the limiters circuit , so on the count of three my roadie quickly unplugged from the limiters socket and plugged in to the hidden one ,the laptop and VMS stayed on throughout , all up and running in less than 20 seconds , a lot of middle aged ladies , so i tried mamma mia , that was it , filled the floor and that's where they stayed until close at midnight , packed up and home by 01:10.
And good, but tiring two nights.
Cheers
Daryll
Yeah, it was a strange one. Yes I do hibernate (for speed). In this instance to try and fix I did a full reboot, but nope :(, still lost controller, default configs I've saved etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ Jules
I did also notice that a playlist which I prepared, and saved ready for this, changed to an older version???
Just hope that does not happen again.
Back in Hampshire for the week for a couple of weddings that were booked last year, both at the same venue and a venue that continues to recommend me.
The first wedding was last night for a couple in their late 20's and I was providing Uplighting too. I set that up on Sunday and met the Bride & Groom for the first time as all contact has been done via email, phone and skype.
When I met the Bride, she appeared to be stressed out big time as she tried to get stuff sorted. When I asked about colour or colours for the uplighting, she didn't really have a clue. At one point, she asked "Can you do a Cream colour?". After going through a number of different colours and getting the odd grimace here and there, she opted for white. It looked nice actually but as their theme was quite neutral with no colours on the tables, I thought it may have looked better with a vibrant colour. Nevermind, she was happy enough and I was glad to get away as I could see the stress factor increasing.
So, yesterday I arrived at 6.00pm to set up and start for 7.00pm and play through to 11.30pm.
As always, I asked the staff on arrival if everything had gone to plan and they said they were around 5 minutes behind. The C&B girl also said that there seemed to be a lack of atmosphere and that it was quite strange.
Whilst setting up, I was approached by possibly the grumpiest git of a photographer ever. I said hello when I saw him and the first thing he replied with was "Who are you?". I thought he came across rude and replied in jest...."No, who are you?". "I'm the photographer" he replied. "I'm the DJ" I replied and he raised his eyebrows. I instantly took a dislike to him but didn't let him know. "Well, they've had good weather haven't they" I said, "It's a lovely day isn't it".
"Is it?" he replied and then walked off and sat down. Again, I joked with him...."Another grumpy photographer eh! What's a matter with you lot?".
He laughed and then got up and walked around the grounds. Just as I was finishing setting up, I chatted to the C&B girl and I mentioned the photographer's attitude (or lack of personality). She went on to say that he'd been the proverbial pain in the backside, demanding this, that and the other and had even wandered into the kitchen during the day when the staff were busy serving everybody, asking where his food was!! I thought that was outrageous.
Anyway, I started playing music around 7.15pm and the plans were for Cake cutting at 8.00pm followed by the first dance (Ed Sheeran's Perfect).
It was 8.45pm when we eventually got round to doing that because the Mother of the Bride had decided to go AWOL and nobody could find her. The Bride & Groom weren't happy with her, neither was the photographer. The Groom came over, apologised for the delay and I told him not to worry. He then filled the air with expletive's as he went on to tell me how the two of them didn't get on. Apparently, the Mother of the Bride had decided to go off home and get changed without telling anybody. Nobody was impressed.
Music wise - Well, they wanted to keep it current and upbeat but saying that, there were a number of tracks on their request list that were downtempo.
They didn't seem too bothered about keeping everybody happy no matter how many times I'd advised them over the past few months. They had a mix of Indie and Rock that went down ok but the main genre was R&B and chart. There were quite a few children in attendance and all they wanted to do was slide around the dance floor. There was a section of music dedicated to 2008, the year the Bride & Groom started dating and that worked but only for a group of 10 people. In my opinion, it was one of those Monday wedding scenarios. Some people left after the first dance and there was a steady flow of people leaving as the time went by. I could sense that the Bride wasn't too impressed and at 10.00pm when there were less than half of the original 120 guests left in the venue, she came over and asked what time I finished. I told her it was 11.30pm and it was almost as if it was a task to try and enjoy the last 90 minutes.
Between 10.00pm and 10.30pm, the numbers rapidly went down and just after 10.30pm, the Groom came over and thanked me. The C&B girl came over just after and told me that the Bride & Groom had decided to leave and they didn't want a big deal made of it. They didn't want their last song of the night and just wanted to go. I watched them walk out of the venue and the Bride never even acknowledged me. I was disappointed with that but I guess she was disappointed with how the evening went. It wasn't my fault or anybody elses, it was just one of those things in my opinion.
It's all part and parcel of the job. Had I experienced this being new to the trade, I'd be sat worrying if it was something I'd done but I did the best I could.
The guests weren't interested and seemed like they wanted to get out of the door as quickly as possible. Well, I say they weren't interested but I could see a lot of them singing and wiggling where they stood. It felt as if the dance floor was a no go area.
Packed up the gear and uplighting and was out of the venue by 11.45pm
Back there on Thursday for another wedding, 6.30pm - 11.00pm and I am confident that it will be a better experience as the couple are very laid back and don't have a set genre for the music. They just want a good party.
Unfortunately, I couldn't leave the equipment set up as it is always set up where the ceremony takes place.
Apologies for the long review, it's been a while since I did one.