My First Ever Gig Was On Saturday

[witm8 0]

..... and to be totally honest, it was just about enough to make it be the last.

 

This is my first post on this forum only having only just been granted posting privileges, but I’ve been coming on here for a little while gaining snippets of valuable information and tips from you guys. So, firstly – THANKS! :Thumbup:

 

I don’t want to waffle on about things so I’ll try and keep it short and to the point.

 

Venue: ‘Resident’ DJ at local pub/members club

Event: 18th Birthday Party – yeah I could have made it a bit easier I know for my first !

Number of people: about 150 – yeah, again, could have done something a little smaller.

Ages: 13yrs to 60yrs

 

My only previous experience was at the same place, when the ‘ex’ resident DJ had a huge argument with the landlady and walked out on the night, leaving a Football Club fundraising disco – without a disco. I stepped in, 10 mins before it was due to all kick-off, and got told “this side does this CD, that side does that CD, start the volume at 5, go louder as the evening progresses, and the CD’s are here – all yours mate, I’m off!”

 

And the rest is history. From that first baptism of fire, I got loads of people coming back to the pub asking when they have their event if I’ll do it. Everyone said that I did really well. The feeling was great and I got such a buzz!

 

So, I was in there a couple of weeks ago, and the landlady comes up to me and says there’s an 18th happening, and they’ve asked if I’ll do it.

 

Of course I would, so onto this site I came. Read, re-read, re-read some more, went through people’s playlists, got song tips. :book:

 

I spent the whole week preparing - meticulously. I downloaded some songs from HMV, ripped some onto my computer, went through my CD collection, went through my Sisters laptop music. There was no way I was going to be ill prepared.

 

Once I had all my required songs I put them all onto iTunes and burnt them onto individual CD’s

 

I had 5 hours of music spread over 6 CD’s – each one containing 20 or so songs of various genres. I’d a brilliant (if I do say so myself) playlist arranged.

 

Anyway, things started, and started well, which was just what I wanted/needed as I was so nervous it was unbelievable!

 

THEN ......... 45 mins in, for some reason the CD mixer decided it was only going to play the first 5 songs from 90% of the CD’s !! :fear:

 

It was really weird. When I put the CD in, it read it fine, said 20 songs 72 mins (or something like that), then I scrolled though, track 1 - 3:24, track 2 - 4:23, track 3 - 3:54, track 4 - 4:34, track 5 - ERROR, track 6 - ERROR etc.

 

OH MY GOD !!! What the hell do I do ? :shrug:

 

Obv. I had my playlist written down, so whilst I seriously panicked, I wandered off my list and just picked the songs that were 1-5 on whatever CD was working just to keep the music going - playlist, what playlist? Cheryl Cole, followed by T-Rex, then Paulo Nutini - delightful.

 

I put on a song and went to the bar, collared the landlady, said that her machine wasn’t working. She came up with some story that as they were not ‘original’ CD’s the machine wouldn’t read them. I then pointed out that it worked fine for the first 45 mins, and some of the CD’s that worked completely, were also copies - I wasn’t going to argue, there was music to play!

 

She may have been sort of correct as the only 3 CD’s that would work in their entirety was “Blame it on the boogie, I Love to Party, and Best Chart Music of 2000’s”

 

THIS was all I had to work with, plus tracks 1 to 5 of random CD’s when they decided to work !! (oh and a few other ones, but nothing spectacular!

 

Anyway, I guess you get the picture. It wasn’t as great as I had hoped for. Yes, I admit that some songs got played twice, there wasn’t all that much of a flow.

 

Actually, I was completely GUTTED!

 

Somehow I managed to wing it. I did start to clock watch at 11:15 and remember thinking to myself “Oh my, I’m all out of ideas now, and there’s still 45 mins left to go, and there are people dancing, and people are still here!”

 

12:00 couldn’t come soon enough, believe me.

 

It did though, and I’d blagged my way through the whole thing, and I’d been winging it since 9:15ish

 

Personally I was absolutely devastated. The landlady said it went really well (I just smiled and said thanks). The birthday girl said that she’d had a great night (but she was pished), her family said that they enjoyed it. Everyone said that they had a really good time which I found really hard to believe.

 

Since then ......... i.e. Sunday and Monday - I’ve had someone phone me and ask me to do their wedding reception there in a couple of weeks time, and I’ve also been booked for the Cambridgeshire Pool Association Finals Night which is happening early March.

 

I said that I’d do them obviously, and I’ll use the playlist and stuff that I had prepared for this 18th (as it never got used) but this time, I’ll have a fall back plan!

 

I’ve already purchased “101 running songs” - take a look at that CD. 5 CD’s that you can get a fair bit of air-time out off if you jiggle the play order around. Now 71, 73, 74. I’ll bring my all of my personal CD’s this time, rather than just the 6 that I was planning on working from.

 

There is no way that I’m letting this happen again - you live and learn hey!

 

I suppose I could have seriously crashed and burned - but I go by the old saying “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

 

Sorry for the waffle.

 

Any tips from you old-pro’s that I should have done, shouldn’t have done, could have done, would have done, should do next time etc....

 

:thanks:

 

Oh, I didn't think to take any pictures of the set-up, but I've found a couple on Facebook from people who were there:

 

 

 

 

[vokf 0]

Hindsight is everything - and the fact you think it was a bad night, is actually a good sign!

 

The wedding is a concern - you need to be much more clued up with the equipment. If you have access to the gear mid-week (ie pop in and practise!!!!), you'll gain confidence.

 

I started out nearly 2 years ago, and my 1st wedding was booked shortly after starting. The wedding date was November, and I knew enough about the equipment and music to know that I would be ok (it was a budget wedding, but still a special day for the bride and groom).

It was a good night, busy dancefloor for most of the night, I was a bit nervous on the mic, but the 1st dance introduction was good.

 

 

In time, you'll get a feel for music -and so will gain knowledge to create sets of tracks that run together well.

As an example, my local "Chicago Rock Cafe" will play "Livin on a Prayer, Summer of 69 and possibly Sweet Child of Mine", back to back.

Learning a selection of similar tunes that work is really down to time/learning.

The experienced guys here (of which I am not!) will really know this stuff, and do not get too stressed.

 

 

From these bookings you have, should come some payment. Try to stick to original CD's - it sounds like the gear doesn't like CD-R's AND it sounds like you are thin ground with regards to copying (dubbing) music.

 

As you are still learning, try to plough some of the income into music purchases (CD's). You don't need 1000's of tracks, but you will need the standards.

You should be able to get a good start for £100 by scouring ebay and charity shops.

 

DJ Intelligence have a list of most requested UK songs here;

http://www.djintelligence.com/charts/DJInt...ested2009UK.pdf

 

This would be over 10hrs of music, so trying to ensure you have as many of these as possible will be a great start for many family parties.

 

The NOW CD's are generally good value from ebay (get a collection, not just 1 or 2). There will be gaps as some artists do not appear, but the majority of hits will be on it.

 

I've got quite a few good CD's from charity shops (£1 each etc)

 

 

Print off some prior play lists from this site - these will give you some inspiration on the night.

 

For the wedding, do you have an indication of their music? They may wish to give you a playlist as guidance, and this will simplify things for you on the night.

 

Hopefully you can see that with a few weeks before the wedding, you need to ensure the equipment is reliable, you are able to use it, and have a suitable collection of music.

 

Where are you based? It may be helpful to meet up with any local members.

 

Jason

[gadget 0]

Welcome to the forums, and well done for getting through the gig!

 

[stardust 0]

Middle picture - girl on the left - can i have her phone number please :heartlove:

 

Well done mate for getting through that - With the age range, venue etc it sounds like you have started off in the deep end.. so things can only get better.

 

If i was you i would definitely get yourself a backup tool such as a cheap CD player, laptop or even an Ipod which you could plug into your mixer in the event of a failure (if you are not a mp3 jock then you will have to go down the produb license router etc etc )

 

Cheers

Steve

[witm8 0]

Middle picture - girl on the left - can i have her phone number please :heartlove:

 

Ohhhh indeed, I know where ya coming from with that one ! I was lucky enough to have her and her mates set up base at the table right next to my left hand speaker, so most of the dancing etc was done smack bang infront of me.

 

Hmmmm, Maybe that's why I was getting flustered and things weren't going to plan :ads:

 

Her - scuse me mate, ya got any Taio Cruz for me ?

Me - say what?, Tom Cruise?, he's not got a single out has he?

Her - no, TAIO CRUZ

Me - [pointing to my ear] can't hear ya. Write the artist name, song title on this bit of paper ........ and if you're single your name and mobile number. (I know, I know, I know, shockingly bad of me I know!, I'm even embarassed for myself thinking about it now)

Her - [smiles]

 

* hands over a bit of paper with - Taio Cruz, Break Your Heart. Jess x *

 

It's amazing the confidence you get when DJ'ing. :flirt:

 

If she'd tried to speak to me at any other time I would have been all fingers and thumbs, mumbled something rediculous, gone all red ..... and she would have walked off.

 

It's such a buzz and can see why people like DJ'ing. Seeing everyone having a good time due to the music that you're playing is just fantastic.

 

Thanks for the replies !

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MintyDave 0]

Well done, the plannig paid off. Click Here for a very usefull list of number ones from over the years. I use it a lot especially for birthdays.

 

With the music i have to echo whats already been said. Original Cd's are vital. Car boot sales are also a good place to find a bargain. Many car boots are run all year inside now and i remember picking up a box of 20+ discs for £3 of which i kept 16. Bargain. Tesco's usually have some essential collection box sets like 101 80's etc and are great. Dont forget motown as well as the party classics, especially for the wedding

 

If you do have to burn some mp3's make sure you set the burn speed as low as possible and avoid cheap cdr's.

 

Keep up the good work and if you need anything just ask.....dont forget to post back with an update.

 

Best wishes

Dave

Edited January 19, 2010 by MintyDave

[Carmen 0]

I did a salsa party in a cafe once, as the cafe only had a stereo in the kitchen I burnt a nice CD of all the tracks I wanted in the order I wanted them.

 

Same happened to me, the first few songs would play- the rest wouldn't. So I had to keep diving back into the kitchen using the original CD's to change the track it was a bloomin' nightmare!! :damn:

 

Sounds like you survived your baptism of fire OK though- at least you'll know next time!!

[Robster 0]

First of all WELL DONE !! don't be so harsh on yourself! :Thumbup:

 

My only previous experience was at the same place, when the ‘ex’ resident DJ had a huge argument with the landlady and walked out on the night, leaving a Football Club fundraising disco – without a disco.

 

Hindsight as Jason says is a wonderful thing but this would have made a little nagging bell go off in my head , i would have been wondering what had made the old DJ so annoyed as to leave mid gig

 

So, I was in there a couple of weeks ago, and the landlady comes up to me and says there’s an 18th happening, and they’ve asked if I’ll do it.

 

So this was the same venue with the gear your used previously? or had they changed the equipment?

 

I spent the whole week preparing - meticulously. I downloaded some songs from HMV, ripped some onto my computer, went through my CD collection, went through my Sisters laptop music. There was no way I was going to be ill prepared.

 

Great thinking , trying to be well prepared and planning as much as possible is always the way to do things , one thing you will find is most of us have back up gear if you have equipment failures, i often take four sources of sound , for weddings i often have the same songs cued up on a few sources just in case!

 

 

I’d a brilliant (if I do say so myself) playlist arranged.

 

playlists are are great starting point but reading a crowd is also important , i make up playlists and work around them depending what works , sticking exactly to a playlist can and does work for many DJ's but i personally feel that you could achieve that with a ipod and the art of DJing is about reading the crowd ..but if they all leave happy and feel you did a good job and you get paid ..who cares end result is there happy!

 

Anyway, I guess you get the picture. It wasn’t as great as I had hoped for. Yes, I admit that some songs got played twice, there wasn’t all that much of a flow.

Actually, I was completely GUTTED!

 

You shouldn't be gutted !!! the end result was happy customers and repeat bookings , as long as you learn from these experiences and figure ways to improve then the stress wasn't for nothing and you can give better and better performances so you should feel positive about what you have learned and gain confidence that if you can cope with that , you have the skills to cope with difficult situations under your belt.

 

 

The landlady said it went really well (I just smiled and said thanks). The birthday girl said that she’d had a great night (but she was pished), her family said that they enjoyed it. Everyone said that they had a really good time which I found really hard to believe.

Since then ......... i.e. Sunday and Monday - I’ve had someone phone me and ask me to do their wedding reception there in a couple of weeks time, and I’ve also been booked for the Cambridgeshire Pool Association Finals Night which is happening early March.

 

This is what matters , we are often are own worst critics

 

There is no way that I’m letting this happen again - you live and learn hey!

 

This is the most important thing i have found in my time as a DJ/KJ host . I am still constantly learning i certainly do not know it all and i do make mistakes not going stale and constantly trying to improve are the key things to me.

 

once again well done! :Thumbup:

 

if a picture says a thousand words the pictures you posted say very happy a thousand times!

Edited January 19, 2010 by Robster

[witm8 0]

Robster,

 

Thanks for the reply, and pointers on what I should do in the future.

 

I'll try and answer some of the questions that you've asked back.

 

Regarding the previous resident DJ, I may have not made myself clear. He ditched 10 mins before his set was due to take place, not actually mid-session. From what I understand happened was that it was the usual argument with the Mrs before he came out, therefore having the hump. A couple of drinks, an argument with the Landlady, people not siding with him regarding this argument - he was just one of those people who's not bothered about anyone else, and does what he pleases. A :cense: basically

 

This was at the same venue as the above, so it was the same equipment (but they'd bought a smoke machine and some funky lazers from the ceeling) - the DJ stuff was the same, which is the point.

 

Which brings me onto something that MintyDave said above "If you do have to burn some mp3's make sure you set the burn speed as low as possible and avoid cheap cdr's" - that may have been the major problem then. I'd done it on the fastest possible settings as I was ripping them on my works computer as I've got a lot of music on that and I wanted to do it fast (ie, without my boss catching me). With the cdr's then they were *cough cough* work CD's which we buy in by the 10,000's. I'm guessing that they wouldn't be the most expensive ones available as it's only PDF's and Datasheets that go on them. They're prob. pretty damn cheap actually.

 

Playlists - I hold my hands up and said that the plan was to pretty much stick to the playlist that I'd made. Hindsight I wouldn't have anyway as like you said, reading the crowd is what it should be what it's all about. I was expecting to deviate slightly but noting to major. I'll post it on the playlist section as it'd be nice to get advice from other people actually. I did intend to stick to it exactly for the first 6 songs as it was my first gig and I wanted that 'saftey' at the start.

 

I will definately learn from this experience. I've already started thinking about the next one, getting on ebay and having a look for some origionl CD's on the cheep. I've been up in the loft and been through my old music that I've since ripped for my ipod, and got that down.

 

:cense: My Mrs has just come home from the gym with a MASSIVE bag of CD's that her Dad's given us. There's a lot of old 50's Rock and Roll, 60's compilations, and an alarming quantity of those free ones from the front of the paper. There must be about every 'now' album ever made - there's hundreds, literally :cense:

 

I'm now not looking forwad to the weekends worth of 'work' that I've got to do going through all my old CD's, including this massive bag to get some CD's with the good songs on and mark them off ready to put into my DJ box.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

 

[fester 0]

Just to add to what MintyDave said, it sounds very much like you burned your cd's too fast. It's very common when the write speed is too high that the first few tracks play then you start getting read errors further into the disc.

A lot of cdr's say they can handle 52x write speed but try and play them back on anything with a slightly worn laser and see what happens. Get some decent brand cdr's , burn them at 4x then try and nip into the venue and test them out.

I would also second what stardust said about having a backup. An ipod etc would be a godsend that you could fall back on in an emergency.

[witm8 0]

Just to add to what MintyDave said, it sounds very much like you burned your cd's too fast. It's very common when the write speed is too high that the first few tracks play then you start getting read errors further into the disc.

A lot of cdr's say they can handle 52x write speed but try and play them back on anything with a slightly worn laser and see what happens. Get some decent brand cdr's , burn them at 4x then try and nip into the venue and test them out.

I would also second what stardust said about having a backup. An ipod etc would be a godsend that you could fall back on in an emergency.

 

That's got to be what happened then. I purposly turned up the write speed to 'fastest' in order to get them done quickly, as I was doing them at work.

 

It was also an old system, not sure how old, but it wasn't fresh out the box by any means (hence me blaming the equipment being rubbish, obv. it had nothing to do with me), so a slightly worn laser wouldn't have been surprising. That's obviously why they worked in my home Denon system before hand, and also the Sunday morning when I checked them again.

 

I'm in 2 minds about how to feel about this now - I'm really really frustrated that it was probbably TOTALLY my fault that I found myself in this situation, due to something that I'd purposly made the choice to do.

 

Then again - I'm sort of glad that it's happened as it's caused me to think a little bit broader, and now I know in the future what did actually happen.

 

So, at the end of the day I've learnt a very very valuable lesson. It's not going to happen again that's for sure!

 

[fester 0]

That's the best way to look at it, a good lesson learned. No point being frustrated, we all do things we regret. Hindsight is a wonderful thing :)

It sounds to me like you really enjoy Djing and are striving to learn and improve and that's the most important thing.

 

This forum is a great place to learn, it's the first place I joined when I started djing again after nearly 20 years out of the game. I've found the advice, experience and knowledge base of the members to be invaluable.

[MintyDave 0]

 

Thanks for the reply, and pointers on what I should do in the future.

the best planning in the world cant help on some occasions. i have done it countless times, bought specific music, prepared playlists etc to find that my night has gone totally different to how i thought so now i just think on my feet. Im only 4 years and still struggle at times but that keeps you on your toes.

 

My tip is be flexible and if you are struggling a bit ask for requests. Sometimes people dont ask as you are playing what they want and sometimes they are simply not bothered

 

My Mrs has just come home from the gym with a MASSIVE bag of CD's that her Dad's given us. There's a lot of old 50's Rock and Roll, 60's compilations, and an alarming quantity of those free ones from the front of the paper. There must be about every 'now' album ever made - there's hundreds, literally

 

Excellent - just what you needed

 

I'm now not looking forwad to the weekends worth of 'work' that I've got to do going through all my old CD's, including this massive bag to get some CD's with the good songs on and mark them off ready to put into my DJ box.

 

Welcome to the world of DJ'ing. I have forgotten what beer tastes like!

 

 

[Robster 0]

i would definitely take a extra source with me that i could plug in to the mixer just in case. this could be a personal cd player for example (ones that play cdr's are very cheap) also this is a source you can test with your media before hand.

I even have my nokia 5800 phone with me that has 20 tried and trusted songs on it just in case i always have a few leads 3.5mm to 2 RCA phonos with me and jack adaptors so i can go into any mixer should the main players go faulty.

I know djs who carry a mp3 player or ipod as a back up should anything go wrong so you can try to sort it out while some music is playing.

 

Hardware does go wrong all the time not just the media as the saying goes "Failure to prepare is preparing to fail" back up gear is always a must for me

 

even then as minty says stuff happens and you have gained that skill of "winging it" that all good DJ's at one time in there career have had to utilise!

 

once again well done ..on wards and upwards!

[MouseAT 0]

Burn speed isn't usually as important as using good quality CDRs. Most cheap CDRs are garbage - they'll usually work OK for burning data, but it's not worth taking the risk when you need to rely on the content being readable at a gig in ancient CD player that's never been cleaned.

 

If I'm burning important CDs for long term use, I'll usually use Taiyo Yuden CDs. I have to mail order them in and they're relatively expensive, but I've never had a failed burn or a problem with reading them. I generally order them from http://www.dvdshoponline.co.uk/P152.html.