DJs might not always behave like boy scouts, but it certainly pays to adhere to their famous slogan – “Be Prepared”.
There are few things worse for a DJ than arriving at a gig, something unexpected going wrong, and finding that you are unable to play as a result. So in this piece I will cover a few of the ways you can cover yourself to make sure that you are prepared for any unexpected surprises. A lot of these things are pretty unlikely – but its a lot better to be prepared for something that never happens than unprepared for something that does!
Check Your Bag Before You Head Out!
ALWAYS do this!
If you can create a checklist (there’s a ton of phone apps for this), thats a great idea. At the very least, have a clear idea of the important things that have to be in there.
Its like when you are going out and you pat your pockets – “phone, keys, wallet… ok, lets go” – you want to have a DJ version of that. “Laptop, charger, headphones, earplugs, laptop stand, USBs, USB cable – OK, lets go”. What you need will vary from DJ to DJ – but check that list before you head out for the night. I’ve driven an hour to a show, started setting up, then at showtime realised that my Macbook charger was still at home, with a 5 hour set ahead of me!
Serato
Serato seems to be the most popular tool for Heavy Hits subscribers. Its a brilliant, game-changing piece of software, but it is on a computer, and computers and software are not 100% reliable! Thats not a criticism of them, just an observation of reality – anyone who has played out much will likely have horror stories about freezes, crashes, weird latency bugs and so on!
Often the only solution is to restart the software, or even reboot the computer. In such eventualities, it is a good idea to have options available to minimise, or even eliminate, dead air.
Some simple safeguards to go with – if you are using vinyl control records, bring a good handful of suitable 12″ records just in case something goes wrong, ideally long enough to buy you time to fix problems. Classic choices are things like Rapper’s Delight or Blue Monday – evergreen tracks that transcend genres, and that are lengthy enough to buy you a lot of wiggle room. Also – bring a spare needle, or at the very least a spare stylus. Those things can be very delicate, and if one gets broken mid-set…
If you are using control CDs – rather than use the discs you get with Serato, download the control tone, and burn it to a CD, along with about an hour of tracks of a particular genre. I have a small CD wallet that I take out with me – 2 x house, 2 x disco, 2 x hip hop, 2 x R&B etc etc. It means that if there is a sudden crash, I can quickly change channel and have a track on almost immediately. Think about the tracks you choose for these CDs – ideally you want things that will sound good to drop straight into, and where the reception to them will mask the cock-up that came before! Likewise, having a couple of USBs on you with the control tone and a bunch of music is a great backup in case your laptop dies and won’t be resuscitated!
USB
This always blows my mind, and I have seen it many, many times. A DJ turns up, then for some reason the CDJs don’t read their USB. Or they aren’t linked, so only one deck can read and play from the USB. Or maybe the one USB stick they’ve brought has corrupted and won’t load…
I always have at least 2 USB sticks on me, loaded up with the same tunes and playlists. Ideally I have 3, in case there is a problem with the USB input on a CDJ, AND the CDJs aren’t linked. If you can, bring a spare ethernet cable – many venues end up with broken or missing cables after the decks have been in place for a while.
Also – make sure you have plenty of music on your USBs! I have seen people turn up with just the tracks for their set – maybe an hour or 2 hours worth of music. And then the next DJ is late, and they have nowhere to go other than repeat tracks from their set, or silence…
And in another related point – loading tracks on to USB from Rekordbox is notoriously slow, even with good USBs. I’ve been caught out by this FAR too many times when I was touring for Ministry of Sound – I’d be there in a hotel room in some strange city at 11.30pm, cursing my laptop and USB for talking to each other so slowly as my window of opportunity closed, and ended up having to play sets without everything I wanted!
Desperate Measures
So your laptop has exploded. The USB slots aren’t reading your sticks. The CD players don’t work… what the hell is a DJ to do?
Well – you’ve obviously got the line-in cable to go from your phone into a mixer right? Phono to whatever your phone outputs – the one you can get on Amazon for about a fiver? So, worst case scenario, you can stick Spotify on (a paid-for version to avoid blasting adverts to your venue!). Better still, you have some sort of DJ app on your phone, and a good handful of tracks already saved on your handset.
Obviously – this is a last-chance-saloon sort of move, but I’ve seen streams of people trying out mobile phone apps, and they are actually a lot better than I would have guessed! Yes, you’ll look a bit silly, but at least you can keep the party moving!
Bathroom Breaks
Often DJs have to play for a very long time – long enough that you will probably need the toilet, especially if you have been drinking! Obviously, you can pick a long song, or set up Serato autoplay to play songs in sequence as they finish – but what if the crowd are used to tracks being mixed quicker than this, and you don’t want to lose that vibe?
Well – we here at Heavy Hits have got your back. Check out our amazing Bathroom Breaks playlist! The team, all great DJs, put together themed mixes of various genres to save you in those awkward moments! You could even burn them to CD or put on USB as a back up for possible Serato crashes, as covered above!
All that and more can be found on the site, which is why Heavy Hits is the best record pool out there!