Club Tips and Tricks

[mattus123]

Hey guys, so as u may have read, got my first club gig on Sat and i just wanna make sure i have as much knowledge as possible to make sure i do a kickass set

any advice or tips that you can pass on to me (inb4 crundy recommends to gabber ) would be greatly appreciated

one thing i was concerned with is volumes.. i did a farewell party the other weekend and hte DJ before me had all the eq's to the right and was red lining... if something like that happens ill wanna reset the Eq's back to 12 oclock.. but then the volume might be too low? what would u guys do in such a scenario

cheers lads

[OxyKon]

my advise would be to just increase the master volume, i personally always keep the eq's in the middle, if the guys before you has had the eq's to the right then the master would be the best bet i would think, but thats just me, i mainly dj in a radio station

edit.......controlled environment

[Jaz]

is the club a very large club dude? If it is they should have a very large compressor on their sound system, no decent club wouldnt, so if the DJ's before you are redlining you will find that the compressor achaly kills the volume to lower then if you were in the highest green

but this may not always be the case if the club doesnt have 1, or if its set up wrong

if thats the case your in a pickle, scope out if the club has any large dedicated subs, this way you can boost the lows a bit but still keep your gains in the green, it still may be quieter than the Double Red DJ but the ectra bass gives off the illusion of volume buy making the sound in the air more dense, spesh when the patrons are drunk

[JonnyB]

ok basically

when you get into both, look for any tech notes pasted up like 'please do no touch high eq's' etc as there may be problems with the mixer what not.

if everything is all clear, 95% of the time the dj before you is going to have the master up in the red's. bring it down, and dont ever turn it back up unless someone from the club or technical team orders you to for some reason.

next with the eq's generally they are only used for cutting away freq's. But in the case that a track has had a bad mixdown/master you can use the mid's and high's to accentuate the higher frequencies and make them come out a bit more if the track is sounding to muddy through the soundsystem though.

that wont happen to often though

if like you say the knobs are all the way to the right, correct them to 12, and if the volume drops, have a look at rthe lights, and if the light is sitting way below the reds, push up the gain untill its hitting just above green. making sure the master dosent hit the red either.

[OxyKon]

dont ever turn it back up unless someone from the club or technical team orders you to for some reason.

lol had this happen many time, but thats cause the guy who runs the joint love to push the levels

[JonnyB]

same, played at world bar and the dub room was fucked and flooded from heavy rain, so we moved the dub room to the third floor, spent ages trying to get enough speakers to work, then stacy from glovecats just goes 'dude pump it up as much as you can, your gonna need all the volume you can get

[Mitch]

-As for EQ's, put them all back to 12oclock. It is only distorting the track by turning them up past that.

-As for levels. You are most likely going to walk up to the mixer and they will all be in the red.

-Get your level gains right firstly, then adjust the master accordingly so its not pushing in the red. might be better to do this in a breakdown where there isn't too many elements going on so its not as noticeable.

After you've done all that, you will sound so much better than the guy before you

-Have a few drinks before you start to calm your nerves.

-Remember your headphones and cds

-Don't listen to the drunk people who come up asking you to change shit e.g. turn it up/down etc.

set it so the things aren't redlining and only change it if someone more important says, aka manager

That's all i can think of atm lol

Good luck

[mattus123]

awesome

cheers guys

if anyone can think of any other tips, please post

but i guess its all a pretty simple deal of 'play good shit, and mix it well' ey

[MelodyIlliterate]

Epic waterfall of information thread. Good read !

[d0tbat]

Have fun, don't stress about mistakes, read the crowd, and as stated, an unless a manager specifically asks you, ignore the drunk people.

[andyman]

My biggest word of advice is know your songs back to front.

The first time I plauyed out, the booth monitor was completely fucked.

All I could hear was distortion so I relied heavily on just using the headphones.

From this, my transitions weren't as smooth as they could have been, cause I'd dropped a track too early or left one playing too long.

Try and fill your set with songs that you are super familiar with, so you avoid having the same problem I did.

[GREMM1S]

What club has a pretty good system in the back room, not amazing but good martin boxes and is more than enough for the room.

When we played had the gains around 12 and the master 3 or so which was fine.

The booth isnt amazing but its good enough, you will like that nobody can annoy you in the booth at the back room got plastic at the front and you go in a door into the little room.

Play a mix and appropriately for your time slot, someone else mentioned know your tracks this will be important especially because youre on cdj800 mk2s so no wave form.

HAVE FUN, enjoy yourself bro haha its just what you do every day in your room, same shit have a blast.

Play this song called levels by skrillex it goes off

Good luck man, disregard ^ that sentence haha

[Addi]

Good luck man, plenty of good advice above! Dont try and change your style on the night because you dont trust your song selection, they have obviously hired you for your skills and music taste and they like your style, so just do what you always do and you will be sweet

[legunner]

All the guys have shared some great advice here

Another thing I'd like to reinforce from what Gremm1s said is the music in relation to time slot.

Don't be banging all the hits at 9pm

Dont be holding back at midnight

youll do fine

[mattus123]

followed all advice and it went heaps well

couple of little mistakes, but they werent too noticable

cheers guys!

[SolDios]

In a scale of 1 to 10, how 'rockin was the Dance Floor?

[GREMM1S]

When's the next afterdark mat?

[mattus123]

(gettin off topic lads, wanna keep this thread as info for everyone, not my personal thread for that specific gig)

sol: pretty rocking, i packed out the backroom and the front room was kinda empty from what i was told

GREMM1S: not too sure mate, ill be sure to let everyone know when i know thou