A longer log, March 2012

0:01 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another gig log

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another gig log. And there is, what's your YouTube name again sir? Organic1966. Go and check him out. Dave, very good friend of mine, always helps. And here is the setup. We sort of get in there but a lot of work to be done. 500 people tonight and consideration is that... You're probably going to have a greater percentage of them who are going to be absolutely just like blotto. There is a slant to the floor here. If I put the camera level, you can see that's sort of level. It is. One good thing is that the slant's going that way and not that way because if it was, I'll tell you what, you would have people. Just bashing into you continually. A lot to be done, got a couple of nice black scrims there, got the DJ screen, got another DJ screen there, that's got to be tidied up. I haven't got the light console today because I've got the three players and you can't, there's not enough room sadly to fit all of that on the light console which is a bit of a shame because it would look very good and would have been nice to have everything symmetrical.

I do have another screen, but then I haven't got two projectors, so we could have had that in the centre and one of those either side. But, you know, maybe get another projector in the near future. I've got the Wharfdale speakers, and these are the 15 and Horn. There's two of those, one side, and you'll notice I've got the other two on the other side, on the Twin 18s, the subs. And, I mean, if I could somehow wangle another set of subs, Big system. Roughly about 5k I think here, which sounds a lot and it is a lot but when you're in a marquee environment that sound will just disappear. I could have that thumping in here, the dance floor would have a very good sound quality or they would have good sound quality, correct English like what I do, but as soon as you get over say there the sound would start to disappear.

Around there it's uh you can hear it probably by the bar you could have a relatively decent conversation if this was let's say a proper building then 5k would be humongous in here but then again you know 5k is a lot i'll probably be using at least four and a half of that ideally what you want is you want to have 5k and only use about two or three of it so you've got lots of headroom and headroom a little bit like Let's imagine you're 4 foot tall and you're in a room that's 10 foot high, and you can jump 2 foot. That means you've got 4 foot above you. If you're 6 foot tall and you jump, say, 2 foot high, that only means you've got 2 foot above you. In other words, it's better to have more headroom, save you bashing your head against the ceiling and killing yourself. Right, so let's carry on with the setup. There is logic there, you've just got to try and work it out in my crazy way. Thank you.

3:31 Are you praying, Dave?

Well, that there is my public liability form. And that there is Dave on his knees. Are you praying, Dave? You should be sort of set up. Got a little wash against there. I've got a couple of these small laser cluster lights. Got one there. Another one over here. There. Got a Chauvet Megamoon facing that way. One of the most old school lights known to man is a rope light. Check it out.

4:58 Normally we're in the van and we talk and stuff beforehand, don't we?

Right, so we're virtually set up. Normally we're in the van and we talk and stuff beforehand, don't we? We do, yeah. Give a bit of advice. So what I'm going to do is give you a little bit of advice now. I was going to try and do this with a straight face. Got to do it later. Normally at the beginning of a gig log I'd give you a bit of advice. What I'm going to say now is some good advice. Never put your hand in a kettle while it's on with boiling water in it.

Never ever attach a stake to your bottom whilst running away from a rabid dog. And never ever go up to a bouncer in a nightclub who's about six foot five tall and looks like a brick shithouse and poke him in the eye because he probably won't like that. Right, so we are set up SVM today with three players. And yeah, I'm old school. I still like to use hardware. By the way, I do have the Pioneer Ergo now and that comes with VirtualDJ and also, I'm not sure exactly but I think you can upgrade the software to do video mixing as well. And very shortly I'll be doing some work on the Ergo and hopefully I'll have all of those on a couple of 1TB hard drives. Right, what's your say? Now that to me is a lot of kit, looks good and people, you know, this is my own personal opinion. I feel people, or some people most, generally people like to see you working with product, with items, you know, wiki wiki scratch scratch moving from side to side. So there they can see you moving quite a bit, there's a lot going on as opposed to let's say a small controller.

8:05 I've got some of the latest ones

But then again a lot of people can't afford this, neither can I. So controller is great because it's affordable and again if we go back when this guy was made that was virtually the only audio video mixer out there that did everything. Well I suppose you could get something from the BBC that probably cost you about half a million quid. But within a short space of time, controllers now will do video mixing. Stanton, the Discratch, you can do video mixing on it. You can do video mixing on the Cam Digi Mini, virtually any controller. So the new way of DJing is definitely, and it's happening as we speak, is going to be video mixing. Probably the most difficult bit will be buying the actual... DVDs or the music videos because you have to have a license and they're a lot more expensive. But it's like anything, as time progresses things get cheaper. These guys here from Mixmash and I'll put a hyperlink in the description to the Mixmash website and you can download stuff from them as well. I've got some of the latest ones. I don't think I've got March but I've got February. Yeah, I've got February.

January, but I don't have March yet, so hello nice people from Mixmash. Right then. That road light works, you know. Everyone's getting ready. Looks like they've got a bit of Las Vegas over here, going to have a casino. Interesting. Okay, it's coming at 7 o'clock. People are supposed to be arriving at 7. Right, let's see if you can hear the difference. That's just the mid-top. Let's put a bit of bass on. Oh, there you go. Internet, internet. Yeah. Definite change there, isn't there, Dave? Internet. Alright, people should be arriving any time now. This should confuse them. Everly Brothers. No, Everly Brothers. No, that was before, wasn't it? Rock Around the Clock, sorry. Bill Haley, yeah, right. Then if you can see this, that is Star Wars and that's on that one. Of course you can do all this with software now.

10:58 You need your mind active, 100%

Thank you for watching. The philosophy I stick by most of the time is don't drink at all when I'm working. It's not worth it. You need your mind active, 100%. Plus the fact if you get caught drinking and driving, pardon my French, but you're fucked, so don't do it. And I don't swear that much. Those guys there, Wharfedale Pro, they are the MP2800s. And I tell you what, they're just big... I can imagine when the person built those he just decided to make a box and put bricks in it because they are so heavy but I'll tell you what they pump it out something big and rotten, big time. And yeah there you go. It is actually absolutely rammed in here tonight and I was very concerned earlier on of the dance floor and the kit being so close to it.

So earlier on we are on a bit of a slant, which does help. It means people go that way as opposed to that way. But along there you can just see the rope light. In between the rope light and the table there's, I suppose, a small rim around the dance floor. And I'm not happy with that. That dance floor should be butted right against the platform. During the course of people... Having drinks, canapes, etc. There were a few people, ladies especially with high heels, tripping on that and falling into the kit. Trouble is I can't really move the screen because the projector there has to be that distance away from the screen. Can't put it the other way because then you've got a projector right in the way. So it's stuffed really. Actually that might not be a bad idea.

12:58 Hopefully will serve quite a few purposes

I'll have to think about that. At least if people are going to fall into one thing, it's only going to be the projector. Dilemma. I may do that. But what I have done is I've now put this line of tables on there. Hopefully will serve quite a few purposes. One is that people can put their drinks on the tables and not on the floor. And the other one, it serves hopefully as a psychological barrier in between the floor and me. But once people have had a few drinks, who knows? And these people I'm sure will. Goes on until half past two in the morning. Again, I do apologise if we don't get much footage of people dancing and jumping all over the place because, you know, you're doing a job. Having said that though, I've got my mate Dave, he may be able to do a bit of filming. Hey guys, pretty well, pumping out the good bass. Right guys, you can see the marquee there in the distance.

15:43 Still hearing the sound

Yeah, yeah, that's right, in the distance. Still hearing the sound. So that's a pretty impressive sound system I reckon. Right guys, it's the day after and I'm about to upload the gig log. Great evening. Very hard work. And I'm just going to sit down here in my corner. Hard work because you have got a continual supply and I'm sure I've delved on this subject in the past, a lot of people have, but... Quite a few people don't know about this. You do get a lot of people coming up to you asking for certain tracks or certain genres, and say for example, you get someone saying can you play some 60s? You just happen to play a load of 60s tunes, let's say, give you an example, 20 minutes ago, but they want it now. They don't want 60s like, you know, in 10 minutes, they want it now.

18:31 I do remember last night someone asking for Mojo Lady

And you also have to deal with people who are drunk, people who are dancing on tables, people who wouldn't normally let's say act in that certain manner of you know just stripping off and just like just running around on the floor and puking all over the place. It wasn't no it wasn't like that at all. The crowd was 90% 99 in fact percent of them were very responsible but you do get the occasional um I would you know Thank you for watching. What I will say is when you do get people coming up to you going, oh can you play this or this or this? Just be very polite and kind and say yes, I will play it as soon as I can. You know, write the name of the track down and then all being well you will be able to play it. I do remember last night someone asking for Mojo Lady. Couldn't find the damn thing. I tried and I tried and I couldn't find it. In the end I walked up to them when they came up to me for about the fourth time.

No, they came up to me and I walked in. We met in the middle. It was love. And I looked them in the eyes and I said, look, I'm really sorry. I tried. Can't find it. And they were happy with that. If you just go, oh no, yeah, I can't find it. Sometimes if you're actually honest, then they'll believe you most of the time. So I will say practice and enjoy. Thank you very much. And thank you very much to Organics 1966 for helping me. Dave, it was a great gig. We had plenty of time to set up. And again, another tip for you. You could be the best DJ in the world. And I have said this before, but I need to drill this into you. You could be the best DJ in the world, you could have the best gear in the world. But if you turn up late to a gig, they'll always remember the fact you're late. It's better to be early or on time and maybe have dodgy kit.

As opposed to having the best kit and being late. People do not like an entertainer, entertainment to be late. Not necessarily punctual. Try and get there a little bit early because they'll think, wow, this guy or this girl, you know, I like them. They're there. They're ready. They're ready to go before the first person walks through the door. Fantastic. So that's it. I will say practice and enjoy. Thank you very much. And we finished at quarter to three. And by the time we packed up, it was right about half past three and I got back at about six o'clock in the morning. And now I feel all right. But, you know, it's a long time. So when people say, how much do you earn? And you tell them, and they look at you thinking, oh, you know, you've done four hours. That's not bad. No, no, no, no, no. It's not like that. You've got to get there.

There's a lot of work involved. Practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.