Do You Use a Streaming Site Only at Your Gigs if You Do Watch Out!

0:00 Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

Right ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. Now before I start, I would like you to do something for me. Don't really ask that often. Please subscribe. There's a lot of you who aren't subscribed and at the end of the day, okay, I understand if you don't want to, but if you do, you will be up to date with the stuff that goes on DJ related. There could be video tutorials, demonstrations and also new kit and so on. At the moment, it's a lot to do with DJ lessons, but this one here is a bit of information for you and this could save your life. Not literally, but in a way it could if you've got some maybe annoyed person the other side of the dance floor who's not happy with the fact that there's no music. I will explain.

Now, if we go back many years, DJs would use vinyl, then theoretically went to CD, MP3, laptops, controllers and now a lot of people are doing something that I find very scary. I will explain. It's called streaming. Now, if you're not familiar with streaming, basically what it means is that you've got the universe in front of you. Yes, you can be at a venue and some old lady, some young boy. Some middle aged girl, any age, any genre, any style they can say, have you got and you can say undisputedly yes, because you're on a streaming site that has practically every single track underneath the moon. So if someone asks for an obscure track, an album track side to track seven, you can say I've got that.

2:36 Let's say you are indeed a professional DJ

I've even got the remix and you can play it. Isn't that amazing? You don't need to take any music with you. You can simply plug your laptop in, log into the Wi-Fi and away you go. And theoretically then the night will just glide just smoothly and everyone's happy because you are playing every single track they want until of course the Wi-Fi goes off or until there's a problem with the system or it breaks down or something goes wrong. Now, again, I'm not trying to put people off streaming. All right? I'm not trying to put you off. I'm just trying to make you look at it from the other side, because let's imagine this and let's get down to basics here. Let's say you are indeed a professional DJ. You've been DJing for many, many years.

You don't want to break your back with vinyl anymore. You can't be bothered with CDs. You can't be bothered with hard drives because they corrupt and goodness knows what. So you're happy with just a. Laptop, a small controller plug into the super fast Wi-Fi away you go. And like I said earlier, you can play any track you want only to find that halfway through the night, the Wi-Fi goes down in that case, then no music. Now, as I said, if you're a professional DJ, you would have undoubtedly had some form of contract between you and the client and a contract is there to save you save the client. The client knows what to expect. And vice versa. You've agreed a fee, everyone's happy, you've got your public liability insurance, you've shown that to the venue, all your kits being pat tested, all the kit works, you are a professional DJ, you've done exactly what is to be expected, but the trouble is, is during the course of the night if you are streaming and here's the key now, you do not own the music you're playing and all of a sudden the web goes off.

Then basically, if the night stops and you can't play any music, the client is in the position to say, well, you're not fulfilling your part of the contract because you are contracted to play music from this time to that time. Now, if you think about it, this is where it is and isn't controversial because it's irrelevant about the Wi-Fi has gone down because the client could say, well, that's not relevant. It's not a client responsibility. That's up to you. Well, that's your responsibility. And you could say, well, it's out of my hands. I'm sorry. It's the web. You know, the mast a mile away apparently got hit by lightning. Well, that's not their fault. It's your fault because you're in charge of the music.

5:30 You have a flat tire

Now, again, I'm not trying to put you off streaming. What I am trying to say here is that word two words actually was it one maybe that would the two words that are key here to make sure the night carries on no matter what. And that is backup. Now, I was chatting with a chap from CD Paul and we were talking about this, about the simple idea of most DJs who stream have not got any form of backup. And it's imperative you have backup. Because if you don't, and you're completely relying on streaming, then in my mind, I'm sorry to say this, but you're an absolute idiot. All right. It's a little bit like, you know, here's a good analogy for you jumping in your car going on a thousand mile drive and then 500 miles in.

You have a flat tire. And guess what? You haven't got a spare. I mean, an idiot would only an idiot would do that. You have a spare. You may never use it. In fact, I bought a second hand car two or three years ago and you know what? The spare was still in there. All right. It's one of these cheap and cheerful wheels that you have to go slow. It gets you from A to B, but it doesn't matter. At least I know if I have a flat tire, I will be able to get to a garage and they'll be able to fix the tire. So when you're at the venue, and if by some one in a million chance, so maybe one in 1000 or 100 chance, the weather changes, the web goes down or there's an issue with the connection, at least if you have backup, you will still be able to fulfill a contract and play the music.

Now don't forget to comment on this video, please. I'd like to hear your input. Do you stream? Do you still use vinyl? Do you use CDs? Do you stream and use vinyl and or CDs? Do you have backup now going on a slightly different subject, but still in-premise backup? Now, when I go to any form of gig, I've always got an extra speaker just in case. I always take an extra controller just in case like here, I take the Pioneer XDJ-XZ, but I've also got one of these. That's the DDJ 400. Now I may never need it. I mean, I can literally have that underneath my arm and put it underneath, you know, my DDJ booth. But heavens forbid, if anything ever went wrong with this, guess what? I can plug in the DDJ 400. My laptop. I've got a spare laptop.

8:19 I'll plug my other one in and the music will be back on there

So if anything went wrong, I can plug that in. I've got some extra lighting. I've got breakdown on my vehicle to take me to and from the venue if anything happened. So worst case scenario, imagine this, you know, you're halfway through an event. You've got a dance floor. Full of people and all of a sudden a DJ's worst nightmare. And it's happened to me a couple of times, the music stops. You know, the worst thing in the world is for you to panic and think, my God, what do I do? Not only are you going to look an idiot, but back to the contract thing, they're in a position to say, I'm sorry, you haven't fulfilled the job. We're not paying you or even worse than that. They can sue you which wouldn't be nice. But if you do have backup,

At least you can say I do apologize. Ladies and gentlemen, the laptops crashed. Give me two minutes. I'll plug my other one in and the music will be back on there. You are showing your professionalism in many ways to especially number one. You are in control of the situation and you're not panicking a number two. You have shown the people out there. That you have got back up no matter what bang the show goes on. So relate that back to your music and if you only stream, if you do like I said, I think you're an absolute nutcase. Please make sure you have backup. Now, if you've got the sort of controller that you can't plug in a CD player or anything like that, then for heaven's sake, make sure your laptop with a,

Whether it be a disk drive, hard drive external thumb drive. You have got music on some form of format that you can plug in and use. That's your music that you can play it. If not do what I do sometimes bunch of CDs. Loaded CDs taken with you and at least you've got some form of media to play just in case. The worst thing in the world is just think for you to just think, you know, I'm paying my subscription which is a great deal of money to play whatever music. I want when I want and how I want only to find out that bingo all of a sudden the lights go out and you can't play anything at all. So please heed this advice. It is coming from someone who's been in the industry for a very long time and I've been in that situation where all of a sudden the amplifier stops working,

Or the which happened two or three years ago for an 18th birthday party in aberrarum. But luckily I knew the client my laptop decided to update and it was an absolute nightmare. Luckily, I had a spare laptop plugged it in and I carried on within a couple of minutes. All right again, please in a comment. Let me know what form of media you use. Do you use vinyl? Do you CDs do CDs? And vinyl to use thumb drives? Do you use external hard drives or do you stream do stream and use the other or just only stream let me know in a comment and please don't forget to subscribe. Thank you for watching practice and enjoy nice one.

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