10:31
A night in June 2010
On YouTube this video is called Gig log June 2010
What this lesson teaches
He builds it up carefully. The worst thing at an eighteenth birthday is not the mother-in-law, not somebody with a bottle, not the amplifier blowing up.
It is a sound limiter.
What it is
A box on the wall with a traffic-light display - green, amber, red - wired to the power. Exceed the level for too long and it cuts the sound off.
Venues fit them to keep themselves within a noise condition on their licence, and they are not negotiable.
Why it is a nightmare at an eighteenth specifically
His framing is exactly right: the venue has a limiter because the music must not be loud, and the crowd at an eighteenth want it loud. You are damned either way.
The advice, which is the point of the video
And it is one sentence, worth memorising before you ever meet one.
If the eighteen-year-old comes up and demands you turn it up: "I'm sorry, I can't."
And then the part that protects you: if the sound cuts out, it is not your fault. It is the limiter. The people in charge are the management and the owners of the building, and the limit is theirs.
That matters because the alternative is standing in front of a room that thinks the DJ has broken something, or is being difficult. Saying it clearly and early - ideally to the client before the night starts - puts the responsibility where it belongs.
Reading the box
He films it and experiments, which is the useful technical content.
The display climbs through its lights as the level rises. His read: one red, two reds, three reds - and he assumes that holding three reds for too long is what triggers the cut.
And the finding that matters: it is the bass that sets it off. With the bass EQ at twelve o'clock he is already pushing into too many reds.
So the technique for a limited room is to come down on the low end rather than on everything. A limiter is usually responding to overall sound pressure, and bass is what produces most of it - so losing some bass buys you more apparent volume everywhere else.
And the general method: find the box, watch it during soundcheck, and learn where your ceiling is before anybody arrives.
What actually happened
The honest debrief, done to camera with his friend.
The limiter kicked in at twenty to twelve. And the full list of what he was up against: a limiter, an eighteenth, not many people, the middle of summer, a beautiful day outside, and daylight until nearly ten.
So almost everybody stayed outside where the drink was, chatting. They danced, they enjoyed themselves - but it was never going to be the night the booking implied.
That is worth reading as a lesson in attribution. Four of those five factors were nothing to do with the DJ, and a less experienced one would have spent the drive home concluding they were bad at this.
And the rest
The rig: a powered 15-inch cabinet, an effects unit on a tripod, a tabletop player, a mixer, a video-capable player for the music videos he has been sent, moving heads, a laser and decorative scrims.
And his judgement on the laser in that room, which is consistent with the lighting lessons: probably not suitable, because the room is not big and there is no smoke - but it's an eighteenth, give them a laser and they'll be happy.
Plus a fly that got into the light beam and became, briefly, the star of the evening. Which is also what these nights are like.
Contents of the video
0:03 We're a moment in Newtown
Hi guys, here we are on the way to another gig. We're a moment in Newtown. Just picked up Dave Organics 1966. We've got Yvette B24 and me. We've got an 18th birthday party tonight near Shrewsbury. Now this is going to be a laugh. Now normally you associate 18th birthday parties with ravers, people spewing in the toilets and people bonking left right and centre and knickers on every single gate post. We're going blurred. Come on, leave it. But there's a slight subtle difference to this one. It's because we've got any DJ's worst nightmare in an event. Now, it's not the mother-in-law. It's definitely, definitely, definitely not someone coming up to you with a bottle of beer wanting to bash you over the head. Or it's not your amplifier blowing up. No, it's called...
A sound limiter. Now here's the deal, we have a sound limiter, we have a blurred camera and also we have an 18th birthday party. Now that is possibly one of the worst mixtures you can have on this planet. A sound limiter with an 18th birthday party. Now of course the reason for that is because everyone, all the ravers or whoever are going to want it to be turned up. But of course the whole reason they've got a sound limiter is because the actual... The DJ or the act that turns up cannot have loud volume. But of course, the crowd, especially an 18th, will probably want it loud. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Now, the only word of advice I will give you is this. If, let's say, the chap or the lady who are 18 come up to you
...and demand that you turn it up, then you'll just have to say, I'm sorry, I can't. If all of a sudden the sound goes off, it's not your fault, it's because of the limiter. You have to remember that the people in charge are the management, the owners of the building. That's about it. What do you reckon Dave? Sounds about right to me mate, yeah. What do you reckon Yvette? Yeah, me too. Yeah, events on the Red Bull. Right, here we are at the venue. Right, man was there. I walk along here, through that door there, and through here, through here, into here. And that's where you plug stuff in. And up there at the top is our little gadget that tells you if you're too loud. And that's the thing that every single DJ would love to get a shotgun and basically blow the living daylights out of it. Right.
3:23 Like I said, you've got green amber then red
Right, here we go. We're having a bit of a giggle, not because there's a mess on the floor or that looks a bit untidy, but over there, there's the sound limiter. Like I said, you've got green amber then red. So if we go over to the setup, they're not there. Well, they shouldn't be there, really. It's just that the plugs in the wall there, blurty plugs in the wall, aren't set up ready yet. The bass is totally out. So, right, we're near enough. Right, let's bring this up. Watch over there. Now what I'm going to do is close up. Now really what we've got there is you can see one red, two and three. Now I'm not totally sure but I would have thought that once you start hitting three reds for too long the sound's going to cut out. But I want you to just make note. Right, what I'm going to do is...
5:18 The Chauvet 4Play on one of the tripods
Right, basically what that means is that when you have too much bass or not necessarily too much bass but when it's at 12 o'clock you will start getting the limiter to click into too many reds which is not what you want. My god look at that ugly bugger over there in the window sweating like a pig. Ugly bugger! Totty! The Chauvet 4Play on one of the tripods. That there is the powered speaker from Gemini, it's a GVX15 and I think it's 1, 1.25 inch, 3.25 inch compression driver. Got cam tabletop there which is the KCD400 MP3. Got the MEP with the 5000 mixer. DVJ-1000, you're probably wondering why the hell have I got one of those. Well, I've had some new DVDs from Mixmash and some of their sort of latest tunes, so of course I need to play them or something, don't I? Because it'd be rather silly trying to play those on another player. Okay, we've got the Moving Heads from ADJ and the Cam, it's a LaserTry 260SD, it's the F-Scan.
Stick an SD card in the back of that and that is really, it's very bright. Probably not suitable for a room like this because the room isn't that vast and we haven't got any smoke but you know it's an 18th, give them a laser and they'll be happy. I've got Scrim Kings there. I was going to put them on the tripods but as you can see there's not much distance between that and the floor so they looked a bit dribbly, a bit like sort of Aunty Megan's legs from, you know, 90 year old's legs with wrinkles all over the place as opposed to those legs. With no wrinkles whatsoever. And there you go, so sort of set up with a few tidy few odds and ends. Nearly done, hello. Chucky, after shot can't hide the feeling. And just got to go with the flow. The laser, X-Move laser, sorry. Here we go guys, we've got Disco Fly. Disco Fly! Full Disco Fly! I didn't hit it, where's it gone? Oh there we go, fly.
8:30 Disco fly on other side!
Oh, to bug it off. There he is! Disco fly! Mad! Crazy! Disco fly on other side! Disco fly! Well, as you can see, it's really busy. The main problem is it's so nice and warm outside, everyone's just staying outside and that's where the booze is. Of course we have a problem with that thing over there. Watch this.
Oh shit, I wasn't even recording. Was I recording? You were! I don't think that was recorded. I've just gone blah blah blah and that wasn't recorded. Oh dear. We'd better tell him again. Right, okay. Take two. Take two! Two. Right, Dave, what was the problem tonight? The limiter kicked in. Yeah, the limiter kicked in about 20 to... I'm not going to go over this again with you. It kicked in about 20 to 12. Worst case scenario you could imagine or case scenarios you could imagine. Which was limiter, 18th birthday party, not many people in the middle of the summer, beautiful day outside, light till about 10 to 10 and you couldn't put any volume up. So it happened, they danced, they sort of enjoyed, well no they did enjoy themselves but to be quite honest they wanted to spend most of the time outside nattering to each other and chasing fireflies etc. So Yvette finishes off with...
Thanks and enjoy. Thank you.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
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