Questions answerd for the DJ.

0:00 I had an email from YouTube user Brents, which is spelled B-R-E-N-T-S-

Alright folks, Jonathan here. I had an email from YouTube user Brents, which is spelled B-R-E-N-T-S-S-S. A few questions here and I'm going to answer them through a video so hopefully we'll help a few other people out there as well. First question was he's saying that a lot of people are finding it very difficult to buy new gear because you walk into a shop or a store... And of course the gear is very, very expensive so there's not a lot of people out there who really can walk in with a couple of thousand whatever and just buy the gear straight off. Now what this guy is saying is that you can buy stuff on credit. Now fair enough, that is to a certain degree a very good idea because it basically means you don't have to pay the full amount in one go, you can pay it over a period of time.

But one very, very important factor with regards to paying for gear over a certain amount of time. You must know 110% that you will have the money to pay for that gear over a certain amount of time. There's no point thinking, yeah, I've got like 200 in my account now and I can pay that first 200 and think, well, I may get the next 200 for the next month and the next month. Over the next one year or two years, also very important, and that is finally when you've paid for your gear, if you haven't bought good quality gear, maybe after the two years of paying for it, you may realise that you need to buy new gear again because you bought inferior stuff and basically after two years, sorry, it's knackered. So just bear that in mind. Now also a common problem I face with... Right, small questions here.

A common problem I face with lasers and smoke machines is getting the actual right mix of smoke for the laser. Right, first of all what you have to bear in mind is when you set off a load of smoke first of all it'll just end up in one big cloud. Now ideally what will happen as soon as the people start moving around the air movement will circulate the smoke. Now also what you can get is you can get a lot of smoke machines, the better ones, that will have a timer. So what happens You set the timer and you have a small burst every, say, 20-30 seconds dependent on when you set the timer. And then what will happen is you will get a continual supply of smoke as opposed to just one huge gush and then no one can see where they're going. What have we got here now? Where's the best place to put the smoke machine? Think idiot scenario, and that is don't stick it in the middle of the dance floor, you wouldn't do that anyway. Don't stick it away from you because you haven't got control of it.

2:35 Very, very important with a smoke machine

Put it next to you because what will happen is over a certain period of time, the smoke will circulate naturally anyway. So make sure it's at hand with you. Very, very important with a smoke machine. If you put it away from you, you'll always get some drunkard going, oh look, smoke machine, press the button and before you know it, the room's full of smoke and everyone's falling over everything. Not a good idea. Also what this guy's saying here as well, The best position to place all lights and other things We know enough on how to set them up, but where to put them. Now I have done a couple of videos on that. Again, bearing in mind the idiot scenario, and that is don't put lights where you can't see them. If you're going to put lights where you can't see them, and you have to put them, make sure they're well secured. Make sure you're literally tying them to somewhere so they can't fall off. People can't pull them down and people can't fiddle with them. That's very important. You have paid for those lights.

It only takes one person who's had a few drinks to start pulling things apart and then it's knackered because that person who's pulled them apart has disappeared into the crowd. At the end of the night, you go and see that light, it's not working and you don't know what's happened and you can never find that person. They're not going to admit that they've buggered your light, are they? So ideally, if you're doing sort of a mobile setup or you're organising a rave or a party, make sure everything is behind you, out of the way, not in front of you. Oh, and the cat's just dumped on me a lamp. Right, here we go. Right, if you can go into detail about the proper way to switch DJs and it's at an event and for one getting on and the other one getting off. Do you fade out or start new?

Hope that wasn't too confusing. Well, to be quite honest, that's entirely up to the DJ. What you'll find if you've got, say, a house set and all the DJs are playing house music, generally what will happen is the one DJ will finish his particular record and the other DJ coming on has got one of two options. He can either or she can either just continue the beatmatching and follow through or let that record stop and then start their new set. It's entirely up to the DJ who is starting the next set. If they're professional enough, they will know the best way of doing it. The main thing is keeping the big word here, continuity of the music. Continuity of the night, keeping the flow, the vibe, the feel. That's what it's all about. Another one here, how to do a proper sound check in terms of turning up the PA system. I usually turn one side up gradually while playing the music and then the other one.

5:38 I then slowly bring them up

I then slowly bring them up. Right, this is what I would do personally. Like I've said before, make sure the amplifier is up, make sure all the channels of your mixer are up. Now, bear this in mind, this is very important. Your right side and your left side, make sure you've got a CDJ or a record on the right-hand deck, one on the left-hand deck. There's no point just trying the right-hand deck of, say, a vinyl turntable, and let's say you just try the right-hand deck and you think, yeah, it sounds brilliant, Because during the night, as soon as you put a record on the left hand deck, you may get feedback. So you need to try them both. This is what I do. This is what I do. I will make sure all the amplifiers are up to their optimum level. I will make sure the two channels are full-on up to their optimum level. Play records, make sure nothing's going in the red so they're tweaking over quite nicely. But I will make sure the master volume on the actual mixer is all the way down. And then

One turntable first. I will slowly increase the master volume until we get a good, good sound. Now if you think about it, if I have the master all the way up and I then bring the actual sliders of each individual channel up, what will happen is all of a sudden when the slider gets to about 7 or 8... It could be maximum and I'm thinking, yeah, that's as far as I'm going to go. As far as I'm going to go. But then the next DJ that comes along, they may take it that little bit higher and all of a sudden you've just got a huge mass of nasty sound and you've got feedback and goodness knows what. But if you do it the other way, if you have the two channels up and you turn the master up slowly, once the master is set, then that's fine because you know that any of the DJs who go on that mixer and turn the...

Individual channels all the way up to the top, that's the loudest it can go. Now also what I do occasionally and that is if I've got other DJs using my gear and I'm not sure how good or bad they are and if I need to walk away and I don't know what they're doing while I'm away, I will put gaffer tape or something Over that master volume, so I know no one can mess around with that master volume. And if I want to be doubly sure, I will even put gaffer tape over the trims, over the gain controls, so I know no one can mess around with those. And again, it's down to your ears. If you have professional DJs, they should know that if they're going to start turning the bass up, the mid and treble too much, it's going to sound crap. Now, the beauty about it is...

If they do that too much, they're the ones who are going to look idiots, not anybody else, because people are going to think, why are they making the music sound so terrible? Now, I hope this has been a help, a bit of an insight. Leave your comments, constructive or critical. You can criticise as much as you want, I don't give a monkeys, alright? Practice and enjoy, and as usual, this cat is always with me, but he's beautiful. Look at him, eating me. Yeah, practice and enjoy.

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