DJing Live: From Setup to Soundcheck

1. Introduction: What's going on? It's Young Guru. I'm here for Ray-Ban and Boiler Room for Do Your Part. As you guys probably know or hopefully you know, I have a variety of classes on Skillshare. It's important for me to give this information away, especially what we're gonna do today because I go to so many live shows and I see people that aren't prepared. I want to give you tips or tricks so that no matter what you're in, I don't care if it's a major venue, if it's a small bar, if it's a 1,000-seater or if it's a 40,000-seater. There's very basic things that you do to make sure that your sound will come off the way that you want it to. When I was a kid and I had to DJ, that meant that I had to bring the speakers, the amps, the lights, the wires, know how to connect all of those things but more importantly know how to deal with problems that may arise when you're not in a perfect situation. For me engineering and DJing are just extensions of each other. When I'm engineering, I'm controlling how a record sound. When I'm DJing, I get to play that record out to people and see the reaction of the people but there is such a thing as live engineering so I combined the two experiences to make sure that I'm in the best situation when I'm playing out live. There's a lot of places that we can cover today when we're going over DJing in a live venue. Today's class is going to be gone over everything you need for a live setup, how to incorporate whatever it is that you do in a live setup for show, some of the, should I say, necessary things that go into preparing for a show. Not so much the techniques of performance, there's plenty of things that you can go over whether or not you use any type of equipment, but the preparation for the show should sort of be the same all the time to make sure that you're always in the best state when you are performing so that you know the thing that you need to request, so that you know how to set up those things but also how to check those things. Checking and double-checking things are the main thing that we'll go over today. But hopefully this will enable you to know exactly what you need to do in order to incorporate all of your equipment into your live set. 2. General Setup: As you can see, I have my full setup here. This is what I normally use when I arrive to a show. The first thing that I want to do is check everything again to make sure that all my connections are great and to make sure that everything is working properly. But what I basically have is a mixer. Right now, we're using this Pioneer DJ mixer. I have two turntables. I still like to use vinyl as my controller. I grew up for years controlling vinyl, so it feels great for me in terms of touch. It doesn't matter if you're using CDJs or vinyl, whatever works for you. I also have my computer on a laptop stand, high enough that I can see everything that's going on. It also gives me space for my controller to be right next to me on the right. I have my interface right in front of that, so basically, everything is in arms reach. One of the great things is that I'm running all of my stuff through this particular mixer so that I can control the volume. What I'm sending out to the front of house is completely controlled by me. Now, there could be various situations. Sometimes, we have interfaces that are spread out with the output. I may be sending from 8-16 different outputs depending on what my stems are. That may be going to the front of house so that the audio engineer can mix for each and every situation that I'm in. What you need to understand is that every venue sounds different. So, every mix is going to be different. The more you can give the audio engineer to work with, the better the sound is going to be. But for today's purposes, I'm just running two tracks out of my interface, and I'm controlling that here on my mixer. Again, this is one of the reasons why you need the fastest computer that you can afford. I'm actually running two different types of drivers and sometimes, that can get tricky on slower computers. I'm running my S04 which is for my Serato DJ, and my Apollo Twin for my Ableton, so that both of my systems can be at a great latency level. We're not getting a lot of latency from either Serato Scratch or from Ableton. That's something you really want to check when you're in your live setup. The way that I like to run my software is I run Serato the normal way. It's just like my two decks. I can select whatever MP3s that I need to choose and play them out. This is mainly for me where I scratch during the show. I, myself, don't like to add on a lot of things that will take away from what the band is doing because most of the time, I'm in a band situation. I like my scratches to be just like another instrument inside of the band mixed in, not too loud, but not too low. So what I'm actually doing is I'm running my Ableton into a spare channel on this mixer. That allows me to control the level of whatever's coming out of Ableton, also control the level of where my scratches are versus that program of music. For my setup, the reason why I choose Serato is because it feels the most comfortable to me. I set up my scratches. I do whatever remixes I need to do. I do whatever specialty acapellas I'm going to do. Anything special that's going to come off of this turntable are going to feel like a scratch. Something like, that I'm adding on to records, I do from my turntables. Anything that's production base, anything that's me doing live drumming, anything that's me kicking off stems of songs is coming from my Ableton. Ableton is a very powerful program that allows you very quickly to change tempo, to change key, to do a lot of things in terms of selecting which instruments gets sent out to the front of house and which instruments gets sent also to the other players in the band. For anything that's program-based, anything that's part of the song, any of my stems, or anything that I need to change the tempo on, or anything like that, I use inside of Ableton. Ableton is a very powerful program that allows you to do a lot of things on the fly. It's almost perfect for playing live with musicians. It will allow you to speed things up, slow things down. It will allow you to change the tempo without changing the pitch, or vice versa, to change the pitch without changing the tempo. It's a great program for incorporating everything that you need in your live situation. Ableton can also follow your live players. The tempo can be set by Ableton or vice versa. Even outside of audio, Ableton allows me to do certain things like sending click track to all of the people in the band. I'm also sending SMPTE, which is Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers code for locking video. All I have to do is make another track, I put SMPTE on that track, and the video that you see in the show is all being controlled from one push of a button. This is how good Ableton is in controlling your live show. 3. Essential Gear: Now, when you're preparing for your live set, there's some basic things that you want to check and make sure that you have, so that you know that you're prepared before you start. The very first thing that you should think about is the bag that you're going to carry all of this stuff in. A quality bag may seem like something that you don't need but it's absolutely necessary. As a traveling DJ, your bag is going to get thrown all over the place and go through so many different situations. It's worthy of you to spend as much money as possible to get a very comfortable yet sturdy bag. Obviously, the next thing that you're going to need is a computer. This is the second place where you do not want to skip. Getting the fastest computer that you can get under the best situation economically will be a great advantage for you in the future. I just recently upgraded to all solid-state drives inside of my computer. What does that mean? That means that I have very fast drives and I can knock them around, that there are no moving parts and I know that are reliable. Solid-state drives are also the way to go because they're resistant to vibration on stage, that's a big thing. So, you want to spend a couple of extra dollars that you need to get the best system possible. You want the fastest computer that you can get for the money. Now, besides having the fastest computer that you can afford, you also want to make sure that you have the best connectivity. What does that mean? You want to make sure that the computer that you choose has as many ports as possible, that means has many USB, has many firewire, or has many other ports that you can afford on your computer. Sometimes, you may be in a situation where you only have one or two USB, so you may want to consider getting a USB hub. There's a difference between powered USB hubs and unpowered USB hubs. But you want to make sure you have as many ports as possible to connect as much as possible. After you decided on what type of computer that you're going to use, you're going to want some form of controller. I myself, I love Ableton. So, I'm very good with the Ableton Push, but you can select whatever controller fits whatever program that you're using. What you want to do though, is make sure that it's something that you can see in the dark inside of a club. That's a huge point that people don't think about when they're at home. Sometimes, it's advantageous to turn off the lights inside of your room and see how you can use your controller when you don't have a primary light. You want to make sure that you have all the cables that are necessary for your whole gig. You want to make sure that you bring power cables, that you bring extra RCA cables, that you bring your own USB cables. Any type of cable that you're going to need for your set, please make sure that you have that in your bag. Don't rely on the soundman. It's not his responsibility to have the cables to hook up your system. If you bring your own, you'll never have to wait on someone else. There are some standards that you can expect, most soundmen have quarter-inch and XLR connectors. So, you want to make sure whatever interface that you're using has those type of connectors. I myself, I like this Apollo Twin. It allows me to access all of my plug-ins, it has one big knob that I can use and it gives me four outputs to use in my live show. Depending on what you're doing, you may need an interface that has more outputs. Depending on the artists, you may need eight, you may need 16. Design your system for what you need. Make sure that you know how to run that system. Reading the manual is something that we all don't do but it's necessary because you're going to run into situations that you don't run into at home. So, the more you understand your equipment, the better you can work. You also want to think about size as you're traveling. I used to have a Mo2 that had 10 outputs in about the same size as this box here. You want to consider the size of the interface being that you're going to be lugging this thing all around the country and possibly, hopefully all around the world. So, the size of your interface should come into play. Why is this interface important? The interface is the way that you get sound out of your computer into the real world. This box translates everything that you're doing inside of the computer and sends it out to the real world in terms of audio. So, it's important that you have a high quality interface. It's better to use a separate interface with separate drivers and something that can be grounded versus coming out of the side of your computer. If you come out of this eighth inch on the side of your computer, it is an okay sound and I have seen people use that, but you would much rather be able to send this signal through a DI box and allow your soundman to properly amplify your sound. Why would you use a DI box? Well, a DI box will bump up the signal to the correct impedance. I don't want to get too deep into the technical terms but having a DI box will allow you to run very long cables without any interference. When you're in a live situation, they're going to be hundreds, possibly thousands of cables sending signals all over the place. Radio interference is a big problem for cables that are very long. You may not think about how long your cable is on stage going from just your box to the connection, but once that connection is made where is that cable going? Sometimes hundreds of feet and there's a big chance that radio interference can get into your sound. What's the point? The point is that you want to DI this signal, so that you can eliminate all of your radio interference. So, I can't stress enough a great interface is something that you absolutely need. After the interface, the computer, and the controller, you're also going to need some form of hard drive. This is very important. I use a Thunderbolt because it's the fastest connection that we have today. This is a four terabyte drive. I tried to get the biggest drive that I can in the smallest size. I want to have as much information at my access at all times, you never know creatively where your artist is going to go. So, you want to have as much information to help you get to that point as fast as possible, and believe me, artists will throw you a curve ball every day of the week. So, the more prepared you are with the more information, the better you can serve that artist. But you want to make sure that you have a rugged hard drive. This again is going to be knocked around, it's going to be in a bag, that's going to be traveling with you all over the world. Making sure that you have a sturdy hard drive and having at least two backups of this hard drive is imperative. It does not exist, if it's not backed up twice. Backing up your information will save your life. You want to make sure that you bring all of your proper cables, your power chords, your USB cables, but you also want to make sure that you yourself have backups to the backup. I never travel anywhere without my SL4 for my Serato. Yes, I use Serato with the mixer. But I also step into situations where there may be a mixer that doesn't have Serato, or there may be a situation where the drivers just get updated, it doesn't work for you, always have a backup. My SL4 allows me to plug into the real world all from my station. I'm never relying on anyone else. I always have a backup. Also inside of my bag, I travel with my own needles. This may seem like something that's natural for everyone but not everyone does it. I always have a set of four needles. No matter where I am, I don't rely on the fact that the soundman should have needles for me. I want to carry my own needles to make sure that I have the proper needles for my setup. This is very important and some people overlook this. Take the time to get good needles. All the way down to the most basic cables, why do I carry these around? Because again, I'm always making sure that I'm prepared in any situation. This may seem simple but there's a lot of times where the soundman doesn't have the exact cable that you need. So, for me if I'm ever hooking up my SL4 box, I make sure that I have these RCA cables again so, that I can get my sound into the real world as fast as possible. Being prepared cannot be overstated. Also, if you look in my bag, I have various copies of control vinyl. Why do I have so many? Because I want to make sure that I have backups for backups of backups. I DJ with control vinyl. Some people do it with CDJ's. If you do it with CDJ's, make sure that you have plenty of backups. I'll have copies of all the scratch live CDs. I carry my own just in case I'm in a situation where I need to use them. Last but not least, a great pair of headphones. You want to make sure that your headphones are comfortable, you want to make sure that you can hear yourself inside of the club and you want to make sure that it's something that you're used to. Not only for DJ but for comparing and seeing how your sound sounds to you versus how it sounds out in the audience. Sometimes you're going to need to do tweaks depending on the room, depending on the situation that you're in. Having a sturdy pair of headphones and whose sound you're used to is vital to know what's wrong with your sound when it's projected into an audience or into a stadium. 4. Serato Setup: In terms of preparing my set, when I go to Serato, I want to make sure a couple of things are done. Number one is that I analyze all of my MP3s. It's a very good thing to do on Serato. Why? Because it will naturally give you the tempo and the key of each song. These things allow you to beat grid inside of Serato which gives you all the features that you need when you're performing live. This allows you to do beat or time-based effects. This also allows you to quickly see and change the key of whatever song you are using. This is a great and powerful thing when you're playing with the band. Sometimes, especially when we're dealing with samples, things had been sped up, slowed down, and they're not quite in key, we can use Serato in this manner to help us see at least what the base of our key is and to tell where we are by how fast or slow we're going on the turn table. Now, mind you, this isn't a Serato class. We can go a little deeper, but for me, when I'm going into my live show, I want to make sure that my Serato was set up for quick and easy access. So, I simply create a crate for whatever show that I'm doing. I'll have a basis of information for that particular artist. What I like to do is have every song that they've ever created, and any possibilities that I think they might like. I'll create a second crate that's specifically for that show tonight based off of my overall crate that is their show crate. The reason I do this is it allows you to be organized. Sometimes, you're stepping into situations where the artist may change things at the last minute. You want to make sure that you have a crate for that show on that particular night. Once you have your crate setup, you can go through all of your MP3s and maks sure that everything that you need again has been analyzed for that night. Once I have all of my crates setup, I'll simply select that crate, select the music that I need, and I'll check to make sure that I can easily bounce through crates or bounce through sounds. Once I have the MP3 set up, I'll go through and I'll mark all of my key points inside of my MP3. Usually, those key points are the beginning and ends of songs or points that I want to quickly jump to in the middle of the show. However you choose to arrange that is up to you and your convenience, but these are some of the tools that are there to help make your job a little easier. Now, setting up for an artist is one thing, setting up your DJ gig is something totally different. Most of us are familiar with this. We choose the records that we think we may play or we set up our crates based off of what the type of music is. Is it early 80s? Is it 90s hip hop? Is it 80s rock? It just depends on what your flavor and what you're going to play. But most of the time, our crates are set up that way. What's easier for me is to set up a crate that will allow me to draw from anything that that artists could possibly want from me. So, it's key that you familiarize yourself with all the music for that particular artist and to have it all available. Again, one of the greatest things about Serato is the convenience or the ease of having so many different songs. I, myself, I play a lot of different gigs, a lot of different styles of music. Sometimes, I don't know what I'm stepping into. I play for people. So I go in and I test the crowd. But having so many crates available, already labeled, already analyzed allows me to go anywhere very quickly. So, I could step in somewhere and I could play underground hip hop, and if it's not that type of club, I maybe playing some EDM. But as long as I have all of my crates organized, I know exactly where I need to go. This is the power of Serato. Also, one of the best new features inside of Serato is mixing in key. Serato allows you to see the key of the song. Sometimes, it's better sonically for you to mix in key. That means that certain keys mix with other keys. There's a chart, or should we say a spin wheel, that you can easily look at that will allow you to know which songs go with which other songs. Serato analyzes your whole library so that you don't have to think about it anymore. Sometimes, when you're playing live with an artist, that song is in a particular key. So, the thing that you choose to scratch or to blend in should also be in key with that song. Another great feature that some people don't know about Serato is that you can look at the key of the song in two different ways. You can look at classic key or you can look at what we call a Camelot system. For me, I'm normally in classic key because I'm dealing with musicians who were calling out keys at any moment and I want to know what the key of the song is, but it's not very difficult as a DJ to go into the Camelot mode, which is basically a wheel that allows you to see which keys blend with which other keys. So, if you look at my Serato right now, I'm in classic mode. This is telling you that certain songs that either A minor, C minor, B-flat minor, whatever it is. But if you go here to your setup and if you click on Library and Display, you can change this classic key into what we call the Camelot system. If I come back out of setup, now you'll see that there's numbers reflected next to every song. What do these numbers mean? Well, there's a chart here that we call the Camelot wheel. On this chart, you'll see 6A represents G minor. If I want to blend a song with something that's G minor or 6A, all I have to do is look to the boxes that touch that particular box. So, I can go from 6A to 6B which is a B-flat major, or I could go to 7A which is D minor. It may sound complicated but it's not. All you have to do is go to the box that's next to whatever key you're in and you can move around the wheel that way. Now, you may ask yourself, why do I need this? I've been deejaying for years, I've never mixed in key. Well, the purpose is so that one song can go to the next song and sound perfectly in key and not clash. It's a very easy system for you to understand how to mix in key. These are some of the things that will make your DJ set better and sound more professional, and when you're setting up your crates, you now have another vantage point to think about how you want to play music. There's always been the traditional BPM. When we set up a crate, we see we want to go from slow to fast, we want to take people on a journey, or we want to go from fast to slow, or we want to go in dips, we want to go up and down and take people all over the place. Well, mixing in key is another point that you can use when you're setting up your crates to take people on this journey. You want to use all the tools that are available to you at the time to make sure that your set is different from everyone else's This is something that will make your set special. 5. Ableton Setup: Now, one of the most powerful softwares out there is Ableton. The reason that I love this software is because you have the ability to do whatever you want. It works so well for the live situation. Most people that I know have used this software just to produce and have never use it in a live setting. But for me, the clip view and the arrangement view are perfect for going along with an artist out on the road. What I do is I take all of my stems and I spread them out across the clip view so that every single instrument that's represented gets its own clip and I can then trigger a song right from my push. I can decide which things get muted. I can decide which things go to what outputs. I can also set up an AB and use a fader to act as a crossfader just for my Ableton. So, things like doing drops for the artist or rewinding songs, starting from different points, are very powerful tools that you can do with Ableton. Again, this is not an Ableton class. There's so many things that you can do with this program, but these are some of the basics of the way that I use Ableton inside of my live show. That combined with all the internal effects makes for a great tool. Now, one of the greatest add-ons to Ableton Live has been push, and most recently, push to. Push allows a physical control for everything that's represented in Ableton. Ableton is beautiful. I love the color coding. The color coding allows me to see very clearly in the dark. Also, there's dedicated buttons for every function that I want to perform while I'm in my live show. Meaning, I'm not going through a whole lot of pages of parameters in the middle of a show. I want to set something up and be able to press a button or turn a knob and get a given effect. I also have visual feedback as to what that knob or that button is doing. Either it's blinking or it's telling me on my LCD screen exactly what's going on. This is another reason why I love Ableton push. Another key part of Ableton besides just playing my stems is that allows me to set up a drum rack so that I can do live drumming inside of the show. This is a great part or this is something that shows how versatile Ableton Live is. So I simply go in, I'll create a new track, I'll go over, and I'll pull in what I call a selector. Ableton allows you to make drum racks that you can select what sound is on each pad and have a lot of various sounds underneath of that so that you're not spreading out on a million different pads but then you have the access to all of your sounds. These selectors are very easy to set up. As a matter of fact, I have a blank selector as a template. So, I'll just load my selector, load some sounds, and we'll get to drumming. I simply pull this over. Now that you see that my drum selector is loaded up. I can then start drumming. This gives me the access to be free inside of the show without a click or to follow along with my artist. This doesn't have to be just drums. This could be anything. This could be any sound that you're thinking about. You can also add effects, do live delays, do live reverbs, any type of thing that you can come up with and think about, you can do on Ableton Push. Again, this is just my setup. I'm giving you tips on the way that I like to work. For me, most of the time, most of my scratches or should I say sound effect noise or anything like that, are coming from Serrato. They're coming from this turntable so that I can manipulate them and scratch them the way that I want. Most of the time, the backing tracks or things that are prerecorded are coming out of my Ableton so that I can control the tempo, the key, and quickly switch in between songs. This allows me to have the maximum amount of control with the maximum amount of comfort. 6. Soundcheck: Now, you've gotten to the venue and it's time for sound check. How do you approach this, the first thing you do is you search out for the engineer, and this may seem like a simple point but you want to introduce yourself to the engineer and let them know who you are and what you're there for. Imagine being on the other side. It's an engineer, he has 30 different people that have come up and talk to him all night. He has no concept of who you are. A slight introduction telling them who you are, what you're there to do, can make your job a lot easier. Walking up to him assuming that he knows who you are and what you're there to do could cause you a lot of problems. He's trying to deal with so many different things in one night, making his job as simple as possible and being as nice as possible will definitely help you get your sound check. The number one thing you want to do is to make sure that your sound sounds good to you first. Sometimes, you have in-ear monitors. Sometimes, you're working off the monitors that are just wedges. But what you want to do is test your sound to make sure that everything in your facility sounds great to you. Once you get it sounding great to yourself, you want to get it sounding great to the audience. You can't perform if you can't hear yourself and the audience can't enjoy it if they can't hear you. So, dealing with the sound man, you want to ask him to make sure, are my levels correct? You want to stay outside of the red of the mixer. That's one of the biggest things. If you send a distorted signal, there's nothing that he can do. Staying outside of the red will guarantee that he has enough headroom to adjust what you're doing in the PA system. So, talking back and forth to the sound man, asking him, is my level high enough? Is my level too low? Are my wedges high enough? Are my wedges too low? If you're dealing with the band situation, you want to make sure that you're doing all of this while everyone else is playing. There may be some things that are fine while you're just here, but if the base cabinet is right next to you, that may cause some vibration on your turn tables that you weren't getting when you're rehearsing just by yourself. So, you want to make sure that the situation that you sound check in is as close to your performance as possible. Once you do your sound check, it's imperative that you leave your equipment the way it is until the show. Some people especially people that are using computers, will check on their computer and then disconnect everything and go backstage and work on their computer. This is going against the whole purpose of sound check. If you're going to do that, make sure that you leave your computer in the exact same state that it was during that sound check. You want to make sure or you want to stay as close as possible to exactly the way you had it before you stepped on stage. This may seem like a simple thing, but believe me, I've stepped in to so many situations that when I stepped back on stage and try to hook back up my computer, something is different. So, if at all possible, leave your computer and you're set up exactly the way it was in sound check. Now, there's a lot of situations that you'll run into depending on where you are in the line-up. Not everyone has the ability to be the top artist. Most of the time, the stage is set up for the top artist. It's set up for them not to move their equipment. While you're coming up the ladder of performing, you may be the opening artist, which means that your set is going to physically be moved off of the stage and back onto the stage before you perform. One of the best things is to check, make sure that everything is the way that you want it set up before you start your show. It's better to be five minutes late than do something wrong in the show. So, let's say for example, something does go wrong. Problems arise all the time. How do you troubleshoot these problems? Well, the first thing and most importantly is to remain calm. When you're in this high pressure situation, when there's thousands of people staring at you and you can't get sound to come out of your system, what do you do? The very first thing is to check power to everything. This may seem simple but you won't believe how many times the off button was not turned on in a system. Make sure that all of your power connectors are connected and that all of your system is on. Make sure the power button is pressed on. Secondly, if you're not getting signal, you want to check and make sure that you're plugged into the proper port in the back of your mixer. You also want to make sure that that is selected on the front of your mixer. You may be a situation where that particular mixer is the mixer of the night. A lot of different DJs may come onto that set, they may adjust it the way that they want. Take the time to make sure that no one has pulled anything, or no one has switched any knobs. You want to be, again, accurate and late instead of being wrong. I can't stress enough to you how much etiquette plays a part in the live show. Your attitude and the way that you address people and talk to people would determine how they deal with you. When you're stepping into a situation where someone has to deal with so many different artists and get it right in one given day, it's important that you take the time to be patient. Be nice, be courteous. The things that you say reflect the way that you are and what will reflect in the way that people deal with you. So, again, be nice to your sound man and your sound man will be nice to you. 7. Conclusion: So, I hope that these tips and tricks will help you. Again, make sure that all of your equipment is hooked up exactly the way that you want it. I can't stress that enough. Review that as many times as you need to. Make sure that you've checked every single connection and every single thing that you need to make your show successful. Number two, I can't stress enough etiquette, etiquette, etiquette. The way that you carry yourself, the way that you talk to people is so important. That will help you get so much done in the course of a stressful situation, and lastly and most importantly, remember you're in a show. Remember that you're there to entertain people. Remember that the moment that I can see you, you're onstage, and you're acting. Everything that you do reflects in your show. No matter if you're yelling at someone to get something right, or if you're looking like you're having the greatest time of life. Everything you do on stage is reflected to your audience. Always remember, you're there to entertain. I want to thank you guys for hanging out with us today. Hopefully, you learned something. This is Ray-Ban Boiler Room Do Your Part workshop series. Hopefully, you'll see me in the future.