playing on a HUGE club system

[ShadowMachine]

So I was wondering if anyone has any tips for playing on a huge club system?
playing at home and in smaller clubs is fine, but I now will have to play on quite a large system soon, and as most of us know, there is a big difference,
so any tips to help make things easier would be greatly appreciated, as I dont want to screw this up...

[pompende]

one bassline at a time. no vinyl rip MP3s. have fun!

[rinseballs21]

unless your track selection is utter garbage, their is no way to mess this up

also as a good effect especially on huge club systems, filter out the high and mid range every once in a while on a new 8 bar measure so its just the low end playing, this usually sends crowds mental when done properly

[AxeD]

one bassline at a time. no vinyl rip MP3s. have fun!

no rips, even with auto-gain or a limiter. But a good huge sound system should be the same as
a good small one right? Probably not always the case but I think it should be.

[ShadowMachine]

I just worried somethings not going to sound right....
but all and all, you guys are right, as long as all my mp3s are good, it should be fine,
and as it stands now, Im a no rip kinda guy, only full 320 proper sounding tunes, as yeah, playing them against something that is not, just sounds shit...
but over all I think as long as I do whats been said, and dont try anything crazy, it should be good
and if it is and all goes well this should open up a huge door for bigger gigs, not exactly bigger venues, but living in city with not much of a scene, theres only small gigs, this certain gig being in Toronto, huge scene, lots of awesome parties to get in on...

Ill be using serato, and basically know it like the back of my hand, but has anyone had troubles with it live? ie. sound quality just not as great as say cd's?
because I have noticed that the quality of sound playing on cdj's, is just plain hands down better then that of any DVS system...

[Shum]

Serato is fine. 320s are fine. It will all be fine.

[dragstar]

i dream of the day i play on a big system

[Pistonsbeneath]

make sure the tunes are in time and the channels are up at the right times

[_cheef_]

lol you'll be fine...if Tiesto can do it, anyone can!

[hankerins]

congratulations man! i dont have any advice as you sound like you know what you're doing, just good vibes to send your way.

[Staley]

Make sure you don't play two vocal tracks at once, or at least EQ the mids really well to make sure they don't clash.

[HRKRT]

all about the first set you play on a hench system... nothing like all that power and bassweight at your fingertips

only advice i can offer is dont try and be too inventive if your not going to be able to pull it off and end up trainwrecking.... i find if im playing to a crowd ive never played to before it can be better smash mixes and do things with tunes you know you are solid with instead trying to be too adventurous and fucking up.

[Decitronic]

Just imagine yourself as being more "out in the open" it's more noticable, some what, when you do fuck up so just practice and have everything down.

Watch your levels, particularly on the low end, I've heard many DJs bring in too much low end for a bit and after that minute or so of extra lows going back to the normal level just feels unsatisfying. I'd say the biggest thing is watching your levels, I always like to leave plenty of head room for dynamic drops so this can happen me easily enough. Some DJs, particularly those using laptops, often have their levels pushed from the source so that there is next to nothing in the range of dynamics so they don't have to worry about that as much [although they'll not have quite as good sound quality and more importantly they won't have as much impact on the different sections of their set].

Like any gig though the most important thing is to read the crowd, keep your mixes tight and, most important of all, enjoy yourself! I remember my first time playing on a large system, I went literally mental. I loved it, it was definitely one of the best feeling of my life. I was worried like yourself but once I got into it I didn't care, I nearly broke my gear by sweating so much on it though.

As for sound quality from cd vs mp3, you'll be fine only huge audiophiles would notice [even then I'm skeptical as to weather it's more of an educated bluff] but if you're really worried then just rip wavs of your cds to get the best quality possible, or if you both your tracks online they should offer wavs or flacs to you [not sure if Serato takes flac but I'm guessing it does]. As far as sound quality goes wav and flac can't be beaten. Even with vinyl that's a tone issue, not a sound quality issue but that's a whole other issue.

You'll be fine, Serato is damn reliable and if you're sticking with 320 and nothing less then you have nothing to worry about. Enjoy it!

[Glue Reed]

Good luck!

[Sheff]

post back in here after!

[Justin]

What venue you playing at?

[55stevieboy2010]

its actually really nice to read through a whole thread and not see a single message of negativity towards the guy. biggup mate and good luck. this isnt advice but i will say this, as soon as you get past the nerves and get into the set and start enjoying it. trust me, ou will do no wrong. good luck

[hassanova]

personally can't wait to play my first huge soundsytem <3

[skitz_0]

personally can't wait to play my first huge soundsytem <3

same.

i've done ghetto-rigged house parties, and was lucky enough to do a night at a small local place, but have yet to step up to a proper system. can't wait.

[grind]

Trim the tops & don't run it red.