You know the venue has a shitty sound system. So-

JectWon

Alright. I've got a gig with my homie tonight at this dive that has a terrible sound system. We are too broke to have our own PA so we kinda' have to make due with what they have. The sound system might not even be that bad, it might be a sound guy issue. After playing there a couple of times, we think he might be trying to over compensate for changes we are making (eq tweaks, etc.). The bass always ends up getting so out of whack that it makes that building WHOOOOOOOOOM' feedback sound and it's shit. Again, we aren't sure if it's their crappy sound system or, if it's him f*cking with it, or if it might even be our equipment. Should we just get a sound check and then politely tell dude to fall back off of adjusting us (I see the potential for a pause here too...you ain't slick) unless we ask him? If this helps the at all:My vestax PMC05 PROIII mixer connects via my master OUT to his session IN. Then we go from his Vestax PMC07 PRO's master out into their board via XLR. It's really not too bad. All of our record nerd homies think that we are being too picky about the whole thing but since we notice it, it kinda' takes away from the fun of the whole shit, so any advice would be awesome.

Duderonomy

So I take it you don't have access to the main volume, just the output from your mixers? Maybe you need to do a soundcheck before hand and turn the gain on all of your mixers down to about half. Then during the gig you have more leverage. I find I often have to do this, mainly if I'm playing old records and/or LP cuts that aren't mastered at 45rpm; I have to be responsible and not crank it up too much or the whole PA volume will be turned down on me, but if I keep my gain levels reasonable I can then turn the gain up when needed to avoid a noticable dip in the levels. I also think think that feedback hum is more likely from high gain on the mixer rather than the master volume that the sound engineer will have control of.

JectWon

Great point. We are definitely using some busted vinyl. A lot of dusty shit and LP cuts.

And your idea about turning everything to roughly half on our stuff is probably going to help big time. That is actually something we vowed to do last time we did a show there.

I agree with the idea of the mixer/high gain being the source of the feedback and I think it starts to happen after we've had the PA turned down on us...it gets turned down so much that when you play some shitty pressing of "don't sweat the technique" you have to max out the gain to get any volume and thus...feedback.

You're absolutely right, being conservative about boosting our gain will probably help us avoid being turned down by the sound dude and will give us more leverage to control our own sound.

I'm sure this is common knowledge to most heads. For some reason I've always been a bit oblivious to this aspect of DJing.

Duderonomy

Hope that helps.
Unfortunately some LP cuts will never sound good on a big system though...

But I hear Paul's Boutique is getting a re-mastered re-press[/b] soon, maybe other artists will follow suite

DJ_WubWub

It's good to make sure that you have headroom from your end without having to max out your signal later in the evening.

The gig i did recently (which ended in a teenage riot -another story) we noticed what we thought was major feedback with the sub and worked out it was just a ground wire from one of the decks that was causing the trouble. Check your cables and connections..

SmallAxeRick

If you're slick and the soundguy isn't too clever (which is the case a lot of the time), most big soundboards have an "eq off" button. Hit that and let him tweak his heart out.

Duderonomy

If you're slick and the soundguy isn't too clever (which is the case a lot of the time), most big soundboards have an "eq off" button. Hit that and let him tweak his heart out.

That sounds too good to be true! Soundguys I've known are as protective of their knobs'n'slides as I am about my records.
Re: feedback -

that building WHOOOOOOOOOM' feedback sound

this is definitely gain feedback. Earth problems usually sound like digital spitting, or as if one of your channels has suddenly gone to mono from my experience.

JectWon

Thank you all for the advice. That eq off button sounds like the stuff of legend. I can't wait until I can successfully push that button and watch as the sound guy tweaks something and nods his head in approval like "ahhh, perfect...I'm so good at this shit".

So, the sound was way better this time around. We did exactly what Dude said. Made it sound great with all gains at half and we even picked records that were middle of the road quality to get a good middle ground.

We STILL ended up at the very end of the night with our shit sounding SO loud even with the individual gains for phono 1 and 2 on less than a quarter. I don't understand that. I mean, it's fairly easily fixed when you adjust the master accordingly...

This f*cking gig though...

We were bombarded by chicks to play "happier stuff"...so after getting approached by these annoying bitches like 90 times, I drop "bitches ain't shit" and they eagerly nod their head in approval...so Snoop talking about "lick on these nuts and suck a dick" is now classified as 'happy'.

Normally, when we play it's for an audience that isn't going to break down and go into seizures if they haven't heard a household/clearchannel name in the last 20 minutes. Shit, they actually enjoy hearing obscure shit that they aren't privy to. Last night however, as we later learned, was ladies night and our venue was a frat/sorority bar. Needless to say, they weren't into our Red Astaire ish'...they were on 'weeezy or death' mode....not 'fresh mode'.

At the end of the night we end up going into a no frills, pride reducing hit parade roller coaster ride that no self respecting DJ's resort to unless in a life endangering situation....of course....they f*cking LOVED it.

We also got shafted out of our money by the owners. They wanted to give us roughly $60 a piece when they had a PACKED bar from 10:00-2:00 with nuff dudes in there who paid at the door....I mean, shit, it was ladies night...so, cf course there were 2 to 1 dudes in there.

The last time I walked by this particular venue, a few days earlier, I noticed their cleanliness rating was a f*cking C. The Taco Bell and the fake Taco Bell and the Waffle House and the fake Waffle House all have A ratings....so you know shit is hella' dirty when cats have a red C pasted to their front window, scarlet letter style. When we went in to set up last night...I noticed that they had taken the rating down...which is actually illegal in SC.

At any rate, after hearing from a bunch of drunk "managers" and realizing we weren't going to get a dime over $50 a piece...I told them "I hope shafting us out of a couple hundred dollars is worth getting reported for operating without your SHIT C rating posted....which will cost your owner a LOT more than the chump change he just denied us." Heads flipped. I had them so f*ckin pissed. Unfortunately, I hadn't got all my shit out yet so I had to hear them scream and make half assed excuses about the shit while I got the rest of my gear out.

Got home at 5 in the AM...have to work today....shed every ounce of self respect I had for myself as a DJ thanks to that drop marathon hit parade bullshit we resorted to (which I only did thinking we'd get paid)...and I have $50 dollars to show for it.