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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Backups (What's Yours & Why?)......... Let's Talk...... - Page: 1

由于该帖子的部分内容已年深日久，可能包含陈旧过时或描述错误的信息。

Well for me it depends on what I'm using for the night.

If I'm using turntables I'll bring about an hours worth of albums. It's mostly old school party music so I can keep the club jumpin. I figure an hour is long enough to fix what ever problem is happening.

Now if I'm using my Denons they each have a 250 gig harddrive in them with all the latest hits as well as all old school party music and being that each drive is 250 gigs that's a lot of time to get whatever is fixed. Also since the 5500's are 2 decks in 1 if one of them fails I'll still have a unit with 2 decks.

If I'm playing on Pioneer cdj's I have a tb drive that's all been analyzed threw Rekord box so it's just a matter of plugging it in and go.

I've never carried a "spare" laptop with me cause all of my hardware can play most types of media plus there's usually another DJ there so I'd just use theirs if worst came to worst. I'm not a mobile DJ so I don't worry about sound or lighting as that's the clubs problem.

So let's hear what you use in case shit hit the fan.....

P.S.

I started this thread as to not hijack "Sureviews" thread 😜
 
发表时间 Tue 19 May 15 @ 11:04 am
Interesting, so my cheap Blackberry Z10 phone running the android Cross DJ app ( which only cost £3.50 ), and incorporating Soundcloud free of charge is likely to have a larger library than your backup beatbreaker.

There must be something illegal here?
What about licenses for Soundcloud used ( even if only for 5 minutes ) in public?
Streaming?
 
Besides the legal part (of streaming via Soundcloud) you should also consider that whether this solution works or not for others also depends on the music genres they use to gig.

As for the OP, for my workflow I only keep a spare HDD with me which holds a clone of my primary music drive.
I also have a second laptop and second small controller that I always leave at the car, but thank God, I never needed any of them.

Remember that it's highly unlikely that ALL your system components will fail at once.
Also, most gear will give you warning signs when they are about to fail. You should learn how to read and understand these signs.
Something that a lot of dj's forget to do is to take time to maintain, clean and service their equipment.
Well maintained equipment can last for years without any issues at all. Bad maintained gear is a defused time bomb...
 
I haven't carried any backup since starting with a laptop in 1999. I had a couple of crashes in the very early days due to bad drivers and such, but since starting with VDJ in 2008 I have never had a crash.

I am confident in my setup, it's well maintained and tested and I just don't see the point of taking something that is not needed.
 
i have two Denons Sc3900's & American Audio 14MXR & My Dell Laptop & A backup Laptop. my thinking = if one of the denons got out. i can just turn off the other one & finish DJing just with the 14MXR since its native to VDJ & its an mixer/controller with play,cue,pause buttons right on it. idf laptop goes out i have my back up. if the mixer goes out then its a Mouse Dj for the rest of the night :-)
 
kradcliffe, I also get a remarkable crash free performance from VDJ. It is superb.
However I remember doing a Holy Communion for a special, and well known type of people. They let the children loose causing mayhem, and according to the manager of the venue they stole everything which was not nailed down. My main power cable was snagged during a defense of my stage, which took off the power for an instant. I was then forced to reboot my laptop.

A backup is useful.
 
I ride with laptop either side of an analogue mixer with an inaudiable click track as master as a sync solution, of the few whiteouts I've experienced, I've manually cloned the stalled machine track to my working machine. I've always, days before the gig, recorded a mix to my phone jic but I've never needed it.
 
kradcliffe wrote :
I just don't see the point of taking something that is not needed.


It depends on the gig...
When you're doing clubs/bars less backup equipment is required.
When you're doing mobile like weddings then more backup is required because you can't afford ruin somebody else's happiest moment...
Sh*t happens... When I first got my MC6000 a groom spilled by accident half glass of wine over it right after the cake! At this moment I had to be able to provide a solution, regardless the cost, damage and insurance policy of our contract (the groom did paid the repair of it)
Now, imagine that happen on your laptop... You have a spare, not because the equipment is easy to fail by itself, but because it may be damaged for whatever reason...

Murphy's laws rulezzzz... :P
 
I carry more equipment than anyone should when doing mobile gigs... :-)

However when I am playing at a club, I have two identical 2014 model year MBP's (I buy new laptops every 3 years and donate the old ones), and I bring 3x hard drives with all of my music. (I carry 3 2TB USB3 hard drives, one each of a different manufacturer.) - However, I have 7 copies of my music.

3 hard drives with me at all times
1 hard drive at home
1 hard drive at my office
1 hard drive in a safety deposit box in NY
1 hard drive in a safety deposit box in CA

The 5 'local' hard drives, I keep up to date at all times. The two safety deposit hard drives are refreshed every quarter.

If I was to lose all of my music, I'd retire... (20+ years of music curation... Not looking to do that again!)
 
I use a Dell N7110 Laptop with a Mixtrack Quad, Where the CD drive was is now a 1TB HDD with all my music, I also have a cloned drive in the bag with the same drive letter . I record most of my sets when playing out, I then suss out very quickly whether it's a keeper or not depending on the crowd reaction or how well mixed and switched up the set has been. If it's a keeper I then burn it to CD or burn a part of it to CD, I have currently 35 CD's from this years sets (2015) but i only bring the latest 2 discs each weekend which so far have not been needed . I check and clean my laptop weekly (hoover the fans and vents, do any updates early in the week etc) I also have a 16GB usb stick which can be plugged into the in house CD decks......and thats it
 
Maybe it just me but it seems like everyone here is pretty comfortable with there machines (laptops).

I for one see my laptop as the piece that's more likely to fail as it does the most. I mean think about. Your laptop has so much going on where as say a turntable or even a cdj has basiclly 1 function which is to play a record or cd.

For some reason I just can't trust a full fledged midi controller or ANY laptop and I own decent laptops, lmao!!

Am I just paranoid or maybe just maybe correct in my thinking here??
 
SSD drives have made a big difference, less likely to be damaged with bumps or vibration and I've only ever had one SSD failure on an old spare laptop.

Not sure if I would trust an external drive though as the failure rate on them is scary!
 
beatbreaker1, you need more than most from your laptop because of video with transitions, and I suspect demanding effects. On top of that you trust the techies, I don't.
You might also have you're laptop on the Internet.

It stuck in my mind that you said you had an Asus 2.4ghz intel dual core burn out after a short while.
Asus make very reliable laptops.

I man handle the laptop components, including the hdd's.
(You would not like my desktop, it has no sides, the hdd is not screwed into place because I frequently change it for one reason, or another, and I have just accidentally dropped my electric razer on its hdd. All is still well ! LOL)

I remember buying a cpu off ebay whose pins got bent in the post. I just straightened them with a little screwdriver.

Most of the laptop components I have encountered are amazingly robust.
I don't mean you can give them a quick kick if they don't work LOL.

The high end onboard laptop graphic cards have been the downfall of quite a few I have seen.
Overheating is a problem for the chip.
I almost equate high end with experimental, these laptops are pushing the limitations of modern design which often results in premature failure.
Fluff from the environment can get sucked into the laptop vents blocking the flow of cool air.
Overheating then results, which could easily burn out a high performance graphics chip, or cpu whilst the low spec. machine may just chug along.

Soulman, who is also a video DJ uses an external laptop cooler attached to his laptop stand.
See his pictures in your other thread.

I might also suggest taking one step back from the very latest, and supposedly best laptops, only a little backward step might help.

I think a top of the range video DJ needs to keep things very cool.
 
I carry two laptops, two controllers & two external HDDs. Dell Precision M6700 with Numark NS6 and a Dell Studio 1745 with a Numark MixTrack Pro. Couple of 1TB ext. HDDs.
If the venue provides the sound system I simply send the outputs of each controller's sound card to their soundboard. If they don't have enough inputs or if I provide the PA I then run both sound cards to my TOA D3 mixer. My tops and subs are powered.
 
Up to date, my laptops is the only piece of equipment that hasn't failed me yet...
I had mixers fail, CDJ's fail (Does anyone still remember "TOC Error" :P) Amps fail, even controllers (but only because of physical damage)
I had never a laptop fail to me and I was not always using top of the notch technology...
But then again I always tweaked my laptops for their task and always ensure their proper condition / functionality.
Personally I prefer to connect a second laptop and keep gigging the way I'm used to with all bells and whistles, than having to plug 2 USB sticks and play from there...

And since I know your logic, no, I can't browse my library in a screen that provides 5-10 tracks view, nor use the keyboard to search the next song every time :P :)
However I respect that whatever suits one man can't suit the other ;)
 
beatbreaker1 wrote :
Maybe it just me but it seems like everyone here is pretty comfortable with there machines (laptops).

I for one see my laptop as the piece that's more likely to fail as it does the most. I mean think about. Your laptop has so much going on where as say a turntable or even a cdj has basiclly 1 function which is to play a record or cd.

For some reason I just can't trust a full fledged midi controller or ANY laptop and I own decent laptops, lmao!!

Am I just paranoid or maybe just maybe correct in my thinking here??


Aaah... And I forgot how many times I had turntables fail as well... (broken needles or damaged stylus)
 
For many years, as a club DJ, I used to carry backup CDs that had a recorded mix on them. But, many of the nightclubs I worked in did not maintain their CD players making them unreliable. I decided about 3/4 years ago to switch to a better solution. I tried to use an modern mp3 player, but, they are all regulated to around 85db and were not loud enough even with the mixer gains turned full up. I then got hold of an older, unregulated 30gb iPod. I recorded a full night (4 hours) with VDJ at the nightclub without the microphone. It was then transferred to the iPod and I set it playing at the start of every gig. I have since recorded and stored on the iPod several sets of different kinds of music with VDJs Automix.

Since moving out of the Pubs & Clubs last summer, the guy I work for has in the Hotels large DJ boxes with amps, mixer, light controller, compressor/limiter, etc. built in. He also has an SD card player in each box containing thousands of tunes built in for backup. We use this with various folders of background music during dinner/buffets. In the worst case scenario it's possible to DJ from the SD cards just like a twin CD player. Luckily I've never had to use it apart from background music.
 
I am running two Pioneer CDJ-1000s into a DJM 600. I also bring a backup mixer and a CDJ-400. If my timecode controlled laptop fails, I can still play out of my CD case that is in my laptop bag. In that case I have various DJ intelligence chart CD's, current two months of Mainstream and Club releases, wedding intros, outros, dances, timecode CD's, an MP3 disk and thumb drive for the CDJ-400. My 64gb iPad is set up with DJay and loaded with playlists (I don't have any issues getting the needed volume with it) There is also a backup computer with a mixtrack pro.
My media libraries, VDJ folders, latest VDJ install, iTunes library, and freestyler folders are mirrored to an external drive and a NAS drive. Some settings are also kept on Dropbox. I even have Traktor Scratch and update its library after I do VDJ's. I even have a backup DJ if I am unable to perform.

With all of this, I feel comfortable hiring my self out to a client and being able to say the show will go on.
Also, with all of that, I have not needed any of it. The only backup gear I have needed in the last 5 years is my subwoofer amp. I had one start to fail mid gig. Because I have backups of my PA gear as well, I was able to switch to another amp without stoping the music and while freestyle mixing each song (no set list). No one else even noticed a problem.
 
To the OP, you posted this "Let's talk" and the laptop stand "let's talk". Do you need a friend? I'll shoot you my phone number if you need someone to talk to... ;-)
 
I use one HTPC with Denon HC4500 controller. If the controller breaks, meaning I cannot use its soundcard, I can switch over to the HTPC built-in soundcard and continue.
If the entire PC crash I have a dual CD-player (Denon D4500) with MP3's I can manage the rest of the event.
I have no backup for the mixer.
For the PA I have 4 amps all Lab Gruppen fP6400, each driving it's own speaker. The subs bridged and the tops actively cross-over'd.
If one amp fails (they never do :) I can still go on with a little less of either a sub or a top.

But this is an interesting subject - Murphy is standing there all of the time...
 
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