Thurs Feb 10th 2011
The second booking in the same week was to be the biggest stage set up that i have done so far. Pete Tong was booked to play at The Pulse Nite Club In Letterkenny by the LYIT. It was the Rag Ball so big numbers were expected. I decided it would be best to get the club set up a couple of days in advance in case I ran into any difficult malfunctions.
The 5 P's of life - Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
This turned out to be a very wise move as a number of gremlins seemed to have creped into the system as I will explain as I go on. I moved all the required gear into the club on Tuesday during the day.The plan was to set it up on the Wednesday afternoon and relax on Thursday.
Getting the stage set up on the Wednesday was an experience. After getting Pete Tong's rider list the first thing that I noticed was that he wanted an Allen & Heath Xone 92 mixing desk. This was the first problem as myself or none of my large extended circle of DJ friends had this p reticular piece of gear. I eventually sourced one in a Club in Cookstown. After a few phone calls and discussions with my crew it was decided that my mate would drive to Cookstown on Thursday morning and collect this mixer.I made this choice because I wanted to have absolutely all the right gear that was on the rider to be sitting there.
After this first hick cup it was time to get set up.
First up the front off house stack system was put on the floor to the right and to the left in front of the stage.
The reason for this was because the stage is hallow with the dance floor being concrete. This gives a far better reflection of the sound. Another reason for doing this, and most importantly is for safety of the audience.The tops are less likely to fall from the bins as they are more secure on the floor. I also had the two sets of stacks 15.Specially designed DJ box together with heavy duty straps. This tighten the tops and bottoms together and made the system 100 % safe from toppling over.After connecting up the 4 speak on leads to my amp rig it was time to power up.
The photo to the left shows the amp rig. There are 5 amps and 1 crossover altogether. The top two amps are bridged together and they power the bass signal while the bottom three power the tops.
Power came to the bottom 3 amps but the top two where dead. After investigating why they would not power up, i discovered that the earthing wire was completely broken in one of the amp plugs. I proceeded to fix this and it then powered up. After changing plug fuses and leads on the second amp, I still could not find out what the problem was. I then decided to get the rest of the stage set up and come back to the faulty amp at a later stage.
The next series of photos shows how I set up the DJ Booth monitors. I originally had the two booth stacks sitting on top of each other and the right of the DJ box.
I then noticed that on the rider it stated that there was to be a booth to the right and to the left of the DJ at head height with any bass speakers to be placed behind the performer. I have never seen this way of setting up the booth system but if Pete wanted it that way, then that's the way it was going to be. After a sound check it turned out to me that this system seemed to fill out the space of frequencies a lot better.I then set the CD table over the bass speakers in the booth and it just fitted like a glove.
The lighting rig was then fitted on two stands and raised above the CD table and bass speakers. This gave a kind of festival feel to the stage set up.
Next on the agenda was to install the custom made DJ Box. The DJ box was designed around the idea of a lighting rig. I feel that this really added to the whole stage set up and it really gave an impression of professionalism to the event.
The two CDJ 2000's would be placed on the top shelf of the rack and the DJM 800 would be placed right under neath them.The support DJ would use this system and it would also be a back up for Pete to use in the event that his laptop would crash. The A&H Xone 92 was placed to the left of the Pioneer 800 mixer and there was enough space left over for Pete to come in and get his set up organised.
It was then time to fit the three 52" plasma screens to the rig. These would be used to display graphics during the event.Two of the screens would be placed on high purpose built stands, one to the left of the DJ box and one to the right. These stands matched the style of the DJ box. The thried screen was then placed into the DJ box. This really gave the stage set up an enormous feel and presents.
The backing lighting rig and the graphics were then tested and thankfully the 3 screens all worked in harmony of each other
All that was left to do now on the Wednesday night was the massive 10 x 2 ft posters up!
Thursday morning arrived and I still had to do a sound check with our big system. I had earlier said that one of the Amps would not power up. Having checked the fuse and changed the lead I decide it would be best to take the amp over to Raphoe to a professional store and see if they could fix the problem.
Luckily for me the guy in the shop (who unfortunately now is on a three day week due to the current economic climate) was just back from a 2 week holiday. He opened up the faulty amp and pointed out me an extra 10 amp fuse which is located in the power pack inside the shelling. When he went to take the amp out to test it it became very clear very quickly what the problem was. The u-cup that holds the amp in position had rotten away and had broken off. He said this is due to condensation coming from night clubs. If you look closely to the picture on the right you can actually see the rust particulates beside the fuse. This is where one of the two fans of the amp is located. It had the same problem on the other fan as well. When the new U-cup's was soldered into place the amp was tested and thankfully I was back in Letterkenny to do a successful sound check by 15.00. The stage set up was connected to the in house sound. The Live venue was now transformed into a 12.5k backed nite club that had a festival feel to it.
It was now time to go home and get ready and be back in the club for 22.30. Pete tongs manager arrived at 23.00 and fitted his Native Instrument S4 Traktor Control unit to his laptop in the space provided and after a quick check, everything seemed to be working 100 percent.
Mr Tong entered the club at 12.30 and went on to play his set at 12.40. He was not due to start until 01.00.
He went on to introduce himself as "yes it is the real me, my names Pete Tong and hallo Letterkenny"
The only other malfunction that happened during the night was the powered amp that was driving the booth monitors started to over heat.
Thankfully I had a fan along with me and I spent the last 60 mins of the night holding the fan up to the amp. this helped to keep the amp cool and thankfully it did not cut out.
The gig ended at 03.00 to 5 mins of thunderous chanting of one more tune to which he obliged twice. A successful night was had by the club as over 1500 students filled the venue and everything worked out with my amps, sound system and stage set up. It could have all went Pete Tong!
