Ever had your computer freeze or crash during a set?

[Kent_in_CO]

I had my first live PA gig last night, and fortunately didn't have this problem. But as computer-based performers we put a lot of faith in technology; compared to a conventional band scenario there's a lot of room for failure. Has it ever happened to you, and if so, how did you handle it?

I'd also be curious to hear what people use as "plan B" if the system does crash. I play guitar during my set. If I went through an amp, I could just jam on that while I rebooted - but that's no good when using Guitar Rig! I know Pitch Black, who use two computers, has a set-up to run on just one. I've also heard of people keeping an iPod ready to feed into the mixer.

[ethios4]

I've played dozens of shows without a single crash or freeze, but then again I'm running windows. I keep an mp3 player handy in case something ever does happen during a solo set, and when I play with a band we would probably incorporate the glitch sound into an improv. It would also be great to have a jug band handy to bust out during a crash.

[nbinder]

I always have a CD in the player for "those moments", but fortunately never had a crash

[Superchibisan]

i had my entire computer freeze in the middle of opening for habersham. the music kept playing though, luckily.

so i had ot queue up a cd super quick and mixed out that way, it was pretty funny... no one even noticed...

[weeddigger]

I first started DJ'n with Virtual DJ on a Dell 13" laptop. and the one time my laptop crapped out on me was during a wedding gig. I think it's rather funny that the laptop crapped out on me after two songs that should never be played with one another were played next to each other.

There is this old Venezuelan folk song called "Caballo Viejo", which is a love song of sorts i think... Anyhow, the groom asked me to play this, and then right after to play Tupac's "Hit 'Em Up". Now, I'm not sure what "Caballo Viejo" is all about, but it sure isn't on the same emotional level as "Hit 'Em Up"...

So whatever, I went to play "Hit 'Em Up" and as soon as I move the crossfader on my Hercules MK2 controller, the laptop shuts down, blue screen of death, and scary messages about dumping computer memory come out...

So I wasn't prepped for this, the laptop seemed to die, and I had no way of entertaining the crowd. I was with my brother who knew more about PC's than I did, and he couldn't get the damn thing back up, so, with my head down, I packed up all my gear and went home.

They brought out a radio and finished their wedding reception with the radio DJ...

One of the worst days of my life I'll say...

[DJ VAKIS]

It is good to have some cd's with you,if it happens.

[ethios4]

You can mentally prepare by visualizing the crash and thinking through your response, so it doesn't catch you by surprise.

[Sage]

I have, wasn't using Live at the time, ended up doing some soundscaping with my guitar.

[Eddee]

I use Ableton mainly for visuals in combination with Arkaos, all on one laptop. The visuals run on the secondary screen and ableton on the laptop screen. So In the middle of the show (1200 people)I decided in an act of stupidity to press ctrl+alt+del to check system resources.. Big crash.. 4 big led screens and the large spheres i was projecting on went black. When trying to restart Ableton and Arkaos everything seemed alright, but it turned out the live set was corrupt and not usable anymore. I had to control Arkaos by hand leaving ableton totally out. Afterwards the organisation congratulated me with the nice visuals...

Lessons learned:
Never ever pres ctrl+alt+del while in presentation mode.
Create a spare copy of your live set.

[Marcus007]

NEVA EVVAAAAA

mac for life

[corygilbert]

So many times it:s ridiculous.
many times because of just bad decisions, (pushing a slowing computer too hard) or not preparing well enough.
But many weird ones too,
I've had the power just fail.... total lights out, total sound dead, just goes from rocking to nothing in 1 second. What do you do?
I like the above mentioned jug-band
We made kinda like that. We kept the audience in check for a minute or 2, but when we realized that maybe the power wasnt gonna come back on for a bit, we engaged in a impromptu set of (ok, everyone from the end of the bar to my left go 'woommmf' on the one beat, 'everyone on the right end of the bar go 'pow!' on the 3 etc.
And built it up from there, you'd be surprised how excited people become when they get to contribute to the music at hand, I remember the panic and fear and was surprised how well it worked.
btw, after an hour of 'mouth-drum circle' the power came back and along with my tunes, there was free-form scat from the audience all night. When in doubt, use the oldest instrument I say.

[ikeaboy]

I'm cursed with technical problems. Over the years I've had..
A motherboard fried on a laptop, just as I was about to play a set at DEAF in Dublin,leaving me with a one inch strip of working screen space the rest black. I had only bought and prepped the laptop the week before after the same fault occured with another machine (A dodgy RME firewire lead was the culpret)
What did I do - Canceled and drowned my sorrows and sulked.
An RME powerlead (I love rme but i probably should look after their stuff better) that was loyal for years failed two hours before a gig with Radioactiveman (a hero of mine) in London (first time playing there). Another performer (thanks Ed!) offered his M-Audio interface after a lot of fustration we figured out M-audio won't work on Windows Media Center machines.
What did I do - I managed to do the gig on another card that caused audible audio drop outs every time I triggered a scene. I was complemented on the "vinyl style"?? drop outs by a punter (golden rule - if you make a mistake repeat it another 3 times and pretend its intentional)
I've had a Live dj set lock up 59minutes into a 60 minute set. The set went great except it ended in my apology rather than a roar. I never checked the time so I didn't think to bluff it as an intentioned glitchy outro.
I've had to learn serato in front of demanding dancers. The crowd seem to like the bit of drama, they get to shout some abuse at you just take it in good humour and as long as the music isn't off for too long you'll get a cheer when you fix things. They'll be happy seeing mr performer taken down a peg and live music is based on the possibility of error so you'll have reassured them all is kosher.

[splonge]

We played a gig at my office year end function. Which in itself was a terrible idea. If only we were a rock cover band....
So they set up stage for us, a big wooden platform on metal struts which had a fair amount of spring in it. Then they put the bass bins right next to the stage. At a particular point in a track we have a big booming kick and it made the stage vibrate so much that my Macbook's motion detection kicked in a shut off the hard drive to protect it.

We route everything through Live so we went from a nice big kick to complete silence....

Took about 5 mins to get going again but it was pretty much down hill from there.

[ikeaboy]

We played a gig at my office year end function. Which in itself was a terrible idea. If only we were a rock cover band....
So they set up stage for us, a big wooden platform on metal struts which had a fair amount of spring in it. Then they put the bass bins right next to the stage. At a particular point in a track we have a big booming kick and it made the stage vibrate so much that my Macbook's motion detection kicked in a shut off the hard drive to protect it.

We route everything through Live so we went from a nice big kick to complete silence....

Took about 5 mins to get going again but it was pretty much down hill from there.

that'll never win over Sue from accounts

[Johnisfaster]

NEVA EVVAAAAA

mac for life

I've crashed macs before, don't be so smug