We’ve all seen the news of Grimes’ nightmarish DJ set at Coachella last weekend, the artist herself has even since issued an apology after her slot at the festival was overrun with technical difficulties.
Well, DJ and producer Morgan Page has since taken to X (Twitter) to share his best advice for avoiding such technical hitches, as “someone who’s played the Sahara tent and gone through a laptop crash”.
The prominent error Grimes encountered was that many of her tracks were playing at double their speed, a result of rekordbox incorrectly analysing them. For example, it would identify a 128 bpm song as 256 bpm.
At the time of her set, Grimes told the crowd: “We’re having a major technical error where all the song tempos are at double speed. I’ve not practised the math and I’m not fast at math.” In another video shared online, she also said, “Just don’t blame me, it’s not my fault. Well it’s partially my fault, but it’s not entirely my fault.”
Grimes dealt with technical difficulties throughout her set at Coachella on Saturday night, restarting songs and complaining about problematic track files
“All my tracks are twice as fast.. Just don’t blame me, it’s not my fault. Well it’s partially my fault, but it’s not… pic.twitter.com/fSLjvhQsjF
— SFGATE (@SFGate) April 14, 2024
Page is now hoping to share some advice so situations like this can be avoided. The 2x Grammy-nominated artist firstly states, “It’s especially brutal with a short Coachella set. I love Grimes and wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
So, here are his top tips: “1) Never broadcast your mistakes, even though it’s tempting to explain the situation. 2) Never update to the latest OS or rekordbox on your touring laptop. Test on another machine. No stage techs can fix rekordbox issues in the moment. Verify on CDJs that every track is working because rekordbox will often say everything is fine when it’s not.
And finally: “3) Have a backup – a redundant double laptop setup in parallel, or 15-minute chunks of your DJ set for an emergency. Use multiple high-quality USBs or SDs. 4) Anchor everything down to avoid cables coming loose. Rehearsals will not prepare you for the impact of the sound at a major festival.”
He concludes, “Hope this helps. I never had any issues with crashes or bugs until I played some of the most critical shows of my career, but I’ve learned a lot from every experience.”
Some takeaways from the #grimes set – as someone who’s played the Sahara tent and gone through a laptop crash. It’s especially brutal with a short @coachella set. I love @Grimezsz and wouldn’t wish this on anyone
1) Never broadcast your mistakes, even though it’s tempting to… https://t.co/avfAuRgJu9
— Morgan Page (@morganpage) April 14, 2024
Grimes is set to DJ at Coachella again for its second weekend, and is undoubtedly hoping the second time around goes a lot smoother.
You can get more information about the festival via the Coachella website.
