I would say its prob the worst thing that could go wrong who carrys a spare!

Nope i dont, i dont really carry a spare anything.

I run two separate rigs together so if an amp goes down or something I carry on and no-one would notice. My son moans at me about the amount of gear I take out , but after being in the business for 25 years you can never trust electrical equipment. The annoying thing is it never goes faulty when you get home and try it again. Like mentioned earlier it's not good practise taking risks especially in our industry, every gig you do is a first impression for the crowd, you don't get a second go!!

I currently carry two walkman type cd players as back up. Quick to set up and fit behind the front seats of the van so very unobtrusive. Not practical for daily use, but when it comes to playing music a CD Player is a CD Player, and the only person who would know is you . Currently changing over to Laptop, so will use the laptop for the main audio and then keep my present dual cd as "back up" along with a case of CD's and resign the portables.

Also keep a back up 2 channel mixer in the same place, although my faithfull old Cloud DM1200 has been bombproof and never let me down.

At larger gigs I use two amps to Bi-Amp my Bass & Full range so if one amp failed i'd just hook up both Bass & Top speakers to the one remaining amp, and run in passive full range mode. Even if I'm only using the full range speakers at a small gig, I still carry both amps in the same flightcase, which would serve as back up.

If you don't have any back up then you seriously should re-consider this. If a mixer or amp failed and you had no back up, then technically the evening is over refunds would have to be issued, and your name would be mud - especially at a Wedding where the D.J can literally make or break an otherwise perfect day.

Any D.J who goes out on a regular basis and doesn't have any form of backup, or contact with another D.J locally who could help, is asking for trouble. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean that it couldn't happen tomorrow and you could ruin an otherwise untarnished reputation if the client you are working for, when it all goes wrong is the local town gossip!

I agree Chris. Word of mouth 'gossip' is a sure way of getting a bad rep.

Although the QSC Amp is very good, I always take a spare amp, fuses, leads, bulbs and music.

Now all I need is a spare £20K for a home makeover!!!!!

I do carry a spare amp, It is low power and as has been said would have to dump some bass!

Only used it once when accidentally connected the L speaker amp output not to the NJD lighting controller, but to the R speaker output!!!! You only make those mistakes once!

Also I have a very cheap portable CD player which I used at halloween to play eerie music over mic use and once where my Numark CD players were cold and needed time to un-condense! Nobody ever knew!

i usually carry a spare amp but funnily enough thats not working at the moment as i also use it for fold back when im working with bands its only 800watts in total which is a step down from my main rig but does the job if its ever called into action i just need to get my but out and get it repaired! i also carry a very small 200watt powered wedge monitor system for band work, this is currently my only backup! ohh no!!

I think thats it is very important to keep backups of everything if you can.

Sound equipment most importantly, you can live without a light for a night if a lamp goes but sound?! NO NO.

I keep a spare amp/cd players (I currently use KAM twin cd plaers and have about 4 spare normal cd players! )/ mixer (although its only a small rubishy 1, it would get me through the evening should my usual mixer fail) and I have 4 speakers (usualy only use 2 so if 1 pair blew I have another ready)

Joe

Yes I have two of everything, once had an amp go dead five minutes before start time. We had an old cambridge amp in the van which got me out of the It was really cooking at the end but learnt me to be prepared. I have spares of all my sound equip even though only cheap stuff it's better than nothing. Also have spare leads and bulbs. Look on it as insurance.

i carry a spare amp!