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Author Topic: Any DJ's on F-T? Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: California, U.S.A. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 02-19-2012 10:05 PM                     Just thought I'd throw it out there. I know a good amount of the brain trust here has worked in broadcasting so this may not be far off. Plain an' simple: anybody a dj? What kind of music do you play and what equipment do you use? Spin at clubs/parties/events? I've had a show on College radio and been into it as a hobby since I was little. Making mixtapes and what not. Recently I started using Serato Scratch Live and my mind has been blown. It's pretty awesome. I did SOME vinyl in the past long before digital vinyl systems were around so I'm shaking the rust off now but hoping to get into some medium sized gigs some time this year. Anyway, so yeah. Any 'jocks out here? You know, other than myself and DJ Xenon  |  IP: Logged John Lasher Master Film Handler Posts: 493 From: Newark, DE Registered: Aug 2001 posted 02-19-2012 10:33 PM                        I've got about 1/2 an equipment package including vinyl and CD (in fact I've used the vinyl side on my internet radio show Live from the Turntable, usually just running one deck into my PC via USB and doing a drop-on-top changer-style to play songs from different records back-to-back, the Whitney Houston tribute is the first time I ran both decks through the mixer). I wasn't able to get the business going before I went back to school, and with my course load I really don't have the time or energy to pursue it any further.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 02-20-2012 10:27 AM                        I was a DJ for 18 years before I jumped into the theatre business. (See picture on left) Started off in my senior year in high school back in '85 as a "Radio Shack Warrior", playing for mostly school dances and such. Upgraded to real equipment in college, and started playing wedding receptions, corporate parties, and bar & bat mitzvahs all through the 90's and up until April of 2002. By the time I got out of the DJ business, we had 3 complete systems that went out every Friday & Saturday night. Played gigs everywhere from Nashville, Charlotte, Indianapolis, and Myrtle Beach. Sold all of my equipment in the winter of 2003 to help pay the bills for the drive-in. Still have all of my music and two Technics SL1200's though. Made a heck of alot more money DJ'ing than I ever have owing a drive-in, but I don't miss my DJ days for nothing.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 02-20-2012 12:12 PM                     I was a DJ, staff announcer, news reporter and salesman in radio for 28 years. Mostly at small market radio stations (except for Sacramento and Albuquerque). I played "adult contemporary" and Christian music. Played vinyl and CDs. I don't remember the equipment.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 02-20-2012 01:23 PM                        60's: built college station in dorms; applied for and got CPB grant for FM. Applied for, got tickets, but refused British pirate work. 70's: on air for beautiful music station; chief engineer for 50Kw FM. (the only engineer) while all new equipment including tower was installed. louis  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-20-2012 01:53 PM                    Spending all of my time DJing in the college radio station and projecting in the college movie theater instead of studying is what caused me to fail out of college after one semester. But I never DJd out side of college and high school. Although I would have liked to. I just never did.  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-20-2012 09:44 PM                     A friend did fill in for absent show hosts on http://www.kkup.com/ years ago. Sometimes I would go on air with him and spin weird records, take calls and generally goof around. One day he was asked to fill in for a Reggae show so we decided to open the show with Brazzle Dazzle Day. Yeah that got a lot of angry Rastafarians calling in.  |  IP: Logged Steven J Hart Master Film Handler Posts: 282 From: WALES, ND, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 02-20-2012 10:08 PM                        Worked at NPR affiliate KDSU 91.9, Fargo (now part of ND Public Radio) as weekend local Morning Edition host and spun Jazz LP's and CD's weeknight evenings. Then worked at KNDK 1080 in Langdon ND for several years after college playing country and reading news. I still cut my own radio ads for the theater. I used to do them at the station, but now just do them at home on my computer and FTP them into stations dropbox.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Stricker Master Film Handler Posts: 481 From: Calumet, Mi USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 02-21-2012 05:53 AM                     Spun records (yes, records) DJ/announcing at a small 250W AM station in the 1960's --- helped pay for college. Was ass't. CE (part time)at a 5 kW AM directional/3 kW FM for about 5 years in the late 70's early 80's. (still in the vynal record days!)  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-22-2012 02:01 AM                        I was in a similar situation as Barry Floyd, except with just one setup. I was probably one of the first mobile DJs in Montana, if not the northwest. Since I worked at a record/audio store, Valley Music, it was a natural. We did our first dance on May 1, 1976 and I did it for 16 years after that, with the help of various friends. We had a ridiculous amount of lighting equipment. It would take us three or four hours to set up for an event. By the time I got burned out on the whole thing, we were playing in all the local bars, and we did proms, weddings, class reunions...you name it. We played all over eastern Montana and northeast Wyoming. The outfit was called Valley Music Disco at first, and after the word "disco" went out of style we changed our name to Valley Music Sound & Light. This is our equipment (well, most of it) although it doesn't look as impressive on a sidewalk as it did all installed. We didn't just set up a rack at one end of a gym, like DJs do today. We would go into a place in advance and plan out what to do. We would hang lights from the ceiling, rearrange the furniture, etc. For weddings, if the decorations included little white lights, we would connect them into our system and they would intergrate with our lights. We even had a home-made fog machine for a while, which used dry ice. We did a lot of dances in one certain public gym, the "Sanders Gym," where the floor was so shaky the people dancing would cause the records to skip. If we played a CD, if anyone stomped the floor the CD would even skip. So...whenever we played there we hung nearly everything from the ceiling. Lights, speakers, our turntable rig. The only thing sitting on the floor in that place would be our backdrop. This is me and one of my friends, Jim Schiffer (who we affectionately referred to as "Schiffer-brains"). He was one of many friends who worked with me on the DJ gigs. This was taken at an outdoor dance we did for the local Air Force base. The Air Force dances were the craziest of all, as you can imagine. This is Doug Watson and Ray Deering working the lights. We didn't just turn the lights on and let'em flash the way a lot of DJs do, and we also didn't have any computers to run the lights -- we did have one machine that would make strip-lights chase in various patterns, but other than that we did everything by hand and we would change the lighting mix for every song. For the most popular songs we had actual lighting routines that were carefully choreographed to fit the music. Here's a side view of our rig. This was at the beginning of the CD era so we only had one turntable at this point (not visible, behind the mixer). We had a Cerwin-Vega DM-1 mixer, two Pioneer CD players, a Technics turntable and cassette deck, four Cerwin-Vega PD-18B speakers, two Crown amplifiers and four smaller speakers we could use to "beef up" the sound in large rooms like gyms. Most of our lighting equipment came from Times Square Stage Lighting in New York. We started the DJ business at the height of the "disco" era but we never did focus on just that kind of "dance" music. We would play rock & roll, country, whatever was popular. That's what made it such a great time -- we could play for literally any kind of audience. I did a dance one time where the most popular thing was the polka! (A wedding where the groom's family was Scandinavian!) I have never heard a mobile DJ setup to this day that looked or sounded as good as ours did. The high school kids today haven't got a clue what they're missing. I haven't done any gigs since December 31 of 1992, and to this day I still get occasional phone calls from people who want us to do dances for them. It was a blast for 16 years and gave me some of my best memories. I still miss it, especially when I go somewhere that has a DJ working.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Taylor Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 601 From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY Registered: Apr 2000 posted 02-22-2012 10:18 AM                     Back in college days I did two radio shows--the first half of the morning drive show and a dinner hour show called "Showtime USA" where we played a b'way cast album or movie soundtrack. This is in the '60's, so it was vinyl and carts, and my stuff was combo air and board. In the morning show I had to turn on the remote xmtr, pull all the news stuff off the teleprinter, make up a feeble newscast, and select and cue up the music. In the evening I had to do some basic research and produce enough copy about the show/movie to stretch the whole thing to an hour. We had all fairly new Gates equipment and put out 18k fm stereo and carrier current am. I finally came to the conclusion that missing both breakfast and dinner was a bum deal, and who knew if anyone was listening!  |  IP: Logged Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: California, U.S.A. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 02-23-2012 12:02 AM                     Wow. Great stories, guys. Mike, that looked like a blast! I've always loved being the guy behind the scenes pushing buttons -- hence being a projectionist I guess When I was younger I didn't have the money to get equipment but now I'm hoping to at least make it a night time hobby and maybe make a couple bucks here and there. There isn't much money in it as an industry though, is there?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-23-2012 02:31 AM                        quote: Dominic Espinosa There isn't much money in it as an industry though, is there? Nope but it might be a bit easier now because you can download single songs instead of having to buy CDs or albums. And mixers etc are way cheaper new than before, since there are so many DJs out there. We were kind of lucky because of me working in the store. We got "dealer" prices on everything and when we were first starting out, we used some of the demonstrator sound equipment off of the display floor for the first few months until we could afford to buy dedicated gear.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 02-23-2012 03:19 PM                        quote: Dominic Espinosa There isn't much money in it as an industry though, is there? I guess it depends on what your idea of "much money" is? Back in 1985 I was happy with a $50.00 bill and a six pack of beer. By the time I quit DJing in 2002, I wouldn't consider opening my garage door for less than $475. Back in the late 90's I was getting anywhere between $575 - $1,100 a night for weddings in the Nashville area. School dances sucked - no money in them, same goes for reunions. Corporate Christmas parties were great in the month of December. Typically we usually only worked on Friday & Saturday nights, but when December rolled around, we'd work 4-5 nights a week. Once I found a "groove" working weddings, I kind of tailored all of our advertising and promotional stuff to strictly weddings. More money in weddings than anything else. Once you got in a good re pore with the local banquet and sales people at the big area hotels and country clubs, they'd send alot of referral our way. Never paid for a referral, but got asked many times. We lived off of client deposits and the balance due at the end of the show paid the help. I tended to work many weddings with the same photographers, videographers, caterers, etc. Like Mike, we had big lighting systems that went with us everywhere we went. Took about 2 hours to set up and an hour to pack it all out.  |  IP: Logged Alan Plester Expert Film Handler Posts: 209 From: great yarmouth england Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-23-2012 04:07 PM                     worked with 3 mobile discos in the late 60s early 70s while storing up my own equipment to go on my own, about 4 years running 3/4 nights a week in a local hotel, permanent weekend gig for a local youth club, weddings,paties, you name it, i traveled. what equipment i did not own myself, i hired, or borrowed, and found a really good electronics engineer who could make me anything. turntables were the standard garrard sp25 mk3, the djs rolls royce at the time, amps were a mixture from a huge valve thing, home made 2 people to lift it, and fry eggs on when operating, to a 200watt amp by the name of suzi, biggest amp was 400w. speakers were marshall, jbl, b+w. 2 fog machines, oil discs, 4 follow spots, sure and akg mikes all and any special sound to light units built by my tech friend, one huge strobe, and a vinyl collection of well over 2000. happy happy days. would do it all again. my first light unit was to put different wattages of lamps on a board, with starter units in line with them and they all flashed at ridiculous but interesting speeds, lasted many years and was always a conversation point, and longest disco was for charity 48 hours nonstop i was knackered at the end but would do it all again.  |  IP: Logged

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