johnnyb
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Posts posted by johnnyb
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QUOTE However, it makes me wonder how many places that have the radio on (like in a garage) or in the workplace also have a PPL license - in the eyes of PPL they should have one! They dont need one as the radio station have a liscence. You dont need to pay for the privelidge of playing music twice. The radio station have their liscence to allow them to play music to listeners. Whether those listeners are at home or at work makes no difference. It only matters if it is considered as a form of entertainment i.e. in a pub or club.
There are three liscences that are needed for it to be legal to play copyrighted music in public (be it in a bar/club/village hall etc).
PEL - Public entertainments liscence
PRS - Performing rights society liscence
PPL - Phonographic performance licence
If a venue does not have a liscence, you need all three of these in order for it to be legal (for a disco or karaoke).
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20 funnily enough! Thought i had mentioned that!
Have not really looked at the classic cuts series. Do they cover up to date aswell?
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Take from the CD Pool website:
Essential Series
20 CD set contains over 400 of the most requested songs ever from the 50's to present spanning all music genres.
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I think the cds you are talking about are the CD Pool Essential Series. There are two editions, each with 20 cds and 400 tracks for just over £200.
For tracklistings go to http://www.cdpool.co.uk
They are sold on the CD Pool website for £250 a set, but you will be able to find them cheaper elsewhere. Could not see them on Chris' site but it might be worth asking if he can do them.
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Like Gary said, learning to beatmix should not damage your new records. But with learning to scratch, i would reccomend getting a proper scratch record. Most vinyl stores should do various ones. They all contain small vocal and beat samples which are idel for scratching with. I think they are about £10-£20, so a bit more than a normal record, but worth the investment i think.
I wont post on here where i would reccomend buying from, but if you want the name of a good online vinly store then just pm me.
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I would say you have two main choices. Either a powered system or a sep amp and speaker system.
For Active i would say go for a pair of Mackie SRM450's for tops (400w RMS each) and a SWA1501 for bass (500w RMS). This comes in at about £2000.
Otherwise i would go for a pair of Yamaha SV112IV for tops (400w RMS each), a pair of Yamaha SV118IV bass bins (500w RMS each), a Matrix UKP1300 for powering the tops, and a Matrix UKP2100 for powering the bass. Again, about £2000 i think.
There are loads of different combinations to look at. If you can, look at QSC and Peavey amps. Good quality, but might push your budget a bit if you get a pair with speakers.
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Try phoneing up your local dj shop. They should be able to do it for you.
Otherwise you could try calling Abstract and NJD themselves. Ive heard Abstract are quite good sometimes and are happy to deal with the public on small bits and pieces. If not, they will be able to tell you where to get the bits from.
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Have you changed from running out a balanced output to unbalanced? Or vice versa? Try different connecting leads to the amp to see if they are the problem.
Changing the mixer you use should not effect the output volume. Obviously different mixers have different output sensitivities, but the audiable volume should be at the same level when the amp starts to clip.
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What make (and model) is the light?
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I use vinyl a bit so will try and answer a few questions.
QUOTE How can a needle damage vinyl? The needle on a turntable is made from diamond (the hardest substance on earth). The sound is reproduced by the needle running through a groove in the vinyl which oscilates from side to side. It is this movement which creates the sound (not 100% sure exactly how, but you get the jist). Because the diamond tip runs through this groove it will slowly wear it out. The easiest way for a needle to damage vinyl is when it is knocked accross the record. This will scratch it and effectivley damage the walls between the grooves on the record. If you are careful with the needle you will be fine.
QUOTE How many plays does the average record get before it's no longer usable? It depends on a couple of things, but you should get plenty of plays from one record. There are records in my collection which i must have played a couple of hundred times, and still sound good. The main thing is how well you look after them. Be gentle, dont scratch them, keep the dust off etc. An audiophile may be able to tell if a record has been played once or twice, but the average dj or customer would never be able to. One thing to remember is that alot of djs put weights on the headshells to reduce the chance of the record skipping. Because the needle becomes heavier it will wear out the groove quicker. If you can avoid weighing down the needle then do so (but in clubs and pubs you sometimes dont have a choice!).
QUOTE When scratching how does touching the record (in the middle and not on the sides) damage the record? When scratching it is the needle that does the damage. Because the diamond is going back and forth over the same spot, it will wear out quicker. Your hands touching the record will not damage it, especially if you only touch the centre label. If you touch the grooves it will not damage them, but if you leave greasy fingerprints on it, the needle will not be able to follow the groove as easily, therefore reducing quality.
There is not really much different between vinyl and cds. You do the same to take care of them. Dont sratch them, dont get them wet, avoid extreme temperatures, dont bend them etc. Obviously they will eventually wear out, but so does any other form of portable media. They will last as long as you want them to.
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Ive been looking into using a laptop to controll my lighting and it is fairly expensive. For a half decent program plus a USB to DMX interface you are looking at at least £500. I was thinking of getting Martin lightjockey untill i realised it was the best part of £1000!
Would not reccomend running lighting and sound from a laptop though, you want as few background programs running as poss when doing sound from a laptop to reduce the chances of crashing.
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I would always steer clear of any full range/top end speakers that do not use a compression driver for the treble. Dont go for any that use horns, piezos or tweeters. The quality is pretty bad.
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Sounds like an intermittant DMX signal. Check the link lead for dry joints, breaks or shorts. Or just swap the lead for one you know is fine and see if it still happens.
Are they running off a controller or running master/slave? If they are master/slave then try swapping them over (make the current matser the slave, and the current slave into the master). This will show if its a problem with the signal sent from one light to the other, or if one has a problem receiving a signal.
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We have one at on of the venues i play at. I have never used mp3s in it though. With all the normal features it is really good. I dont like the way the seamless loop works though. Was much better on the 2500. Apart from that i cant fault it.
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Im not sure i agree with djs getting music for free.
There are two main reasons that djs get paid so much for only a few hours work. One being the equipment we have to buy is expensive, and secondly the music we have to buy to work.
Obviously it would be nice to not have to pay for music, but how many of you out there would significantly lower the price you charge for a disco if we did get it for free? To us, music is an expense, so if we dont pay for it then we should not charge (the customer) extra for it. I would imagine that the majority of people would continue to charge the same and just end up with a bigger profit margin.
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I went through a phase of downloading loads and only in the last few months have i realised what a bad effect it has had on the music industry.
You look at singles sales 20/30 years ago. To get a number 1 single you had to sell in the region of 200,000 copies in a week. Now you need to sell 30,000. Why? because everybody is downloading them instead of buying them.
Now i am against lining the pockets of the already rich singers/bands, but some of that money does go back into the industry to help new music. Because there are so few singles sales now, labels are less likely to risk unsigned or new artists. Fair enough, but it is depriving us of loads of good music.
In my opinion there is less and less good new music about these days and it is because of downloading and copying. If there was a way of wiping it out then i would be all for it.
I agree with chris about us djs not being recognised enough though. My only justification for downloading (when i used to) was that by being a dj and playing to crowds of people, the money they lost on me not paying for my copy was easily covered by the people who did pay for it because they heard me play it.
And lastly! On the note of Dj in the mix, i think alot of people have misunderstood what it is about. It was never intended to be a source of music for your average dj. It was started by a dance record label as an easier way to get their music to the mailing list djs. They are there to promote the style of music associated with them, not commercial stuff that you hear on the radio. Obviously they would like their tunes to do well commercially, but the site is aimed at dance djs who play upfront club music and not (please dont take offence here!) mobile/party djs.
Rant over http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif .
Jon.
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QUOTE Do I take it then, that the difference between DMX 256 and DMX512 then is how many addresses the controller can allocate? EG: A DMX 256 controller could control about 50 x 5 channel devices, whereas a 512 controller could do twice as many 5 channel devices. Yes. So for example a masterpiece 48 can controll 48 dmx channels (say 12 4 channel lights), a masterpiece 108 can do 108 dmx channels (say 27 4 channel lights) and a masterpiece 216 can controll 216 channels.
QUOTE So, when I buy a controller, If I set two lighting effects up to the same Address, then use any dip switches that the units might have on them to reverse left/right movement, then I could have one effect going left, while the other goes right etc.. Yes. Most of the time anyway. This will work for most lights, but you will need to check that these switches will effect the light when being controlled by DMX. Some lights will only let you invert the pan or tilt when it is working in master/slave operation.
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Shall try and answer a couple of questions.
QUOTE The above shows how DMX Channels are allocated. Is that per "Effect" or per "Type of effect"? Normally every effect is set like this, with a different starting address each.
QUOTE EG: Using the above example of Channel 480, lets say that you had ONE scanner effect requiring four channels of data (EG: One for Pan, one for tilt, one for colour, one for gobo choice). Channel 480 is just "there" (you dont send data to it effectively), 481 would be Pan, 482, would be Tilt, 483 colour choice, 484 gobo choice. In this example channel 480 is the first channel which you send data to. eg channel 480 would be pan, 481 is tilt, 482 is colour and 483 is gobo. The next effect would be ste to channel 484, so its pan would be 484, tilt 485 etc.
QUOTE Now, if I added a second scanner (another identical one to the one above), would I simply Slave it up to the first unit, or would I set the DMX channel of the second unit to the same channel (480) as the first, so it copies all the movements/colour/gobo changes of the first, or simply through it into Slave mode and daisy-chain it from the first, or...would I give it its own DMX address eg: 485 (with 481,482,483,484...for pan,tilt, etc..) (next spare addresses) or simply 300 (or any other spare address with the next 4 channels for pan/tilt etc.)... When running DMX you do not use master/slave operation. Every light in the chain is controlled from the main controller, not the light before it in the chain. You have two choices, you can set the DMX address the same as the prev light (or any other in the chain) and it will do exactly the same as long as the other lights channels are the same (pan then tilt then gobo etc). Or you can give its own address which will mean more controll over individual lights (the next available address normally).
QUOTE Also, as far as setting/programming pans/tilts/gobos etc...is this done by "firing" a value between 0 and 128, (or 256, or 512) from the controller to a particular channel? EG: If Channel 484 is colour...and your unit offers 10 colours, and the DMX controller slider offers a range of 0~255, would value 0~25 make the unit change to colour 1, values 26~50 change to colour 2, 50~75 = colour 4 etc..etc...? Yes, it is a case of sending a value form 0 to 255 for each channel which the light uses to determine what to do. If it has say 10 colours then yes, it will prob be about 0-25 for the first and so on. It normally says in the lights manual the corresponding values.
Hope this helps.
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I always get paid at the end, but saying that, all (well 99%) of my gigs are regular weekly ones.
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Thats a little low for buying new equipment but i will have a look around for you. You may be better trying to buy second hand If you want to get a true 600w RMS with half decent quality for that money.
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There are thousands of possible combinations of a pair of 300w RMS speakers and amp. If you can give us an idea of your budget that might help narrow it down.
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I have used the Denon a few times (there is one in the pub i play on sats) and really like it. So much so that i am upgrading from my old 2000F Mk3 to get one.
Its cheaper than the Gemini unit and has more features. Stuff like the twin seamless loops, brake, hotstarts etc. And it has memorys for all your seamless loops to save you having to create them over and over again.
Would be nice to know how much Chris P can do them for before i buy mine?
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Have a look at this : http://www.kam.co.uk/newweb/KAM_PRODUCT_GUIDE_2003.pdf
Its the KAM product guide. On page 21 it has the speakers and quoted different values for half of them. I would imagine that there are RMS values though.
They are so cheap because they quote for a single speaker (not pairs) and the quality is not particulaly good. Personally i would never buy a disco speaker unless it had a compression driver for the treble. Its more expensive but the quality is so much better.
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QUOTE what you might call a club mix. Ummm, a never-ending mix of a beat, mixed in with bits of well known songs. Like a club DJ I think you might call it. Basically what you are talking about is 'beatmixing'. It is normally associated with club djs but i have always thought that it is a really useful skill to have. I can beatmix and i find that even if i am not doing it, it makes my normal 'fade mixing' (or whatever you want to call it) better.
All you need to start is either a couple of turntables or cd players (or a twin cd player) and a mixer. Try and find two similar dance tunes that you have extended mixes of (normally 5-7 mins long each, and with just beats at the start and end). Get one of them playing, and in your headphones start playing the other on the beat. Use the pitch bend buttons and the overall pitch slider to try and get the two tracks running together in time (if it goes wrong, stop the second track and try again). When you are happy that they are in time, slowly increase the volume on the second track so they are both playing together. Then slowly reduce the volume of the first so you are left with just the second one playing.
There is no quick and easy way to learn to beatmix, it just takes lots of practise and persistance.
Headphones?
in Buying Equipment
Posted
I use the sony 700's aswell. My first pair lasted me about 3 years. The swivel bits do crack after a while but it is easily fixable by tightly wrapping a bit of nylon thread around it with a dab of superglue. It added about 1.5 extra life to mine.
I would reccomend them to anyone.