So Where's It Going Then

[old soul 0]

When I did my first mobiles, I carried probably more than my own bodyweight (considerable ) of vinyl into the room, a console with decks and about a dozen light boxes. My speakers were large x4, were about 100W per side and produced a loud, wooly and I thought impressive sound. My coolest effect was one of those projectors that shone through oil filled discs onto the back wall, and all my light boxes and spots were sound to light.

 

Stuff now is so compact by comparison that you can get away with a reasonable sized hatchback or estate if you needed to for a lot of gigs. I can fit my entire music selection in the space of maybe 20 x 7" singles, and four quality lighting effects with a controller will give a lightshow that would have put many nightclubs to shame back then. Speakers are hugely efficient, a 1KW rig can be light and compact, and doesn't cost the earth for reasobale quality.

 

will things plateau a bit now, or will we continue to advance at these rates. How do you envisage a mobile rig looking in twenty years time?

[Danno13 0]

I think the one (only?) thing that'll stay the same is the speakers, as you simply can't produce the low bass frequencies from small drivers and plastic cabs don't quite sound as good as decent wooden ones yet... although they're always improving.

 

Amps will certainley get smaller and lighter as those using digital PSU will become more common place and more affordable.

 

LED lighting thats the equivelant brightness of discharge lamps will become affordable to DJs and they may find a way to create a focused beam to use normal gobos.

 

Haze machines that don't set off smoke alarms will be invented!

 

Things like mixers, cd player, hard drive/midi controllers will stay the same size as they need to be a certain size to be comfortable to work with. Although the depth should decrease and make them easier to rack and transport.. and of course lighter.

 

Perhaps we'll start to use digital signals right the way from playout to speakers?

 

The only thing that sadly doesn't seem to be improving is the quality of the original tracks we play, recordings are terrible on alot of modern tracks and most people (myself included) seem content with compressed media such as MP3 rather than going for high quality CD or DVD-Audio tracks.

[dh140770 0]

LED lighting thats the equivelant brightness of discharge lamps will become affordable to DJs and they may find a way to create a focused beam to use normal gobos.

They have started to use gobos

http://www.chauvetlighting.com/fixtures/minspot_fix.shtml

They don't look mightily bright though.

 

[Paul Smith 0]

They don't look mightily bright though.

Here's a comparison with a Chauvet Min Spot, and two Chauvet Intimidator 1.0s:

 

UYM81Y0kllo

[dh140770 0]

Here's a comparison with a Chauvet Min Spot, and two Chauvet Intimidator 1.0s:

 

Hmmm. ok brighter than I thought, and they are very small to compared to normal moving heads.

 

[otronics 0]

No matter what, technology will continue to advance.

 

What would be interesting is to look back at what we have/use now in twenty years time and compare then (or a comparison of the past few 'modern years', especially as digital DJ kit is now on the market, prices have fallen etc).