Your Next Big Event Dilemma? Live Disc Jockey Vs Your iPod

It used to be that if you were having a get together you had to pick up your local phone book and call every Entertainment Company phone number to get an idea what your event would cost. Inevitably you and in most cases your significant other then had to make a choice based on budget and your gut feeling alone. A lot has changed over the years, special event disc jockeys don't use tapes or records anymore, heck most don't even use CD's and as for the phone book, well with the worldwide web growing by leaps and bounds every day that phone book is better used to replace the broken leg on that old couch in the basement than as a tool to assist you in finding a qualified host or disc jockey for your upcoming special event.

As I stated above most North American mobile DJ services have gone digital storing all their music on massive external hard drives to avoid the disc damage that was inevitable in the past. With that in mind a lot of folks think "Hey, why pay a disc jockey service hundreds of dollars when I have a perfectly good iPod that does basically the same thing. I can rent a sound system from my local music store for under $50 and just run my music through the iPod, right?" Well, yes you could do just that, however there is much more to be considered when planning an event that you want to run well.

Let me start by pointing out that music tastes are vast and unpredictable and chances are just because you think that your musical intellect is flawless chances are at least half of your guests won't and will be gone from your event within just a few hours. Another very important thing to consider is that your guests are going to ask for requests, a lot of them, that's a guarantee and there is absolutely no way you could possibly have all the songs that are being requested. I've been in this business running entertainment companies throughout Ontario for over two decades and can tell you our music library currently sits at over 40,000 tracks, I update new music weekly and still end up not having at least two or three requests on average despite our best effort, so as you see very quickly; your 200 song iPod playlist is definitely not going to cut it!

Then we move along to the sound system, although I don't ever recommend doing your event yourself I will point out at the end of this article the basic setup needed to effectively disc jockey with your iPod for those willing to roll the dice. What more can I say, basically to DJ your own event you are going to need to rent a few speakers, speaker stands, amplifier, soundboard and a bunch of wires to make it all work. That's the bare minimum, you could also get some lights and lasers etc. but that really depends on your event age group and type of party you are hosting. Sounds easy enough right? Again I can't argue the fact that this really isn't rocket science but...

What happens a lot is that the self proclaimed disc jockey of the night sets up his rented gear and checks his sound, but wait, why does it sound like I'm in a tunnel, no maybe a tin can; well you get my point acoustics have as much to do with your party as anything else. A good disc jockey company and an experienced, trained host can use equalizers to adjust the sound until you are no longer dancing in what sounds kind of like an echo chamber! They have done dozens, some hundreds of events or parties just like yours and understand sound, by correctly evaluating the room and speaker alignment they can make everything sound perfect, so good in fact you would swear you where at your favourite local hotspot.

So far it's 2 and 0 for the DJ's of North America but I do have one more very important factor for you to consider, like anything else iPods, speakers, sound boards and even wires can break or become glitchy, when you rent equipment you don't get any extra just the basics so what happens if halfway through the night one of your speaker wires dies? Or your rented dance floor light blows? Surely you don't have replacements?

OMG Party Over! That's right folks your parent's 40th anniversary party is now ruined and who do they have to thank? You, the guy or girl who didn't want to shell out the cash for the professionals, If only you had hired a pro disc jockey service I'd be willing to bet they would have had extra wires, speakers, bulbs and such along with a massive music library to keep all your guests happy all night long because the music was great, all their requests were played and sounded awesome!

I don't suggest disc jockeying your own upcoming event, but if I can't talk you out of it here are some helpful suggestions...

You are going to need to rent the following equipment for an average party of fewer than 150 people.

2X 250 Watt Speakers

2X 25 Foot 1/4 Inch Jack Speaker Wires

2X Speaker Stands

1 200-300 Watt Powered Mixer

1 stereo mini jack to 1/4 inch output wire

This is a list of the bare essentials other items that you may want are sub speaker "base bin", laser dance floor lighting, mirror ball, light cans, fog etc.