I'm the DJ for the Junior prom; need advice!!!

24

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 77
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    [quote]Originally posted by G4Dude:

    <strong>

    I think I'll use iTunes, hook up 2 extra monitors to my iMac and turn the visulizers on.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'm just curious as to how you would hook up 2 monitors to an iMac?
  • Reply 22 of 77
    nx7oenx7oe Posts: 198member
    Trust me on this, DON'T USE CARVIN!!! simply it sucks. Now, if you are going to be a DJ, you need a subwoofer the best subwoofer out there is the Bose Wave Cannon, but a Cerwin Vega will do. you need at least 2 amps you should use Crown or QSC. Now the speakers, for a prom should be JBL Professional SRX Speakers or EV Speakers, don't use speakers with built in amps, the don't give you the Bass that you need, and for the music, you can use iTunes but use it with no other applications running in the backround because this will probably cause the songs to skip and sometimes even the visuals will cause songs to skip. Good luck
  • Reply 23 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by nx7oe:

    <strong>Trust me on this, DON'T USE CARVIN!!! simply it sucks. Now, if you are going to be a DJ, you need a subwoofer the best subwoofer out there is the Bose Wave Cannon, but a Cerwin Vega will do. you need at least 2 amps you should use Crown or QSC. Now the speakers, for a prom should be JBL Professional SRX Speakers or EV Speakers, don't use speakers with built in amps, the don't give you the Bass that you need, and for the music, you can use iTunes but use it with no other applications running in the backround because this will probably cause the songs to skip and sometimes even the visuals will cause songs to skip. Good luck </strong><hr></blockquote>



    obviously carvin is the cheapo soultion, cerwin vega supbwoofers are totally awesome but also cost about as much as a chea carivn PA, the reason I mentioned carvin is because they are really cheap, and loud enough for a _junior high_ prom!....I highly doubt he needs really nice audiophile PA speakers, and furthermore he's not a serious DJ, he's doing this for fun.....g4dude are you sponsered by your school to put this on? I.e are they giving you any cash?
  • Reply 24 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by X704:

    <strong>



    I'm just curious as to how you would hook up 2 monitors to an iMac?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    get yourself some form of external amplifier to power the speakers(unless they are active speakers with 1/4 or 1/8 inch output)

    and plug the speakers into the amp and the amp into the imacs SOUND IN port on the side..its a standard 1/8 inch stereo port, and will support stereo sound....fine for 2 speakers...if you have 5.1 you will not get surround sound...but if you get a good reciever it might have simulated surround and you will still be able to take advantage of the 5.1 speakers.

    My suggestion for a good cheap reciever is technics SA-DX750...its what I got, it cost me about a 100 dollars(retail is abotu $230..but you can find it cheaper) and it powers 100 watt by 5 channels, and has a bunch of sound features...there is a more upgraded model(the 850 I believe) which features even more sound modifications...its a little bit mor eexpensive I think(retail about 260-300 dollars)

    and technics make some pretty good recievers in the long run. Sony has a bunch of good recievers as do RCA and denon...My friend got an RCA reciever that was surprisingly good for the price(about 350) it supported 5.1 surround, plus it had a shiteload of auxillary inputs and outputs, and had loads of sound options.

    I have a cheapo RCA 5 disc changer it sucks cock, I don't really like RCA at all, but they make really cheap stuff, and sometimes you don't have the monet for a nicer _______(insert sound equip here)



    but yea...you can also go throug the headphone inputs on the front...which is kind of nice cause then you can plug in TWO different groups of speakers...and that can be useful...still no 5.1 though!

    I want somone to release a 5.1 soultion for macintosh!!!!! the soundblaster audigy and extigy would be perfect for the Powermac and iMac respectivly but there are no drivers and I'm sure if there were tehy would probably suck....but how hard is it to write a driver for something like the extigy...I'm sure it wouldn't take any longer than like a month at most...and then there could be mac support...albeit meager..it would still be something.
  • Reply 25 of 77
    Wow. this is what's known as a disaster waiting to happen.



    A. you can't run visuals on 1 iMac monitor at an acceptable framerate, let alone 3.



    B. nobody wants to see the ****ing apple logo and the name of the tracks playing.



    C. MP3s that are less than 192k sound HORRIBLE coming out of even marginally good speakers. HORRIBLE.



    D. You better have some serious sound if you don't want to get laughed at. 2 3' high speakers ain't gonna cut it.



    Look into renting a serious sound system for the night. While I would say <a href="http://www.phazonsound.com"; target="_blank">Phazon</a>, that's probably a bit out of your league...



    Look into getting 2 or 4 BIG speakers with BIG bass. BIG bass.
  • Reply 26 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    heh, before my friends got their uber sound systems, we ran our first party totally out of a roland keyboard/mixing amp....it wasn't even the biggest model..it handled a couple hundred watts of power and outputed really well with terrific bass...but then again we weren't filling a gym or anything like that...just a medium sized hallway



    DEFINATLY get a fog machine

    and try and get a nice big strobe

    an furthermore, don't waste you time with home audio speakers...get a PA system...it can be small and cheap(carvin) or bigger and more expensive(JBL)...if your doing this in a big auditorium then I'd recommend getting JBLs like 4 big ones and a nice amp to power them all corectly

    remember you can always buy this stuff from guitar center and then return it after your prom

    i've done dj-ing on a small carvin PA to about 90 people and to about 200 people on a mid sized JBL pro PA..and its been fine but I'm assuming this is going to be for a lot of people....is the school not supporting you at all?...cause its alot of work for just two people.

    when is your prom?



    and DEFINATLY get BIG BIG BIG bass...I would almost recommend getting dual 12 inch woofer cones and slapping them in an enclosure...car audio style...but that might be a little too much work



    [ 03-12-2002: Message edited by: Wrong Robot ]</p>
  • Reply 27 of 77
    maskermasker Posts: 451member
    I used to be a mobile DJ back in the late 80's early 90's.



    For our cheap setup, we got a Peavey amp and two Peavy 3-channel speakers.



    it cost around $700 at the time and we had sound to spare, and the bass was passable .



    For lights, we made our own ... We went to Home Depot and bought PVC pipes and made two "light trees" using the interconnects of PVC. We painted the pipes red with dripy white slash paint on top the way guitars used to be painted.



    On top of each tree we had 4 flood light mounts screwed in. From each flood light we ran electrical cord that we put a standard electrical plug on. We then plugged the 4 pairs of lights (all flood lights were colored lights) into a ligthing board that changed to the beat of the music. $400 for that.



    We used to get booked just for the lighting system. When the red and green flood would go off back to back it makes a really wild strobe effect that looks like thing s are inverting.. for example.. when red light is on.. red shirts look white.. when green light is on red shirts look black and vice versa..



    if a guy happened to have a red/green shirt it looked crazy.



    In my experience the most important thing to remember is that it's a show.. and it's supposed to be entertaining....



    You better have good "DANCE" music and not just music that sounds good.



    Good luck.



    MSKR
  • Reply 29 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by Masker:

    <strong>I used to be a mobile DJ back in the late 80's early 90's.



    For our cheap setup, we got a Peavey amp and two Peavy 3-channel speakers.



    it cost around $700 at the time and we had sound to spare, and the bass was passable .



    For lights, we made our own ... We went to Home Depot and bought PVC pipes and made two "light trees" using the interconnects of PVC. We painted the pipes red with dripy white slash paint on top the way guitars used to be painted.



    On top of each tree we had 4 flood light mounts screwed in. From each flood light we ran electrical cord that we put a standard electrical plug on. We then plugged the 4 pairs of lights (all flood lights were colored lights) into a ligthing board that changed to the beat of the music. $400 for that.



    We used to get booked just for the lighting system. When the red and green flood would go off back to back it makes a really wild strobe effect that looks like thing s are inverting.. for example.. when red light is on.. red shirts look white.. when green light is on red shirts look black and vice versa..



    if a guy happened to have a red/green shirt it looked crazy.



    In my experience the most important thing to remember is that it's a show.. and it's supposed to be entertaining....



    You better have good "DANCE" music and not just music that sounds good.



    Good luck.



    MSKR</strong><hr></blockquote>



    what light board did you use? I've been looking for a cheap one...I don't want to spend 400 dollars on the Light copilot although that does just about everything....was it a gemini light board? I was a cheap one that did some strobing features
  • Reply 30 of 77
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    UPDATE: we are going to get several hundred dollars to buy/rent equipment from the Junior class. I have access to the JBL's from the EON G2 series. We have a strobe light, a 24" mirror ball, my brother has a shit load of mixers I can use, and that's it right now. I don't know shit about audio, what else should I be renting?
  • Reply 31 of 77
    You should use the itunes visuals, get an lcd projector, and display the visuals on a giant screen....then pass out xtc to everyone and it will be a success. You will be revered for years at that high school.



    Although I always though proms were for crashing and not for DJing. Why don't you be cool and skip the prom? Go do something fun like beat the crap out of jocks or something.
  • Reply 32 of 77
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Or just make your own damn light board for $30 max.



    It's just a low pass filter (to grab the low tones which are generally the beat) and some capacitors and inductors if you want to have some fade-in/out effect. Couple that circuit to your AC power controller and presto. Do it all analog, by the way.



    Hell, you could write some wicked software to do frequency decomps & variable pass filtering and ornamentation & stuff, and just route it through the computer.







    One of my friends has a Christmas tree (fake) that has an integrated light system driven out of some basic async digital circuitry. Crazy stuff.



    Yes, we're geeks.
  • Reply 33 of 77
    [quote]Originally posted by G4Dude:

    <strong>UPDATE: we are going to get several hundred dollars to buy/rent equipment from the Junior class. I have access to the JBL's from the EON G2 series. We have a strobe light, a 24" mirror ball, my brother has a shit load of mixers I can use, and that's it right now. I don't know shit about audio, what else should I be renting?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    'a shit load of mixers?'

    what the hell does that mean?



    are you making drinks for everyone there?





    DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT use the iTunes visuals in this endeavour. Projected, they're going to look like crap- all out of sync to the music- and it's just stupid to project a 10 foot big apple in the middle of your ****ing prom.



    plus, if you're using visuals, you can't manipulate playlists in iTunes at the same time.



    Bad news all the way around.
  • Reply 34 of 77
    the jbl's are good, but i'm not sure they'll provide adequate bass. rent the EONSUB, if you can.



    The JBL's are self powered, if i'm not mistaken....
  • Reply 35 of 77
    nx7oenx7oe Posts: 198member
    DON'T use self-powered speakers unless they are Mackie SRM 450<a href="http://mackie.com/Products/Active/SRM450/SRM450.asp"; target="_blank">here</a>. and don't use JBL Eon because that won't give you the sound you need. and listen to Johnathan DON'T use the iTunes Visulas because besides looking bad it will probably cause your songs to skip
  • Reply 36 of 77
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    That's great but wasn't my question <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> (I have FPS 2000 speakers btw). He said he'd hook up 2 &lt;i&gt;monitors&lt;/i&gt; to his iMac. I was simply wondering how he'd accomplish that feat since the iMacs only support video mirroring to one monitor (to my understanding). Since you can't add PCI cards to add monitor support ... didn't all add up to me. Thanks for the speaker suggestions though <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    [quote]Originally posted by Wrong Robot:

    <strong>



    get yourself some form of external amplifier to power the speakers(unless they are active speakers with 1/4 or 1/8 inch output)

    and plug the speakers into the amp and the amp into the imacs SOUND IN port on the side..its a standard 1/8 inch stereo port, and will support stereo sound....fine for 2 speakers...if you have 5.1 you will not get surround sound...but if you get a good reciever it might have simulated surround and you will still be able to take advantage of the 5.1 speakers.

    My suggestion for a good cheap reciever is technics SA-DX750...its what I got, it cost me about a 100 dollars(retail is abotu $230..but you can find it cheaper) and it powers 100 watt by 5 channels, and has a bunch of sound features...there is a more upgraded model(the 850 I believe) which features even more sound modifications...its a little bit mor eexpensive I think(retail about 260-300 dollars)

    and technics make some pretty good recievers in the long run. Sony has a bunch of good recievers as do RCA and denon...My friend got an RCA reciever that was surprisingly good for the price(about 350) it supported 5.1 surround, plus it had a shiteload of auxillary inputs and outputs, and had loads of sound options.

    I have a cheapo RCA 5 disc changer it sucks cock, I don't really like RCA at all, but they make really cheap stuff, and sometimes you don't have the monet for a nicer _______(insert sound equip here)



    but yea...you can also go throug the headphone inputs on the front...which is kind of nice cause then you can plug in TWO different groups of speakers...and that can be useful...still no 5.1 though!

    I want somone to release a 5.1 soultion for macintosh!!!!! the soundblaster audigy and extigy would be perfect for the Powermac and iMac respectivly but there are no drivers and I'm sure if there were tehy would probably suck....but how hard is it to write a driver for something like the extigy...I'm sure it wouldn't take any longer than like a month at most...and then there could be mac support...albeit meager..it would still be something.</strong><hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 37 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by X704:

    <strong>That's great but wasn't my question <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> (I have FPS 2000 speakers btw). He said he'd hook up 2 &lt;i&gt;monitors&lt;/i&gt; to his iMac. I was simply wondering how he'd accomplish that feat since the iMacs only support video mirroring to one monitor (to my understanding). Since you can't add PCI cards to add monitor support ... didn't all add up to me. Thanks for the speaker suggestions though <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    forgive me, I thought by monitors you were refering to monitor speakers

    as for hoooking in multiple displays, maybe through a KVM type device?
  • Reply 38 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by Jonathan:

    <strong>



    'a shit load of mixers?'

    what the hell does that mean?



    are you making drinks for everyone there?





    DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT use the iTunes visuals in this endeavour. Projected, they're going to look like crap- all out of sync to the music- and it's just stupid to project a 10 foot big apple in the middle of your ****ing prom.



    plus, if you're using visuals, you can't manipulate playlists in iTunes at the same time.



    Bad news all the way around.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I agree here, Get yourself some oil projectors or something for tripped out images
  • Reply 39 of 77
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    What about a foam machine? Good, or bad idea? As for the 2 monitors, I can go to Fry's and pick up an adapter that lets you plug twon monitors into one port
  • Reply 40 of 77
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    [quote]Originally posted by G4Dude:

    <strong>What about a foam machine? Good, or bad idea? As for the 2 monitors, I can go to Fry's and pick up an adapter that lets you plug twon monitors into one port</strong><hr></blockquote>



    how about getting two oil liquid light projector things and two REALLY big squares of canvas to project onto...(or an actually screen, or whatever)



    I don't think you should go with the two monitor idea...because it would probably bog down and wouln't be very bumping



    I don't think they are very expensive and they produce cool trpped out effects
Sign In or Register to comment.