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I read a recent article about a bar usung an ipod to replace the DJ.. Some chains are playing DJ music from high speed inet simultaneously to several clubs.. I have spent alot off "egg" money in the last few months to get a decent music library. I really dont think a machine will replace talent but we should be discussing ways to counter balance new technologies.

 I'm getting the usual holiday partys booked along with birthday parties.  One of my best gigs ever was at  the eagles (birthday) Sat nite. I now have a lot of big band stuff 30's 40's 50's and 60's I do have alot of the new stuff for the teens but finances permitting next is the 70's and...This was an older crowd and I was taking karaoke requests along with dance requests.  It was an older crowd and it was easy to switch hats so to speak kj to dj with a mouse click..  If when the fill music started and if people started dancing  I just told the singer let's let them dance.. It was very casual I dont run formal shows as such but I never had a manager or bartender as happy as that nite.. And I used to be one of the singers and KJ's that didnt like dance sets...Not unless I had a lil gal to dance with...


 But articles such as the one I read scares me .... You think?

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If a club just wants random music played, then yeah I can see it.  If they want it to "read" the crowd & play accordingly, then the club will be cutting their own throat.

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i knwo a couple DJ's that hook thier Ipods in and just let them free run randomly

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

I'm sure they are on the top of their area's payscale.

I read an article not too long ago (wish I could remember where) that a lot of clubs are going to Ipod nights where patrons can sign up to inflict their ipod selections on the crowd for 15 minutes at a time...

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Spreading the karaoke gospel

I work as a bartender at a local nightclub.  With the winter season being our slow season (think less than 1/10 of our summer business) coupled with a DJ/barback that had no clue I now do both.  I am able to bartend and take care of my customers and I have a 6+ hour playlist that I start at 10pm.  I let it play randomly and it auto mixes.  As the night progresses I might set it to run sequentially and move some songs into place to keep the energy up.  I can wait on a number of customers and make adjustments during break times.  No, I don't recommend it, but as summer comes closer I'll move to the booth or the bar (whereever I'll make more money).  It all makes sense given the time.

But putting an ipod to run randomly?  Sure... but it doesn't make adjustments to the crowd or requests.  There is even one guy that's putting that ipod mixer and a small amp/speaker setup out for rent.  Every time he rents it out he gets a customer that won't do it again because they realize that they really need someone that can read the crowd.

It all comes down to this:
DJing is 10% technical and 90% the art of reading the crowd.  Anyone can learn the technical skills to djing but not everyone can learn to read the crowd.

I do use iPod on my Karaoke gig. I play the background dance music to fill in between the songs. It sure beats taking a large collection of CDs just to fill the gaps. It makes life easier for me.

I have seen DJs using iPods for their gigs. From what I have seen, it's for couple of reasons: convenience and cool factor. It's certain easy to carry over 4000 songs per iPod rather than taking hundreds of CDs with you. Everything is there, all you have to do is use one to play, other to queue up. They have professional DJ equipment that caters to iPods so the sound isn't that bad. It's definitely convenient to use iPod in certain situation. Also, how cool is that to use iPod? Just the cool factor alone is worth using it.

I am not talking about iPod replacing DJs, just DJs using the next generation technology. I thought I throw in another side of iPod usage in DJ.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

I had been looking into an I-pod or other mp3 device to load with music, and have it playing and connected to one of the inputs on the mixer.  That way I could quickly turn up that channel to avoid the 'dead air' that I can't stand.  

Not a replacement for playing songs ala DJ style, just background music tracks that would be running that could be turned up/down for filler music.  I would still plan on queuing and playing other music and dance music to meet the needs of the gig.

Just wanted to get others' thoughts on this.

As I posted, I use my iPod just for that purpose. I have a cable that runs from the headphone jack of iPod to my mixer input in stereo. I have that channel turned down during the karaoke songs but turn it up when it's over. It works great. I also put the iPod in random shuffle mode so that no same songs come up in same order everytime.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

I wont use an IPod or similiar device. I have to be able to select the individual songs
to keep the dance groove flowing when I get dancers up. Need to be able to pick and choose throughout the evening. I dont carry hundreds of discs tho. About 100 in a small cd carrier is all thats neccessary. As to the background music selections--its anything from Boz Scaggs "Lowdown" to Cowboy Troy to Gretchen Wilson to We Are Family to TuPac to Missy Elliot to a reggaeton remix of Usher "Yeah" to Daddy Yankee "Gasolina" to salsa and merenque dance music. Very wide selection, but then thats the crowd I have. I even have a pair of REAL CONGA drums you can sit and play to the dance music!

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

*sigh* what happened to the good old days where the DJ had to know how to mix remix and scratch????  What kind of talent does it take to hook up an Ipod to a speaker????  Or even to just throw CD's in a machine????  The world has lost great value in our ignorance of the greats such as spinderella Dj Linx and Dj Jazzy Jeff

I think you are mistaken. These people who are using iPod to do DJ are professional DJs who used to use records then CDs. They just progressed to iPods. They do know how to remix and scratch, they went beyond for experiment reasons. It's like saying Picasso's work looks like a child has painted so he must not know how to paint.  Just because he paints that ways, that does not mean they don't know the classical method of painting. If you look at Picasso's early work, he knows how to paint classically, just chose to experiment.

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Seize the day and SING!!!