Conrah hotel Wedding gig log 28th April 2012

0:01 I'm just shoving my camera on the seat

Alright guys, another gig log for you. I'm just shoving my camera on the seat. Before the gig, I always like to talk a little bit about just general stuff. Firstly, I have a new channel which is under the name Jonathan Lewis and I'll put a link in the description. It'll be a lickable clink. People seem to like that word. We'll have t-shirts lickable clink anyway. And the whole idea of that channel... DJ tutorial by Ellaskins Tutorials, demos, reviews etc, gig logs and nothing else. And that's how it will be. So the other channel is more about personal things, maybe a bit of family, local area, comedy, all that sort of stuff. That's the first thing so go and check it out. Sub if you want to. The next one is we're going to talk a little bit about speakers. Now I'm going to do a little bit of a discussion here about

How a speaker works and again if you can take little bits of knowledge from anyone and everyone then yourself, you will start to build your own library of knowledge and in turn pass that on. Before I talk about speakers though, I want to talk very quickly about going to a gig and how you feel before you go to a gig. Now I've been doing mobile discos and all sorts of kind of This sort of thing and stuff for like a long time, a very long time. Over 25 years. And to this day, even now, I always get nervous before I go to a gig. A little bit anxious, a little bit like, what's it going to be like? That's, I personally think is a good attitude. When you start going... It's like an owl. When you start going to the event going, ah, no, you know, you're sort of a little bit too, I don't know, pig-headed about it. That's when maybe things will go wrong.

2:29 It's always good to feel anxious

So it's always good to feel anxious. So if you are a new DJ and you're going to your first, your second, your third gig and you do feel a little bit apprehensive, a little bit nervous, don't worry about it because I've been in this industry for over 25 years and I still feel nervous. Anyway, speakers. Why do they blow? Why do they go wrong? Well, if you imagine you've got a cable going into your speaker Quite simply, but at the same time there's a lot of logic here and also it's how it is. The power goes in through one speaker, it goes around and around and around a coil and it comes out the other. It goes in positive and out negative. While it goes around and around and around, that is known as the voice coil and that is around a magnet, a round magnet in the centre of the speaker that is attached

To the base, the bottom of the speaker, that's the heavy bit. Now on the inside there's one magnet of this coil and on the outside there's another one. A bit like positive and negative, north and south pole. So when a signal is put through the positive it goes in around and around, comes out the negative, what happens is that makes the whole speaker vibrate. Now again, you may be able to fill me in on the terminology here and the precise physics behind it. But what happens then is it makes, it causes electrical current I believe in between the magnets and it makes the whole voice coil move. Now the voice coil is then attached to the diaphragm. Now that is the speaker. So the voice coil will almost like make a sort of a buzz. It'll vibrate.

5:01 The magnet that's on the outside

But that vibration is transmitted then to the diaphragm, which moves. Right at the centre of the diaphragm you do have this thing called the dust cover. That just stops dust getting into the centre point of the centre magnet. Then attached to the coil is something called the spider and that in turn then is attached to the outside of... The magnet that's on the outside. And that almost keeps everything in line, that keeps everything centralised. So what happens? Well, of course as soon as you put a signal in, you get a vibration and that in turn then is turned into an audible sound which is passed through the air. So why do speakers go wrong? Well on the odd occasion what will happen is someone will put too much power into that coil. The coil will move too much.

Now as the coil moves out, it actually gets super heated. It gets exceptionally hot and if it's out of those magnets for too long, at one point in that coil it could blow. You could get a little spark and all of a sudden it's lost the connection. Now when I say out of that magnet, the two magnets, for a brief time, I'm talking about one or two seconds. I want about a fraction of a second. It doesn't take long. So that's one way in which Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.

6:29 Is loose over the top

You may find that on the odd occasion when you turn your speaker on, there'll be like a buzzing sound. Now that could be down to a couple of things. One is the spider on the outside is loose, therefore the centre coil is off-centre which means it's vibrating on the centre magnet. Alternatively it could be that the dust cover is loose over the top. Alternatively it could be that the whole diaphragm is loose. Now at that point you may be able to Now, a little tip here and again do this if you want to. I believe you can use nail varnish which is the normal shiny nail varnish. You put that on and it's like glue, it will help. Anyway, that's another thing. What else was I going to talk about? Yeah, that's right, something else. Lighting. First of all, if we go back years and years ago there were only a few lights. There was your FAL lighting which were like big boxes with

There were literally light bulbs in them with coloured gels in front. That was about it. You had a mirror ball and you had a rope light. Now, if you take two of them and you look at them, you actually think of them, and just Google foul lighting and rope light, what you've got there is you've got lighting that not only gives an effect, this is the important part, it is also an effect. Now, let's have a look at something like a run-of-the-mill LED light. The LED light will give an effect, but it's not really an effect to look at because from the crowd's point of view all you can see is a couple of dots of light. In other words, all you can see is that much of a light source coming from a black box.

Now when we consider years ago you had these big boxes with light bulbs in and coloured gels over them, that was a lighting effect but also it gave an effect. In other words that was stacked or loads of them stacked next to the DJ and you can actually see lighting, the DJ was lit around him or her. Also the rope light, it gave an effect, it made things flashed, but it was an effect in itself. My personal opinion, and this is where I would like your opinion, what do you think is a very, very good lighting effect that is also an effect, it's something to look at and be admired? Now my personal opinion is, and I've got one for tonight's gig, a rope light. It is so simple, yet it is a fantastic effect. And they're not that inexpensive now. For example, you can get them for next to nothing LED rope lights

10:01 I've got the ADJ X-Move LEDs

The DJ Tutor can be used on Christmas trees. Why not use those? Make sure they're all up to standard and they, you know, they're all tested and pat tested and everything tested. God, you've got to test everything these days. You get out of bed and you've got to test your slippers. Anyway, so that's that. Right, so today I'm doing a wedding function in the Conra Hotel which is near Aberystwyth. I'm not sure how many guests it's for. I'm taking the SVM. And a couple of TV screens, speakers, minimal lighting. I've got the ADJ X-Move LEDs. I love them. I take them with me all the time. Fantastic. Also got the Foreplay from Chauvet, which is, again, this is what they've done. The likes of ADJ have done that. I believe the Jellyfish, where they've taken the concept of a light and they've realised they've gone, well...

There is so much light going on inside these boxes. Why don't we show that off? It's a no-brainer, isn't it? It's a bit like having a fish and chip shop and having a small, tiny hole where you sell your fish and chips. Well, you know what? You might as well open the windows, open the doors and make sure people can see from all the way around, which is what they've done. So I've got those. I've got the rope light. What else have I got? Stuff. Anyway, stuff. Right, so enough of me waffling and in a comment, what do you think about lighting? What lighting effect is a good effect to look at? Not the effect it gives, but the effect you get by looking at that light. And very important as well, do not look at laser light. Right, all sorted. We've got the LED sparkle there from ADJ. X-Move LEDs from ADJ.

12:17 We bought the Conroy two years ago

We've got the DMF-10 from Chauvet. Also got that guy, 4Play CL. I haven't put that on yet. And that's about it really. The emphasis, yeah, we've got the roguelite. The emphasis really is on the video. Very small venue. I think we've got about 130 people or so and that's it. Right ladies and gentlemen, I'm in the Conra Hotel near Aberystwyth. I'm with the proprietor. What's your name madam? I'm Lynn Gardner. And how long have you actually had this establishment? We bought the Conroy two years ago. Okay. A couple of questions. What's the worst evening you've ever had here? Something where, not for yourself, but let's say things have gone wrong but it's the public that have made things go wrong. Probably the worst evening we ever had was a wedding with some rather out-of-control children.

Okay, fair enough. And unfortunately, because the children were misbehaving, it really did ruin the day for the bride and groom. Got you. Nightmare. But other than that, having said that, the following week we had a wedding with 21 children. Yeah. And we didn't know we had them. They were absolutely lovely. You stamp the parents half the time, isn't it? Yes, it is. And how about best? Best evening. Whoa, we've had so many good evenings. I'm not sure I can actually choose a best one. Something that springs to mind that I remember that particular point on that evening and what do you think? I'm putting you in a position. Yes, you are now. We do this. You know, we've had so many successful functions and weddings and, I mean, we were incredibly proud last year when completely unbeknown to us that...

We just had no idea that the Welsh National Wedding Awards were happening. Yeah. And we were told that we'd been nominated as the best venue for Mid Wales. Excellent. And much to our surprise, we won. Sorted. Fantastic. That was wonderful because, as we didn't know it was happening, we hadn't asked anybody to vote for us. Wow. Which made it even more special. I like that. You know, that was really nice. Excellent. But no, I mean we've had some really, really good functions since we've been here. Fantastic. And they just get better and better really. Well it's a beautiful place. I've played here a couple of times but not for quite a while. A question for you as well. Let's imagine there are DJs out there who are looking to work in venues like this. In your eyes, if a DJ walked into a venue, what would you expect?

14:26 For them to look like, how would you expect them to act?

For them to look like, how would you expect them to act? In other words, if someone walked in and handed you a business card, what would you need to see from them to make you think, do you know what, I want to book this DJ. I like the look of this person or I dislike that person. What are the pros and cons? The first thing I'm going to look for is professionalism in their approach to how they speak to us as the owners and how they speak to our staff. Excellent. I think DJs work in many, many venues. They have to, that is the nature of what they do. And I think particularly if they've not played in a venue before then it's probably sensible, it's certainly courteous but I would have also thought it actually was common sense to...

Talk to the owners or the manager of that venue, find out what works, what doesn't work. And I'm looking for DJs that are going to work with us rather than do their own thing because nobody's going to tell them how to do their job. We're not telling people how to do their job, we don't want to. We want to work with people. We shouldn't have to, should you? No. Because that's the whole idea of a professional DJ. Exactly. They come in, they do the job, because yourself and your husband mentioned earlier on about, again, this room, I would say you could fit 100, 120, 130 comfortably. Yes, comfortably. So you don't need it that loud, do you? No, you don't. And I think sometimes DJs do make the mistake of just having it so loud that people can't talk. Pay attention to this. They can't talk to each other.

And basically they can't even think. And what we find then is that quite quickly there's a mass exodus from this room. Yeah, from here and they go through there. Just simply because they want to get away from the level of the noise. And actually very, very loud music. It gets distorted as well, you don't enjoy it as much as if it is of the right level. Now that doesn't mean quiet, we're not saying that things should be quiet and dull, but there is a difference between having music at a level that sort of, yes it invades your mind, it makes you want to dance, it makes you smile. And then the level of music when you're thinking, oh my god, this is just banging in my head. You don't want to leave the room? Yeah. Okay. Right, you mentioned to me earlier on that you've got a bit of a competition going on. Now bearing in mind we're in April 2012, so can you explain about the competition? Yes, we're running a competition next year because of, partly because of our success last year in the National Wedding Award, Welsh Wedding Awards.

17:23 On one of our menus and one of our drinks packages, obvi

We're actually going to give a couple who have booked their wedding at the Conrad in 2013, they will have the opportunity of winning a wedding. For up to 100 people, now that will include their food and it will include a drinks package. So when you say, let's get this right, when you say someone has to book a wedding for next year, so you have a bride and groom who will have the wedding here, then they win a wedding to give to someone? No, no, they will win their wedding. One couple will win a free wedding of, as I say, up to 100 people. On one of our menus and one of our drinks packages, obviously if they decide to upgrade that, they pay the extra. But this is a fantastic opportunity for a young couple or any couple to get...

19:21 I mean, you've got to admit, you've got some beautiful surroundings

Thank you very much. To the website, can I also put your email address so people can contact you? Yes, it's lynne.gardner at conra.co.uk Thank you very much indeed. Excellent. Thanks a lot. I mean, you've got to admit, you've got some beautiful surroundings. I tell you what, I look forward to getting all of this on hard drive and using it with the Pioneer Ergo. It's going to be a lot easier than delving through millions of DVDs. Oh my god. You're going to be doing the first dance in about ten minutes' time. So there you go, ladies and gentlemen. Another night in the Conrad Hotel. Thank you very much indeed to the bride and groom. Fantastic crowd. Thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Great. It's fantastic when people come up to you at the end of the night and just say thank you. Especially, especially if it's the bride and or the bride and groom. Fantastic. You can't ask for anything better.

22:09 From past experience, because you know

You're going to take the information in that the lady gave you. If you are, and I'm going to explain from past experience, because you know what? I've done this, and I don't want people who are starting up becoming mobile DJs to fall into the same traps that I used to fall into. I used to go to venues, to hotels, speak to managers, and I used to go there with so much enthusiasm. Buzzing! I was like, oh yeah, I can do this for you. Oh, listen, I've got this speaker and great, oh it's fantastic. Just, you know, you're acting crazy. You want to show the management how you are. This is you. But you know what? It doesn't work. They're going to look at you as though you're an absolute idiot. I swear, they will look at you as though you're an idiot. And I do get it now. It's so obvious. It's so simple.

It is so simple. It's like making the perfect bolognese sauce and you know what? You forgot the salt. Come on! All you've got to do is this. You go to the management of anywhere and you act professional because first impressions count. You show them how professional you can be. Now here's the genius. Here is the genius. You keep, you keep The wackiness and the madness for when you're working. That is it. That's the key. You keep the eccentricity, the overall wacky persona that you chuck out there when you're working. When you see the management, you become a professional. A professional person who is destined to work at that place because you will come across in the first 10 or so seconds Thank you very much for watching and practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.