Karl Detken, Chauvet Lighting comes to stay, Eric Taylor comes to play

0:00 What's your name, sir?

So do you want me to introduce myself or are you going to ask me a question? Right now. What's your name, sir? I am Karl Depkin from Chauvet, USA. And you have come all the way to Wales just to see what goes on, is that right? That's right. I came to the UK to see what the mobile DJ industry is and what DJ in general is and I've come to Wales because it's beautiful and they have vibrant music. This is Eric Taylor talking to you. Practice and enjoy. Thank you. Also, we've got a bit of footage there of Eric Taylor. We had him say practice and enjoy. What do you think of it? It was a great event. It was really special to be here with that caliber of musician, that caliber of storyteller. And it's just a wonderful night. A pair of cake and wine. I know, yeah. You know, we look in this room now, chairs have been moved echoey and it's light, yeah.

4:57 Moo over there, who's fast asleep, and we have Mr

Well, no less than 20 minutes ago it was full with people listening and learning and just paying attention to a guy who sang, but he also, in his song there was rhyme, there was a story. Really interesting. And we streamed this, we streamed this on the web, and there was a comment that someone left saying, you know, I thought we were watching a DJ. Thank you for watching. Music is inspirational, music is universal and music isn't just about a drum machine so bear that in mind. The next clip you'll see is probably me taking this guy here on a wacky trip around Wales. And we have Mr. Moo over there, who's fast asleep, and we have Mr. Chauvet there as well, who's fast asleep. Alright, before you were with Chauvet, you were with Pioneer. How did you get that job? What did you have to do to get that job? That job was posted in a newspaper, and a friend of mine told me about it. It was a job for licensing music for their karaoke division.

6:51 Trey type of DJ CD players

Which at that time in 1992, I had no idea what even karaoke was. But I ended up getting that job and the DJ division turned into... I'm sorry, the karaoke division turned into the DJ division when they started adding CDJs and DJMs. So that's how it actually started. It started as karaoke. Absolutely. The entertainment division was a karaoke division. The Japanese invented karaoke, Pioneer. was the company that invented karaoke in 1988 and brought it to the United States. And it became an entertainment forum for mobile DJs. And through that, the Pioneer management and engineers saw that there was a need for better CD players for DJs. So that's what got them interested in that specific market. Before that you would just see...

Trey type of DJ CD players. Yeah. And so this was the first tabletop commercially available for the industry and that was the beginning of the CDJ-500G in 1994 and 95. Did you play any part in designing that? Yeah, I mean we were a group of probably three other product planners that... You know, the Japanese engineers would come and then as product planners we would go around, take them around to visit DJs and stores to get feedback. And while they were back designing the product, people like ourselves were still going out to the field getting more ideas for features and specs that we would send off to Japan. So roughly it took about two years to develop a product. Okay. Question for you as well.

9:37 Yes, the Nexus was already in place as we were finishing up the 2000

Pioneer and the CDJ-2000, that was brought out two years ago. Would I be right in saying that, you know, two years prior to that they started designing it, and then it got to a certain stage where they designed it and they were ready to build it, but of course technology had moved on, and before the time when they released it, they were already designing the Nexus? Yes, there were a lot of products they would overlap. Icon or connector, I can't even recall right now, but it's something that we never ended up using. But we had a dream at one point to do some kind of connectivity that never came to fruition. So yes, the Nexus was already in place as we were finishing up the 2000. Wow. Because that's it, again, I remember the CDJ-400 coming out.

Prior to that, I remember some guy from Pioneer showing me a player that did have a USB, but it was very big and bulky. Never took off, or I don't think... No, I don't think it did take off, but then you had the 400 that did have the USB. And even though people class that as old technology, I still think it's a very good player because you've got effects, and for a DJ who hasn't got a vast amount of money, it's a great player just to take out on the road and plug your lap. You can plug your laptop in with some music. No, no, you can't put your laptop, sorry. Small little external hard drive or thumb drive and away you go. But then, of course, that was superseded then with the 350, wasn't it? Pioneer 350, yeah. So, I mean, alright, that's enough of that. You work for Chauvet, the company. We've talked a little bit about Chauvet. How can you see Chauvet moving on in the future?

You mentioned about a certain place, if we're like, wow, see that rainbow over there? You mentioned about going to a certain place to look in a nightclub. Is that what you'd like Chauvet to do more, is get into specific nightclubs so Chauvet is just in that one nightclub for their lighting? I think, well, the pro division, there's three divisions to... To Chauvet, essentially, there's the DJ club, which is one division. There's the pro division, which is the festival, concert lighting, theater lighting, the big mega club lighting, and then there's architectural. I have been focusing just on club and DJ. Now my vision is as well to start branding the pro product. So what I'd like to do is I would like to find a one iconic club, whether it's a Pasha or Space.

11:52 Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. All right, last question. Dream job. You know, world's your oyster. You can choose any job in any company. What would it be? Anything. Any managing director in any company down to the boy who polishes the shoes in any company. What would you do? I would be working for a suntan manufacturer in Hawaii and would be doing... No, DJ industry. DJ industry. Let me finish my dream job first. Testing my suntan products on people. Of course it could be women if it has to be. If it has to be. Because I'm a giver like that. DJ wise. I should have really said DJ industry, music industry as a whole. Oh yeah, music industry as a whole. Because you were a singer-songwriter, well you still are a singer-songwriter, play guitar. So what would it be? Music industry as a whole, I would work for a guitar manufacturer because that's what I grew up as a 10 year old.

As a 10-year-old kid learning guitar and wanting to be a rock star. Nice. So that would still be one of my dream jobs. Nice. Okay, right, we'll cut this short. We're going to go down and take a look around Borth, which is just down there. If you want to know where Borth is, Google Borth. It's the centre of Wales along the coast, just north of Aberystwyth.

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