MR, MRS DJ This Video Will Save You Money

0:00 This video could potentially save you a lot of money

This video could potentially save you a lot of money. Right, companies are really clever about saying to you, telling you, demanding pretty much that you buy their new light because it's going to make your show look better, it's going to make you look better and if you don't buy their new light then you're going to be left behind and everyone else is going to buy it and you're going to be the only one who's got last year's fantastic You should be intelligent enough to realise and now understand a couple of things. One is that they're always going to say that. Two is that today, let's say there's a new light out. Well, if there was a new light out six months ago or three months ago or four months or one month ago and there's a new light out today...

I'd be pretty sure to say, I'm pretty certain to say that there'll be a new light out next month and two months down the line or six months. So the light that you're getting today is new, exciting, fantastic and does wacky strange things but so too will their next stunning invention that will appear out of the blue six months down the line. So do you buy now? Should you have bought yesterday or do you hold tight and buy tomorrow? Okay, this video is going to hopefully show you how it doesn't really matter because buying the new light isn't really going to make things drastically better for you, for most of you. In some cases there are certain clients who will request that you do have the latest technology and the latest light show but in my many years of being a DJ not once have I ever ever had a client

Ask about if I have the best lights in the world. All they want to know is do you have sound, lights, can you play lots of kind of different genres of music and they're pretty much happy. Of course I would be an idiot to turn up to say a huge marquee event with two flashing lights. You would be as well. Right so what I'm going to do, I have a piece of paper here and I'm going to show you why you do not need to buy The latest light. And why and how, should I say, is it why or how? Never mind. If you've got a light that's worth $50 pounds or euros, there may not be that much difference between a light that is £5,000 pounds or euros or dollars or whatever. So I'm just going to put the camera there. I'm going to move it down a little bit like that.

2:49 Sadly, and this is the downside to today, smoke machines

Now, sadly, and this is the downside to today, smoke machines. We are in the UK, most places now are not allowed to use smoke machines simply because of, yep, you guessed it, smoke alarms. Right, I do need that there, otherwise it's going to be very, very dodgy drawing. There we are. Now imagine, alright not imagine actually, that that circle there is our light and the public will see that circle of light from let's say a moving head. Now again you know really that light would be facing that way, it would be facing that way so you've just got to bear that in mind. Now imagine we have a wall the other side, so just imagine please we have the light facing that way and it's facing the wall the other way. So there's our light and that is going to leave an image on the wall which of course is going to be bigger like so and all that's coloured in there. Now if we have people in between that light

That light is going to, of course, hit those people and you're not going to get such a smooth image. Now, of course, this is a circular light. It could be a moving head. It could be just something that flashes on and off. It doesn't matter. But what you're getting, the image you're getting, is only a bigger image of the light that you see. Now again, this video could go on for a little bit but hopefully you will understand where I am coming from. Now, sadly because we are not allowed to use smoke machines in practically every single licensed venue in the UK because of smoke alarms, we are pretty much missing 80% of the lighting effect which is this bit there. That is the bit that cuts through the smoke and that's what we're missing.

5:03 This entire video and make up

Alright, so bear that in mind because I want you to look at this entire video and make up your own choice. So, let's imagine now we have a DJ booth. So this is our DJ booth, there's the DJ, we have a couple of tripods here with some speakers on, there they are, bang, circles, little mid and top, these are 15 and horn, 500 RMS. Okay, there they are. There's the DJ booth and then behind that we have our lighting rig like so. There it is. Now let's imagine that on there we have some lights and there's one okay yeah all right fair enough it may be attached to something but you know just work with me here so there's two three 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Alright, they're red dots but they could be orange, yellow, green. They could actually change colour because they could have dichroic lenses in that change... Not dichroic lenses, sorry. They could just be LED lights that change RGB and so on or lasers or whatever. But what I'm getting at here, first of all, is from the crowd's perspective, if you have...

7:22 They have no idea whatsoever

Light like that, which have a small aperture. All the public are seeing is the light from that aperture and then maybe hitting a couple of people in its pathway and then they're seeing the image against the wall. They're no longer seeing that image through cutting through the smoke. So take this on board now. Let's imagine... This is the point here that I'm getting at. I would say most of the general public out there, a good 90 if not more percent, have no idea of the cost of your light. They do not know whether that light on the end is 50 quid or 500 quid. They don't know whether you've paid £1,000 for it or you bought it off eBay for £1.50. They have no idea whatsoever. So you have to take that on board. Now also, take this on board. Let's imagine that you've got all of those lights and they're shining and they're doing a job and they're working really well.

Now, the public aren't to know that you've just bought those and spent £5,000. They don't know. Now, you know because you wanted to boost your ego, but they don't know. They don't know whether you've spent five grand on a new lighting system or £500 off eBay. So long as you have some form of lighting. Now I'm going to digress very slightly here. Now if we go back many, many years and you can still get them, we used to have things called light boxes which were, if I just get my black again, which was a box like that. Inside it you had, believe it or not, light bulbs. That was it. you actually had light bulbs one two three and then in front of that you had this sort of silvery mesh that was I don't know weird shapes and it had small holes inside it was all silvery mirrored and then your light bulbs would shine through that and give a good image now if you think about it alright that

10:04 365 days of guarantee

Is relatively big. It's giving a big effect instead of something that's only giving an effect, a small effect to the side of you. An example of size difference, that's the difference between let's say the size of a CD showing the light here compared to let's say a flight case with a large Pioneer controller. So you imagine two controllers either side of you giving off some form of effect instead of a couple of CDs next year. Alright, so that's the difference. Now also, something else where I can save you some money, which is what it's about. When you buy a cheap and cheerful light for say £50, €50, $100 etc. Now I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but in the UK... That light should have a year's warranty. 365 days of guarantee. So, so long as you don't start pulling it apart and if you take it to the shop there's proof that you've like thrown the damn thing on the floor. If something goes wrong with that light I am quite sure that the shop where you bought it from must fix it. F-O-C. Free of charge. So you get another one.

Now that applies to something that's cost £2,000, £3,000, £4,000 during the first year. If something goes wrong you take it back to the shop and they should fix it for you. But have you ever thought of this? This is really important. Let's imagine you spend £100 on a light. It flashes around, it does a fantastic job. Guess what? 10 months down the line, it goes wrong. You take it back to the shop, they fix it for you. If they can't fix it, they should, I believe by right, give you a new light. There. So they fix it for you. Now let's imagine that after 13 or 14 months, that light goes wrong. You take it back to the shop and they say it's no longer under its warranty. We can fix it for you, but it's going to cost you 75 quid. Guess what? You might as well either chuck it or if you've got another one...

Use that for parts. Now let's look at that really expensive light that costs you five grand. In the year, you take it back, they fix it, FOC, free of charge. After that year, let's say 14 months down the line, it goes wrong and they say to you, of course we can fix it but it's going to cost you 400 quid. Now that's one hell of a lot of money to spend on a lighting fixture. That £400 that you're going to spend just... To have a light fixed could have bought you four or five lights. And those four or five lights, if you remember what I said earlier on, could have pretty much done exactly the same job, if not more, because most of the public out there have not got the foggiest if you spent 50 quid on that light or 5,000 pounds on that light. Think about it. This video does make sense and hopefully it will save you some money.

Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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