Helping a friend spin old-school

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steve149

Shine on you crazy diamond
Staff member
Sep 26, 2011
28,175
45,944
Connecticut
Doing an all vinyl 70-80s club dance. I’m spinning to start and then doing lights for most of the show.

TT won’t let me attach photos so I’ll add when I get back.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I spun for about 1.5 hours to let my friend mingle (many were his extended family). He gave me a stack of club singles and I played them .. mostly disco house music of the late 70s .. almost all I've never heard before .. :) We had about 150 people.

After that, I ran the lights .. 4 Elektalite scanners (similar to Martin) with a Elektralite controller specifically for them .. plus some spots on a "Lite-Puter" and a strobe. We had some washes around the room (not many) and I set up my Blizzard pucks with the Aeon Blackbird controlling them behind the stage. And a hazer.

Here's some phone shots (I didn't bring my cameras) ...

1st shot is before we put covers over the tables.

The speaker stacks are all JBL Club boxes. My friend has dreamed of opening a club and has bought these over the years .. the stacks are a good 8' plus upright. Not my cup of tea, as everything was old school (amps, crossovers, EQs) .. all top end too .. Klark Tecknik, UREI, Bryston.

My selfie didn't turn out too well .. I was facing a blue PAR and unfortunately, my camera has no flash on the screen side.


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Do ya think you had enough sound out put?!! LOL I'm surprised you didn't find everyone dancing in the back end of the room with all that energy coming at them. However, I realize it was on manual control.
I do an "oldies" night at our clubhouse and play vinyl 45's (mint or near mint condition). Love the sound of vinyl. I actually have 45's from 1955 - 2004. Had a record/CD wholesaler outside of Boston that carried new music on 45 because at that time (2004) not all lounges had converted from record to CD jukeboxes. I relocated in 2005 from Maine to North Carolina, and learned few years later on our annual trek back to Maine, he had closed up shop. Darn! I use 3 turntables when doing vinyl night (Dual, Technics and Numark TTXI a digital/analog TT.
Is that a chandlier (sp?) that I see being used as "mirror" ball?
 
Do ya think you had enough sound out put?!! LOL I'm surprised you didn't find everyone dancing in the back end of the room with all that energy coming at them. However, I realize it was on manual control.
I do an "oldies" night at our clubhouse and play vinyl 45's (mint or near mint condition). Love the sound of vinyl. I actually have 45's from 1955 - 2004. Had a record/CD wholesaler outside of Boston that carried new music on 45 because at that time (2004) not all lounges had converted from record to CD jukeboxes. I relocated in 2005 from Maine to North Carolina, and learned few years later on our annual trek back to Maine, he had closed up shop. Darn! I use 3 turntables when doing vinyl night (Dual, Technics and Numark TTXI a digital/analog TT.
Is that a chandlier (sp?) that I see being used as "mirror" ball?
No .. once we started, we killed all the chandeliers and the wall sconces. The place had a large (I'd guess 20-24") ball on a rotary base over the dance floor (which was pretty good sized), so I had 4 of the spots on it.

We had 2 more tables, but didn't hook them up. The 2 in the console are SL1200s .. the others were some Numark tables he had.

I would never do vinyl again ... waaayyyy too much work finding things.
 
Those speaker stacks look like they rock! That's the kind of system that can really sing with good quality vinyl being played on it.

I'm feeling inspired, may head to the record store later and poke around.
 
How does he have the scanners mounted on the other side of the room? I'm guessing he was running cable to the fixtures?
I bought him a set of the Donner wireless DMX dongles (1 XMT, 3 RCV). There were 2 scanners behind used hardwired and then we added a transmitter to the 2nd and a receiver each in the opposite scanners .. worked great.
 
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Locating vinyl 45's never a problem. My boxes are sorted by decade with A-B-C..dividers in each box. Some decades run 3 or more boxes. Each record has it's own blank 5x8 Card with info across the top: Year | Artist | Song Title | #1(3) (stands for highest Top40 ranking and number of weeks holding that spot on chart). I'll take a photo of the 5x8 card and post back here. All I need to do is recall the name of the Artist and then thumb through the top of the 5x8 cards sticking up to find the song. Key is knowing the Decade (70's, 80's etc.) and Artist and/or Song title. Each time I purchased a 45 the 5x8 card was created. Trust me I've created literally thousands of cards.!
 
He had a mix of 12" singles, DJ compilation and standard albums .. and I couldn't discern a filing order .. only a handful of 45s. He asked me to find a MJ song and it took me 4 minutes going through 1 box. I told him next time I'm bringing my laptop for those one-off requests.
 
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No rhyme or reason to his filing system of records? I would have re-organized the 12" singles into By Artist (Alphabetical) to make it easy...so I would have an idea of the artists and a chance of finding the album. I also put the 45's back in the sleeve where the 5x8 card had been raised as a place holder. This way they are always back in order.
 
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No rhyme or reason to his filing system of records? I would have re-organized the 12" singles into By Artist (Alphabetical) to make it easy...so I would have an idea of the artists and a chance of finding the album. I also put the 45's back in the sleeve where the 5x8 card had been raised as a place holder. This way they are always back in order.
There may have been at one point, but this is the first time playing out for him in a long time .. he used to be a mobile DJ back in the 70s/80s.
 
He had a mix of 12" singles, DJ compilation and standard albums .. and I could discern a filing order .. only a handful of 45s. He asked me to find a MJ song and it took me 4 minutes going through 1 box. I told him next time I'm bringing my laptop for those one-off requests.

I have trouble even playing on somebody else's laptop, I can't imagine trying to use their record filing system.
 
I bought him a set of the Donner wireless DMX dongles (1 XMT, 3 RCV). There were 2 scanners behind used hardwired and then we added a transmitter to the 2nd and a receiver each in the opposite scanners .. worked great.

How were they mounted (the opposite ones)?
 
How were they mounted (the opposite ones)?
Those scanners were very heavy, so we tried a few options and the one we went with was an o-clamp directly on the center shaft at the top. We had them on a short cross bar, but the weight kept them slipping on the bar and they ended up pointing too low, so the o-clamp on the vertical shaft didn't slip at all. We did use the cross bar by the stage as we had other lamps on them. There we had to run a couple turns of gaf tape on the bar to keep the o-clamps from turning.
 
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Another way to keep the o-clamps from slipping when mounting on horizontal bar is to use a piece of that rubberized shelf liner material used in kitchen cabinets to keep plates etc. from sliding. It comes in place setting size and even in rolls. Cut a strip from the mat or roll as wide as the O-clamp that grips the bar. Wrap a piece around the bar, one time. Close and tighten clamp. If the clamp begins io slide add another piece. Works. I used this process many times. Not all bars are exactly the same diameter. By the way, the liner material is that stuff that has holes 1/8 " diameter through out the material. Since it comes in rolls as long as 6-ft, I've cut and placed a piece under my turntable case to keep it from sliding...adds a bit of insulation, too from shock.
When I had my truss system up I would use the cut pieces on the top bar of the truss inside the o-clamp when attaching extra par cans where there were no pre-drilled holes for bolt/nut attachment.
 
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I have seen the same issue - resolution - drill through the clamp / bar and use a bolt or something to hold them in place.
Though they were his lights .. and MY crossbars .. :)
 
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