internet connection expectation

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Jas

Jas

DJ Extraordinaire
May 22, 2013
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I'm getting clients and prospects this year that expect that I will have the ability to download odd requests (i.e. songs from other countries). Of course I've done this a couple in the past when there's WiFi available, but I don't have a smart phone or other personal WiFi.

My question is, what's the most cost effective way to download songs or even play them from youtube or other websites? I don't like depending on someone else's WIFI and I don't want anyone plugging their androids into my system.

It looks like having personal, portable WiFi costs about the same (or more) than a monthly smart phone plan.
 
I will tether my laptop to my phone when I need internet access and there is no WiFi. It's data service that costs these days, so a data specific device will generally cost about the same as one with full service. Best to just bump up your main plan and share it.

However, there are some ethics (as well as Terms of Service) issues randomly downloading and playing music off of Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, etc.

Most of my gigs are older music, so I've only done this a couple of times, but if it became an issue, I would put a clause in my contract stipulating that music be submitted at least 7 days (or whatever) prior to the event to allow you to acquire it in the least costly manner and to cover licensing issues.
 
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I use my iphone (on Verizon) as a hotspot at ALL DJ gigs, regardless of whether the venue has wifi or not. My impression, every up to date DJ does this and clients have come to expect it. Anyone that is refusing to do hot downloads is just itching to lose gigs.
 
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I have a $50 android smart phone (a go phone) that I swapped sim cards and use on my ATT network plan. Turn it into a hot spot when needed, but for that 'request' I use spotify on the phone and plug it into the mixer. You can preview the song via headphones before you play it.

You need a biz phone anyway...and spotify is $10.59/month.

I"m not a fan of DLing to my laptop when I'm using it live...so I use my phone, or you could use a tablet or second laptop.
 
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Like others I hotspot my phone. But if I cannot purchase the song for play from a legitimate source (iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, etc...) I do not play the request. Any professional who keeps an up to date legitimate library should be able to handle more than 95% of requests from guests at an event.
 
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I do it just a little differently (of course:laugh:). I have a 4G router in which I plug a USB MiFi.
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The router sits inconspicuously on top of my rack case, under my table top.
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I have two computers in my Rack that I plug into the wired ports, and I can use my tablet or phone or as many other devices as I choose to connect to the WiFi. Cost is about $40 a month added to my cell phone bill.
 
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Ron said:
Any professional who keeps an up to date legitimate library should be able to handle more than 95% of requests from guests at an event.
Click to expand...

I agree. I have one of my guys who has started using pandora and it just makes me cringe. I always download and if it comes down to having to hot pull from youtube, ain't gonna do it.
 
Great theory..but not realistic.
I've been in biz a bit over 2 years, bought out a DJ that had been in business for 15+ years.
I ripped the CDs he had plus mine. Lots of songs and should be good to go, right?

Nope...third wedding "can you play footloose?" - the best man had a dance planned and nobody told me. Sure, no problem...and no footloose. and a venue with no wi fi. Had to use his iphone to play the song. I learn fast and don't do that anymore. But footloose should be a pretty standard song for a wedding DJ to have, right?
And there was no wobble either.

Sure, I have whip it nae nae, but the original stanky legg? If youv'e been around 15 years you'll have it, but why would I have thought to have it?

What is today's hot song? With THIS group? I'd love to get it right all the time...but odds are it won't happen. Next wedding they want a lot of stuff i've never heard of...working on getting it but gucci mane? Howie Day, Lifehouse, , everclear.
At least I have the judas priest, queen, cars, ac/dc, bon jovi they want - not typical music for a wedding DJ to stock.
And they want the 'original' version, not the edited (aka clean) versions of lil jon, dr dre, snoop, eminem. Again, not something I normally buy.

Ron said:
Like others I hotspot my phone. But if I cannot purchase the song for play from a legitimate source (iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, etc...) I do not play the request. Any professional who keeps an up to date legitimate library should be able to handle more than 95% of requests from guests at an event.
Click to expand...
 
Ron said:
Like others I hotspot my phone. But if I cannot purchase the song for play from a legitimate source (iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, etc...) I do not play the request. Any professional who keeps an up to date legitimate library should be able to handle more than 95% of requests from guests at an event.
Click to expand...
I now have a clause on my contract that states that we will not download any song from Youtube etc., only legitimate sources!
 
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I know DJs with 30, 40 even 50k songs. Great. I wish, and may one day have such a library myself.

But you can't have every song. And people DO forget to tell you 'Oh yeah, I need you to play 'achy breaky heart' in spanish!' or similar.

I play 2 or 3 songs at a typical gig that I don't have in my personal inventory. I often buy them afterwards.

I did a school dance and got 100 requests for 'boss' by fifth harmony. Perhaps I'm out of the loop, but my daughter assists me and she's of the teen persuasion and she'd never heard of them either. With spotify I could get and play it and it went over very well. I've since bought it and played it repeatedly.

But then I do have stuff like "spanish eyes" - MOB wanted to dance to it with grandma. I blew them away (got 5 diff people to come up and compliment me) because I had it.

I did spend $8 on one song for the last wedding - coulda probably found a free way to source it. (a mothers song, t carter)
 
I can buy music and download it during a gig, but so far, I haven't done it. I've got far too much going on most of the time to deal with music downloads. I never stream music from the Internet or play YouTube.
One thing I did do when I decided to get into the DJ business is copy every "most requested" songs list I could find, aggregated them and compared them to my library. I bought all the tracks on those lists that I was missing... almost 700 of them. It took weeks to get them all. Now I have most tracks people are likely to request. If someone requests something I don't have (very rare), I make a note and add it to my library later.

As I stated previously, I have two computers running in my rack. My primary DJ (music) computer is never connected to the Internet. The second computer is used for video and music backup, and it is connected to the Internet. Both computers are connected to my mobile LAN and share a keyboard and mouse, and I can copy a song from one computer to another if I need to. Both computers have full copies of my music library.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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IceBurghDJ said:
(a mothers song, t carter)
Click to expand...

Side note, I HATE that T Carter song. What a piece of crap production and cheesy website (where he tries to make you pay $10 for his song). Rant over, I'm not sure what you meant by "not realistic". Mind expounding a bit? As for material that you're not familiar with, I also run into this from time to time. Whenever I get stumped, I just simply tell the requester to "come around here". I'll start with a keyword search on my database, then if that doesn't work, I pull up amazon.com and have them point it out (if they can find it). With kid events (proms, school dances), you don't have to be as concerned about each and every request but at weddings, especially non-American events, I let them know that I'm clueless (but trying). Just showing them the honest effort is almost universally seen as a sign of respect, regardless of whether you find the cut or not.
 
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I too search out lists and get the songs on there, or most anyway. Working on a list now before the next wedding.

I bring my daughter on gigs and let her find the songs. We can buy on the fly to her or my ipod, the laptop or an ipad. But i hate apple- typo the password and you'll be resetting it...(ok, twice but still too few).

And I'm paying for spotify so the artists are getting paid, right?
 
A VERY long time full time Dj (and musician) claims to have over 40,000 songs on his computer. That's what, if you had to go buy it today - $45,000?
And that won't be every song or version of it. And 95% of it would never be played.
And which 40,000 songs? And how long would it take to do that?

And well, according to billboard 75,000 albums were released in 2010, down from 96,000 albums in 2009.
ALBUMS - not songs.

So you can't have everything.

Hence - not realistic.

I'm spending $20-30 per wedding, sometimes a lot more, adding music. Got a call for a 1980 class reunion (my year). I won't need a single damned song for that gig!

So I keep an eye on the top songs and try to decide what will go over well. Whip it nae nae IMO is stupid, but it's the #1 requested song at every gig.. I do pretty well but nobody bats 1000.

Last friday, from an adult at a junior football pep rally - "can you play 'hit the quan'?"...today it's #22 on itunes. Before last week never heard of it, nor had my teen daughter who's plugged into this stuff. Is that a one off request or is this the next big thing? Probably depends on the crowd, right? It's another stupid song but I think it will play well.

Now will it be a standard for years to come? Something that vanishes in 1 month? My profit and reputation (perhaps) depend on my knowing that.





rickryan.com said:
Side note, I HATE that T Carter song. What a piece of crap production and cheesy website (where he tries to make you pay $10 for his song). Rant over, I'm not sure what you meant by "not realistic". Mind expounding a bit? As for material that you're not familiar with, I also run into this from time to time. Whenever I get stumped, I just simply tell the requester to "come around here". I'll start with a keyword search on my database, then if that doesn't work, I pull up amazon.com and have them point it out (if they can find it). With kid events (proms, school dances), you don't have to be as concerned about each and every request but at weddings, especially non-American events, I let them know that I'm clueless (but trying). Just showing them the honest effort is almost universally seen as a sign of respect, regardless of whether you find the cut or not.
Click to expand...
 
I hate when someone requests a song and I don't know what they're talking about! Sometimes they slur their speech or don't really know the name of the song. Then I ask who it's by? Once again, I either don't recognize the artist because they say it too fast, they mispronounce it or they don't know who the artist is.

Last week I had a request for Ehsharon. Who's it by? Ehsharon… Asking a 3rd time I got her to slow down a little bit. Ed Sheeran, OK!

Anyway, it can make the DJ look like ignorant if he can't say "yes, I have that song". I finally learned how to pronounce Wiz Khalifa myself!
 
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IceBurghDJ said:
I'm spending $20-30 per wedding, sometimes a lot more, adding music.
Click to expand...

Take heart, that number will go down. I ran a PrimeCuts subscription for a couple of years. That seemed to get me caught up. Now, I just buy as needed and average 2-4 tracks per gig.
 
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