Ableton Forum

Yeah man, no one cares what a wedding DJ is doing at all, it's not like clubs where people are chin stroking.

man, i cant stand DJing weddings, but it sure does pay. ive only been able to stand it once myself. but then planned it a few times. always went off great.

• i always hire 1 person to DJ and 1 to MC.
• i have them select songs beforehand
• if you cant get them dancing, you gotta trick them:

do the "dollar and a shot dance". if you're not familiar, everyone lines up and 1 at a time, drops a dollar in a bowl, drinks a shot and does a few twirls with the bride. (ALWAYS PLAY POLKA DURING THIS! even if you're family is mostly black, it dont matter. polka is funny). people get loose and get to laughing, then, as soon as that's over and everyone is on the dancefloor, you drop:
MIDNIGHT STAR- NO PARKIN ON THE DANCEFLOOR. haha.. or whatever, you get the idea...

Weddings are the most boring gigs on earth unless you are friends with the bride and groom and they let you do a little of your thing.

Like most people said on here nobody cares at a weding what the DJ is doing but for your own sanity you might want to be tweaking some kind of hardware. It keeps you from falling asleep and also can keep some of the drunker/stupider requesters at bay if they see you putting on vinyl/loading a CD, cuing, or crate diving for the next song. Looking busy means you're busy.

Another thing to consider is you are expected to play all kinds of styles at different tempos and while it's great that Ableton auto warps tracks, that may not be such a great thing going from C & C Music Factory to Frank Sinatra. Some songs weren't all meant to be in the same tempo. I don't DJ with my laptop so maybe that isn't an issue and there is some work around.

Playing unwarped tracks with global quantize off is exactly like CDJs sans pitch adjust and a jog wheel, which you'd never ned at a wedding.

But I still found trying to bridge the gap between 3 generations of listeners daunting

Can't go wrong with Motown!

pabloaugustus wrote:[he was ridiculous though, playing the cheasiest tunes and rocking his head mouthing every word, taking himself way seriously,

My DJ picked up his mic and started singing along!

Tarekith wrote:Use a laptop, if they have wireless internet at the venue, you can take requests and DL from itunes on the spot.

And on-the-fly mash it with some rmx loops, stacks of reverbs and a kick keyed compressor

TrierMusic wrote:

pabloaugustus wrote:[he was ridiculous though, playing the cheasiest tunes and rocking his head mouthing every word, taking himself way seriously,

My DJ picked up his mic and started singing along!

OMG - thats when you need to have an accident - like trip over the power cable or start banging the sound level cutoff limiter box with a brick

For DJing a wedding just use iTunes. you are not really DJing as much as playing songs.

I DJed my friend's wedding and ran sound. There were 3 DJs the first guy did wedding music. we used two portable CD players and a DJ mixer. Then later (begining around 10) we switched out the CD players for Turntables and had a breaks and progressive trance set.

this was before iTunes. but as long as you have some cheesy 80's and 90's love ballads and some dance/funk/rap from the 70's thru the 90's you should be set make a play list and people can make requests which you can then add as next song played (if you have it, or you can charge $1 a for special requests (songs you don't have) assuming that you have access to the internet. the other advantage to iTunes is that you can set up a playlist and walk away.

make up a sticker that says no I am not checking me email, I'm the freaking DJ

It's a weird cognative relation

plus CD's are dead freaking WEA is laying off left and right

GO digital. Just alawys have a back up

darkcatt wrote:make up a sticker that says no I am not checking me email, I'm the freaking DJ

It's a weird cognative relation

plus CD's are dead freaking WEA is laying off left and right

GO digital. Just alawys have a back up

Just buy a couple of ultra cheapo decks as props

Stick a record on each - turn it over occasionally and they be none the wiser

If you like what you're doing, why be so insecure and make excuses for it?

I really enjoy DJing/VJing weddings. I get to use all of my skills, have fun, help everyone to enjoy themselves, get great free food and champagne (usually!), and make more in 4 hours than I make in two weeks of my day job!

Quadraphonic audio, live percussion, Arkaos video to two 8 foot screens, remote pan/tilt/zoom cameras, 29 DMX lighting fixtures... all under Live control. And if you think it's boring or easy, try DJing, playing percussion, and working cameras, video, and lighting single-handedly!

divonic wrote:Then later (begining around 10) we switched out the CD players for Turntables and had a breaks and progressive trance set.

HOLY SHIT THANK GOD I WASN'T THERE

TITBAG wrote:

divonic wrote:Then later (begining around 10) we switched out the CD players for Turntables and had a breaks and progressive trance set.

HOLY SHIT THANK GOD I WASN'T THERE

I'm sure they were saying the same thing.