MTU.Community - View Single Post - Hosts- If you had to start out new what stuff would you choose?

jumpmaster · #3 March 28th, 2002, 12:41 AM

You guys are absolutely right about the equipment. Keep it simple! I didn't! Before I became a KJ, I noticed that the KJs in my area had one small amp, one pair of small speakers, a cheap mic and a small rack of equipment. Then I'd see bands set up and rock the same place with a bizillion more pieces of equipment. So I decided that when I put my system together, I build it as if my singers were the lead singers in those bands. I got a 12 channel mixer, feedback destroyer, quadraverb, peavey eq's, two shure wired and a shure wireless mic, gate/limiter/compressor, a three way crossover with each channel running to it's own peavey amp and it's own set of speakers (sub, mid, and highs), and another peavey amp and peavey eq and monitor speakers for the singers, all in road cases for .... :-) quick and easy setup :-). I also decided that I should have 2 cdg machines (one for karaoke) and another to mix from to upbeat or dance music after the singer finishes (lifts the show and entertains the non-singers) and also provides a backup machine if the main one went down (saw that happen once at a packed bar...machine quits...bar empties out...bad for owner and KJ!). I also got about 5,000 songs and built nice, neat and organized books.

No what...no one really noticed!!! Oh they noticed that I had a lot of good songs and that got me going well. However, only a few singers really noticed how great the system was! I spent all that cash on all that equipment to give them the same sound as the lead singer of a band...and they didn't notice!

I don't regret spending the money on the equipment because I appreciate it, but for the new guy starting out...spend the money on the songs and the books! Get a basic (but good) amp, mixer, mic and speakers! If you want to build a dream system, add as you go, but keep in mind...you have to drag that stuff around, spend all that money, and what's more important...the more equipment you have...the more chance you have that something will break in the middle of a show. Luckily mine didn't...but it could have!