Claims of greatness… Who really is good?

I'm always interested in seeing where I rank on search engines. Over the holiday I sat down, as I’m sure many engaged couples did, and started surfing. I found numerous DJ sites claiming “Central Iowa’s Premier Wedding DJ’s”. Other broad claims included “More Music” or “Best Lightshow” or hear this, crazy amounts of years in the wedding business. Seriously!

On one hand, that’s good. At least they all think they’re the best. Delusional? Probably. On the other hand, it’s not so good for you the customer. Especially if they are using middle and high school combined with college club work as years of experience and implying that was all wedding time.

How do you sort through so many claims of greatness? Who really is good?

Simple but you can’t come right out and ask them. I’ll give you a simple analogy: A Pawn shop will lose money if they bring in stolen goods to resell, so if you have ever watch the TV Pawn show you will notice they always ask round about questions when an item comes in. How did you get this? Where did it come from? You have to do the same thing with DJ’s unfortunately. Ask them about your venue. Do they know it well? Where do you usually set up when you are there? Do they now the event manager? Does the event manager refer them? Do other wedding vendors know and refer that DJ? Did you find then on craigslist? What does their typical setup look like?

Ok, I have to pause for a moment to talk about DJ setups. I did notice one company that had this huge setup. Lots of lights, clean look and I thought to myself, oh that’s competition. So I kept looking. I soon noticed most the pictures on this site were from that one event. On to the videos… and there the truth set me free! The large venue was a corporate party. All of the wedding videos show a typical DJ setup! Don’t be fooled by shows of grandeur. I wonder how many couples hire them based on the first impression of their homepage.

I always tell my customers the DJ is the hardest wedding vendor to select. Cake, you can go try it. Venue, you can go see it. Photographer, you can see and hold their product. DJ? Video, is nice but is that really what you get? Not in the case of that one site! So how do you know? Ask questions and ask other wedding vendors. If you can, go see them live at a wedding! No you’re not crashing but if the reception is at a somewhat public venue like a hotel it’s easy to observe from the hallway without intruding on a couples event.

As for Knight Life, our claim is central Iowa’s most referred DJ service. Knight life is on the preferred vendor list for every country club and most every major hotel in central Iowa. No other service can say that. And no we have never paid anyone to refer us.

New Speakers!!! I'm soooo excited!

It takes a lot to get me excited these days but for the first time in twenty years we have a speaker setup I can't say enough good things about.  We knew a year ago that we wanted to migrate to the Active JBL speakers for three main reasons.

1. The speakers are "Active" which means the amplifier is built into the speaker.  So each speaker has it's own amp.  The old setup uses one amp in the system that powers both speakers.  That's a single point of failure and it's happened.  I've done the pre-reception scramble to get a replacement amp.  It's stressful and miserable. An amp in each speaker gives redundancy.  You can always play with one speaker until a replacement arrives.
2. Daisy Chain is an old computer term but for speakers in short it mean we can send a line or mic signal to the speaker. If it's a large venue we can take the signal out of the first speaker and go right into the next and the next and gain as needed.  With multiple systems this allows tons of flexibility!  Wedding ceremonies outside, large outdoor events, system inside extra speakers out or large events requiring more sound.
3. Not just a line input but also the option for a mic input.  For those ceremonies only needing microphone sound we only need to bring a speaker and a microphone to a wedding ceremony.  That makes it easier for us, simpler and cheaper for you!

That's three great reasons to be excited but we learned that the speakers we were preparing to purchase had been re-engineered by JBL to also now be more Eco-friendly!  So why do I care about being green?  They have placed the 4' speaker package into a 36" application.  You see, I hate speakers on poles without subs!  All you get is mids and highs and for my customers a little something call ear fatigue by the end of the night.  Ever leave something at the end of the night and your head hurts? 

So what has me the most excited I've been since I started DJ'n?

1. The 36" JBL PRX635's have the sound of a floor speaker.  A real 3 way speaker!!  They sound great and if the party calls for it, they thump!
2. Being 36" tall and only 55lbs (the old 4' floor speakers are 130lbs each!) the JBL 635's are pole mountable since they are so light and short!! 
• This is huge. With the older speakers the tweeter was the only speaker above the shoulders of seated guests.  Imagine the entire full range sound elevated.  During the cocktail and dinner portions of the evening this truly allows filling the entire ballroom full of unimpeded sound.  That's huge since I can never get people to speak correctly into the mic.  It's going to help us as DJ's get announcements to all guests even when placement in the room is poor.
• As the dance starts we lower the speakers to dance floor level.  Filling the floor with sound but not the entire room.  Why?  So conversations on the sides and back are still possible.  Receptions are like family reunions.  Many guests just want to catch up so this allows us to be more attentive to all your guests needs on the dance floor or not.
3. Better low volume cut off.  Better sound at lower volumes means cocktail and dinner music has a better frequency response.  Ever hear some speakers play real soft and hear chipmunks?  I'm glad to know that even as powerful as these speakers are they play very well at low volumes.  That is a problem JBL fixed from their 500 series.
4. 1500 Watts per speaker.  So that improves our sound systems from 2000 watts to 3000 watts per system.  Ok, I know some of you just said OMG (oh my god) that must be loud.  I can be but we don't play so loud to hurt anyone or older guests can't enjoy themselves as well.  With that said, in 2010 I had a wedding in which the party on the other side of the sound wall was using a local band.  Sometimes it takes power to not be overtaken by the event next door.  Usually the hotels are very good about timing so one dance isn't starting when the event next door is trying to do toasts but it does happen.

As soon as we have the speakers replaced for the systems we will be removing the old bbe sonic maximiser's and replacing them with dbx DriveRack's.  This is an awesome piece of Loudspeaker Management equipment.  The DriveRack offers 2 independent channels of processing power with a linkable 28-band graphic EQ, industry-standard dbx stereo compressor module, feedback eliminator, and the 120A Subharmonic Synthesizer on the input signal path. 6-channel output system includes parametric EQs, PeakStopPlus limiters (to provide protection against speaker blowouts), and alignment delay.


In English this means a DJ takes a microphone to the center of the room and with the push of a button and the DriveRack tunes the system for that specific room, placement of tables, you name it! 

Knight Life is committed to having the absolute best sound in the market!  From the gold connectors, heavy signal cords to the smallest item.

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