Pioneer Perspective - Karl Detken and Davey Dave

If you are a regular attendee at the Mobile Beat conferences, you no doubt have seen or even met Karl Detken and Davey Dave, the faces of Pioneer Pro DJ on the tradeshow floor. Karl, who has been with the company for
16 years, is Director of Product Planning and Artist Relations for Pioneer Pro DJ, while Dave came to Pioneer three years ago, after stints with a number of other DJ gear manufacturers, to fill the position of Senior Manager for Marketing. Mobile Beat publisher Ryan Burger sat down with these two product specialists-to talk about how Pioneer fits into the big picture of the mobile DJ world and how the company continues to lead in producing high-end equipment for discerning DJs, among other things…

 Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat magazine. We’re here with the faces of Pioneer, the guys that everybody sees at the mobile DJ conventions, be them the Mobile Beat Las Vegas show or one of the other conventions.

Dave and Karl, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about how you got into this whole business.

Karl Detken: My name is Karl Detken. I’ve been with Pioneer for 16 years and I’m the director of product planning and artist relations.

Davey Dave: This is Davey Dave. I’ve been with Pioneer for three years. I’m the senior manager for marketing.

Ryan Burger: How did you both get into this business? From what I remember and what you’ve told me before, you guys were both DJs before you got in, so it’s not like you came through an electronics background or something like that. You guys are DJs.

Karl Detken: Yeah, that information is completely wrong, Ryan. I was actually not a DJ –

Ryan Burger: Were not. Okay. Sorry.

Karl Detken: — when I came to Pioneer in 1992.

Davey Dave: I was a scuba instructor as well.

Ryan Burger: Scuba instructor. Okay.

Karl Detken: He was a Jello scuba instructor, which was a specialized field.

Anyway, I was in music in a touring kind of original band, and discovered about Pioneer’s open position for, at that time, their karaoke products division, and they needed somebody that would be licensing music and programming their music and getting it pressed — at that time, on laserdisc — and since I came from a musical background, I took the job and have been here since.

Ryan Burger: Wow.

Karl Detken: He was kidding about the scuba instructor.

Davey Dave: So, I started out with Pioneer three years ago. Before that I’ve been DJing since 1983. I discovered Pioneer when I first saw the CDJ-700 players and DJ-500 back in 1998, I think it was. Since then, I knew I wanted to work for this company because I knew they were the best, but I didn’t know how to get to them. So I basically hounded and harassed and stalked Karl at every show from about 1999 up until three years ago and begged him for a job. And I’m not even joking about that.

I always knew Pioneer was the leader and I wanted to work with them. I worked for previous companies in the electronic industry, and finally three years got to hook up with Pioneer.

Ryan Burger: Back on you, Karl. I originally met you when you were “Karaoke Karl.” Was that kind of a thing they put you into for you to learn the industry? I had just assumed you had come from within and then moved into Pioneer, but it seems like obviously I’ve got it backwards.

Karl Detken: Yeah, a little bit backwards. First of all, I’ll tell you how the name came about. But I started with Pioneer in ‘92, worked on the karaoke product; about ‘95, ‘96, my then Japanese boss said, please go do karaoke and learn about the industry better, and I thought that was a great idea.

So I went and I found a local bar and I said, hey, I’ll do your karaoke for $50 a night. And at that time, I thought, wow, that’s great; pay for my beer and have a good time singing. And after a while I just got to loving the industry and the product. And it also helped me in the development of our songs and selection of our songs.

The “Karaoke Karl” name came about somewhere about 1997, ‘98. Pioneer — at that time, I had been involved in product placement in a lot of movies; My Best Friend’s Wedding, Frasier — TV and movies that would use our karaoke for a certain karaoke scene. There was a movie being done by Sony Pictures at the time with Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt [sic] called “Duets”, and they had called me in to do a script reading and make sure it was accurate and realistic, which I did. They found out I was doing karaoke at the time at a local club every Thursday night. They came down, unbeknownst to me, the producers; one of them being Bruce Paltrow, who is Gwyneth’s father, and Kevin Jones. They came down and said, how would you like to be in the movie? We’d actually like to add realistic guys that are doing. I said, well, let me check my schedule; Gwyneth who? Of course I said yes. And that’s how the name came, because that was my name in the particular film; Karaoke Karl.

Ryan Burger: And Davey, yourself I know you’re still very active. I know you disappear for overseas gigs all the time. You’re very active still in the club/DJ community.

Davey Dave: Yeah, I’m still an active DJ. I play in a two-man group called UberZone, and we pretty much tour around the world. We hit various countries throughout the year; Australia, a couple times of year, various places in Europe, Japan, Korea, all over. So I’m still very active in the club scene, definitely.

Ryan Burger: Okay. We’ve heard how each of you guys got there. How about Pioneer? Karl, you’ve been around for the [inaudible]; I’m sure Davey knows the whole story. But I mean, Karl, tell us a little bit more about you — Pioneer made the move from karaoke players, those big laserdiscs and all the stuff like that, into what is now the top professional gear that everybody’s loving?

Karl Detken: Well, Pioneer has actually been around since 1938. They started off as a speaker company in Japan, and moved into hi-fi and car audio products in the ’60s and ’70s; probably became a world brand somewhere around that time as well.

They introduced the first car CD player, the first car cassette player, and a bunch of firsts; plasmas and all these different things. But like you said, we were in karaoke. We actually brought karaoke to the United States, which we apologize to everyone publicly right now for bringing that craziness. In ‘88 we brought it. About 1993 or so, we started — one of the things that we noticed is that many wedding DJs were using our karaoke for their weddings and bar things, and so we started looking at the DJ industry a little bit closer and seeing what products we could evolve into that might lend themselves to being strong in a DJ marketplace.

We decided to develop a DJ CD player, kind of a tabletop. A lot of people think it was the first tabletop ever released, but it actually wasn’t, because 10 or 15 years prior, Technics had made an ill attempt to release a tabletop CD player, but it didn’t have very good pitch and instant start wasn’t available back then, so it didn’t do very well. We were actually the second guys to actually develop this tabletop CD player with a large jog dial on the top, kind of emulating a turntable. It was the first looping player with seamless loop. There were many looping players that had a little bit of a delay, but it was the first seamless looping player. First player with something called Master Tempo, which kept the key of the music while the speed went up and down.

So it had a lot of firsts, and we entered that market in 1995 — January of 1995 at the NAMM show, we introduced that product. We did fairly well with it because it was a new technology. And at that time it was funny because we were still kind of committed to karaoke, this particular DJ tabletop CD player also had a karaoke output. So it would play CD-G discs as well. And after that we discontinued the CD-G because we started focusing just primarily on DJs and club DJs and mobile DJs.

And basically that was the first five years of releasing mixers and different CDJ. About 2000, 2001, I think we revolutionized the world by introducing the CDJ-1000, which was the first realistic scratch-emulating CD player. It has become the standard in the world. We sold our millionth CDJ last December, and it’s quite an accomplishment for Pioneer that we’re very proud of. And our mixers are also very much a standard in the nightclub and a lot of the mobile DJ industry.

So that’s kind of the history and kind of a brief short version.

Ryan Burger: Okay. Well, Pioneer’s known for being patient; engineering the product the perfect way. You may not be the first on the market to have something, like for instance, the CMX rack-mount CD players, the DVJ-1000s, obviously, and your new MEP unit out; there’s been video mixers but nothing like this. Does Pioneer plan — is it kind like a corporate philosophy that they plan it that way to do research? I guess I want to understand things and let everybody else understand a little bit where Pioneer places itself.

Karl Detken: Yeah. Pioneer has always been very — one of the values is always to have quality product, and that’s come down from our car electronics, home electronics, our plasma electronics things — everything we do goes into much R&D. Usually for DJ products it’s two to three years of development from the time of idea and inception to the time it actually hits the market. In that also is one period of testing, both at the factory — they have some incredible testing rooms where they put them through 150-degree heat, below freezing room temperature, dust testing rooms — and all of that goes through months and months, often six months of just some heavy testing before it goes out to market.

And one of the reasons is not just because of the philosophy of having quality product that is going to withstand everything out there, but also because from a DJ standpoint — Ryan, as a DJ, you know as well — there is no chance of turning back the hands of time to redo that first dance of the bride and groom if your CD starts skipping. And I’ve seen over the last 10 to 15 years the demise of many, many [inaudible] has been because they come to market too quickly and they haven’t tested long enough. So what happens is it gets out there, it fails, and it fails at the most inopportune time. And it’s embarrassing to the DJ. You lose their loyalty.

So it’s kind of the reason that we are always a little bit behind the curve of technology. Some people always wonder why are you taking a year longer than everybody else to release whatever video or mp3 or whatever. It’s because we want the product to work flawlessly as much as it can. That’s kind of the reason why.

Davey Dave: Yeah. It’s very interesting that not only in our market but other markets as well, other industries, that everybody’s trying to be first to market with new technologies and things. Pioneer’s not the first, but they do have the best, and that’s something I’m very proud of as well, to represent that philosophy.

Ryan Burger: That’s obviously you were hounding Karl versus someone else out there; because you knew you wanted to be involved with a product that was the tops.

Davey Dave: Exactly.

Karl Detken: Now, mostly all of our products have been successful, with the exception of — and even these products — the VJM-700 and the DMP, first mp3 player to hit the market — those were the only things that were discontinued very quickly.

Davey Dave: Oddly enough, the DMP was the first to have that technology, so they should have wasted.

Karl Detken: Yeah. It was a little bit ahead of its time, but I think that part of the reason of our success on any product is the fact that when people buy it, they know they’re buying quality product that they can rely on.

Ryan Burger: Gotcha. Where do you see things going in the next couple years? Is the average mobile disc jockey going to be going into video content? Are they going — where is it going?

Karl Detken: Well, for us there’s really kind of three markets that we’re always looking at. There’s the club market, which Pioneer dominates with probably 90 percent of market share. There’s the mobile DJ market. And then there’s the hip-hop market. And I think for us our philosophy and our goals still remain the same, which is that we are still pursing video. We think video’s the future. How it plays out into the mobile DJ industry, we are continuing to look at that. The club industry is a little bit easier to kind of visualize and see how that does work for that.

So we’re looking at things like controllers, or products that control software, and not just our software that’s out there, but a universal controller for all softwares. So we’re developing products like that and also still pursuing the video market.

Ryan Burger: Gotcha. Well, where are things going in the next couple months? What are we all going to be looking forward to seeing with the Pioneer nameplate on it? Have you got something in the pipeline you can tease us on a little bit?

Karl Detken: We can’t share anything that’s too far down the road by 2009, but there are some really, really cool things coming out in 2009 that the market has been asking for and wanting that will again set Pioneer as the pioneer in the industry. But probably close to the time that this podcast airs, we will have released our new headphones, the HDJ-2000. They will be our highest-end headphones that come to market, with better fidelity, better audio quality; new materials that are being used, alloy metals that are just virtually indestructible; new foam padding similar to the memory foam that’s used on mattresses that you spend $3,000 for. We’re developing products with that. It’s a better sounding, more comfortable, lighter type of headphones that we’re hoping is going to be something that the market wants.

Davey Dave: And Ryan, you were talking about the different markets that we target. This is actually a product that’s going to expand our market share because it’s not only going to be perfect for the professional DJ but also for studio use as well, for like monitoring your mixes in the studio via headphones. So it’s the perfect headphones — high-end headphones for studio use and professional DJ use as well.

Ryan Burger: So, yeah, that hits across your three marketplaces you mentioned earlier, plus adds the studio side to things. Understandably, yes.

Okay. Last thing I really have for you guys is where do you want Pioneer to be known? I guess Dave, it’s more in your area because you’re the man that gets the word out about the great things that are developed. How do you want Pioneer known in the DJ marketplace?

Davey Dave: I want to maintain — well, Pioneer wants to maintain its high-end brand image. We’re viewed as the Lexus, the Mercedes of the DJ world, and we want to maintain that image and show that we justify our price range with quality and reliability and durability and unique feature set. We just want to maintain that high brand image in all product categories?

Karl, you want to add to that?

Karl Detken: Yeah. I think we’ve already kind of made our mark in the DJ history, or the DJ world by introducing the CDJ-1000 in 2000, which — a million CD players is quite a lot. I don’t think any manufacturer can even come close to that, and that says a lot. I think Pioneer is what you would call, back in the ’80s and ’90s, the Technics 1200 and even now the Technics 1200 is the standard turntable for a nightclub DJ, and that I think is where we’ll be in the annals of history for DJ products. The CDJ-1000 will be what revolutionized DJs to go from hardcore vinyl to that medium, and it’s still being used and probably will be used for several years to come.

Ryan Burger: Absolutely fantastic. And in general, if anybody that’s listening to this wants to catch and meet Karl or Davey, the best place to see them will be the upcoming Mobile Beat Las Vegas show. Check out MobileBeat.com for more information on that.

Thanks, guys.

Karl Detken: Thank you.

Davey Dave: Thanks. I’ve got to go back to my scuba lessons now.

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QSC: A Chronicle of Quality - Quilter and MacKenzie Interview

Audio file down below transcript

Driving force Pat Quilter and marketing maestro Evan MacKenzie speak about the QSC tradition and new directions in powered loudspeakers.From one of those mythical-sounding-but-true beginnings in a small Southern California shop, to its current position as one of the leading amplifier manufacturers in the world, QSC has always maintained focus on high quality and truly serving the needs of working entertainers. The co-founder and current PR man discuss the company’s origins and continuing development.

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MB 118 - The Gear Guide

The annual Mobile Beat Gear Guide is all about DJ gear; it’s packed with essential info to help entertainers make informed buying decisions. Added to the mix this year is a sharp focus on important product categories, featuring guides to shopping for these particular items and making the most of your equipment investments. The categories include: Powered Speakers, Mixers, LED Lighting, DMX Lighting Control, Digital Media Controllers, and DJ Software.Along with this hard-copy guide, don’t forget that you can utilize Mobile Beat’s online Gear Guide all year long to find summaries of the latest info on new products, links to manufacturer websites for further information, and links to web-based retailers to help you compare prices and make online purchases. Access the Gear Guide online at http://mall.prodj.com.

The Computerized DJ: How to Pick Your Software by Dr. Drax - Well, here we are eight years into the new millennium. What can…Choosing a Mixer by Ben Stowe, CTS - When choosing a mixer for your system there are two critical… The Call of the Wild by Merlin Zimmet - As DJs, throughout most of our careers we seldom stray from the… 

The Computerized DJ: How to Pick Your Software by Dr. Drax

Well, here we are eight years into the new millennium. What can we say about how we’ve progressed? In just 10 short years, we have gone from storing a few hundred MP3s to storing tens of thousands on a single hard drive. One might ask, “What will the next 10 years bring?” We are already seeing a high rate of change, in fact, a more significant change in the last two years than we experienced in the previous eight. The continuing expansion of technological and software systems will literally revolutionize how we do what we do.Priority One: Performance Style

When considering digital DJ software several key elements need to be outlined as we discuss our choices. Are you a hands-on, club-style mixer focused on the tactile feedback of platters? Or are you satisfied with semi-automatic functionality that allows you to spend more time out on the floor working the crowd, making announcements, leading interactive elements, etc.? In other words, one of your prime considerations is the way you perform. With the answer to this basic question, you can start to lay out the choices that are available to you.

I have always said that rather than the debate which platform to run (Mac or PC) or what might be the best hardware configuration, you should instead choose the software you want to use and then select the hardware that most appropriately runs that software. For those who desire a traditional interface, comparable to two turntables or two discrete CD players, there are numerous product offerings-too many to name without fear of leaving someone out. The same holds true for those looking for a functional automated interface in which they can program the entire night’s play list, add requests when needed, and spend the bulk their time interacting with guests.

Once you have somewhat defined your DJ style, selecting a tool that best fit your needs becomes a matter of trial and error. I would strongly suggest downloading the demos of the respective programs you’re interested in, and loading them up on a platform comparable to the software’s recommended setup. Another method is finding users who are currently working with the tools you are looking at, and asking if you can shadow them, as well as getting their opinions. Their satisfaction level is important, as they are real-world users of the product, not salespeople.

Some questions you might ask:
• How difficult was it to become proficient with the software?
• How long does it take to understand the basic nuances of the interface?
• Does the software allow for introduction of various file types, or is it constrained to a single file type?
• Does it allow you to go from a dual-deck, beat-mixing format to a single-player format?

Expanding Your Search

As the hardware makes storage of more and more tracks possible, an increasingly important question is, how easy is it to search using the prospective software? For example, can you do concatenated searching, using a combination of terms? An example of this would be searching for every disco song from the year 1979 that was number one on the Billboard Top 40, with the BPM of 100. While you may never have to get quite so focused, having the ability to do so is a powerful tool to build the quality of your performance sets.

Another thing you need to consider is how is the program’s database (often described as a “record case” or other type of physical storage) is structured. Is it established in such a way that makes logical and intuitive sense to you? Or does it require you to learn a whole new way of living or a whole new language? Look for tools with strong relational database capability. This is easily reflected in the structure of the record case or library, how information is presented to you, and how easily you can search through that information.

An organizational area that I feel is key in the adoption of a basic MP3 software player is the utilization and proper handling of ID3 tags. These are pieces of information appended to the MP3 file, which provide information such as artist, title, genre, BPM, or other bits of interesting information about the track. Failure to handle ID3 tags properly is a great restriction. I would avoid any tool that did not fully utilize ID3 tags.

One place where I think most DJs make a mistake in utilizing software, is organizing their music in the same way they organize their CDs. By doing this, one loses a great deal of the power of computing, as it doesn’t make sense to create separate folders for every single CD or album in your library. Rather, I think it makes more sense to organize your music library files by things like genre and decade. After all, it will be rare that somebody will come up and ask you for a song from a specific album or CD. They will ask you things like: “Can you play some old school funk?” “Do you have any hip-hop?” “Do you have any good ‘60s music?” Most requesters will either identify a specific song (apart from the original album name) an artist or genre.

The bottom line is, the software you choose should give you great flexibility in organizing your library the way you wish, rather than constraining you to a specific organizational structure, which might impede your ability to think naturally, logically and creatively in locating desired songs.

For the rest of Dr. Drax’s extensive discussion of what to look for in DJ software, pick up a copy of the latest MB Gear Guide (December 2008, issue #118). Subscribers receive the yearly guide to products and services as free addition to their subscription.

Choosing a Mixer by Ben Stowe, CTS

When choosing a mixer for your system there are two critical factors you should consider. The first is the feature set. If it doesn’t do what it needs to, it isn’t a good fit. Likewise, if it is overloaded with unnecessary features, you have likely paid more and are carrying more than was prudent. The second factor is the quality of the board. The mixer may have the single greatest impact on the quality of your sound, and it has many moving parts that can become troublesome quickly if they are of poor quality.
There are a variety of distinctly different applications mixers are used in; live sound, broadcast, DJ, karaoke, recording and more. This article will briefly discuss live sound, karaoke and DJ applications. Even within those categories there are several distinct uses, a scratch DJ may have different needs than a wedding DJ. They may want kill switches, onboard effects and perhaps an optical crossfader to allow for rapid, fluid movement over many cycles.

DJ Mixer Essentials
Individual users will likely place different emphasis on different features, but the following are some important features that I feel are fairly universal for DJs and others: size and weight, input channels, balanced outputs, gain trim, and PFL level indicators. Size and weight really go without saying. We have to carry our gear from gig to gig. Input channels will dictate how much we can connect to the board. Some will need more channels than others, and of different types. Inputs can be mic, line, phono, S/PDIF (digital) and more. Balanced outputs are particularly important given the greater use of powered speakers. For sending the signal at line level over long distances, like those required to reach powered speakers, they have advantages. Lower current in the signal means lower loss, but longer distances carrying a low-level signal create more opportunities for interference and noise. A balanced connection helps preserve the quality of the signal.
Proper gain structure is fundamental for good sound. An input gain trim (not to be confused with the channel slider), paired with a PFL (Pre-Fader Listening) level indicator is extremely valuable in creating even input gains and avoiding distorted audio.

Sound Reinforcement Options
In live sound, there is a far greater range of options, but most units draw from the same roots. Top considerations are frame size, low cut, EQ strip, Aux outputs, phantom power, fader size, and mute groups. The frame size simply tells us how big the board is. Check how many mono channels (typically a mic or instrument input) and how many stereo inputs (typically for stereo devices, such as CD players) the board offers. Often a stereo channel is counted as two. I find this practice to be somewhat deceptive, but nearly every manufacturer does it. A 12-channel board may have 8 mono inputs and 2 stereo inputs.
A low cut is a button assigned to a frequency beneath which the sound is reduced or eliminated. For example, a 100Hz low cut will eliminate 100Hz and lower. This is very useful for vocal channels. It quickly eliminates handling noise and potential feedback for a frequency that will likely not be produced by the vocalist anyway. The EQ strip can offer a variety of features. For me it’s important to have sweepable mids. This means that I can not only determine the attenuation for that frequency, but also the frequency itself. My favorite consoles have two sweepable mids, a low-mid and a high-mid. This is very useful in fine-tuning an input right on my channel strip.
Auxiliary outputs are just that, additional outputs that can be individually mixed from the available channels for monitors, recording, and more. Having lots of auxes allows me to create lots of other mixes so that different performers can have different monitor mixes, all without affecting the main mix.
Phantom power is voltage that is transmitted through the microphone cable to a device connected to it. This allows those devices (condenser mics, direct insert boxes, etc.) to be powered by the console rather than a battery or external power supply. Small consoles typically have a global phantom power switch, meaning that every channel gets it or doesn’t. Larger and better consoles have groups of phantom power channels, or individually selectable phantom power channels. This allows us to send the power only down the channels we want to, and not the ones we don’t.
Fader size simply dictates how much real estate we have to move that fader up and down. The larger the fader, the more precise our adjustments can be. Sub-groups and mute groups are very useful in managing large mixes. They allow us to assign several channels to effects easily, or to make wholesale adjustments in a particular group of channels. Drums, for example, can be grouped, and once adjusted proportionately to themselves (snare, toms, kick, overheads, etc.), can then be raised and lowered all at once. Mute groups operate in much the same way. All vocal mics can be placed into a single mute group, for example, so that during a break all stage mics can be muted with a single button, rather than locating several buttons.

A Sound Decision
The common denominator between all these categories is quality. Your mixing board is one of the most crucial pieces of gear in the system. It is the part that you, the operator, interfaces with directly the most, and it is instrumental in the overall production of your show. A noisy board can compromise all great loudspeakers, amplifiers, media playback and microphones. One area that is very critical, particularly when working with vocals, is the mic preamp. This circuit takes the very low electrical signal produced by a microphone and preamplifies it before inserting it into the mix. It seems painfully self-explanatory, but bad preamps can lead to bad sounding vocals. Another critical area, particularly in live sound, is the EQ section of the channel strip. Many EQs can color the sound in unintended and undesirable ways, whereas some EQs have a particular sound that is sought after. You’ll often hear tour sound techs talk about the “British EQ,” for example. Lastly, and certainly not least, are the moving parts. These are the knobs, faders, sliders, buttons, etc. Poor quality here can lead to early failures, bad sound, and great frustrations.
At my gear supply company we offer consoles from less than $100 to greater than $400,000. I urge you to carefully weigh the features and pursue quality construction in your choice. Certainly we must be practical in what we spend, but the mixer is a poor place to be pennywise and pound-foolish.

The Call of the Wild by Merlin Zimmet

As DJs, throughout most of our careers we seldom stray from the usual settings: hotel ballrooms, banquet halls, gymnasiums, back yards, tents, and so on. Once in awhile, however, we may get a call to do something off the beaten path-way off.My “journey to adventure” began when a word-of-mouth referral came in one day that would prove to be somewhat “difficult.” The bride-to-be was in her early sixties and the groom of similar longevity. Nothing so unusual about that; it’s just proof that people can fall in love, regardless of time spent on the planet. But that’s pretty much where any normalcy associated with this pending event ended.

A pair of the bride’s close friends offered a location for the ceremony and reception. They just happened to own about 1,700 acres of remote, albeit breathtaking Western Colorado property known as the Ladder Canyon Ranch. That should be enough real estate to host a few thousand of your closest friends, I thought. “Off the grid” was not an accurate description of this location; the grid wasn’t even close. The final grade to the location was a six-mile uphill pull of dusty, one-lane gravel road. The wedding invitation read “4×4 not necessary but recommended…If you get stuck or lost, we’ll be back in the spring.”

I could see the real possibility of a recipe for disaster cooking up. Aside from the shear logistical problem, what if, heaven forbid, it should rain? Once the tenting companies we called found out about the location, they opted to rent all their equipment to other customers hosting events with better accessibility-for example, in the Amazon.

Nonetheless undaunted, the bride, groom, friends and I forged ahead with the planning of the details. Of course a “look see” was in order, just to get bearings and pick out a spot for the ceremony and subsequent party. Upon arrival, we found that the only 21st-century semi-permanent structure on the entire property was a yurt (see photo). Not nearly enough room for a group nearing 100. A yurt is a round tent, originally used by nomadic tribes of Asia. It’s a strong and relatively lightweight domicile, requiring only 30 or 40 yaks to move. The balance of the area’s topography was a combination of rolling high country beauty: pine trees, rock outcroppings, canyons, etc.-a great setting for a Hollywood Western…or a survival reality show.

The owners were the kind of folks who enjoy venturing up to their property and spending time just hanging out off the grid, away from the phone, communing with nature; and they were bound and determined to share their little slice of paradise and host this wedding. I warned them that we were dealing with the four P’s …People, Parking, Power, and Potties. But the plans continued to blossom. A date in September was selected, and we consulted with the Farmer’s Almanac to get an idea of what could be expected for weather. The almanac forecast was a little sketchy, only offering a “your guess is as good as ours”-type entry.

As the DJ/MC the only P that really concerned me was power. Between the hosts and myself, we owned four power generators of various capacities. We decided that we should have at least three at the event, since we were treading in unknown water with cooking, lighting and sound. (Reminds me of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms-which one doesn’t belong?” Between the three generators we selected, we had at our disposal just over 12,000 watts of power. Better too much, than not enough, as they say. We could have lit up a rodeo arena and simultaneously powered a Kid Rock concert.

Of course there was also the noise factor. In this pristine setting we didn’t want the guests to actually hear the big generators, so this required placing them (all but the little 2000-watt Honda that I used) over in Utah, and running heavy gauge extension cords up to their locations. (Note: Because of voltage drops on long runs, always use at least #12 gauge cords if you are running power over 100 feet) Let me tell ya, there is nothing that goes on in any aerobics class that quite matches the workout one can get traipsing around at an elevation of 7,500 ft, with coils of heavy duty power cords over your shoulders. If Michael Phelps did this on a regular basis, he might develop lungs that would allow him to swim from California to Hawaii, underwater.

I’ve always been impressed with the little Honda generators. I’ve used several over the years and they are quiet performers. For this event I dedicated a 2000-watt Honda for powering my sound and computer equipment. It worked flawlessly. I must say I was a little apprehensive about using a generator with my computer. I did opt to add a high-dollar surge protector to the mix, just in case. There was also concern about grounding the system and the potential 60-cycle hum problem. Some web research ensued on the subject, but there seemed to be no definitive conclusion amongst the experts. By NEC code, an 8′ long copper clad steel rod needs to be driven into the ground. I had no clue how to accomplish THAT, since they don’t call ‘em the ROCKY Mountains for nothing, and renting a pile driver was out of the question. I opted to eschew the grounding rod. There was no hum, and there were no hiccups.

For those of you who have ever tried to view a laptop screen in bright daylight, you will be able to relate to this next hurdle. Put simply, on a bright sunny day, you can’t see a damn thing. One must improvise. I chose to employ a technique used by the famous photographer Ansel Adams. Primitive but effective (see photo). The other option would be to hire an assistant to stand over you with an umbrella (ella ella), but that can get costly if you’ve got several hours of daylight.

The wedding was stellar and the weather cooperated completely. The reception on the rocks couldn’t have been better. The owners of the ranch worked like slaves to prepare the area and the food for the 100-plus intrepid guests who braved the trek. After the event, we (those involved in coordinating everything) got together, evaluated the event and gave ourselves conservative 9.5s and 9.8s for a job well done.

For my professional brothers and sisters in the mobile DJ entertainment business I offer the following. If someone calls and tells you about their plans to host an event in a remote location, take a quick mental inventory of your experience, and then be honest about your ability to actually pull it off. These are not easy gigs. You can always opt out by telling them you are booked for Papua, New Guinea on that date.

Remember, the true success of the party is on your shoulders-not those of the cake decorators or the caterers or any other vendor. There can be mediocre food and a melted wedding cake but you can still pull off a great event-anywhere-if you are prepared. Some things you can’t control, like the weather, but if you have a back-up plan for everything else, you can usually still be the hero.

Merlin Zimmet runs Zentco Productions out of Grand Junction, Colorado.