Who wants a wedding DJ when you've got an iPod?
By Ryan Block 
posted September 21st 2005 2:40PM
posted September 21st 2005 2:40PM
We kind of understand the rationale. Why spend hundreds of dollars to hire a wedding DJ when you can load up an iPod
or two (or a laptop, for that matter), and choose the playlist yourself down to the last song? Got a request? Put it in
the queue, buddy! Because for less money than hiring Robbie Hart to belt out the classics you can just buy yourself a
shiny new friend and sort it out yourself. Of course, the DJs argue that only a live person behind the decks can sense
what the crowd wants to hear right then, time music properly, do intros, and all that rot, but as we recently learned
when we actually did attend a wedding DJed by iTunes and a playlist, it just doesn't seem to matter as much as they
might have you think.
[Via TechDirt]
DG: Hey, it's in our power to change our usage laws and our enforcement of them to resemble Canada's. But in the meantime, I buy my CDs from the record store or my tracks from iTMS or other sites (non-WMA of course, ;) and am using them totally legally, AFAIK.
Doh! - I amend my earlier comment:
After checking out 17 USC Ch1 §106(4) (thanks austinkennethlee), I guess our enforcement needs to change, not our laws, if we are to start paying royalties and usage fees on the music we use when DJing. I guess this portion of the law (as it applies to DJs) may be falling the way of anti-spitting and anti-cursing laws in most municipalities . . .
Even in the US, your license to play music on a CD you purchase only covers personal and in-home use. For ANY public performance, including playing background music in a store or restaurant, you are supposed to pay performance royalties. As you know, enforcement is quite a bit more lax than in Canada- who knew the mounties were such fascists!
This is a big part of the reason that services like Musak are still popular with corporate retail and restaurants- the licensing fees are handled by someone else. ASCAP might not have the resources to pursue enforcement at your wedding, but you can bet they will go after the Gap.
Exactly. Having had the pleasure of dealing with wedding music selection woes personally not too long ago, the wedding DJ rates include fees to publicly perform music. That's one of the reasons it costs more than downloading 20GB worth of music onto your iPod.
You will probably get away with iPodding in your own wedding, unless your guestlist is a who's who of the music industry movers and shakers, but if you intend on doing that and getting paid by third parties, please expect to get jailed rather soon.
I am actually IpodDj'ing with a friend of mine, our act is DJ X-wing Vs. Tie-fighter, and we rock the show with our electro madness, i use ipod, he uses (blah) CD's.. The Rebellions were technologically far more advanced then the Empire anyways :P
I got married last year.
We used a Creative Zen 40gb. Is it ok, too?
At my brother's wedding, I took 2 of my SONOS ZPs, 2 controllers, a 160GB NAS, a Pioneer amp and a couple sets of speakers.. worked beautuifully.. The wedding party had one of the remotes and the other zone was set up for people who didn't want to hear that crap! (I wasn't in the wedding...)
We did this last year. Figured a DJ or band would cost us about $500 or more so we spent it on an iPod that should last years and about 100 iTunes songs. We had one playlist for our formal reception (light jazz) and another for the partay afterward (dance mix). Worked very well.
As a PROFESSIONAL DJ (w/o the props) for the past 27 years (started beat mixing disco in 1978), I have to lol when reading these comments about having an iPod as the "DJ" at your wedding. I have yet to hear an iPod make one announcement of the bride and groom, the cake that needs to be cut, the bride dancing with her dad, etc. Use your iPods for frat and house parties but if you're serious about having a good wedding reception, hire a great DJ or band. If you're just going to hire your geek friend who has a large CD collection and a nice home stereo, then yeah, go with the iPod.
I did the same thing just this April. The best man and I picked up a professional PA from a rental yard. We hooked up the 60GB IPOD and had music all night. Way cheaper that a $1000 DJ.
I have to agree with #59 a good professional DJ with emphasis on the word professional doesn't just play the tunes, he should become part of the day itself announcements etc, it's easily done, smoozing with the guests, bride and groom beforehand. Now that's something you don't get with an ipod dj. The DJ Dj can make a special day seem even more special and more memorable than iPod dj.
As for djing with CD's and laptops well call me old old school but I love the vinyl, always have always will thats what I call djing.
Always the geek trendsetters :) my wife and I got married 3 years ago in June, and did the whole DJ reception thing with a rented pro PA, her TiPowerbook & iTunes, and one uncle who was happy to get behind the mic to MC the introduction of the bridal party. Music was a very eclectic mix of Ultra-Lounge, hair metal ballads, and late 80s/early 90s dance tracks. It was a lot of fun and probably saved us about $1000. As for professional DJs: I'm sure they have their place still, but ask any of our 150 guests if they really missed the tacky guy in the bad rented tux, who probably didn't own half the music we played.
I posted earlier about working my own wedding, but, my last 'professional' gig was for a friend of mine who had been 'born again' and was marrying an orthodox Christian man and she was converting again. Anyway, they wanted me to work their wedding, even though they don't dance, because they were having guests who like to shake a leg. When we got together for our music selections process, they handed me a stack of songs I 'couldn't' play, which was greater than the songs I could play. Not too mention it was Christian music!! So, I worked the wedding - which by the way had no drinking, no caffeine and no fun, BUT, at the end of the night, the brides uncle who I think snuck a flask in was loaded and came up to me and asked me to play Pink Floyd. I looked on the banned list and they weren't there, so I played 'Comfortably Numb" and he went out there and danced like a drunken fool... it rocked!
Basically, my point is there are good and bad points to having dj's.
Cheers
We did this for our wedding in 9/04, and then again for my (new) brother-in-law's wedding earlier this month. The truth is, unless you own your own speakers and mixing board, you won't save THAT much money, but in our cases, ever dollar counted, and what mattered more was CONTROL. For my own wedding, at least, I spent hours on the playlist making sure the song transitions made sense and that the right mix was on the list to please the crowd (whom we knew well, better than any hired gun at any rate). We used a laptop with Winamp Pro and SqrSoft's Advanced Crossfader to pretty good effect. In both cases a groomsman was in charge of making sure nothing crashed, etc., and we had backups just in case.
BUT, you don't save much money, and you DO take on a lot of stress. At a friend's wedding a week after hours, the groom spent several hours the morning of the wedding burning CDs of his music because he couldn't get his laptop to interface with the sound system! At our wedding, one of the rented speakers turned out to be busted, and we spent some harried hours getting the company to swap it. UNNECESSARY STRESS!
Still, for me, I took a lot of pride in putting together a mix that the audience liked. We had a website up several months before the event where people could request (or even upload) songs they wanted to hear, some of which made it to the final playlist. I liked the playlist enough to create a CD of highlights, plus music from the ceremony.
As for the interaction of a live DJ, we wanted none of that. We've seen plenty of weedings where a DJ coming from a totally different set of expectations would impose all sorts of things on the couple (like when and how to cut the cake) that we just didn't want, since we weren't going to cut the cake, throw the bouquet or garter, etc. etc. Actually, if we had the budget, we would have gladly hired a "real" DJ for a flat-out party, but real DJs are a hella lot more expensive than the wedding hacks out there.
@ 51-53: I believe the way the RIAA works in the US is that they shake down the venues, not the DJs, since going after the little guy is often too difficult or expensive. The venues often pass the cost on as part of the rental fee. They WILL go after the bigger guys; in once case I know of the RIAA actually went after a law firm that specialized in IP after somehow finding out that they had held a holiday party at which they "must have" played music (probably got that info from the venue, who wanted to pass the buck). The law firm refused on principle, but most corps don't have the time or money to deal so they just pay up -- the very definition of extortion if you ask me!
I also did this for my wedding in September of last year. Worked like a charm!
...and a Kia Sophia is much cheaper than a Mercedes 500 SL. Please. You guys need to get a grip. I'm guessing you've either seen some really bad wedding DJs (and Lord knows they are out there) or money is really tight.
Did you use plastic flowers instead of real ones to save money there too? Did you give out boxed lunches to your guests instead of a hot meal as well? Did your buddy with the disposable camera take some good shots? What a joke.
I got married in 2000, had the capability of running a playlist etc. Went with a professional DJ and am very glad. She kept the energy level at an INSANE level and was very much on the ball. But the same year a friend had a wedding that the music was run off a playlist, adn it worked also. It all depends, I guess.
iPod DJ: I'm looking for a DJ for my wedding in the DC area -- do you have a web site, or could you tell me how to contact you? Thanks!
iPod Bride - feel free to e-mail me at sanfranhouse@hotmail.com and I'll see what I can do . . . :)
NPR's take...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4803824
I hear all the great stuff from ipod dj's. i do dj and have saved many wedding where the the bride and groom pick their faves and not stuff you can really dance to. where are the oh we did an ipod and nobody danced?
sure pick the hit and no misses. they happen to and more than you think.
I dj without any props if you need a dj in sf bay check my site out.
good luck ipod you are cool.
I've been a "real" DJ for about 13 years now. But I've recently stating deejaying some weddings. I can tell you it isn't that easy of a job. It's actually very stressful. This is the bride and groom's big day and you want everything to be perfect for them....at least I do. From playing the first song they dance to together and introducing them as Mr. & Mrs. So-and-So, to making announcements that the buffet/bar is open, to reading the crowd and playing what you think they want to hear. Wedding DJs are not all created equal. I usually DJ wedding of my friends or people I know so I already have a good idea of what they will want to hear. I also meet with the bride and groom beforehand to make sure we are on the same page about the music they want played at their reception.
A laptop or iPod cannot do that, my friends.
Thats a horrible idea. Unless you are running a budget wedding where this kind of thing is a necessity hiring a DJ is crucial. Better yet hire a band and a DJ. No one remembers flowers, food, or the dress but they do remember if there was free alcohol and if the DJ or band sucked or not. It's the key to the whole event. Unless you are gonna run around and try to "guess" what your guests like leave it to someone who has been doing it for a living.
First let me say that I am not a DJ, but my wife is. I'm a geek, and as a geek, I've completely computerized her DJ system. She has a custom built pc in her rackmounted in her stand, and we use iTunes for the music player. Since I work for a large telecom company, I also installed a broadband wireless modem in the PC so she can get online and purchase music while performing. If we don't have a song you requested, give us 5 minutes and we will. I opted not to use a laptop for her setup because laptop sound cards are usually substandard or "adequate" at best. While we do take requests, we will not let the bride and groom select EVERY song that gets played. We feel it is our job to entertain your guests, and I will guarantee you that not everyone has the same musical tastes as you. We do offer a searchable music library for your event, and we send you the iTunes playlist after the fact so you can see exactly what was played at your event and purchase copies of any songs you want. (Sorry, can't help myself...I'm actually pretty proud of myself for the iTunes search! view it at: http://www.byrequest.dj/cgi-bin/itms4all.cgi )
Some wedding DJs are good and some are horrible. Plastic props, straw hats, and other such junk should never be used at a wedding. All good wedding DJs would gladly join you in making these bozos die a horrible death. The value of a good wedding dj lies in getting your guests to interact with each other. Groom's Uncle Bob may have lots in common with Bride's Friend Mark, but they'll never know it if they don't interact. Some groups are great at interaction. Some are not.
Another job for a good dj is to play music that the crowd enjoys. Some other djs touched on this, but none hit the nail on the head in my opinion. A simple shuffle has no way of knowing who is dancing to what. A person does need to run things, but putting your 12 year old nephew won't do you any good either. The person in charge of the music needs a large amount of music knowledge. A good DJ should have this knowledge. A good DJ should be able to identify a song based on a few bars hummed out of tune or a snippet of lyrics that are slightly incorrect.
One question I've never seen answered in any of the tips on using an iPod for your wedding is where do you get the speakers? Or the Mics? or the Mixer?? Do you know how to set up mics, speakers, and a mixer? If not, will the rental company give you a tutorial? What do you do if the sound is crappy? A good will not only know the answers to these, but will have back up parts readily available in the event of catastrophe.
Another indication of a good wedding dj is one who is covered by insurance. Imagine your neice slipping in a puddle of soap from your $20 Wal-Mart bubble machine. Think the venue will cover the medical expenses?
That being said, if you KNOW your group will interact without being tricked (or just don't care if they interact or not), and if you've got a person with an encyclopedic knowledge of music that will run your iPod (instead of enjoying your reception), and you have adequate insurance to cover any accidents that occur due to your iPod setup, and you have a large enough music library to make sure everyone gets to hear the music they want, and you're able to get your hands on adequate dance lights and speakers, then by all means use an iPod. You honestly have no need for a DJ. I have huge problems with DJs who feel that they should get paid $40k a year for working 40 gigs. Technology like this allowed us to LOWER our prices substantially, and all the DJs out there who charge thousands of dollars a gig are no better than the tuneless hacks with straw hats and plastics saxophones.
Just a note on the performance licenses, RIAA, CESAC, BMI, and ASCAP:
First, the RIAA is concerned with copyrights, not performing right. CESA, BMI, and ASCAP are concerned with performing rights. Everyone pays the RIAA when they purchase music in any format. Digital, CD, vinyl, doesn't matter. The RIAA gets a cut. ASCAP, CESAC, and BMI don't care where or how you got the music, but if you want to play it to an audience, you need to license the performing rights. If you want to do a concert in the park, play music in your bar, or pipe tunes over the phone while people are on hold, you talk to CESAC, ASCAP, and BMI.
That being said, DJs who buy their music, never deal with the RIAA. DJs who copy their music may get a summons just as any other 13 year old, grandma, or college pirate would. The RIAA is a non-issue for a legit DJ.
You would think that DJs would have to deal with ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI, but they only license locations. Their royalty scheme (err... setup) is dependant on how many people *might* here the music. "Your bar holds 75 people? Ok, your fees are $700 a year". or "You want to play Beatles covertunes to a stadium of 60,000 people? That'll be $75,000 please." Since mobile DJs do not perform in one given location (thus the term *mobile* DJ), they can't be licensed by the big three because the big three have no capacity for determining what fee structure they should fall under. Dumb? You betcha! But that's the way Congress set it up when they last passed any major copyright legislation.