Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Band or DJ? That is the question!




Here on BridalTips.com we focus on DJs. Don't hire a band you can't see or hear first either at a function from someone you know perhaps, that you just happen to attend, or view for a few minutes on a video. People tend to get married within a year of their friends, and may see their future wedding vendors at work on other weddings. Remember, the bands need to take breaks, so they play only a few 15-20 minute sets. But this article is about DJ's. We chose a wedding disc jockey due to cost, and we did not have to worry about a marginal singer crooning our favorite songs out of tune, which we see a lot of here in Florida. Just because one person is a good singer in a good band, does not mean the rest of the world is. Anyone who plays in a band has seen their share of awful bands. And when a consumer advocate like me tries to point out both sides of the coin to consumers, the losers come out of woodwork to complain how useless I am. Those are the people you need to avoid. But I suspect that you'll have the least amount of problems with your DJ than any other vendor, because the vast majority of DJs are great. I've been to maybe 12 weddings in my life and 3 of those 12 weddings (25%) I thought the wedding disc jockey stunk. Many other guests at these weddings back me up about wedding DJs.

A good wedding DJ is cheaper than bands, and they dynamically work your wedding crowd for 4 hours. In rare cases a band might party hardy then decide they don't want to show up. This probably happens more than a DJ not showing up. This is why you should use contracts. If they refuse to use one, then you should refuse to use their services. Bands always arrived late at my friend's recording studio. And before any musicians get all indignant, it happened at my sister's wedding. She hired a highly recommended harpist who was out getting drunk when she should have been at the wedding. Luckily I had brought a wedding CD as backup, the catering manager brought out a CD player, and we had music for me to walk her up the aisle with. So it does happen.

Feedback alert! What causes that loud shrieking feedback?

One problem that plagues MANY weddings with bands and DJ's is feedback. Let's call it Jeff's Law of Wedding Acoustics:

Keep the microphone away from the speakers!

Sounds easy on paper, but man, what a difficult concept for some DJs to grasp! Some bands can't grasp this simple concept and often the result is ear piercing feedback. They look around startled like they never heard feedback before, and the singer is standing with the microphone only one foot away from the speaker wondering what the cause is. We were at a wedding and the band produced feedback half a dozen times. Good wedding DJs and bands never produce feedback. “Starving artist” musicians usually cannot afford decent PA systems which result in the lead singer not being heard properly feedback. Wedding guests hate this.
Article by BridalTips.com



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