Went outside Lafittes on Bourbon and DJed a bit. It went pretty well. Had a cool crowd dancing for a bit. I’ve started putting the speaker up on the speaker stand, which is alot better I think. I got a bunch of people dancing for the first 15 minutes, but then most bailed out. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe my music was not what people really like? Maybe The location was not the best (lots of cars passing through the street).
Other people’s setups
The most successful street parties have been on Frenchman, and they were both by the same person, and they were there last night too. It’s the group who comes out with the big red box. They have a huge speaker and a 105Ah battery in there. They told me they can basically run indefinitely on that thing. They also said they got it at Walmart. I’m going to go to Walmart.com and see if I can order one of those…. Yeah, just checked. They’re still $200. I’m going to stay with my two batteries and just connect them with alligator clips. They’re 18Ah each.
It’s fun talking with other people busking about their setups. I met a guy named Eric last night – he is the guy who is always killing it with the guitar. He said that he was out on Bourbon starting a few months ago, in October. He has a kickass little Bose speaker that sells new for $650 on Amazon. He told me that it can run forever on it’s battery, (I think he said for several hours – 8 hours maybe) and he got it for $350 or something on FB marketplace.
I’ve been thinking about adding some subwoofers to my setup. It’s a little early for me to do that now. I still want to keep working with what I got, to show myself that I will continue to do it. But it would be nice to have some extra bass. I dont know if a home subwoofer like this on on FB would cut it:
Eric told me that he used to be lucky to get $75 a night because his old speaker was shitty, and because of some other factors. Now he says he makes around $300 a night when he’s out (he said he made $380 the other night).
I have said before that I don’t do DJing for the tips, but tips would be cool too, and I’m mostly concerned with if the music sounds good. I want the quality to be good so that people want to dance. I wonder if I got one of those speakers like the one that Eric has, that the quality would be better. But I would have to spend around $500 for that. I’m down to do that, but it’s going to have to wait a bit first.
I hope to get out to Frenchman one night where the party is still going on like it was last night. That was still pretty early. I probably got there around 11. I could have caught another part of that street crowd and set up there. That would have been cool.
Getting different music
I’ve been wondering if I should play some other music than house and techno. I’ve started to compile a list of music that they play at the clubs here. That would be good too, because I can start trying to get gigs at clubs if I have some of their music to play.
Try R Bar
I could have gone and started DJing outside of R Bar too. They would appreciate house and techno there, and the street was packed. They were playing house and techno inside the club too.
Sound quality
I do think that sound quality does matter alot. I wonder how much I have to spend to make it sound good. Maybe around $1,000 to get a nice speaker and subwoofer that make it sounds good. I would have to go down to the speaker store or something and test some different ones out. I’ll have to go and talk to different DJs and street performers as well. Additionally, I need to spend more time standing in front of my own speaker when I’m playing shows.
Just tested my speaker out again in my living room. Sound quality is good! Nothing wrong there I think. Maybe on more bassy songs it is not as bassy as it could be. I don’t remember there being any crackling specifically.
Need to remember to turn master volume to 75% or more when djing.