Sioux Falls Mobile DJ Blog | BPM DJ Productions

One of the reasons that I enjoy DJ’ing so much is the fact that it allows me to travel to new places throughout the Midwest.  This last weekend, I ventured deep into Northeastern, IA for a wedding reception at Cherokee Country Club in, you guessed it, Cherokee, IA. 

Due to an equipment trade-off scheduled in Storm Lake, IA (about 20 minutes away from Cherokee,) I left pretty early on Saturday.  I believe it was around 12:30PM.  I made a quick stop in Sioux Falls to drop off my daughter with my in-laws, and off I went on my journey.

I followed the directions I received from Mapquest, and I was taken on a curvy tour of Northwestern Iowa.  It was a beautiful day for a drive.  The sun was out, there was a slight breeze, and there was plenty of beautiful scenery to keep my attention.  I made a couple pit-stops along the way for gas and goodies.  Soon, I arrived in Storm Lake to pick up the latest addition to my DJ arsenal, the infamous Rane TTM-56 DJ mixer.  I originally had planned to sell my Pioneer mixer on eBay, and then use the profit from the sale along with some money out of my pocket to upgrade to the Rane mixer.  Well, I was contacted by a guy in Storm Lake that had a Rane mixer and was looking for a Pioneer mixer like mine!  I pulled my mixer off of eBay and agreed on a trade.  It just so happened that he lived 20 minutes from where my gig was!  So, I made the trade and continued on to the reception.

I arrived at the country club fairly early and was able to slip the new mixer into my Odyssey case and everything worked just fine (I brought a backup mixer with me just in case it didn’t.)  I was very impressed with the sound quality of the Rane mixer, and it performed exceptionally well.  I was set up in no time and had everything tidied up before the guests arrived.

After dinner, we got the party started with the usual wedding dances, and kicked it into high gear with some great dance music.  The guests were very lively, and we kept giong strong until the dance ended at midnight.  The big hit song of the night was “Sweet Home Chicago” - guess where one of the families was from!  The rest of the music was a nice mix of classic rock, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and a little Country.  There was no Hip-Hop at this reception, which was perfectly fine - even though I really enjoy it when I have a chance to play Hip-Hop at a gig. 

After the reception, I was loaded up and ready to go in about an hour.  As pretty as the trip down was, I knew there had to be quite a few deer roaming around the fields an hills, so I chose to take the highway home.  I pulled into my drive around 3:15AM and hit the sack.  Another successful gig in the bag.

Since the Cherokee reception, I have already been contacted by one of the guests about DJ’ing another reception for them in 2008, so hopefully I’ll be able to help them out.  This coming weekend, (tomorrow) I have a reception in Mitchell, SD, which will be the third one I’ve DJ’ed there this year.  It should be a fun time!

This past weekend, I DJ’ed a wedding reception in Crooks, SD at the Crooks Community Center.  Not only was it a fairly short trip from my home in Brandon, SD, but my setup and tear-down time was significantly reduced thanks to a new case I purchased. 

The Odyssey case holds my two turntables, my mixer, my Serato interface (DJ computer program,) and has a sliding platform for my laptop.  Before I purchased this case, all of the above equipment was transported seperately, and it took me about 15 - 20 minutes each gig to wire everything up.  Now, all I have to do is roll the case in, put it on the table, take of the lid, plug it in, and start spinning!  It is pretty heavy, but the extra physical effort is well worth it.

The speedy setup that results from this case has a number of benefits for my business.  First of all, less fatigue for me so that I can keep the party going longer, and the seemingly endless string of Saturday events takes less of a toll.  Secondly, a quicker setup allows me to take even more time to perfect my setup so that it looks professional and preforms perfectly.

Below is a video of one of my latest lighting additions, the Chauvet Vue III light.  This light looks great projected onto the ceiling above the dancefloor.  It also represents the future of lighting - it’s all LED and has a bulb life of 100,000 hours.