Mirror-ball magic

If there's one light fixture which has stood the test of time it's the mirror-ball.  A ball covered in mini mirror pieces to reflect light.  It's often associated with the golden - or should that be silver - age of disco.  However it's heritage is much richer.  The mirror ball was a staple of those dance halls in the 40's and 50's, spaces built and designed for dancing.  They were also seen in Jazz clubs in the USA in the 1920's.

 The technology has moved on. Traditional mirror balls need suspending, a motor to rotate then and a pin spot or two to highlight.  The new alternatives turn all that on it's head, literally.  So a one piece unit, sits or suspends, with a rotating hemispherere with gaps which the light projects through.  Some great extra easy functionality too which we love to use. With light control through DMX they can also variably dim and strobe, vary rotation speed and direction, and with modern LED bulbs can change and blend colours too.

And then there's the scale.  In October, London saw the largest ever spinning mirror-ball, about 1.5 tons and house sized, alongside the Millennium Bridge, with integrated LCD screens and live twitter feed too.  Described as the Death Star of mirror balls. While it was designed to be a reminder for the clocks to go back an hour, given it was sponsored by a Vodka brand, that's the pub and club association well re-enforced.

So while the machinery has moved on, things are not that much different 70 years on. Those mirror-balls and mirror ball effects are still there in the pubs and clubs, keeping a similarly watchful eye on all that boy-meets-girl dancing fun.

A Sound Effect

Modern DJ mixers come loaded with lots of 'sound' effects buttons to add an extra dimension to a music track.  Add in the extra potential with digital formats and there are literally millions of different possible combinations of effects.

What's emerged is a fascinating language to describe these effects.  At BPM 2012, the national UK DJ conference, there was an education session to demo some of the latest effects.  This was using a top end mixer (technically an Allen and Heath Xone DB4FX, retailing at c.£1600), working through the main effects and their parameters.  

To complemented the audio version, we've created the visual version of those effect words, which collectively give a lovely overall sense, and are maybe event visual art to complement the audio art...

NEC DJ Show - BPM 2012

For three days in October, Birmingham's NEC turns itself into the biggest UK annual get together for DJs and producers. BPM - in homage to the beats per minute - It's a real mixture of exhibition, education, conference, performance, networking and social.  So of course all the trade stands from the world's leading suppliers of DJ sound and light kit, plus the UK retailers.

We had a great time, mostly sitting comfortably in the various education seminars soaking up lots of learning and generating ideas. The new lighting effects were great to see both in the arena and on the various stands.  Some great conversations on those little specialist stands too.  Came away with some dance remix CDs.  Make lots of new contacts, and some great follow up learning too.

Dear Compact Disc - Happy 30th Birthday

Well the CD is 30 years old.  On 1st October 1982 the first commercial CD player was announced in Japan.  It was from Sony (a CDP-101, c.£450) and coincided with Billy Joel's 53nd Street album being released on CD.  That was followed by Sony's first portable CD player in 1984. 

The ideas of CD started early as 1974 with Phillips.  From whom the term originated... and evolution of the   "compact cassette".  While the default music format has now moved on to digital  the CD was also the pre-cursor to the visual formats of DVD and Blue-Ray. 

When CD arrived, many commented about "the silence is positively deafening"   with the absence of background hiss and crackle of vinyl.  Interesting of course that these days, music producer are often inserting that background crackle for an added effect.....