ScottoRobotto
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ScottoRobotto
ParticipantUnless you’re following an ethnic theme I would avoid anything foreign. People won’t know how to spell it or pronounce it, won’t be able to find you online, and there is a good chance you’ll offend people if they think you’re appropriating their language or culture. Besides which if you don’t speak those languages natively there is a decent chance there will be connotations or contexts where it may need something you don’t expect or even homophones that could damage your reputation.
One example, in Japanese Tamako is a girl’s name which in one reading would translate to “jewel child” somewhat equivalent to the English name “Jewel”. The -ko suffix means child so someone might just decide, “Okay, I’ll just use the name “Tama.” The problem is that if it is spelled with a different character, “Tama” means “round” and “Tama” is a common name for a pet cat.
It’s very difficult to get a good name out of a single word because it’s low hanging fruit and most of them got picked 20 years ago when the Internet boom was just starting. Heck I’ve Googled my own nickname and there are at least two other people using it too.
Your best shot is probably a compound word of two words that don’t currently go together. Strangely I’ve found that the “Engrish” phrases using in foreign songs, slogans and shirts can give you ideas on a new turn of phrase. Sometimes it gets a little weird though. “Pray to the gods of Bomex your speed over rival.”
ParticipantThe easiest thing you can do is share the event on your wall, this lets everyone following you know about it on their wall.
ParticipantI don’t mean paying $10,000 for a logo, it’s just an expression like “millon dollar idea”. Basically that’s what the designer called a logo that was both well designed and inspired and on the same level as a logo from a major marketing campaign.
ParticipantAlso there is a difference between a logo and a $10,000 logo as one designer I interned with called them. A $10,000 logo is a powerful branding tool that does more than fill space, it communicates to the onlooker about your business or service and makes them remember you and want to know more about you.
ParticipantTalk to a graphic designer or marketing firm in your area. They can help you with a logo and your branding strategy. One firm I was with would talk to the client and get an idea of their business and product or services. Then they created 6 or so different logo designs and layouts and would present them to the client including why the design works and what they liked about the design. Most of the time the client would find something they liked and worked with the direction they wanted to take their business.
I wouldn’t recommend going with someone online with no portfolio because with a graphic designer or marketing firm you want to see past works you recognize.
ParticipantIt’s hard to keep doing the same thing when the market changes. You could start taking on more types of gigs like weddings, parties, etc. You could buy more equipment to try to improve your performance, extra speakers you could run to the outside of the bar to help draw more walk-ins, lighting effects or additional controls so you can change up your lighting as the music changes. You can also put more effort into promotion by plastering flyers around town to keep the bar packed on your nights. Or maybe talk to a graphic designer about improving your flyers so they are more effective.
ou could also try doing temp work to make up for the income. I did that for a while, it’s nice because usually they are one-day jobs and you can accept them if they fit into your schedule. Even the occasional 8 hours of pay made a big difference to my sporadic income.
ParticipantUgh, that was a rough show. I found out shortly after I arrived that I needed to cut my show to 40 min since someone else needed part of the time slot for training. The show itself was messy, my voice started out shaky and I missed the cue during the first song causing some dead air time. I forgot what I was going to say at a few points so it came out kind of abrupt. I need to prepare my program a little for next week and adjust the equipment layout and my workflow.
ParticipantI would wait a little bit until you’re sure that’s the name you want to use and after you generate a little bit of content. Once you do, then commit to regularly producing content, it’s all part of promoting your brand.
ParticipantHow much time do you have? If you have a few weeks I would scour thrift shops, garage sales, ebay, and amazon for old records and compilation CDs. You could check with a ballroom dance class in your area, they may be able to help you out with big band music.
ParticipantI doubt you’ll find many people who build their own sound systems anymore or even people who won’t just buy everything they need themselves, especially with active PA systems. You might find what you’re talking about in bands because most people will have their own hardware like instruments, pedals, amps, cabinets, etc.
Now on the other hand I do know a group who collaborates on their DJing, three DJs total and among them they contribute a van, a PA system, a lighting truss system, various disco lighting, and a hazer. Between them all they can put on a much bigger show than any one of them alone.
ParticipantThe name I’ve been using is ScottoRobotto. A while back my friends started calling me that as a take off of Mr. Robotto and since my name is Scott O. The internal rhyme and the connection to the song by Styx makes it work. I don’t use DJ in my name per say, I’ve been introducing myself as, “I’m your DJ, ScottoRobotto.”
Personally I would use a name like DJ PC or alternatively spelling it DeeJay PC. The repetition of abbreviations gives it a nice punch I think and the imagery with a computer could be interesting for marketing. For a logo I would use a head with headphones on the back of a laptop sort of like the old Napster logo. When you play out you could have a laptop with just the head part of the logo on the back. I would make the logo out of UV reactive material and hit it with a UV light to make it pop.
ParticipantWell you don’t have to pre-record everything, you could always produce it live. You can use the EQ and filter to change the sound, effects and looping for drops, you can uses samples, you can do different transitions, you can scratch, etc. I would be tempted to pre-record sections of a song if I wasn’t sure I could consistently pull it off live but that’s a judgement call.
ParticipantPersonally I would send them a feedback sheet with their invoice and include a comments section. I would probably use wording similar to the following:
“Thank you for using __________ for your event! We are always trying to improve our client’s experience and we would appreciate 5 minutes of your time to tell us what you think about your experience.
We respect our clients privacy and will keep the contents of this form confidential and anonymous unless you indicate in the box below that we may use your comments as a testimonial.
Thank you for your time and for using __________, we look forward to serving you again.”
Participant117 to 128 isn’t that drastic, it’s about a 10% bpm shift. If you’re playing remixes the listeners won’t be as familiar with how the music is goes and are more forgiving about bpm shifts.
What I would do is split the difference and during the outro of the outgoing song creep up the pitch by about 5% over about 10 seconds. I would pitch the incoming song down about 5% with keylock on so only the bpm changes and slowly bring it in. Let it ride and on the drop for the outgoing song (or quickly cut the volume on the outgoing song at the end of a phrase) snap the ingoing song back to normal pitch.
Alternatively, fit in some songs with a bpm in between the two and beatmatch as you move through the bpm range. A bpm change of less then 5% won’t be noticed much and you can slowly shift the bpm back to normal as the song plays.
ParticipantI would consider engaging a graphic designer, logo design is part of building your brand. A few other tips about logo design, as you’ll notice all of the fonts above are sans-serif. Serifs were added by the print industry to make it easier to read large blocks of text, however they typically aren’t used in graphic design. Furthermore we’ve seen a movement away from them because they didn’t render well on computer screens because of the low resolution monitors in the early days. This makes fonts with serifs look out of date which is not what you want for your logo.
Another thing to notice is the close spacing between the letters in the logo. Typically a graphic designer will reduce the spacing because you want to use white space to bring attention to the words. One of my instructors told me that one way to instantly tell if an ad was created by a graphic designer or a secretary is to look at the spacing of the words.
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