The progression of disco gear over the years.

[ckpr2]

Being almost 60 I have seen huge advances in disco gear over the years.

My first setup was a sound to light with Maplin record decks and a Maplin amplifier kit.

Then I moved on to a CD based disco. With better lights.

Now I have a laptop based system with modern lasers etc.

Looking back its amazing I managed with bouncy floors and record decks. I remember having ask people to dance away from the decks to avoid needle bounce.

[Excalibur]

Being almost 60 I have seen huge advances in disco gear over the years.

Ah yes, the good old days. And at each point, we thought technology couldn't go any further.
I started off with the player shown at the bottom, with another lashed into the aux socket. In those days, if you didn't have it, you built it, as I'm sure you've done, eh Mike?

Nowadays, with the Internet, it's possible to have "Professional" ( cough cough ) kit delivered to you with no more effort than the click of a mouse, and typing in a few digits on a keyboard. It was never like that in my day.

And the music? Well that's the worst part of all. It's now possible to have as big a record collection in forty minutes as it took me forty years to amass. ( And usually for a lot less money ) I remenber the places we'd visit in the never ending search for tracks. Secondhand shops, markets, ex-jukebox record sellers, and the like. Used to take hours of diligent searching. Now it takes ten seconds to type it in a search bar. Where's the fun in that?

I wonder it it's possible for the young DJs of today to witness such change? Where will it end? Staying at home, and just loading up playlists for gigs streamed to installed kit? Discos that fold up into a suitcase, weigh the same as a bag of sugar, and transform into a six box 3K sound rig, with foiur lasers and a mirrorball? Interactive holograms of themselves, doing six discos at once? Where will it all end?

[ckpr2]

I built my own disco from Maplin kits and their dual record deck kit.
I built the Maplin 225WRMS amplifier.
I built their sound to light unit.
I used the dual record decks and designed my own pre amp/mixer into it.

I built my own speaker boxes and used 4 off Fane 50WRMS speakers.

In those days I was studying to be an electronics engineer so that helped a bit.

I recently picked up a couple of the Maplin 225WRMS amplifiers. Both needed repairing but didn't need much fixing.
I managed to get hold of the transistors OK on ebay.

[mattydj50]

When I did my first gig at school, we had one turntable (make unknown, but it was electric), one amplifier (with valves a-glowing), one speaker (simply mounted on the back of a piece of plywood) and one microphone. About 25 7" singles between us... and no lights.

Me and my mate took turns to change the record whilst the other one talked on the mic. Given that it was to all our classmates, that was easy.

Must have enjoyed it though as I've just celebrated 44 years in the business.

[Jem]

HeHe... Well, if we're reminiscing... One of the very first gigs I remember doing was Holmfirth Civic Hall in the early seventies (~1974 I think) using 2 x 30watt valve amplifiers, two Garrard 'el cheapo' turntables and some home made lights. These consisted of two broom handles with home made 'U' shaped brackets screwed to them so they could swivel, to which were fastened (empty) baked bean tins with bulb holders. Each tin had a 60 watt coloured ES bulb fitted. We drove these from a home built windscreen wiper motor that was fastened in a wooden box. There was bare wire threaded in and out of the top of the box and as the motor slowly spun around, an arm affixed to the motor completed a circuit which activated a particular set of coloured bulbs. Operated at 12v DC and linked to relays which switched the 220V mains... Ouch! The broom handles were held upright by sand in two buckets.

I also remember heating pork pies up on the top of the valve amplifiers they were so hot . 'Twas a great night as I remember, although the mists of time have probably helped me to forget the bad bits such as being scared when faced by a couple of hundred or so punters so early on in my DJ career.

Like has already being said, there wasn't anywhere to just go and buy gear in those days. 'Do it yourself' was definitely the order of the day, then Roger Squires and RSC came along, and the rest, as they say, is history...

[MusicCity]

Have a look here>>>>>http://www.karillon.com/rogersquires_a.html
you can download the full catalogue on the site from the bottom of the page

[Jem]

Have a look here>>>>>http://www.karillon.com/rogersquires_a.html
you can download the full catalogue on the site from the bottom of the page

Whoa.... Great find, i'm thoroughly enjoying the trip down memory lane. Thanks for posting

In fact, it's motivated me to have a look for the many old copies of 'Disco international' magazine I have stuffed away in the loft somewhere...

[Larry B Entertainment]

We teach DJing where I work and was thinking the other day how things have changed since I have been alive.
I started with 2 cassette decks some years ago, moved to vinyl then cds then to digital. We have CDJ 2000 Nexuses and DJM 2000 mixer at work that I like to go on. Some of the students have never touched any other gear apart from our Pioneer kit. I used to bring 50 hard dance vinyls in everyday a few years ago and now the students can bring in 5000+ tracks on a memory stick. Its crazy

I think in 20 years a 2000 Nexus will look like a belt drive turntable does now !

[Shaun]

Ah yes, the good days...It's now possible to have as big a record collection in forty minutes as it took me forty years to amass. ( And usually for a lot less money ) I remenber the places we'd visit in the never ending search for tracks. Secondhand shops, markets, ex-jukebox record sellers, and the like. Used to take hours of diligent searching. Now it takes ten seconds to type it in a search bar. Where's the fun in that?

So very very true. I remember fondly the days trawling through car boot sales and record stores looking for hidden gems. It's all so much easier now. Part of the 'magic' has gone. Ahhh, memories!

[BeerFunk]

And the music? Well that's the worst part of all. It's now possible to have as big a record collection in forty minutes as it took me forty years to amass. ( And usually for a lot less money ) I remenber the places we'd visit in the never ending search for tracks. Secondhand shops, markets, ex-jukebox record sellers, and the like. Used to take hours of diligent searching. Now it takes ten seconds to type it in a search bar. Where's the fun in that?

So very very true. I remember fondly the days trawling through car boot sales and record stores looking for hidden gems. It's all so much easier now. Part of the 'magic' has gone. Ahhh, memories!

I did the same, however, it's always been relatively easy to pick up the chart hits that you need - so the core tunes for the job weren't a problem. I did the whole record store searching for my own personal collection - I collected a lot of house and garage. For example, I would buy any CD single with an Armand van Helden remix on it, and 9 times out of 10 it was a good bet (what a talent he was in the 90s).

And although it's a lot, lot easier to find tunes these days - there are still some impossible to find tunes too. I've been looking for the Zed Bias remix of Latch by Disclosure for ages, but I'm starting to wonder if it's even been released yet Again, that's more a personal collection thing, but still.

I'd also add that it might be easy to amass a huge collection overnight, but you still need to know what to play. It goes back to the old debate - how many tracks are in your collection? How many do you use?

The most important aspect to the job is knowing what to play, and when.