On the 1st of each month we will announce the winner on our Facebook page – this also appears on the home page of our website, on the home page of our blog and within our twitter feed. You can only enter once per month – but once the prize is drawn remember to re-enter for the next month to be in with a chance.

Also make sure you let your friends know as the more entries we get the bigger the monthly prize will become – recently it’s been headphones, this month it’s a lighting effect – but we plan some bigger prizes too.

Finally, just in case you wondered how it is drawn – we put all the names in a numbered list – the first customer to walk through the showroom door on the first of the month is asked to pick a number… they don’t even know why unless they ask Simple but effective!

Go on – enter now.

Let me know anything you want using our Facebook page – our Twitter page or how about writing a blog for us ? Reply to our existing blogs with your thoughts. I no longer gig with equipment and although I see the products working in our showroom on a daily basis – customers opinions are the most important thing when it comes to recommending a product to other customers. We also now have the review section on our website for all the products on there – so if you own something we sell even if you didn’t buy it from us, why not write a review.

So get involved, I promise we don’t bite and we love comments both good and bad.

Regards
Darren

A cluster laser is one of those that fills a huge amount of space with dots or little squiggly lines dispersing.  These become very popular a few years ago when KAM released the first and still one of the most popular models which was the KAM Star Cluster 140i.  This unit was very popular and the talk of forums for many months.  They seemed perfect for venues which didn’t need smoke as it was very much about the effect created around the walls, floors and ceiling of the room instead of the beams of light which with smoke or haze would still be very effective.  Brides found them to be mezmorising for their wedding and particularly the first dance.  So much so have cluster style laser effects been accepted by the Mobile DJ, Band or Venue that you can now see a huge selection of these products in many different styles and price ranges from the £59 Lanta Micro Buster 2 to the Blue Twinkle at £ 199 and many more in between.  Some people say they have had their day – but from my point of view as a retailer I have to say that Cluster Lasers outsell Scanning Lasers every month without fail.

So what is a scanning laser you may ask – well in my opinion this is a laser where the effect is more about the actual beams than the pattern it produces.  Certainly at the lower end of the market this is the case as the patterns are jaggered and not really impressive.  However, when you start pushing the budget to £400+ you can see a Scannig Laser with annimation or patterns that are as important as the beams it produces.  Something such as the new QTX Spiro 3D Laser is an example of this.  For me you need smoke or haze to allow the real effect of a scanning laser to be seen.

Recently I had spoke to people who use lasers on their lighting show, whether for DJing or for a Band, and become surprised to see that some people are using many lasers on one show.  A personal opinion of mine is that a laser is more of a centre piece – something to be used alongside other lighting to give a wow factor maybe, but that is why I love lighting so much as different people have different views and one thing is for sure – there is no right or wrong, just opinion.  Disco Lighting isn’t like other products where you can say that is the perfect job for your needs as what one customer likes, another certainly doesn’t.   One thing is for sure that companies who lead the market in Laser lighting such as KAM and Lanta are constantly changing their products and the opinion of our suppliers is that it is important to change lasers regularly – so keep your eye on our website as new products arrive regularly.

At the moment 99.9% of the wireless systems we have sold operate on Channel 70 which is the bandwidth you would use licence free and can generally operate between 3 and 5 UHF systems within that channel without problems depending on which brand or system you buy.  The change affects those microphones being used on Channel 69 – which if you have been using should have meant you needed a licence to operate on those frequencies legally.  Many large organisations such as hire companies and production companies have been compensated by the governement to change their microphone stock from Channel 69 to Channel 38 – but only because that had a licence to operate correctly.

So if you are a singer, band or DJ which used microphones on the normal licence free frequencies then you have nothing to worry about and the changes won’t make any difference or cause you any problems.  However, if you use a higher spec. product which operates within the Channel 69 frequencies then you do need to consider changing soon.  The dilema now of course is, do you purchase a system which runs on Channel 70 or move to Channel 38 where you will need to purchase a licence to legally operate within the frequencies of that system.

Well my theory on this is that different companies work in different ways and some of the larger brands are lucky enough to have R & D departments that look at a product off the shelf from the far east and then alter it and develop it.  So the product might look the same, but often there are many differences which can be reflected in the price.  I think a few years ago people forgot about brands and looked at the price, but as we learn regularly there can be faults with all electronic products and what you really want is to know that some care has been taken in your product and when it does go wrong they are going to put it right.

So whatever the product, disco lighting or karaoke equipment it’s true to say that brand does still matter.