Metromedia's veteran selector Sky Juice belting away at 'Blazay Blazay' in Mandeville, Manchester recently. -File photo
TEINO EVANS, Staff Reporter
IT APPEARS TO be the new career path that most youngsters are getting into today.
If you have a little start-up capital, and a lot of love for music, added with turntables, mixers, CD players and a few speakers, then you are good to go in the business of sound systems.
Sound system selector, Omar of SWATCH International says getting into the sound system business is not as easy as it looks, as the market is very tight and competitive. However, because of his love for music and anything that has to do with music, he is determined to survive.
"The love for the music is what attracts me to the business of sound systems, and anything inside of that circle (like sound systems and recording studios)" Omar explained. According to Omar, "It's all about the vibes that music brings, and its power to captivate a person, and I want to be the one to use that music to entertain and influence people."
Omar, however, says that in order for the music to have this desired effect on people, the quality of the sound equipment needs to be up to scratch, and this takes money.
Not wanting to give away much, Omar only said that apart from getting paid whenever the sound played out, they normally held their own dances´, which would also assist in raising funds to maintain the equipment.
Upgrade
According to Omar, it is important to always upgrade and change out the equipment, as sound quality is very important.
"Yuh haffi can push over 50,000 watts without losing the smoothness of the sound coming from the speaker. You will need the best in terms of speaker, amplifiers and so on, in order to compete effectively on the market," Omar said.
"We constantly change out our equipment, as soon as a piece of equipment is damaged or gets old, we change it out, and this gives a better quality in terms of producing a rounded sound," he said.
Omar cited some of the top brands in speakers and amplifiers as 'Eminence' and 'JBL audio' speaker, and for amplifiers, 'Alises', 'Techniques' and 'Sonic Earz'.
Omar says he also reads books and magazines in order to keep abreast of what is happening in the world of sound equipment, for example which manufacturers have won awards for sound equipment they have produced.
Shaun of Coppershot, a sound in existence for almost 10 years now, says "You have to love it to do it because we don't really make as much money that I would like to, but this is what I do for a living and the business can become quite lucrative if you are in demand and get to travel a lot," Shaun explained.
Newcomer to the business, DJ Neil of Cash Flow, says they started out working with producers, but says when they started remixing tapes, other selectors used to take their credit.
"When we saw how people were responding to the work that we did, we decided to step up to the fore and take our rightful credit," Neil said.
Lucrative
Neil says the business has the potential to be quite lucrative, and even for them as youngsters in the business, they see where the business can pay off in the end.
"When we play out, we charge based on the equipment we have to rent ($5,000), and a further $15-$20,000," Neil says, but according to him, the big bucks really roll in when you get to fly out and do shows abroad.
As it relates to upgrading their sound system equipment, Neil too agrees that this can be a very expensive venture.
"Right now, we have a computer sound, but its time to buy up some more equipment and expand, but the cost to do it is not pretty," he says. According to Neil, "One CD mixer that plays MP3 costs about $40,000", and to set up everything could easily run them over $100,000 for the basic equipment.
Veteran selector in the business Sky Juice of Metro Media, says "People look for a certain standard in the music, and if you are not up to standard, you will drop out of the race," he said.
Even though most selectors were hush hush about disclosing figures amount of money they spend maintaining their sound equipments, one promoter said prices could climb as high as $150,000.
Sky Juice, however, says he is different from nowadays selectors, as he is coming from the old school days. "My attitude to reggae music different from all others, mi use to all play fi $10 a night, wid one turntable... a years mi a play sound and mi nuh watch di money weh mi a get, mi nuh do it fi di money, but its all about the love for the music," he said.
-Article taken from The Weekend Star as published Saturday, May 1, 2004
