Most of you out there use coffins what are the usual stacks underneath ? any more than 6? Do yall carrya tape deck in case or am I a glutton for punishment? The only time i needa tape is when there is a school functions and i have been warned way in advanced. so amp, extra amp, tape deck the cd drives anyhing else ? so five or six is enough right?

Since you are asking for opinions, here is mine :

It sounds to me like you are referring to storage for your amp & CD players. I use rack mount molded shell cases because they offer the most protection, are reasonably priced, and most are interlocking stackable which allows me to pack them in tight in the van. I break my load up into two 4 space racks so they will not be so heavy. The other alternative would be to put it into one eight space rack, but that would make the lift twice as heavy. You can also mount the stuff in a rolling rack, but remember the key word here is "rolling". It has to be secured when loading so it does not roll while you are hauling. Also it has to be lifted straight up when loading.

Avoid cassetee tape like the plague. Too hard to work with, too hard & slow to cue up. If anyone insists on playing something from tape, make them bring their own boom box and tie into your board thru the headphone jack. Also insist that the person supplying the tape and already have it cued. The only time I run into this situation these days is the occasional small town cheerleading squad in the annual parade. Make their manager do the work.

A word about CD storage cases : there are lots of nice ones available. Shop around & see what looks best to you. ADJ has some nice ones. Here is what I really want to stress. As soon as you start building your mobile CD library, chunk those jewel cases and get the CD's into view paks. You can store 4 or 5 view packs in the same space as one jewel case and the weight savings is phenominal. I figured this out late in the game, resisted the idea at first and finally wised up. Now I am trying to catch up and have about half of my library in view paks so far. Another nice thing about view paks is they have no spine to read and this discourages "Browsers". There is nothing for them to look at and they had better not even think about reaching in my cases. This has become much less of a problem, almost non existent, since I started switching to view paks.

A word to the wise : the best view paks I have found are from Promo Only. They even have double disc paks and they have plenty. I bought some from a big mail order house in California when I was first changing over and they tore open on me and I had to reinforce them with clear packaging tape. I have had zero failures from the Promo Only view paks. If you are going to get into MDJ'ing and stay with it you need to get to know the folks at promo only anyway.

I take me hat off to you , sir for the advice, i will be on line with promo ASAP

That's some excellent advice from M@rtin, take heed to the information, it will save you a whole lot of grief. I think the best approach to doing mobile DJ gigs it to work smarter not harder with a lot of common sense.

ROQ out.

Heh we use a rackmount computer and bring in a third of the cd's in those zip binders that hold 4 per page, per side. We keep those behind us in case the machine acts up. Everything's in one huge arse rack so setup time is minimal.

This was taken March 18th. And yes that's the Global Trussing DJ Goalie setup beside us. You can just barely make out the size of our old case we've used for 6 years without a computer in it on the bottom. CD's were in the truck as we were loading out and we put them up first ever since someone snagged one of our binders.

http://g2soundcompany.tripod.com/id5.html

thats one huge light setup man...nicely done.

M@rtin- good point about the "browsers", I'll definately switch all my cds over to viewpaks.

As for tape decks in racks I would say no. I recently just recorded my own tapes (only about 6 worthy enough to record) to my computer and made CDs of them, solving the tape problem.

I will get back to the picture another time because it is taking 4ever to download. but I will tell you this the more in sight the less outta mind! t-you for the info'

If you have enough advance notice, you can let everyone know in advance that there will be no service for cassette tapes.

At every wedding, I have built into my contract that they will supply the "First Dance" song to me in a CD format.

If they don't do it, your contract is still good, and they knew about it ahead of time.