- EVOLVE 90 powered column loudspeakers
- EKX-12P powered loudspeakers
- EVERSE 8 and EVERSE 12 battery-powered loudspeakers
Artist Feature DJ Mad Mardigan
Timberwolves DJ Mad Mardigan is November Artist of the Month
Self-taught on one turntable and now in his 19th season as the official DJ of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, DJ Mad Mardigan is moving the 33 DJs at Generation Now Entertainment onto Electro-Voice, for first dances & outdoor shows.
Case Study
Portable Loudspeakers
North America
Mobile DJs
Artist Feature DJ Mad Mardigan
Timberwolves DJ Mad Mardigan is November Artist of the Month
Case Study
Portable Loudspeakers
North America
Mobile DJs
Self-taught on one turntable and now in his 19th season as the official DJ of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, DJ Mad Mardigan is moving the 33 DJs at Generation Now Entertainment onto Electro-Voice, for first dances & outdoor shows.
- Artist
- DJ Mad Mardigan
- Location
- Twin Cities, Minnesota
- Company
- Generation Now Entertainment
- Product highlights
- Electro-Voice EVOLVE, EKX, EVERSE
The artist
Self-taught, before YouTube
DJ Mad Mardigan couldn't work out how the scratches on 1990s East Coast rap records were made until the Tupac Shakur film Juice showed a DJ cutting records in his bedroom. By his freshman year at Winona State University, he'd saved enough for one turntable. He spent the next seven years in DJ battles, all of it before laptops and YouTube.
He worked his way into the clubs, from one night every two weeks to four nights a week. In 2008 the Timberwolves' game-entertainment team heard him at the downtown Imperial Room and offered him the job, and this is his 19th season as the official DJ of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx. He estimates the league had about nine team DJs back then. Today every franchise has one, and the 30-plus of them share an Instagram group chat for controller problems, music calls, and All-Star news.
The Challenge
Iconic site, big responsibility
Five club nights a week wasn't sustainable, so he founded Generation Now Entertainment to bring nightclub-trained turntable DJs to weddings, corporate events, and sports. The company now has 55 team members, 33 of them DJs, along with MCs, dancers, musicians, and content creators. In one Thursday-to-Sunday stretch this fall, it worked 27 events
For 13 years, those events ran on the same 12-inch speakers most mobile DJs start on. A switch meant putting his name behind a new brand, and he wasn't going to do that for gear he didn't believe in.
The solution
A shootout in the parking lot
He and the company's lead tech back then set an EKX-12P next to one of the company's 12-inch speakers in the parking lot and played the same part of the same song through each. The gap was wide enough that they assumed their own speaker was faulty. They swapped the XLR cable, then brought out a unit bought only months before. Nothing changed. He agreed to the partnership that day.
"That's how much better the EV speaker sounded."
DJ Mad MardiganFounder, Generation Now Entertainment
The Result
Two years in, 60% EV
He now puts Generation Now at about 60% EV across speakers and microphones. He takes the company's EVOLVE 90 columns to the weddings he plays himself and calls the EKX-12P a versatile all-rounder: a two-way 12-inch powered loudspeaker that fits in any car. His 33 DJs, he said, "all are believers."
At a large outdoor show, an EVERSE 8 placed about 250 feet from the EVOLVE system ran with a clear lag. Lead tech David found the delay setting on the EVERSE's rear panel and brought the two back in time. Now the crew can set the same delay whenever a speaker sits that far from the DJ rig.
Next is Gen Now Fusion, which puts a live musician alongside the DJ, a format he sees catching on with mobile DJs. He pictures it with musicians playing in a park through EVERSE 12s.
Related articles