Dont be afraid of the Talkover button. It allows you to accomplish 2 or 3 volume changes at once, without moving your hand/finger from one control to another, which means you dont have to look down at the gear - you can keep "fake/roaming" eye contact with your audience, and cuts down on unnessascery fader wear'n'tear on all your channel fader and mic fader controls.
Some basic talkover buttons are not adjustable - they just dip the channel fader levels by a pre-set level eg: -20db. Some more upmarket talkover buttons have an adjuster switch elsewhere on the mixer for different dip levels eg: -6db, - 10db or -20db.
One thing that puts alot of DJ's off talkover buttons is that they sometimes seem to get different results from the button, on different nights. This is usually down to remembering that the relationship between the mic level, the channel fader levels, and the MASTER OUTPUT. Nearly all talkover systems apply their db reduction to the channel faders...so, if you're starting your music off low at the beginning of the evening by having the channel faders low, the talkover button wont have much music to dip. later on, if your master volume is unaltered but your channel faders are higher, the talkover button can have quite a marked effect - usually dipping the music by more than you'd become acustomed to from earlier.
I try to keep my mic and channel fader volumes fairly close to each other level wise, and change the "background" music, to "Main" music level by way of the Master volume control (which lifts both mic and music levels).
Push the button...push push the button...
(there...thats got that song stuck in your head for the whole morning
)
As for when to talk, well, go with "when you've got
something to say".
Anonymous requests can be avoided in several ways.
If the resturant you're DJ'ing in is hosting several large tables eg: Party of 20, Party of 14, Party of 30 etc...rather than Table for 2, table for 2, table for 2 etc, then a huge aid is for you to faintly write their table numbers on the back of request slips which you distribute onto the tables - the uptake of request slips is huge, compared to walk-up requests. It doesnt matter if the table number that you use, is the same as that of the restuarants kitchen - just so long as you can identify that "Our large table of 30 asked for this one..." (see if the restuarant will tell you names of larger parties their" eg: Mr Smiths table of 24 etc.)
If request slips are forbidden for any reason, then redesign the request notepad, with a column for "Request" and a column for "Requested by/for" - prompting people to leave their name - (or sometimes someone elses.... watch out for the "heard a million times before" requests by "mike hunt", "Hugh Janus" , "Mandy lifeboats" etc.
