Fahrenheit

Learning through breakdowns

The miniteca boom made “El Catire” all the more eager to be among the best. He started buying used equipment —and new when he could—: SAE and Peavey CS 800 amplifiers, a Furman crossover, parametric equalizers and bass bins. Anything he saw at the parties or at the guerras de minitecas —the sound clashes of the movement— that would improve his presence and his sound, he bought.

Getting spare parts, for lighting as much as for sound, was very difficult and expensive. Those hardships forced him to repair his own equipment and to solve problems in the middle of a party: damaged light motors, bulbs, smoke machines rigged up with syringes they made themselves. Not to mention transport, which he often had to rent, until with much effort he was able to buy his own truck. Along the way he had to cut staff because he could not pay them, but many stayed with him out of pure friendship: “Gusti” Gustavo Maury, “Chile” Alejandro Carranza, “Culín” Aldrin, his pal “Iglesia,” “El Comegato” José Luis, Noel and, for some time now, “Ñoño” Ramcés Olivero, among many others who contributed to the miniteca's evolution.

From the “cabaret” to the Cerwin Vega

Fahrenheit made a name for itself not only for its sound but also for its mechanical lighting, which came to include double mirror balls, single and double worm lights, sweepers, spiders, half balls, cubes and strobes. Whatever they were missing for a given party they would ask of Mauricio Cutri, of Super Efectos, the company that manufactured, sold and rented mechanical lights to any miniteca that needed them.

In time the technological avalanche arrived as well: the Denon 2000 MkII CD player made the new generation of DJs forget about acetates, the Cerwin Vega L36 cabinets displaced the old “cabaret” bins and digital lighting gradually put the mechanical rigs away. Even the identity changed: they were no longer called minitecas, now they were discplay.

Acetates, jingles and the Efectrón

“El Catire” also tried his hand as a discjockey (now DJ), and that was “another odyssey.” He bought his 1200 MkII turntables for 2,000 bolívares “del viejo,” but getting hold of the vinyl records was harder still: you looked for them at “la media nota” in the centro único of Chacaíto, in Caracas, and if you arrived late you had to join “la cola de minitequeros” who were after the same thing. He came to amass four crates of records —chicken crates— that he arranged in two racks he built himself, and that “weighed a ton.”

He completed his booth with a Citronic mixer and fired his jingles from a Nakamichi deck, recorded on Sonotek, Magnum and TDK tapes, carrying the voices of Hoffman, Carlos Eduardo Ball, Jesús Leandro and Iván Loscher. On the floor he would make “the crowd jump until they dropped” with his acetate records and his effects on the Efectrón.

Sound clashes at the Poliedro

“El Catire's” effort was not in vain. In the years when the minitecas were treated like national or international artists, Fahrenheit too filled the Parque Naciones Unidas and the Poliedro de Caracas on many occasions. It took part in the many guerras de minitecas at the Poliedro, alongside the great names already mentioned and others such as Ambitus, Stereoteka, Sabanash, The Drop, The Lawyers and Explosion People, gatherings where what was measured was not only the best lighting and the best sound but also the best mixes.

From miniteca to sound company

Its musical and technological run led Fahrenheit to do support work for other discplays: Laser —the first—, then New York New York “la auténtica,” the famous Maui Discplay with its “tropa de vacaciones” and, more recently, Caribbean Discplay, lending them technological, musical and human support.

Today, Fahrenheit has become a live sound company for national and international acts, though it still provides discplay services throughout the country and rents sound to other discplays and discotheques. In its founder's words: “Thank you for choosing us!”

Credits and sources

• · First-person testimony of José Manuel Carballeda “El Catire,” founding president, collected in La Revista de las Minitecas (DJ Vladimir Medina edition).
• · Under documentary verification: the city and the exact year of founding, the dates of the sound clashes it disputed and the company's current official social media or contact details.
• · Migrated from the original article at culturaminiteka.com/minitecas-poder-movil/miniteca-farenheith (accessed July 9, 2026).