Essential Equipment for the Mobile Disk Jockey
Working as a mobile disk jockey (DJ) brings with it a number of challenges that a resident club DJ doesn’t have. Not least is the need to carry all of that essential DJ equipment wherever we go.
I’ve worked in clubs as both a guest and residential DJ, on cruise liners, as a radio DJ and these days I make my living as a moble DJ. Each week I get to visit new locations and meet a whole new crowd of people. I’ve played in some fantastic locations including castles, stately homes, tents, gardens, onboard ships and yachts and even one night in a well known London museum. It’s this variety that I most enjoy about my work, but back to the challenges.
One of the main problems we must manage as mobile DJs is carrying all the equipment we need to each gig. The club DJ only has to carry his tunes, maybe as records or CDs, whereas I need a medium sized van to carry all of my gear.
These days I have an assistant who is a great help in setting up and breaking down my PA and lighting rig at each gig. But back in the old days, before I was commanding a decent fee, I had to do it all myself. The key to selecting equipment for mobile use is compactness. It should ideally be small and as light as possible.
The DJ speakers that I use are the powered variety. This means no need to carry power amplifiers and much simpler system setup. Less leads and less to go wrong. For the past two years I’ve been using an excellent pair of active JBL PA speakers and they have proved to be a fantastic choice.
Another key consideration is lighting. Club DJs don’t usually need to worry about club lighting systems as these are often already in place and may have their own dedicated operators. For us mobile DJs we’ve got to do it all ourselves. But luckily these days there are some compact DJ lights that use LEDs making them relatively lightweight, low power and cool.
But I think the most important piece of DJ gear is the music. That’s not equipment I hear you say, and you’re right. But I’m actually referring to the medium which can be vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and these days MP3 files. This means I need to carry turntables, CD players, a DVD player and some sort of MP3 player. These days I carry one DJ CD player, a pair of reliable Technics 1210s and my laptop full of MP3 files. I route all of these through my excellent DJ mixer and I’m just about ready for any requests, from Mantovani to the Wombles.