If you are planning to become a be a DJ, a disk jockey, one of the most difficult things you will come across is to buy your own equipment. It will be difficult not because of anything else, but because DJ equipment is expensive. In order to buy all the equipment you need you will have to spend thousands of dollars. To have what you need to be a DJ you won’t have to buy only one piece of equipment but many. A DJ can mix and match components of different qualities and price ranges to make the entire outfit suit a budget. One of the most expensive pieces of equipment that you will need to buy is a mixer. Sound mixers vary from make to make and from model to model and their price depends on their features and their quality. You can buy a DJ mixer for a couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. If you are new to the disk jockey business, it is advised that you only spend only a few hundred dollars. The cheaper mixers can work just as well as the more expensive ones and if you are new to DJ’ing then you should not spend too much money because you don’t know how the business will be. The good news is that manufacturers of quality mixers and audio equipment in general, like Numark, Gemini, Aiwa, Akai produce good quality economic DJ mixers.
After the mixer, you will need a turntable as well. There are different kinds of turntables available. If you are into vinyl then you should get a traditional DJ turntable, or if you are into CDs and MP3’s there is a wide selection of turntables for the new technologies that resemble the traditional ones. In general, turntables are more expensive than plain players, but there are good ones available for under $400. You can even choose to buy a direct drive turntable, but you will have to spend more money on one of these. Most DJs however prefer them as they play records faster and don’t lag. Players are much cheaper than turntables but have fewer features. DJs who like to scratch and spin records prefer the turntables because players only provide sound output like any other CD or DVD player. A new DJ should not overspend on equipment. And one item you can save money for is the speakers. Speakers are used for live events and as a DJ if you want to minimize your costs and not have to rent any equipment in the future. In general, the price of any speaker depends on the price of its output. There are small woofer speakers that a DH can buy for less than $100. if you are new to the field you might consider buying a DJ pack, a DJ in a box package, and save money.
These packages contain everything you will need. Using cheap DJ equipment is only recommended for new DJs. If you start getting gigs and start making money then you should consider buying more advanced equipment.
