Making your kit as compact as possible

If you DJ regularly, you should make sure that your kit is as compact as possible. My previous setup consisted of 9 components, forgetting any of them or leaving them behind at a gig was easy and happened quite a few times. (Don't doubt it, it will happen to you, if you DJ regularly enough). It looks messy, is dangerous if you forget things, and increases the number of things that could go wrong with your setup.



To minimise these problems:

1) Reduce the number of components you need to DJ with. You can do this by a) Using internal HDs instead of external HDs, or b) using an external bus powered HD without a PSU. There are other options too, of course.

2) Bring along backup kit. Yes really. If you have a complete backup solution in your car boot, you're sorted for just about any problems.

New Digital DJing Setup

I finally shelled out and got a completely new setup:

1x ThinkPad T40 refurbished from Ebay. This includes two USB2 ports, two PCMCIA slots and built-in wireless. This is a good choice of laptop because 1) It's cheap: £200 from e-bay 2) The build quality is excellent, making it very durable for DJ use. 3) It has the right connectors I need for the portable HD and the portable PCMCIA soundcard I'll be using.



1x Echo Indigo DJ PCMCIA soundcard. This is still one of the best DJing soundcards you can get for laptops. It is multi-channel (2 channels) and provides great amplification, sound quality and low-latency ASIO drivers (4ms on Traktor 3). You can pick one up for ~£100.



I'll still be using my old LaCIE portable USB drive, but will probably be replacing it soon for a LaCIE 120GB Rugged drive, which has extra shock protection to guard against bass reverberations. I'm also still using my Faderfox, need to get a powersupply and a case for that. Below is the LaCIE Rugged drive, apparently they come in black also, which looks preferable!:



I'd also recommend a surge protector for all kit, as although I haven't been burnt yet, club electronics can be quite dodgy.