dj stores by your location
do you guys have any dj stores by your house?
like the store primarily deals in Dj/lighting equip?
if so, do you frequent it?
ill start there is a store by me called extreme pro sound.
small place all of the staff are dj’s, i go there when im not in school, and practice on their cdj 2k/djm2k.
anyone else?
I have a Guitar Center that is about 8mi from where I live. They have a pro sound dept. that has DJ lighting and equipment. Bit over priced though. I can always find something cheaper on the net with free shipping and I don’t have to pay a sales tax.
I would typically go there and check out the gear. Then order it online somewhere. 
I have Guitar Center, Sam Ash near me but I visit Super Electronics who caters to the dj. They stock ALL the equipment & always cut me great deals on everything. And not just little discounts, huge discounts!!! Recently bought a new sound system with cables & speaker stands, saved big bux!!
I live in Atlanta. So, there are several guitar centers and atlanta pro audio. Also, Beatlab is kinda cool…they sell a lot of DJ and in-the-box production gear. I got my used xone from them. They’re mostly oriented towards fairly straightforward hip hop with Serato, but they’re one of few places that does mixer and turntable repairs in the area (other than general electronics repair shops), and they still sell vinyl, though a very limited selection of it.
I like it. When I upgrade my mixer, it’ll be from them. They have a blue Empath that keeps dropping in price to the point where it’s very tempting. Apparently nobody likes the blue ones.
when i upgrade my stuff, (if i do) it will also be from the store by my house.
I live 10 mins from decks.co.uk London store. Buy all gear from there
I also have a Guitar Center somewhere around 9 miles away. Generally I will wait for one of their promotions before buying something. Last big purchase was the NS6 where I took advantage of their 100$ off special.
I live about 2 miles away from Chemical Records in Bristol …
Usually the stores are going to be a little higher priced. Unlike most online companies, stores have to cover shipping the products to the store, paying rent, paying employees, paying off capital investments, loans, etc.
In my opinion, I would rather pay the extra 20 or 30 bucks for a piece of equipment and if it breaks the store will be a lot more willing to help you when your gear breaks or you need it replaced.
I’ve had this problem with my other hobbies. I purchased a pair of skis of the internet, broke one them in half after a month of use. They should have been on warranty. My local shop said they couldn’t help because I didn’t buy them there. The ski company said they couldn’t do anything for me because I didn’t get the skis from an authorized retailer (i.e. a store, or a select few websites). Think of it as buying the better insurance option.
Additionally, who wants to put their local DJ shop out of business because you buy online now? That only pushes the DJ industry backwards. The people who own the DJ shops are taking a HUGE risk setting up shop in such a specialized industry with such high prices in the DJ industry. On top of that they have a very small customer base because not everybody can afford to DJ and not everybody is capable of DJing.
Honestly I think the shops deserve our business because they are the ones out there doing the work to help us and Strengthen the DJ industry. So many gigs probably get filtered through the DJ stores in all our areas. They also stimulate the “DJ economy” getting local DJ’s together and strengthening the DJ community in the area.
I always try to buy local… especially if we want to break out of this ridiculous recession and create some jobs!!!
I walked into a guitar center once. I really do not see why anyone shops there.
at the last place I lived there were two music stores locally owned by the same owner that I frequented. they had a full repair shop. as a regular customer they did most of the labor for free as long as I paid for parts. parts was slightly above mail order price. if I had a blown speaker, I could drop off the speaker, and pick it up repaired for the cost of the part. I loved it. they did equipment rental. they never charged me for rentals as long as I took good care of the stuff. if I walked in and asked about what laser worked better, they would send me home with 3 or 4 and have me try them at gigs and bring them back later.
they had a minimal selection so i still did a lot of mail order, but the customer service was awesome. now I live too far to deal with them, so I am completely mail order now from whoever is cheapest.
I am a pro audio department manager at my local Guitar Center & I definitely have to say that each store is different based on the staff who work there. The majority of my staff are DJs including myself, one is an ableton certified trainer & the rest are experienced recording gurus. We are the smaller of the 2 stores in Vegas & as such the vibe is more like a neighborhood shop, heavily focused on customer service. Our customers tend to like us more often than not & our bread & butter is repeat business. Being that we’re commission based, you should expect that if you’re the customer who’s trying to return some shit you used the hell out of, threw the packaging away & want a efund for, grinding us for a better price on something that only ebay has cheaper & if you act like an arrogant asshole or like you know everything and don’t want our advice, you’re not likely to walk out of the store happy. I’m not defending the company by any means, on certain matters our hands are tied by corporate policy & we’re just as confused & angry as you are. I encourage any of you to write letters & tell them you want more pro DJ & production gear in every store not just a pile of entry level controllers & that you want the same respect & acknowledgement as guitar players & drummers deserve considering the kind of money we spend on gear as DJs & producers. If you just complain about GC on message boards, little will change. If you write directly and en mass, you will make a change for the better.
I’m in Hollywood so Turntable Lab LA is the coolest DJ store nearby. But I also live walking distance from Cosmos which will hook you up in a pinch; they also rent equipment which has saved me for many a gig. Guitar Centers are everywhere too and I dig them for their price matching policies (find a good price on the internet and if it’s a valid price they will match it) and their liberal return and exchange policies. The staff is hit or miss; some people know what they’re talking about and a lot have no clue; in LA they mostly are better I think because there’s so many hungry and committed young musicians and producers around to hire. And it’s not a DJ store but I gotta give a shout out to Ametron (also pretty much walking distance) for all my cabling, adapting, and miscellaneous electronic doohickey type needs.
We’ve got Platinum Records downtown here in Portland and they have a great selection, all DJ gear, pro sound, lighting, vinyl etc. Their prices for DJ gear are too high to make it possible for me to make big purchases there, but I try to support them as much as possible for auxiliary items like cables, cases and speaker stands.
What I’d give to live 10 mins from there!!! Green with envy!!
Although stoke is only small we had a place called “Cookies”. I always try to buy my gear from there (if they stock it). Have done since 1999!! Great place to go and try what they have to sell!!!
I live not too far away from Hard To Find Records (HTFR).
They seem to get a bad rep on the Internet but I have to say that every time I go there I have no problems at all.
They are courteous, helpful and always give me a discount.
I had a new DJM 800 from there last year which, after 3 months, started to play up.
They exchanged it for a new one without any problems.
I don’t buy from there on the Internet, only in store, so maybe it’s the Internet shopping side of it that doesn’t work so well.
I live down the street from a Guitar Center but their Dj department is filled with equipment that’s beat to shit. Their production areas are pretty nice. Also live down the street from the DJ Techtools store and not to be to harsh, they’re not very friendly. Then there’s Dr. Freecloud’s, also down the street, which is mostly an EDM vinyl shop that occasionally sells used gear which is cool to go to but I’m limited to their small hip hop and breaks section. That leaves me to make the trek to Turntable Lab and a swing by Amoeba Records in LA. Recently our local nerd superstore Fry’s started selling vinyl though and they carry the occasional controller, nothing opened to play with though. It seems like I’ve got plenty of options for Dj related stores.
I would be so poor…
Fry’s has vinyl? That’s awesome! I was just there spending way too much money on a hard drive; wish I’d known … then again I would probably have spent way too long there if I did know about it.
the store by me is called extreme pro sound. extremeprosound.com
and they seem to give me breaks on some stuff. it’s hard to find a vinyl store.
What Cincinnati lacks in stores that sell gear (dominated by Guitar Centers and Sam Ashes) it more than makes up for in record stores. We have Shake-It (one fo the best record stores in the country) and Everybody’s (nearly as good) and a new vinyl only store that I can’t remember the name of. All of them have exceptional vinyl selections with a constantly rotating new & used inventory, you never know what you’re going to find.
I’m fine with the lack of stores that sell gear as I’m way more interested in vinyl and can find any gear online cheaper than I would in a store.