First, I want to put in a sizable investment upfront rather than re-buying gear later.
With that, I’d like to stay close to the models/brands given, although I’d appreciate if someone said, instead of buying X mixer, you can get X mixer because it will do the same job.
I am going to use it to train so that I can do festivals down the line, and I will also be using it to mobile DJ to support myself and gain experience along the way.
In addition, I live in a small city with 7 or 8 clubs, and once I am up to speed on these, I will try and get into one of those.
I would highly suggest you start learning on a laptop first, just so you get in the hang of DJ’ing, I personally did not spend thousands on a set up first because I knew I needed to know 1000000% that I wanted to do this…that was 6 years ago, forward today, I’m opening for one of Hardwells shows in the next couple of weeks, and I started on a latop with virtual dj lol so before you spend, be smart about this cause $5000 is a lot for equipment. Also, you cant just focus on dance music, you will NEVER get noticed because of the high volume of dance DJs right now, I learned how to mix hip-hop and all other genres so that once I wanted to play in clubs, I wasn’t limited to one genre. Suggestion: buy a decent priced controller and learn the basics first, HDJ 500 headphones (one of the best headphones, I choose them over the 2000s), some KRK rockits. Start small and build from there
I appreciate that advice, but I already bought the equipment. I actually got it for about $500 less, and I got the 900nxs DJM and CDJs. This isn’t an on-the-spot buy. I’m a college freshman at a big university in a medium-sized city. I’ve no doubt i’ll make the money back within 2 years at most. I’ve been in contact with several musicians while putting together this buy.
I’d appreciate it if you’d PM your email so I can chat with you on some other things.
Camels are at first thought a better purchase, but they are a lot smellier, consume more food, and are one of the most un comfiest animals I think I’ve ever had the displeasure of riding. Goats on the other hand are just amusing to watch, especially Pygmy ones.
If I were to spend the amount of money this would like to be a dj guy was too then I would spend less on the mixer and more on animals, this would instantly increase street cred and standing within the edm community as you would not be known as the guy who chucked cake in peoples faces, but goats. Thus making you an instantly better dj.
lol I definitely think a goat may catch the EDM communities attention for .5 seconds and then disappear…on a serious note, I do agree with that statement, you dont ever need the best equipment to show your credibility, put a $50 controller in fron of me of me or some CDJ 100s and I’ll find a way!
In my opinion its an insane amount of money to spend if you have no experience DJ’ing
My Advice:
Buy a controller e.g. Pioneer DDJ SR/SX & Laptop
OR
Buy second hand/refurbished gear if you are intent on buying Pioneer - you will lose alot less money if/when you resell it.
Rent speakers for the first few gigs or get the organizers to rent them and buy some semi-decent hi-fi speakers or monitors for home practice.
EDM is NOT a genre anymore than saying “piano” is a genre, and stating that is a dead giveaway that you really are putting the cart before the horse IMHO
+1 on the animals, you can bring a few on stage at festivals and throw them at the crowd instead of cake
Really ? You might be a completely crap dj who doesn’t have a note in his head or ability to learn how to program a set properly and as a result never gets booked for a gig, I’m not saying that IS the case, but it might be.
This is insane! Spending that much having never DJ’d and on the assumption you will like it, be good at it and make money off it is mental!
Most DJs take at the very least months, if not years to get good enough to play at venues so your 2 year assumption is VERY unrealistic and unlikely. That is if you actually like it, stick with it and put in the graft needed to learn a new instrument and approach to music. Add on top of that the fact that most DJs end up playing for free a lot initially in order to build up the rep to get paid gigs, which can take months, even for well rehearsed and quality DJs. And, when you do get paid gigs it ain’t gonna be superstar headline sets, but more likely to be lowly paid intro slots for other local DJs who have more rep and are more trusted to bring in punters than yourself, as that is the important criteria for venue owners.
It is hard graft, and your entire thread posts is the problem with today’s DJs, thinking that buying top end gear will make you an instant superstar DJ able to demand hundreds or thousands per gig immediately. There will be people out there using Numark Mixtrack Pro’s that will be better DJs than you and getting better paid gigs than you. Being a DJ isn’t about gear. It is about understanding music and how to sequence and programme a series of well chosen tracks that punters will eat up and enjoy. As long as you know how to do this, you can be successful whatever gear you use and to learn this trade is a long old journey that never really ends, even if you do get them big superstar DJ gigs.
Going straight to the deep end with grand assumptions is not only sheer absurdity, but will probably lead to you not sticking with it due to unreal expectations and giving up in the not too distant future. When you do quit, feel free to give me first dibs on some of your gear for about quarter of what you paid!
If you do stick with it, however, good luck to you and enjoy!
