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I lost my house keys, so here’s a piece about keyrings for DJs

Bugger — I lost my house keys. In the whole scheme of things, it’s easily fixable. But in the process, I’ve lost my Urban Ears Slussen, the pumpkin coloured plastic headphone adaptor thingy that made my house keys stand out visually in the dark, and physically on myself in my many pockets.

Outside of the review, I can’t remember a time when I actually used it, but I’ll miss it nonetheless. The tragic loss however did get me thinking about other useful objects that could be added to a DJ’s keyring. So here’s a quick list of things that could come in very useful in the heat of the moment:

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

Another Slussen

No thanks. Been there, and even its bright orangeness didn’t allow me to find the keys. And it would appear that in light of Apple offing the headphone port, Urbanears seems to have EOL’d the Slussen too. You can only get it in Grape now. But given that I’ve misplaced at least one iPhone headphone adaptor, the above may well be a good idea. I don’t hold out much hope of it lasting long though.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

USB Drive

It’s always handy to have lumps of data at your disposal. A folder full of music for an impromptu set is handy, as is having a backup mix ready for those rare times when it all goes tits-up. A bootable OS would also be a good move. I’ll happily take a Kingston HyperX Savage if someone want to send me a 512Gb model.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

Headphone adaptor

I may have a pile of them scattered around my life, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was always one at hand? https://jackin.co.uk has you covered.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

LED torch

Aside from saving me from stumbling in the unlit back yard at the Worxlab, a small torch is so incredibly useful in your average DJ booth. Unless you want to wear a Davey lamp on your head that is. Oooh here’s an idea — LED lights built into headphones. Send me a royalty cheque.

The world is literally awash with LED lights of all shapes and sizes. But the Nitecore Tube T kept coming up in search results, and it comes in many colours, including the obvious orange.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

 

Ear plugs

Looking after your ears is essential. And you can actually carry earplugs with you all the time. And the smirk-worthy PartyPlugs from Alpine are just the ticket.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

Bottle opener

Really needs no explanation. A bottle opener is for life, not just for DJing. This one from Juno is a case of when worlds collide. Note — not really a head shell.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

Emergency Cable

“Sorry mate, I can’t hook your phone up to my system to play that one godawful track that nobody likes and will end my career”. Well now you can. This one from Remax satisfies my antique leather fetish in a big way too.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

 

Power bank

“Sorry mate — I can’t play that track either because your phone is about to run out of power”. Well now you can. Seriously though, another hour of battery time on your keyring is not to be sniffed at. The Pebble range gives you a boost just when you need it the most. And it comes in orange.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

Swiss Army Knife

We’ve all been in a situation where a screwdriver, scissors, or a blade would come in incredibly handy. Be it stripping a wire, changing a fader, or persuading a promoter that right now would be a good time to pay you, this is a no-brainer.

This official one has a bit of all of the above on it.

AN IDEA

As I trawled the darkest corner of Google images for ideas, the one thing I hoped to find but didn’t was an audio recorder. Now before the collective might of the DJWORX community hammers “audio recorder keyring” into their browsers, I spent a full joyless hour trying to find such a thing with a mini jack input.

There’s a world of voice recorder/MP3 players, but nothing that allows you to hang it off the back of a mixer or controller. I imagine that some of you won’t believe me, and indeed I hope to be proved wrong, because it would be an outstanding thing to have. Even if it didn’t hang off of your keys, it would be a nice addition to have stashed in your DJ bag.

I lost my house keys, so here's a piece about keyrings for DJs

This will do for now — the spare keyring from my recently stolen Mini Cooper. But it’s a tad painful in my pocket as you can imagine.

Summing up

Ultimately, if I’d had one of those little Tile tracker doohickeys that sits on your keyring and lets you track where they (and potentially you) are, I wouldn’t even be writing this article, or lamenting the cost of changed locks or lost time hunting for them. More than anything, that might be the best thing to put on any keyring.

What’s funny about this story is that I wrote it as a grossly transparent attempt to get a pile of free key ring type stuff shoved through the Worxlab door. But the reality is that this has actually turned into a useful exercise and story too.

SHAMELESS “SEND ME STUFF” FOLLOWS

If you or your company have something keyring specific that would be properly useful for DJs, or just look amazing on my new keyring, feel free to pop it in a Jiffy bag and send it to the address over on the contact page. In the unlikely event that anything should actually turn up, I’ll do another story and feature them all.