2013 marks 10 years of my online DJ based journalistic hackery and therefore acquisition of old dj gear. Skratchworx and DJWORX are for me the same thing, just a different name, so I don’t really differentiate. But what will be happening is a steady flow of articles celebrating this momentous event and to show what has happened in a decade of DJ technology. My first foray into this area is to work out just how long 10 years is from a DJ perspective, and to give some idea of what life was like pre-digital.
There is a tendency to forget just how long we have had a piece of gear. Indeed, in these times it’s becoming increasingly hard to get attached to one piece before the next piece is tugging at your credit card. But do you have a piece of gear that just keeps on going? Have you grown so attached to something that the very thought of not using it is akin to throwing away your favourite lucky t-shirt? The older the better for me, and in particular I’d like to dispel myths and sweeping generalisations that everything (insert brand here) makes is a piece of crap.
I’m not going to rule out the oh so obvious Technics comments, but only if you’ve had old dj gear for longer than 10 years. This is more about those lumps of hardware that people might assume are pure trash, but have given and do continue to give you sterling service, even if you do have to take a soldering iron to it sometimes.
And in the spirit of these things, I’d love to see your images of this old dj gear as well. When you leave a comment, you’ll spot a small image icon in the bottom left of the box. Feel free to drop a snapshot of your aged but loved lumps of old dj gear that just refuses to die. Do try to focus on the subject at hand – this is not one of those “show your setup” posts where people get their metaphorical DJ dicks out to have them stroked in the comments.
What old DJ gear are you using?
So people – what you got? A non Technics turntable that’s still spins? An original CDJ-100o still working after all these years? Maybe you’re still beating the living hell out of an OG Radio Shack or Gemini mixer. It’ll certainly help the newer and younger DJs round these parts understand how things have changed in 10 years.