Having the right gear can make things fun. And yeah, you do need equipment if your aim is to be a professional DJ. It’s a question every DJ has asked themselves:do you need all the swish gear to make a splash? Read on.

Playback is playback

Legendary DJ Fatboy Slim once said of his career as a performer and DJ, “at its heart, it’s about playing records.” It’s easy to forget that playback is playback. Technically, you can DJ with a pair of cassette players and a 2-track mixer. People aren’t as concerned with the specs on your gear as commercial messaging would have us believe. If you’re able to keep the groove going and select the right tunes, every piece of gear beyond that is a bonus.

Each DJ’s needs are different

Some DJ sets only require a laptop, a wifi connection and a Spotify account. Others require a pair of decks with dedicated gain, EQ and crossfader functions. You can’t really mix a house set, for example, without having a cue mix because you need to beatmatch the incoming tune. But beyond the basics, functionality rapidly starts to appear unnecessary. Whatever you’re working with, push your gear’s limits. No knob left unturned! 

All the gear and no idea

Oft-quoted saying in DJing: “you can have all the gear and no idea.” After all, having a good selection and knowing how to mix your tracks is way more valuable than botching a mix even on a Pioneer DJM Tour1 system. Ideas, not gear, are what makes the crowds take notice. Another good reason to invest in your own abilities with an online DJ course (check out our selection).

Magnetic faders, 64-bit floating point mixing processing, dual VCF filters with analogue harmonic distortion; these headline-grabbing features are gonna take your mix and sound up a few notches, but they’re not going to teach you anything you don’t learn and practice yourself. Best play? Get good on whatever you’ve got right here, right now.