Setting up a mobile DJ company poses many of the same admin heavy tasks as withany other type of business. For months my life seemed to be dominated by spreadsheets, budgets, business plans, admin and web design. Earlier this month I took a big step towards the fun side of what I do, playing fantastic music.
The knock on effect of plowing through the above is being constantly tired, bored and fed up. The daily grind seemed to be never-ending and definitely took its toll on my soul. Fortunately I had the much-needed chance to do some large-scale retail therapy. The bank manager won’t like it, but hey the purchases I made are the most important investment in my new Mobile DJ business.
Lets take a look at the different types of purchases that I made. I will try to justify my lavish spending, and add my first impressions of the mobile dj equipment that I bought. I will break my purchases down into different sections and go from there.
Mobile DJ Soundsystem
As I have been planning the setup of my Mobile DJ company for many months, I obviously had researched speakers vastly. For me I knew that I would be looking at two particular sets of speakers. I had to let go of my raver head’s desire to buy a Function One super system, and find something more suited to mobile DJ’s.
In my mind it came down to two different speaker sets, Mackie SRM 650’s vs JBL Eon 615’s. I was looking at full sets with the equivalent 18 inch subs to go with the main speakers. I steered towards the JBL system for several reasons that I will explain.
Deciding Factors
Firstly, the JBL top speaker is 4 kg per unit lighter than the Mackie. It also has more accessible inset handles than the Mackie speakers in my opinion. Both factors add to the true portability of the speakers for mobile DJ applications.
In fairness to Mackie, the wight factor is more than reversed on the Subs. The SRM 1850 sub woofer is 6 kg lighter than the JBL’s 35 kg, but i disregarded this as many of my gigs are going to be smaller events and weddings that may not require the sub woofers. Besides although the sub is big and chunky, the weight is still manageable.
Two other factors weighed heavily on my purchase decision as well. I had heard both systems in action previously. Although the Mackie system is more powerful, for me there was a nicer tone and greater clarity at high volumes on the JBL system. Another key factor was the ability to control all four JBL speakers volumes and EQ levels from an IOS app. JBL Connect could have been far better in terms of functionality, but this feature helped clinch it.
Mr Beats verdict on Speakers – 8.5/10
As highlighted above, I still believe that the JBL Eon615/618 speakers are on outstanding choice for mobile dj applications. They are relatively lightweight and they are extremely loud with a peak output of 4 kw for the system. There is little loss of clarity at high volumes and they have to be pushed hard to clip.
The ability to control the volume out put and three band EQ frequencies and levelsre via ipad is excellent. It is however the bluetooth app’s limitations that lead to it being an 8.5 though. Why on earth did JBL only use the bluetooth connectivity for this purpose? I believe if you could stream music via bluetooth, this system would elevate from great to market leading. Overall, this is not a major concern for me though as I view the overall quality of this setup as excellent.
Mobile DJ Lighting
As a DJ of many years I have played on many different types and brands of sound systems, it is an area that I felt clued up in. When it comes to lighting, this was something that I took for granted when playing in Bars and Clubs etc. When dealing with the music, you have no idea of the fact that a lot of thought and programming goes towards lighting a venue. I was unaware of how much of my budget was likely to be consumed long-term on lighting.
My initial purchases barely scratch the surface of mobile dj lighting. My lighting setup in a years time will no doubt look vastly different. Although I am now gig ready, I am already planning my next phase of lighting therapy. So before we look at my purchases, I am going to outline my vision for my mobile dj lighting setup.
The vision for lighting
I want to use DMX heavily in my setup to help coordinate and deliver lighting that is reactive to the music. To do this I will be purchasing a Pioneer RBDMX1 box. This runs through Rekordbox DJ software, and produces customisable, reactive light shows in sync with the music.
To maximise the potential, I intend for my whole set up to be DMXible. So this means that I can programme what colour the up lighting on the stage is. The box can trigger a laser show bang on beat as a phat tune drops. For instance, I can black out my wash lighting and trigger lighting effects in time to the music.
I intend to buy higher end moving head units as I heavily underestimated their value. The old saying that you really get what you pay for rings true with mobile dj lighting. A more advanced moving head, will allow me to display my logo on the spot beams by using customisable gobos.
For those that don’t know, Gobo is short for go between. It’s a solid disc with a pattern cut out that allows the light to shine through. It goes between the bulb and the lens of the unit, hence the term Gobo. The picture below shows two examples of gobo’s. Firstly on the main beam, and secondly on the laser effect.
My Lighting purchases
American DJ Mega Tri Par Profile – 4 Pack Bundle
So far I have purchased three separate sets of lights. Firstly, the American DJ Mega Tri Par set. The package I went for was the 4 pack bought with the intention of back lighting my DJ booth and up lighting either side. The overall package price was £256 and came with the four par can lights, 3 DMX cables, power supply units, a carry case and an infrared remote. This seemed like pretty good value to me, and I think it will prove so over time.
The lights are surprisingly bright with a great wash for such a cheap, lightweight unit. Through the use of Male to female IEC cables, they can be daisy chained to run up to 8 units off one plug socket. For a mobile DJ this is a great feature as plug sockets are at a premium. The units can be linked via DMX cable so that one acts as master and the rest as slaves (copy the master unit). This means that colour changes and programs are in sync across all fixtures. See the four fixtures daisy chained and synced via DMX in the video below. They provide a fantastic bright wash to my dark and dingy landing and stairway.
Mr Beats’ verdict on the ADJ Mega Tri Par Profile Lights – 9/10
In terms of punch for your pound, these go a long way for such a cheap product. They provide a really effective colour wash as well as running on sound active or pre set programmes like in my video. They by no means are going to be my sole up lighting fixtures, but for the price these are great lights. The Protective travel bag is impressive as it holds 4 lights and all of the required cables.
Other Lighting purchases
There are 4 other lights that I have purchased within my initial batch of equipment:
Ibiza Lights Pluton 10 LZR
I have purchased a pair of Ibiza Light Pluton 10 LZR’s, a moving head with laser effect. The Ibiza Lights impressed on their short trial on arrival day, but on day 2 a unit proved to be faulty. In short it started making jamming noises when changing the gobo’s. Visually it meant that the images were not displaying clearly. The gobo on the laser was also misaligned.
First impressions are of disappointment, I bought these upon recommendation of the MD of a well-known DJ shop. For a unit to malfunction after literally a couple of hours of testing is not good. In fairness the shop has paid for a courier to collect the item. They also assured me that I will have a working unit by next Friday. I am therefore going to update this to a full review at that point. As you will see in the final video they were looking pretty good initially.
ADJ Mini Decker LZR
I have ordered a pair of ADJ Mini Decker LZR’s. They are a derby type light fixture that produce a Moonflower effect with some pretty powerful laser shows. I can’t wait to review these and see how they can be used with the Pioneer DMX system. Once delivered, I will test them and update this to a full review. For now have a look at briansredd’s YouTube review, I am excited about getting these:
The DJ Booth
Generally the best-selling products tend to be so because they are good. I never had any doubts about buying the Equinox DJ Booth Mk2. In the end I found a great company called JP Leisure that were about 15% cheaper than the other main retailers on this item. Out of all of the retailers I used, they were the quickest. What I really liked was the phone call within 30 minutes to advise that the Starcloth that I had bought was in transit from China. I got an accurate arrival date from their live tracking data. The manager informed me that most retailers were falsely claiming that it would be delivered earlier. He knew their claims were false as their stock is in the same container.
Back to the booth, I bought the DJ Booth, the laptop shelve, overhead kit and star cloth system. The booth and overhead kit is very easy to quickly assemble. You get both a black and a white lycra cover. I have tried both and they have their place in my set up. The Black cover looks very slick and may work well for parties. I really like the white cover, it is translucent allowing it to be backlit. This type of booth is a great purchase for any mobile DJ. My children watch TV on the computer so as you’ll see the booth made an expensive, but effective TV stand for their breakfast tele.
Mr Beats’ verdict on the Equinox Mobile DJ Booth 9/10
Best selling products remain so long-term due to great features, good value and clever design. If bought at an average price this item represents great value and addresses the needs of the mobile dj comprehensively. Equinox booths fold away into a neat carry case and are assembled/dismantled in very little time. This product also adds to the professional image of the mobile DJ. The lighting rig is solid, easy to assemble and adjustable. The only reason that I cannot give this 10/10 is that the lycra is very hard to manoeuvre into place.
Retail Therapy…..done!
Business is set up, bookings are coming in and I am now feeling at ease about my career choice as an events and wedding DJ. This is largely down to the effect of finally spending the start-up budget that I had been planning for an age. It’s not the same as spunking hundreds on new kicks or designer jeans, but is equally as satisfying. The best fun bit was putting the system together and testing it. By the time I got to filming the video below, even I had to admit that the bone shaking impact of my system was too much. I was down to one speaker by this point. It’s a shame you can’t hear just how good the system really is via a video.