Power Conditioner
Proper protection is essential for costly equipment, even more so if it is frequently moved from location to location. Professional grade power conditioners protect your equipment from electrical surges and spikes, offer additional power receptacles, and some even have retractable task lighting for your rack. When choosing the right power conditioner you will want to focus on how many watts or amps your gear will draw from an outlet. Many power conditioners are rated at 15 amps or more. So when selecting your conditioner be sure it can handle the load you are seeking to connect to it. Typically, wireless mics, mixers, and signal processing equipment won't draw much current. However, amplifiers, lighting effects, fog machines and other gear and will!
Amplifier
Your amplifier is one of the most important components of your entire sound system. Without it there would be no sound amplified at all. It's important to select an amp that has more power than your speakers can handle. The logic is that you want your amplifier to run as cool as possible and run the system with the least amount of stress as possible. By selecting an amplifier that doesn't have to work at top rated (full blast) specifications all the time you will prevent distortion. Distortion is one of the frequent reasons for poor sound quality and destroying speakers.
Speakers
Speakers are responsible for delivering the sound to your audience. There are several different types of loudspeakers to choose from. Some common choices are two way and three way speakers, speakers with built in protection modules and actually powered speakers (built in amplifiers). When deciding which to choose, one should think about the primary use first. Ask yourself whether the speakers are going to be transported regularly or permanently installed. If you're transporting the speakers regularly you may want to select a speaker that is lighter in weight and offers a more compact design. If it's for a permanent use you will want to be sure the speakers are 'flyable' and have the ability to be mounted from a ceiling for instance.
Cases & Racks
Protecting your investment by enclosing it makes good sense. Any time you are planning on transporting your gear you will want to be sure of properly mounting it in a reliable road case. Additionally, you won't need to constantly setup and connect all of your components before each use as the road case will allow you to connect most of your components once.
Selecting the right one is an important decision. Before selecting a road case you must have an inventory of the gear you will want to mount inside the case. Typically most professional products are 19' rack mountable, simply put this means your gear has 'ears' on the sides, which enables you to mount your gear right into a rack with a rack screw.
Cases are sized in 'RACK SPACES'. One space equals 1 "
Simply calculate how tall all of your equipment is and divide by 1.75 and you will determine how many rack spaces you will need for your gear. Next, you will want to check the depth of your gear as some products like amplifiers may be extra deep and require a deep style rack.
Finally, you may want to add casters or a dolly for ease in transportation. Some casters even offer locking wheels for keeping the rack stable while operating.
CD Players
Depending on preference, you can use either two tabletop CD players or one dual deck CD player that has two players built into one chassis. The standard tabletop player would be Pioneers' CDJ1000MK3 which has become the Technics 1200 of CD players. A good dual deck player is the Denon DND6000. Both of these players offer scratching, looping, hot cues and adjustable pitch range to name a few features. The benefit of one over the other is that you can do more performance wise with a tabletop than a dual deck as the jog dials are bigger and you have more room to move. A dual deck is nice in the fact that it is compact and there are two players in one chassis which is good for a mobile DJ who has to be able to setup and break down quickly. Features to look for in both types of players is anti-shock memory which basically stores the song 15 or 20 seconds ahead in case vibrations shake the player to the point it skips. Scratching is also a nice feature to look for in a player as this allows you to emulate vinyl. Mp3 compatibility is another important feature as it will allow you to play Mp3 CD's with up to 150 songs per disc. Key lock or Master Tempo is another important feature that you'd like your player to have. It will lock the key of the song regardless of tempo. There are a wide variety of players available and beginners shouldn't have trouble finding something to get started with. There are also many choices of protective transport cases available for both player types.
Mixers
A mixer will be the next part of your system and will be the nerve center of your DJ setup. This component comes in different configurations. These will be a 19 inch rack mount, which complements the dual deck CD player as they are the same width, the 12 inch which is popular among club DJ's and then there is the 10 inch which is a favorite among scratch/battle DJ's.
Your mixer is where all your components come together hence the name mixer. Normally, there are 2, 3 or 4 channels on a mixer. The amount of channels determines how many audio sources that you can play simultaneously through your mixer. 10î mixers most commonly have 2 channels and 19î mixers usually will have 4 channels. Features to look for in a mixer are a 3-band EQ on each channel, PFL (pre fader listen or cue) on each channel and crossfader and volume fader contour control. Lastly the number of outputs a mixer has is paramount as well.
A 3-band EQ will allow you to shape the sound to your liking or during a blend (e.g. cutting out the bass to mesh a song to the next, or raising the highs to compensate for a poor recording or bad acoustics).
PFL or Cue allows you to listen to a track before you play it over your speakers so that you may cue up or position a track so that it may be blended with the track currently playing.
Volume and crossfader contour allow you to adjust the slope the faders follow. Think of it as skiing where you can go on a sharp slope which is fast or a gradual slope which is slower. If you are a battle DJ you want a sharp slope so that your fader will react quickly and a club/trance DJ will want a gradual slope for nice long blends.
Outputs are a valuable asset on a mixer. Ideally you would like to have a balanced master out, a balanced booth out and a zone output. Balanced outs provide the best in sound quality but if you don't have it don't sweat it, just get better cables. Having more that one output is useful because it allows you to connect your sound in many different ways such as having your main speakers on your master, your subs on your booth and monitors on the zone output. Again, this is useful because it allows you to shape your sound to your tastes or the characteristics of your venue. There are a wide variety of mixers to choose from with good selections available for beginners.
