I’m Now A Hobby DJ

[DJ Bobcat]

I thought I’d start up a thread for Hobby DJ’s, which is what I am now. I recently shut down my Mobile DJ business. Covid pretty much shut me down, anyway. I just made it official by dissolving my LLC. I was going to shut down in another year or so anyway, as I’m going to move back to Texas in 2023 (that’s another topic).

However, mixing is still something I enjoy doing, and I haven’t sold any of my gear yet, so I’ll continue to DJ for my own pleasure, and perhaps for an occasional block party or charity event.

I’m going to keep one of my two rack systems in tact, I’m just not sure the other one will stay in the rack. Racks make things easier to move around, but they are not really so attractive in a home studio setting. I’ve removed all the redundancy (and complexity) from my Small (rack) System, and it’s currently set up in my home office. My Large System is still in tact, and that’s the one I’ll keep for times I want to do some kind of event. I’ll pull out all the light control stuff, as I can’t see using it again, and I’ll sell all my lights. DJ lighting was always my least favorite part of DJing. I might end up selling my Small System as a turn-key starter system. It’s got everything you need for a good size party (100 people or so). Speakers are another issue. I have three RCF EVOX-8’s I LOVE them. I had three in order to have a backup, but I also used all them for larger events. I’m gonna have difficulty parting with any of them, but I sure don’t need them to DJ at home. I have some good studio monitors for that.

I’m also getting ready to sell all my unused audio gear, and I have a ton of it. As a mobile DJ, I had duplicates of several components, plus I had a lot of gear I used a few times, but found it did not work well for me. I have several controllers that I tried out before finally settling on my Denon MC6000MK2’s (I have two).

So that’s enough about me. Are there other hobby DJ’s on this board? Share your story.

If we get a lot of participation, perhaps we can start a Hobby DJ Forum. There’s a bunch of topics to talk about!

[Manu]

Another chapter. Yes keep some gear, people will ask you for the odd gig once in a while...

[shoot summ]

I consider myself a hobby DJ, I do it for fun, and I'm selective about the events I will do. Mainly do things for friends and family.

I'm in Tulsa, make it to OKC often, let me know what you are selling when you are ready, I'm always looking...

[DJ Bobcat]

I consider myself a hobby DJ, I do it for fun, and I'm selective about the events I will do. Mainly do things for friends and family.

I'm in Tulsa, make it to OKC often, let me know what you are selling when you are ready, I'm always looking...

What kind of gear are you using now? How do you set up when you play for friends and family?


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[shoot summ]

What kind of gear are you using now? How do you set up when you play for friends and family?


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Sound gear is EV ETX18/10's, Pioneer DDJ-SR, VDJ, Allen and Heath mixer, and budget wireless mics. Lights are mainly pars for up lighting, do have a Swarm and Starburst, all Donner wireless. I have been using MyDMX 3, but am converting to SoundSwitch.


I base my setup on where the event is, how much I need to cover sound wise, what lighting is needed, time of day and how much light is in the venue.

[Dix]

I guess you could say we got lucky. I'm not even sure I have even mentioned it here but we retired in 2019... July 2019 was our last gig. So, covid didn't affect us. When covid did hit, we were feeling lucky that we made the decision to retire when we did, so we didn't have the stress of being in business, advertising etc during that time. Most of all, fortunate that we didn't feel the need to play at events during that time , or telling people we wouldn't play or have to make specific, uncomfortable rules for these situations.

We retired with 17 years in the business. We started in 2002. I kept all of my equipment so far. At this time, I just havent wanted to part with it. Maybe one day.

[DJ Bobcat]

I guess you could say we got lucky. I'm not even sure I have even mentioned it here but we retired in 2019... July 2019 was our last gig. So, covid didn't affect us. When covid did hit, we were feeling lucky that we made the decision to retire when we did, so we didn't have the stress of being in business, advertising etc during that time. Most of all, fortunate that we didn't feel the need to play at events during that time , or telling people we wouldn't play or have to make specific, uncomfortable rules for these situations.

We retired with 17 years in the business. We started in 2002. I kept all of my equipment so far. At this time, I just havent wanted to part with it. Maybe one day.

When Covid hit, ALL my gigs got canceled, but I had already scaled back, and wasn’t advertising anymore. All my business was through word-of-mouth, and I was only doing fund raisers and corporate events. It was a great niche for me. Most of those events have NOT returned. The DJ business was never a big money maker. It kept me active after I retired from my IT career, so all I really cared about was breaking even. Seven years in business, and only three were profitable, but it allowed me to buy whatever gear I wanted. Now that I’m approaching 70, it’s getting kinda hard to setup and tear down by myself, so I’m not going to do anything requiring big setups. I’ll do some private parties, perhaps, but nothing too strenuous. I had a lot of fun, and made some great friends. It was worth it. I already sold my minivan. I still have an SUV, but it doesn’t hold as much, so there’s no temptation to load up a ton of gear and do a big event. I’m moving to the sticks in Texas in about a year and a half. The town I’m moving to has less than 3000 people... probably not much call for DJ’s. I can still play for my wife and my dog... and the wildlife.😂


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[DJ Bobcat]

Sound gear is EV ETX18/10's, Pioneer DDJ-SR, VDJ, Allen and Heath mixer, and budget wireless mics. Lights are mainly pars for up lighting, do have a Swarm and Starburst, all Donner wireless. I have been using MyDMX 3, but am converting to SoundSwitch.


I base my setup on where the event is, how much I need to cover sound wise, what lighting is needed, time of day and how much light is in the venue.

Seems to me you have a pretty good setup. Maybe a 4 channel controller would be a good upgrade, but I doubt if you’d be interested in the one’s I’ll be selling (American Audio VMS 4.1 and Pioneer DDJ-T1). I might be selling one of my Denon MC6000MK2’s. I already sold my Denon MC-7000. I have several mixers and lots of lights. Some of my lights were never used and still in the original boxes. I also have a huge bag of cables. I have speaker stands I have absolutely no use for since I sold off my speakers years ago when I bought my EVOX-8’s. I downsized and got rid of 10 speakers and subs that were all way too heavy for this old man. In the next few months I’ll decide what to sell and what to keep, then I’ll post my for sale items in the Classified section on this board.


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[Hanginon]

I'm watching you (Handinon in another life) !!

[DJ Bobcat]

I'm watching you (Handinon in another life) !!

Since you’re here, maybe you can comment on this...

When I had my DJ business, I used Traktor. Of all the DJ apps I tried, Traktor was the most intuitive to me, though it did lack features the other major players have in their apps. Despite some recent updates, Traktor still lags behind. Nevertheless, it worked fine for me. Now that I’m a hobby DJ, I probably would not pay for DJ software. I already own several Traktor licenses, so I’ll still use it, but I’ve discovered that Mixxx works just fine, and it’s free. If I had never bought my Traktor licenses, and had only DJ’d as a hobby, I’d be satisfied to use Mixxx. Of course it was not always as good and as stable as it is now, but the current version is really quite good, and it runs on Linux, so you can build your DJ system around all free software, and not have to deal with forced updates.


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