I've been streaming (mostly via virtual clubs in Second Life) for several years, but I just got my first "real life" gig this week, an upcoming wedding anniversary for a friend. Since I don't do this professionally my equipment is all bottom-of-the-barrel stuff and my friend will have to provide the speakers. I'm also not exactly new to public performance in general; I occasionally do voiceover stuff on the side and I perform with the community theatre as time allows.

Fortunately for me I don't need a lot in the way of mad DJ skillz: I and my audience are all baby boomers so I just need to crank out a selection of hits from the 40s through the 60s, played straight -- no tinkering with weird effects and scratches and beats and all that newfangled stuff you kids are into. Heck, I never even heard of a CDJ until tonight when I joined this forum!

"So, Segfault," I hear you say, "What exactly do you mean by bottom-of-the-barrel stuff?"

Funny you should ask. It's a Behringer Xenyx 502 with a USB adapter (also from Behringer) that converts USB to RCA cables for input and output. The tunes will come from my laptop, where I'm running idjc under Debian Linux. I like idjc because it lets me set up two different playlists, making it easier to smoothly transition from one song to the next; it also has several slots for bumpers or other sound effects that I can play with a hotkey.

I'll have a ton of questions about equipment over the next couple of weeks, but I know y'all don't like it when a newbie shows up and asks for critiques etc. on his or her first day so I'll just sit back and read some of the sticky posts before I shoot off my mouth.