DJ Accessories

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Accessories play an important part in your setup and set. You will need 2 slipmats obviously, headphones, carts and stylus', and you could have a sampler or effects module if you were more experienced. All these make your setup complete and without them, it's pretty usless.

Samplers are little gizmo's that can record a part of a track for you to play again at a certain point in your mix. They can range from about 7 seconds up to about 30 seconds (I think :-S). These can be expensive, so you should only get one when your advanced and ready to try new things, as there is no point overloading you setup and getting confused.

Kaoss pads are also another type of sampler
/ effects system, which has a 4 second sampler and XY pad which is a touch pad which makes sound effects. These aren't really all that, and a little tacky and pointless. Some mixers like the Numark EM series have them built in.

Your slipmatts go ontop of the platter of your turntable so you can do a back spin, or manually rewind the record with out the record getting totally wrecked. You can get loads of different designs from record shops, or online equipment stores, and they usually cost between £10 and £20 for a pair.

Headphones are probally the most important accessory to have, as you can listen to the other channel or both so you know where to drop the next track in. And you can fiddle about with the gains or effects so you don't have to do it when it's playing out.

Carts are what the needle is held in, and they are also vital and should be well looked after, as they can damage your records. And the styli is what holds the cart onto the tone-arm. You shouldn't need to replace these to often, but simple carts like the Stanton 500AL will last about  6-12 months, depending on what you mix. If you are a heavy drum 'n' bass kid or a hip-hop slippy, then about 6 months, but if you spin house or trance then longer.


You can get info on carts and styli by clicking on this link
>>>> Carts and Stylus' Explained