Thanks to being much more active lately, I thought I’d share my current DJ setup with you.

Be aware: My main focus is still webradio broadcasting and (podcast) recording (yes, I upload my shows to Mixcloud, on a semi-regular base; ie. I’m picky with recordings :))

Current DJ station:

Hardware:

ThinkPad T400, Core 2 Duo (P8600), 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1440 x 900 WXGA+ screen.

Software:

Bunsenlab Linux, Internet DJ Console 0.8.17

Which was actually my fallback system, but has been used as the main DJ station since April 2019.

Future upgrades:

A bit of a background story: The original system (Thinkpad T520) was also my workstation, which I had to put aside / replace with a better (and later produced) variant of the same T520 series to improve on my work situation. By profession I am a web developer cum frontend designer, and needed a working fallback solution whenever there is an issue or outtake with cable internet (Unitymedia), but my old system simply didnt have these built-in, so I decided to setup my other T520, which had been sitting around for a few months already, as my new workstation. Doing this, I had to install a new Linux distribution because my old one was nearly “done” / not easy upgradable because about 1/3 of it was self-compiled, and when I tried to set it up for my usual web radio stuff, I nearly fucked up the whole audio system. I tried twice and both times failed, so I decided to use the above mentioned system instead.

One major disadvantage is the broken microphone jack, which seems to be a regular issue with these series. Replacing it with an USB sound interface has proven to be atrocious, as the permanently powered 3,5mm jack would crash the whole audio system whenever you even just BREATHED in its general direction or even just area.

I am going to replace it in the next two weeks with the old, repurposed, soon-to-be-upgraded T520 (with a quadcore CPU), effectively turning it into a T520p.

Also, I want to buy some better, decent audio hardware, than the simple, garbagy stuff I’ve been using so far:

• Microphone: Sennheiser E845
• USB Audio Interface: Behringer Xenyx 302 USB
• A simple DJ mixing desk, the Behringer NOX101; mostly for switching audio between my video streaming and the auxiliary system, but its always a good thing to have additional audio hardware sitting around, you never know when you might it 🙂

Video streaming system:

Hardware:

ThinkPad P50, i7-6820 HQ, 32 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe SSD, Nvidia Quadro M2000M, FHD screen, docking station (ThinkPad Ultra Dock), Sharkoon Sharkforce Gaming Mouse

Software:

Windows 10 Pro, OBS Studio, BeatDrop visualizer, Icecast server, VLC Player, VB Cable (for creating a virtual audio loop), VB Voicemeeter (the big brother of VB Cable)

Future upgrades:

Sitting around for a while has been the Seagate Firecuda 1 TB NMVe. According to the manual, the maximum available capacity with NVMe drives is 1 TB, but as I still got a second slot for an m2 drive, I am just gonna test if the setup of 256 GB + 1 TB is gonna work nonetheless. If not, then I gonna have to enjoy the "fun" of moving the Windows 10 installation over to the other drive (probably with the help of the external NVMe case I’ve got myself recently).

Also, I might want to upgrade to the maximum RAM capacity of 64 GB, eg. to run virtual machines with Linux and other OSes, maybe to run the whole DJ station setup inside of a virtuam machine, too.

Chat / auxiliary system:

Hardware:

ThinkPad T520, i5-2520M, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 256 GB SSD (Serial Ultrabay Enhanced), docking station (ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3), FHD+ monitor (1920 x 1200), Logitech G710 (Cherry MX Blue switches), Sharkoon Draconia Black gaming mouse.

Software

MX Linux 18.3, XAMPP, Geany IDE, Audacity, irssi, etc. pp. Also see System Statistics 2019.

This being my current workstation, its main purpose is to get my daily work done 🙂
Secondary purposes are, among others, to prepare my semi-live moderations using Audacity and a cheap 3,5mm jack microphone, for chatting on Twitch (via irssi), and so on.