Being the son of a DJ has plenty of perks. One of them is the musical education you get without even realizing it. Another perk is inheriting the actual catalog itself. Years ago, my dad decided CDs were the future. (I’ll spare you his rationale.) This was back in the era of Pioneer DJ’s CDJ-500s… yes, 1994, that long ago. So, his massive record collection, including a mountain of 7-inch singles, sat untouched for decades. Fast-forward to 2023. While cleaning out the basement, he found all of his vinyl 45s: dusty, dirty, forgotten. But a now-older-and-wiser me knew exactly what needed to be done, and so did my dad. I took them home, grabbed a Spin Clean from Amazon, and went to work. Once they were clean, I threw…
Author: Mike Márquez
“The standout feature is the Neural Mix integration… With the press of a button, you can split a song live into its core components: drums, instruments, and vocals.” I am pretty blessed as a DJ. Having grown up the son of a club DJ-turned-mobile DJ, I have been exposed to DJing all my life. Having been a radio DJ at 18, and club DJ the year after, and now, still on the radio, and traveling internationally to do this, I can safely say that I have seen many technological leaps in our field since I first started. Here in 2025,…
“We’re now in the era of syncing, formats, and firmware and that means DJs need to be part tech support, part librarian, and still 100-percent performer.” I am blessed to have been DJing for a long time. I’ve played on Pioneer DJ gear like the CDJ-500s, the CMX-5000s, and everything in between – and now I’m often playing on some version of CDJ-3000s (when a venue has them). Needless to say, I am pretty looped in when it comes to tech. So, when I heard other DJs who play from USB sticks or SSDs start to complain, I didn’t understand.…
“The Howler Recorder + Streamer solves one of the biggest issues DJs face: clean, high-quality audio without a messy setup.” Back in 2020 while the world was locked in quarantine, I, like most DJs, first decided to DJ on Instagram, and then settled on Twitch as my platform. However, living in NYC – the greatest city in the world – I decided to do it differently: I would stream outdoors and take advantage of Gotham’s unique surroundings. I live-streamed outdoor DJ sets for over a year. And as amazing as that was, and even though I have video of me…
“Could this be the elusive tool that simplifies the process without sacrificing quality? With a plethora of mics on my shelf, I was definitely interested in finding out.” – Mike Márquez During my run hosting “DJs After Dark,” which I streamed on Twitch and Facebook, and in my current on-air roles at Mix93FM and NEXT Dance Radio, I spent and still spend countless hours wrestling with audio setups. Tangled cables, finicky interfaces, and the constant battle against room noise are all real things. So, when the promise of a streamlined solution came my way, we can definitely say it caught…