Return of DJ Flemming Bo

DJ Flemming Bo by Charlene Winfred

My DJ setup around the year 2000

Sometime back in the stone age, I had a nice DJ setup in my flat in Copenhagen. I mentioned this in my Dreaming Out Loud: My Journey Into Music Photography story and you can see a snapshot of the setup from the year 2000 on the right. I sold off my 2 x 1210s decks, my Pioneer DJM-600 mixer and all of my 300+ records in the mid 00s in part to fund my photography gear. I have missed my music gear ever since.

DJ old geezer at Rumkraft!

Living as a nomad, traveling the world, towing decks, mixers and vinyl is not really practical! So while shooting many music events I could only look at the musicians and the gear and dream of being able to spin the wheels of steel again. My dream came true when I had the opportunity to run a workshop in nightclub music photography. Around the same time some friends of mine launched the amazing Rumkraft electronic music school in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rumkraft is a fantastic place, a school, a workshop, a cozy hangout place, intimate concerts, talks – you must visit if you are in Copenhagen! I visited Rumkraft 3 times back in October and even got to DJ again a little bit – on vinyl too, wooohooo, first time in over a decade (vinyl, the only proper way to spin, hehe!).

At Rumkraft I also got to play with other awesome gear such as Ableton Push and I was hooked. I really wanted a new set of decks and a mixer, but it definitely does not fit in my luggage. So I started researching and after some shopping in Singapore and the USA I have now completed my DJ Flemming Bo on the Road setup. We are presently living in a great flat in Guanajuato, Mexico and the big kitchen table with a view over the city was the perfect place for my first performance.

DJ Flemming Bo and his on the road setup! Bringing down the house! Guanajuato, Mexico in the background.

The DJ Flemming Bo On The Road setup

Native Instruments Traktor Audio 2 soundcard (99 USD). This fantastic USB soundcard gives me a 2-channel output that is the minimum for DJing (a live channel + a cue channel). It also comes with DJ software:
Native Instruments Traktor LE software (free with soundcard). I remember using some DJ software on the PC back in about 1998, 1999. It was buggy as hell but it was still good fun and made me want to get real decks. Fast forward and nowadays, the software is amazing and a lot of DJs play music off their laptop at gigs (using CDJ or even vinyl decks for controlling the software). I am rather mind blown by how awesome this software is. OK I wish I had physical decks but the fact this even works and works well and I can beatmix on this is fantastic.
PokketMixer (about 100 USD, I got mine for 60). You do not actually need a mixer, you can use the internal mixer in the Traktor software. But I quickly learned that mixing without an actual physical interface just is no fun at all. So I saw this amazing tiny mixer in Copenhagen, called PokketMixer. It is an actual 2-channel mixer, not much bigger than a phone and runs on no battery! It is absolutely amazing. OK I wish it had channel faders and not just a cross faders but you cannot have it all. Highly recommended.
UrbanEars Zinken DJ headphones. I bought these on sale for 50 USD about a year ago, they rock.
Jawbone JamBox speaker. This is an oldie, bought this in the US back in 2012, it is beaten up and has some annoying quirks now after having been dropped 500 times but it still plays!
Macbook laptop. My trusty laptop, got upgraded last year (the old one is actually now in service at Rumkraft).
(oh and there is a glass of tequila too, for adding extra-amazing DJing skills)

Bringing down da house is all I can say about my new setup! This is so much fun! OK, I am really really missing some decks as using the mousepad and keyboard on the Mac is not quite the same as a 1210 or CDJ2000. But for a portable on the road setup, this is incredible.

The soundcard and mixer was all I was missing, so about 160 USD of investment was all it took to resurrect DJ Flemming Bo. So far, only Charlene and our neighbours here in Barrio Alto have been fortunate enough to be subjected to my selekta skills, but hey, it is a start!

Charlene took a lot of cool shots of me in a stripy hoody under this funky lamp here in the kitchen (she also filmed a short video, but I am sorry, that is just too much awesomeness for the world to see!). So let me end with Charlene’s awesome pictures and do keep your ears ready for some DJ Flemming Bo mixes!