Since I got back into DJing one of my items i have tried to wrap my head around is how to store my things that “don’t live at the top”, my mixer, mics, and the like all need a home to live in. By mid-2015 I had worked with a few custom cases and boxes, but none quite were the right fit for me. I wanted something that I could swap between ceremony and reception if needed, I wanted a relative lightweight way to carry things. I had discovered the SKB Shallow Roto Rack.

So my first setup was rough but I knew where this was going. Having a “digital box” that held my digital mixer, IEM, and power was going to keep things all together while I could expand and swap around my microphones. This is a configuration I ran with till mid-2022. As ever the clean-freak that I am I wanted a little bit more of a clean wire look. I wanted to reduce the number of cases. Maybe I was just tired of the old setup and was ready for something fresh.

And this was a VERY clean look. The wires all had great management. But that is about where the positives stopped. This new setup had some inherent flaws in the design, including:

• With everything in one box the front became too front-heavy making for an awkward carry
• The Gator cases had a terrible cover design that was a PITA to work with
• I lost a major element of my modular setup, microphone modularity

And sure enough for the 2023 season I was getting more larger microphone requests and the shortcomings of the new design were just too big to ignore. So the case swap of 2023 began.

And the end result allowed me to work in a >4 microphone ceremony and I was very pleased with the outcome.

So some lessons learned in all this. While the single-case design was more pleasing to the eye, it’s shortcomings outweighed keeping that as part of my setup. Sometimes, your original ideas still are the best ideas.