If you are an aspiring DJ, you probably think that your audio speakers are the most important component of your arsenal.
After all, how are your amazing skills at scratching or yada-yada going to be heard if your speakers are poor? Also, what's with all the speakers that are out there these days, that means that the speakers are the most important part of your gear, right? Well, not really.
While I agree that your speakers and gear and such are very important contributors to your success as a performer, there is another often overlooked factor that is even more important.
This factor can destroy the impact of an otherwise great performance.
Ignore this factor at your professional peril! It may surprise you that arguably a most important component part of your gear is actually the physical location or venue of your event.
By that, I mean that you can have some great gear, but, if it's wrong for the place or the event,  your performance is headed toward mediocrity.
I should explain.
Of course I agree with you that speakers are important.
If you're like most DJs, the decision on what you should buy, and why you should buy it, was an annoying and tedious task.
After all, you don't want your perfect beat matching skills and your excellent track selection to be totally ignored because your sound is all distorted and soft.
That problem is a function of your speakers, and so the selection of those is critical.
But, you always have to match your gear and its use to the room or space of the event.
To ignore some basic principles of sound can be perilous to your budding career, to say nothing of your ability to hear your grandchildren later in life.
In my opinion, the most significant and important part in the sound reproduction and amplification chain is probably the most misunderstood and neglected.
That is to say that no matter what else, you need to be absolutely aware of the characteristics of the room you are in as you produce and amplify audio.
Unfortunately, your ability to change or adjust this component of your sound reproduction chain is usually impossible, or at least very difficult.
For the next little bit, let's delve into a brief overview of the immensely complicated and many sided subject of room acoustics and design.
My goal is to give you some helpful hints so that you can achieve maximum potential in whatever performance environment you are faced with.
For starters, you should be aware that there are many factors that go into defining the audio profile of any room or space.
Tomes have been written on this, but common sense would tell us to pay close attention to a few of the most important details that would immediately effect your performance in the space at hand.
VENUE SPACE SIZE AND DIMENSIONS.
The first of these important factors is the size of the room for the gig.
For this article, I am going to divide the room size in two parts; the first part is the dimension of the room, which is height,  width, and length.
The second part is the volume, measured as a cubic space.
Simply put, the room volume is an all important criteria for choosing which loudspeakers and amplifier to use.
You'll need to achieve the desired loudness, or sound pressure, and in a large room that will take equipment that can fill-up the room with your sounds.
  Pretty simple to say, but the larger the room the larger and more powerful your gear needs to be.
For small applications, smaller speakers are dictated.
Make a mistake in either direction and you can have negative consequences.
In regards to room dimensions, it is important to note that the ratios of the height and length and width of the room will determine what are the resonating frequencies for your space.
Resonating frequencies are what determines the type of sound in the room.
While the speaker placements are important, keep in mind that the diagonal of the room, which is the longest dimension, will determine how the low frequencies are heard.
Don't get lost in this math, but for adequate bass response, you need to make sure that there is at least 15 feet on the diagonal for you space.
What this means is that depending on your room, better low-range sound can be produced over a 15 foot distance or more.
Use diagonal directions to help you here.
The goal is plenty of bass sound pressure, but with clarity, not mud.
RIGIDITY AND MASS.
The next factors that play a considerable role in how you will sound in a given space are the rigidity and mass of the room.
Again, you need to pay attention to the low frequencies of your audio.
That's because low frequencies are powerful indeed.
(Who hasn't been annoyed by the thump from the neighbor kid's car as it passes by the house late at night?) Low frequencies can cause less rigid walls to flex, dissipating the audio and cheating your sound of its impact and length.
More rigid walls and room construction have less movement, and that helps maintain the sound wave's structure.
This means that the more rigidity we have in a room, the more defined and powerful the bass will be.
  Now, here is a summary of what we've discussed so far.
In an ideal setting, we would have complete rigidity and heavy mass to support it.
Of course, nothing is perfect, but if you know what your ideal, or benchmark,  is, then you can better measure what you have to work with.
If you have a space that has imperfect walls, at least as far as rigidity and mass goes, you'll have to setup your gear to try and accommodate the shortcomings.
For example, many events are held in ball-rooms in hotels and convention settings with pull-out walls or room separators.
These "walls" are very poor on the rigidity and mass scale, and so will tend to dissipate and muddy the low ranges.
Prove it to yourself by going into the adjacent room while the music is playing.
I'll bet you that the bass seems louder in the adjacent room than in the event room.
This is common.
There are some techniques to overcome and improve this situation, but those will be the topic of another article.