Two or four channels: that’s the question I spent the longest mulling over when I bought my first proper DJ setup. I went for four, because more seemed better. After a year of playing, I’d barely touched channels 3 and 4. For most DJs, two channels are plenty, and upgrading only pays off if you’re regularly running more than two sources at once.

A crash that sounds when you hit the floor tom, a kick that plays twice or a hi-hat that stays open while your foot is on the pedal: trigger problems are infuriating, but you can almost always fix them with a few settings in your electronic drum kit’s module. You just need to know which setting to change and, above all, by how much.

For me, battery-powered pars are the best invention in mobile lighting in recent years. The same goes for wireless DMX. And when a light has both, even better. I’ve rolled out more cables in my life than I care to remember, and usually coiled them back up long after the bride and groom had gone to bed. These days, you put the light down, pair it with the transmitter and walk away. You then pick the colour from your controller without taking a single step towards the light. 

Audio over a network cable. When I first read about it, I thought: great for the big boys with a lorry full of flight cases, but not for me. I know better now. An audio network like Dante swaps that back-breaking multicore for the same little cable that sits behind your router, and that’s simply a smart move, even for a pub band or a village church.

Balanced outputs on a DJ controller, such as XLR or 6.3 mm TRS jack, aren’t there to make your mix sound better. They’re there to keep interference and hum out on the way to the speakers. At home, with a short cable, you’ll barely notice the difference. On stage, you will.

Large diaphragm or small diaphragm: it’s the first choice you face when you’re looking for a condenser microphone. The chunky ‘side-address mic’ and the ‘slim pencil’ work in the same way, but the size of the diaphragm determines what they’re good at. The large diaphragm captures quiet sources better and sounds a little fuller in the low end; the small one is better for sound arriving from the side and for stereo. That said, the difference is smaller than you might think.

A string winder: is it a genuine tool, or just a toy for guitarists who can’t be bothered to turn the pegs? Honest answer: you can get by perfectly well without one. But it saves so much winding and costs so little that you’d be daft to leave it on the shelf. In short: is it a luxury? Yes. Unnecessary? No.

Allegro, adagio, forte, piano: anyone who has ever opened a recorder or piano book knows them. Musical terms are Italian, and they have been for centuries. Italy led the way in music history for long enough to turn its language into the language of music, and once a standard works, nobody is in a hurry to replace it. Even composers who tried using their own language couldn’t get rid of the Italian.

Marshall is arguably the best-known amplifier brand in the world, and that’s no coincidence. A drummer with a music shop listened carefully to what guitarists were missing, and the answer, more volume and a rawer edge, became the sound of rock. It started with a handful of prototypes built outside the shop and ended up as a wall of cabinets on every major stage.

An ordinary piano is really a grand that’s got out of bed. The grand piano came first, with its horizontal strings and action, and only much later did the upright piano, also known as a vertical piano, come along. So what are the differences? And is one better than the other? Read on to find out.

Gig bag or guitar case? Every guitarist faces that question at some point, usually the first time you head out the door with your instrument. A case offers better protection, while a bag is lighter and more practical. Which one you need mainly depends on where your guitar is going and what it goes through along the way.

A record collection deserves better than a pile in the corner of the living room. Storing LPs properly comes down to four things: keep them upright, away from heat and damp, in decent sleeves and in a cabinet that can take the weight. Get that sorted and you’ll never have to deal with warped records or mouldy sleeves. I learnt that the hard way myself.