About Us

Drift DJ Industries was founded by Jared Wheeler, a DJ, producer, and 25-year veteran of the software, design, and marketing industries. After moving to Chicago in the early 2000’s to get closer to the house music scene there, he immediately fell in love with the city's famed industriousness.

“It’s a place that celebrates working your ass off to bring an idea into the world.  Music, theater, architecture, manufacturing… it’s all the same thing here.  If you can imagine it, you can probably find a way to build it in this town.

Working in software and marketing by day, and DJ-ing and producing by night – Jared began obsessing over DJ hardware designs.

“There were about 5 years of prototyping to get a design with enough umph to do all the signal processing math, but the moment that first machine booted up and played like a real DJ mixer – I thought ‘Oh, this little thing is going to be so much fun.’”

After ten years of working towards a completed prototype, with input from DJs, synth performers, and manufacturers, we are thrilled to bring Zero to market.