Dec 27, 2009

So You Think You Can DJ - Track 2

From Brother Dan I got two new sets of slip mats for my turntables. I was in desperate need of new ones because the current pair were leaving marks on my records. So once I got home I of course had to try them out. The new slip mats have less friction the my old ones so that’s going to take some getting used to. But with the great vinyl transfer of 09 I now have all my vinyl correctly coded with an accurate BMP. This is what I’ve been missing all this time. I was rocking records back and forth with the greatest of ease. My gosh I’ve never had this much fun with my turntables. I also started using the faders (volume levels) to mix the records and keep the cross fader at center. This helped me keep thing organized in the headphones. I only stopped because I had to walk the dog and go to bed. If this is a sign of times to come, I can’t wait for my SL3. Oh, and because of my mom and grandma, I’m $540 closer.

Dec 7, 2009

So You Think You Can DJ? – Track 1

The Past:

I’ve always been fascinated with DJ’s for as long as I can remember. Well, I guess it can be traced back to 1991 or so when I first heard some techno that really grabbed me. I was at favorite store; Junk Yard. It was like if Hot Topic was cool, and had crushed cars in the store and chain link fencing on the walls. They were playing The Lords of Acid’s - Voo-Doo U. It was a few years later that I bout my first Technique 1200 and a mixer. Not sure what I was mixing with just one turntable. Oh right, I had the plan to get a second one, which I did a little while later. Over the next few years I started building my record collection.

Unfortunately I’ve never had a good job; or real good access to a record shop so I have a pitiful collection. And I was never very smart about my music choices. I have about 5 records of each genre. Some drum-n-bass, hardcore, trance, acid trance, dance and some other just weird stuff. I tired mixing them together but just couldn’t get it together. I did manager to pull out one hour long mix that sounds pretty good for the first 20 minutes, then I start to loose it with the rest of the set. If you really want to hear it, let me know and I’ll up load it. Years past and I sort of lost touch with my equipment, only playing with the records when I got really board and wanted to frustrate myself.

The Now:

Thanks to the power of Facebook I was able to reconnect with an old friend of mine. And get this, he’s a DJ. And an even bigger get this, he credits me for getting him into techno back in the day; thus spawning his love for music and DJ’ing. Those were some good days too. Staying up late and listening to DJ JT on Rev.105 FM and Big Daddy Greg Comstock on 93X FM.

Anyway, I’ve been picking his brain about his work and have gone to a couple of his shows and now I’ve got the love again.

I have no clue how this slipped past me, but he, and a million other DJ’s are spinning mp3’s instead of real vinyl. This is so my thing. I have so many mp3’s that I’ve all ready got a good start. But not many of them are DJ mp3’s, with nice long intros and outros for mixing. So at this moment I’m starting to save money so I can start buy DJ mp3’s. And better yet, this will be current music. The last time I bought a record was about five years ago or so. By mid January I’ll have enough money to buy the hardware necessary to connect my laptop to my turntables.

The Future:

My goal is to really get myself into DJ’ing. This will be the easy part. The hard part will to book one show. That is my goal. In one year, I want to book one show. I know I’ll be the opening and playing for a room of about 10 people while the rest of the people trickle in waiting for the next DJ or the headliner to start. And that’s fine. This is my I-don’t-want-to-go-through-life-wishing-I-had-done-something resolution.

I’ll try to throw up updates as I gain my new music, equipment and any other “ground breaking” events I encounter.