Arthur Kokanov

Wednesday!

I was reading a blog about the drum and bass festival in T.O. and it got me totally pumped! I just had to do a quick update about priorities…

I came back home from work yesterday and played a 40 minute set I felt pretty tired so i spent some time with the gf. at around 11:30 before going to sleep i decided to play some GTA IV and that lasted until 2am even though I have to wake up at 6:30am for work. While I was falling a sleep though I was kicking myself… I could have spent that time working on music! I am all for having time to relax and w.e but remeber your priorities! Do you want to be a gamer/couch potato or do you want to go out and accomplish something great!? So just as a reminder for myself, put away your game controller or the remote to the tv, and go play some fucking crazy beats.

More and more I’m starting to realize that I can accomplish something great with this DJ thing. There is just so much I can do with it! All I do is think about it all day and all night. I want this… and I want it bad.

Another monday! Time flies fast…

Playing an hour a day worked out pretty well and I refined my music crate even more. Over the next two weeks I will be chopping my music selection even more to my most fave songs. My blends have been getting better too but it still a hit and miss. I am dropping where I am not supposto and my music selection seems on and off, the energy isint there.

My younger sister told me she has hook ups with some pretty decent names in the club scene (she def knows more ppl more then me when it comes to the club scene). She wants to help me out but i dont know how to utilize this most efficiantly (i am open for tips). I dont feel ready for a real club scene yet but I need to start getting a name out there and that means I must post up mixes.

I finally got together with my designer for the biz cards and we went down to the print shop. There have been some complications with the the dark border design and color. Whenever you are designing custom cards always set up a bleed (the extra space for your card to be cut.) which we were missing. If you are setting up a black border around your card you cant print it digitaly because the cuts wont be accurate, so you must print it offset (i think that’s what it’s called which means at a site where they use non-digital color and special cutting press), and that goes up in price since mixing those colors costs more. Lesson learned, so those should be done soon.

Last but not least I was not happy with the quality of mixes i created so I could not set up my mix CD that will have to wait a bit.

The goals for this week:

– Cut the fat from my music crates.
– Mix for an hour each day.
– Keep reading the music manual.
– Rework biz cards.

I am looking for a couple of suggestions too. I have alot of free time at work that I feel I could be using more productively for DJ related stuff. The thing is though, i feel scattered. I know DJing is about the music and all but maybe something i can read or do that will in the long run help with my mixing and all that (like the articles on the DJ forums which I have read 90% of lol). Another thing, i know i’ve been repetative with these journals (same goals and such) so im open to suggestions on how i can improve on these posts. How can i be more helpful to the community and new DJ’s.

I was looking at the 400, il see maybe the 300 would be better

gdabegesin, what software do you use with your laptop?

Also would VCI be a good choice for a laptop/controller combo for travel?

Hmmm thanks for the tips, is there any software is should look into if i want to use just the laptop?