D-Jam

I think that unless you’re using a Thinkpad or Toughbook, you should invest in a padded sleeve for your laptop. The two laptops I described honestly are built to take some punishment, as they were meant for businessmen jumping around the world with or even taking to a construction site.

I actually use my old metal record box. You know, the ones everyone bought years ago that constantly got stolen in airports. I put my Xponent, laptop, cables, headphones, backup audio CDs, and even my MPD24 in there. Fits all nicely.

A case is fine, but I suggest a padded sleeve for the laptop. You can find them at any office supply store or computer store.

Great job.

I’ll admit I use sync more now than I used to, but I still like that I can beatmatch by ear simply because in every set there’s always one track that doesn’t match up well and thus you have to go manually.

Keep it up Lew!

I never saw a “consistently bad” DJ, but I do remember the first time the big club in Chicago brought out the Crystal Method to play as DJs. They got drunk and trainwrecked like crazy…but people loved them because they were Crystal Method.

For all the guys who complain about kids on laptops stealing music, pressing sync, and undercutting pro DJs…I more get unnerved by big name headliners who can’t DJ to save their lives, but put out some big release that made them famous…and the supposed “musically minded” will love them the way Apple fanboys will love Steve Jobs no matter what he does.

I also remember going to a teen club to see my buddy play, and Playboy DJ Colleen Shannon was there. I came on the stage behind her to say hi to some colleagues, and I saw she really wasn’t even mixing, just sloppily fading one track into the next while showing off her tight body in a skimpy skinsuit. I found photos on the promoter’s site:

Been playing video games since PONG.

In the past we had a few Pong setups, then an Atari 2600, then a C64, then Windows 3.1 and a PSOne, PS2, XBox. I also had a Nintendo DS Lite, but sold it and got a PSP, which I sold a year or so ago.

As of now the only things I have to play games on is my PC and iPhone. PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 just seem like too much of an investment of time and money for me. I do more internet/geek/DJ stuff more than I do video games. All I’ll really play anymore are some FPS games on the PC or a variety of games on the iPhone.

Derrick May is probably the biggest proponent against the over-classification of music. In several interviews he’s gone off on how people seem to want to make a unique term for every kind of sound.

I agree with him when it came down to the subgenres that I’d see some people pushing as if it was their own “new thing”. I can see when you want to differentiate house from trance and those two sounds differentiated from jungle…but when I see variations of one sound being handed all these subgenre names, it’s ridiculous.

In the old days, DJs played across the board. House, pop, freestyle, rap, new wave, italo, industrial, whatever…as long as it had that beat, sounded good, and worked in the set…they would play it.

Adam Sharizman, post: 1965 wrote: Wow.. Orla Feeney’s track is really good! Is he related to D Jam?

No. That tumblr page is more or less an extension of my website. It goes back to the articles I wrote on how to succeed, when you go beyond gigs and promote yourself online. I didn’t want to bog down my regular blog with short posts and links to other stuff, so I use tumblr to post short 2-min clips of tunes I am into as well as links to new articles I write and articles/sites I come across that I think are cool. Every Friday I only post YouTube clips of old school music (Old School Friday).

The benefit is it’s another line in the water. Some people who surf tumblr or just the web in general can come across this, possibly get into it, and there on the right side are links to other social media outlets of mine as well as my website.

Since I’m not into producing music, content creation is a stronger point for me.

Adam, I hear what you mean, but despite that I came up on vinyl, I never really got that “you can touch it” hormonal rush others get. Usually when I listen to a piece of music that I got that rush. That’s just me…and why it never mattered to me if it was MP3 or wax.

I just think if DJs want to really get past the “there’s way too much music out there” problem, they should push to build a scarcity in their lives. Like I said, whittle a list of 100 tracks down to 10 and then you find out what you really like and what was “ok”.

Phil…your suggestions are right on point. If one is stuck in the “there’s way too much crap being released” problem, then it’s ideal to find good sources to tap on and let them do the looking for you.

mpusch88, post: 1758 wrote: Seems to me that high energy trance is somewhat a thing of the past, there aren’t many producers nowadays that still do the whole uplifting trance thing. Aly & Fila come to mind as a few of the only remaining DJ’s of that style… I’m sure there are many more around, but not with any sort of commercial success.

As long as the melodic sounds stay in music, im not too picky about what genre its in. At this point its starting to look like prog house is gonna be the most melodic, while trance is seeming to get a more tech/hard dance feel to it.

At least thats how I feel.

There’s loads of energetic trance being made even now…but unfortunately it has become formulaic. So you’ll hear 10 well-put-together tunes that sound solid, but aren’t much different from one another.

I will agree more “housey” styles of trance are popular, as we see even big events like Sensation turn their back on their trance roots and the top producers have gone more “house”. Yet you look at Vandit Music and it’s a lot of great energetic trance.

It’s just more underground now. The downer though is that the crowds/fans only seem to like it if it’s coming from a major headliner. It’s still hard for newer guys to really break in.