Just wondering how you fellow DJs started on your music collection.

i started out with promo only doing school gigs then started collecting Greatest hits albums for diff gigs and so on. how about you?

Digging thru seemingly endless crates in dusty basements/attics of used record stores. I have the asthma to prove it.

circa 197something - First you buddy up with a Coca-Cola delivery driver and get him to hook you up with some crates. Then you fill em wif 12" black platters, and obsess over marking each disc with tempo/in out data, then, when that's second nature, re-obsess over replacing the best pieces because that black plastic gets damaged/noisy/scratchy/itchy (ok I went too far) with use and they will eventually be out of print and you won't be able to replace them so you buy tooooooo many copies and spend toooooo much money and you have to start robbing banks/old ladies/children's lunch money to support your habit only to get caught and convicted to 10 years hard labor or 8 weeks locked in a room with only an 8-track and an AM radio. (OPT for the 10)



circa 2005 - Get hooked up with promo only, or The Source for Music (ask for DJ Jahblomi, just do it), or another service with a substantial history and diligently read the charts and industry info from Mobile beats top 200 to Billboard. Then know your crowd and keep a list of frequent requests that you need to acquire. Eventually this will become second nature and you'll be a master of library maintenance. MAKE SURE YOUR LIBRARY INCLUDES LEGIT JOINTS. DON'T BE A FRIGGIN LEACH, BUY YOUR MUSIC. Good luck.



PS. Get a list of the now unavailable Platinum series, make sure you library has those joints, and that'd be a great start for any mobile library.

Good stuff Rox.



Eric Visa's (unfortunate circumstances...sorry Eric ) list of hip hop top 40's is a pretty good start too, Id make to sure to have all those.

Except the gangsta ish, right Jahaan? That'd make the list a top, I dunno, what'd ya say, top 7!

I got lucky- started DJing at a college radio station in 91-92; immediate access to TONS of vinyl and promotional copies of EVERYTHING you could imagine. It was a great FREE startup, but also overwhelming with the amount of crap albums I got, the pressure from the labels to chart the music they were sending me, and the constant hounding of the CMJ, et al for your weekly rotation charts. It had its cool moments thought; I remember a gal from a sorority begged me to get an instrumental of song that was not available as a single- I called the label and got a copy within a week, just in time for the fashion show she needed it for.


Buying vinyl is another headache- crate diggin' is the best way to describe it. If you are lucky, the record store will have turntables and ALLOW you to listen to the albums before buying.

I beg to differ, you most definitely bite!

Best advice for buying music: Listen before you buy. Make educated purchases. Some "albums" suck and you are better off just getting the single.

half.com & bmgmusic.com they have been invaluable to me in picking up late 70's/early 80's disco and disco influenced hip hop. as for the newer stuff... umm... take your ass to a few parties and figure out what you would bugg out to.

Has anyone mentioned rotations dot com yet? It's the place to go for collections similar to platinum.

Mofo,

Do you do biz wit rotations?

I took a quick look through some of "rotations" lists... IMHO, I am not impressed. The Plat-Series is LOADED with hits. Rotations' list is not impressive- I really didn't see anything that made it an "eassential" for a mobile DJ...

Rox- No. I don't mean to advertise for them but it seems like it's the type of information people seek on this board (over and over and over )

Quote:

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I took a quick look through some of "rotations" lists... IMHO, I am not impressed. The Plat-Series is LOADED with hits. Rotations' list is not impressive- I really didn't see anything that made it an "eassential" for a mobile DJ...

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In the world of the blind, the one eyed man is king. There isn't much out there for buying an entire catalog at once. If you can get your hands on a Platinum collection, do it. For those who cant, a few of the rotations libraries will put you in business quickly.

If I needed a collection fast, I'd consider one of their big catalogs for about $250-300. Then I'd supplement it with a few of the specialty catalogs like disco, 80's, etc... at 60-70 each. For $600-1000 you could have a collection worthy of wedding use shipped to your door all in one box before next week's wedding. You can also get an Excel spreadsheet from their web-site and print your song list. Just add some new music.

mofo,

I was just curious. I once used rotations but had some CS and merchandise issues and was curious if that had been solved. Been with The Source since and been happy.

Peace!

The Source is awesome I've never had a problem.

I started mine by spending my weekly bus fare home on records, I then worked out that if you live on a diet or cornflakes and cheese sandwiches you can buy even more records.

Then I discovered visa cards.

I dont regret it one bit

I started buying cd's when my mom bought a $150 Magnovox boombox with cd/tape combo. She was in the music clubs and I'd always beg for one cd each time she ordered. Then I just said, 'what's the worst that could happen' and started filling out those magazine drops every few weeks. I was like 15 years old and I started getting packages of 8 and 12 cd's at a time. Had about 6 accounts going, so I'd pay the whole bill off a year later when I got a job and had that rotation going for about 4 years. I'd get the whole BMG line up for Rap, and had to deal with some crap like Me Phi Me (even though I DID dig a few of the beginning songs) and Shaq. But if it weren't for those clubs I would never have known about the Grand Puba's Real to Real or Apache's Gangsta B***h. If I didn't catch that weeks Yo MTV raps I was out in the cold, so those clubs got me my rap fix.

I even signed up for that rap video club that would send out a tape once a month for like $4 plus $4 shipping, and that's how I caught Coolio's County Line 6 months before he even dropped. They had sweet Del and other underground cats' videos that normally weren't available on MTV.