(no subject)
My DJ skills are improving immensely. I recorded myself looping a short section of a break and there's a very noticeable improvement each iteration. I've spun one party so far. I rocked 45 minutes or so of the WOBC block party a couple of weeks ago. I refused to be rained out, and so did those who stayed playing basketball or listening to me. Hopefully I'll spin another one which may or may not go down during Commencement. I buy 40 or so records in lumps each month. Most are singles, giving me 1 or 2 songs for each (not including dirty/clean/instrumentals/a Capella and the occasional awesome remix or short b-side). I need serato. WOBC receives promo material in CD-R or digital format. Hip hop workgroup got one promo vinyl single among a box full of slimline CD-R cases. Vinyl promo is nonexistant except for Def Jam which still issues vocal/instrumental both-sides-the-same 12"s, and even those are switching to become bullshit price-hiked picture discs which I can't even fully appreciate. At this point I don't have a setup which would let me produce awesome mixes as I think of them. Acquiring this setup would mean more investment in gear which means I have to stop buying records for a bit. Buying records is not totally useless. 12" singles come with vocal, instrumental and a capella versions of songs I can maybe find in vocal (often dirty) form on a blog or album. These singles often contain exclusive remixes most bloggers don't bother to rip. When they do there's no quality guarantee. Some blogs do post 12" rips. Their quality varies even mnore wildly than cd rips; needles are sometimes badly maintained giving the record lots of noise and often a severe pan in one direction. (my needles which I've had for 3 years do this hardcore) Anyway I make my record-buying choices well enough to avoid getting material I can find on albums. With serato I'd be able to fulfill people's impromptu requests even if it means breaking the mix. One blind man has tweaked serato to make it work with a particular version of JAWS windows screen reader. I don't even use JAWS, and I'm pretty sure the license I had years ago (from the NYC department of ed) has expired. My one stable windows machine has a short in the charger and no longer runs off batteries (or at all unless you jiggle the cord just right). I'd need a copy of XP to install on my Mac Mini and a working copy of JAWS, not to mention a Serato Sl1 piece of hardware. I have to do it. That's one step I can take towards getting serious with DJing. Until then I'll be leagues behind other DJs with instant access to what's hot and new off the net.