Digital Music | Digital DJ Tips

September 23rd, 2011

Why DJs Will Always Steal Music (And Why We Won’t Help You To Do It)

by Phil Morse

By any means necessary: Cratedigging is part of what DJing has always been about, but there's more to how some of those records got there than you may think....

This site does not condone stealing music. We don’t talk about it, and we don’t help people to do it. It would be biting the hand that feeds us. Hell, it would be biting our own hand. After all, increasingly DJs and producers are one and the same thing.

Ah, but it’s not all as clean and easy as that. You see, DJs have always stolen music. In fact, so have producers (Amen break anyone?). Damn, is there anyone who’s not got their fingers in the musical till in this business? The answer is basically, no.

76 Comments »

September 5th, 2011

Review: ioSafe Rugged Portable External Hard Drive

by Phil Morse

It looks undeniably the part sat next to the MacBook Pro. But can it stand the rigours of DJing? Many have failed...

For the digital DJ, a good external hard drive can – depending upon your laptop – be a “nice to have” or an absolute necessity.

It’s good to have to make backups of your music (obviously an essential, although there are online backup options too) or if you wish to DJ from someone else’s laptop and software (ITCH 2.0, for instance, has made this drag ‘n’ drop-simple to do). But it can also be essential if you don’t have the space on your laptop for your music and so have no choice but to keep it all on an external drive.

18 Comments »

February 24th, 2011

What Every DJ Needs To Know About Music File Formats

by Phil Morse

Pic: Aishaw

With news this week that Apple wants to make “24-bit” files available through iTunes, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the music formats that are out there and look at what they mean for digital DJs.

As a digital DJ, it pays to know your audio formats: Not only should you be aware of the different audio formats that exist, so you recognise them when you come across them, but also you should know when the use of each of the formats is appropriate and when it is to be avoided. Let’s look a little closer…

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February 20th, 2011

Over To You: What’s The Best Way To Manage Music Across Multiple Systems?

by Phil Morse

Dropbox is one way to sync files across multiple devices and OSes, but is it the best way? Pic: Ashfame blog

Reader Tim Dorcas writes: “With over 100GB of music/samples in my collection, and the fact that I use three different physical systems in two different OSes (Mac OSX and Windows), it is getting harder and harder for me to manage all of this data.

I am looking for ideas on how to manage, organise, and sync my music. My current set-up is an iMac at home (as my primary computer), a Windows 7 laptop, a backup Windows 7 laptop, and a NAS for music and sample storage. I can’t be the only one struggling with this – any ideas?

23 Comments »

December 16th, 2010

3 Simple Steps To A Great Digital Record Collection

by Phil Morse

Learning to master online music searching is important in the digital DJ age. In this article we show you how.

Digital music distribution was meant to bring in an age of plenty for DJs. No longer did we have to rely on our local record shop to get the best music for our DJ sets, battling with all the other DJs in our town for the right to own a copy of the hottest, most exclusive tunes.

With digital, the playing fields were meant to have been levelled. We could now all have access to everything, and with the huge number of new ways to listen to and buy tunes, DJs could finally fill their virtual record boxes with what they wanted, wherever and whoever they happened to be.

10 Comments »

September 3rd, 2010

7 Deadly Sins of Record Collecting (And How to Avoid Making Them)

by Phil Morse

Are your records leading you astray? Repent while you can!

As a digital DJ, your tunes are the tools of your trade. They’re not a collection! “Collection” implies a quest for completion. It implies looking at rather than using. It implies that the act of collecting is the whole point – like collecting stamps or fridge magnets.

As a DJ I used to be pretty brutal with my records – they were already “tools of the trade”for me. I’d put them in white sleeves if the originals were flimsy, and throw the originals way; lend and borrow them; buy them again when they wore out. But I knew people who were plastic-sleeves-and-all-in-alphabetical-order types too – lots of people like that.

15 Comments »