Over To You: What Can I Do To Help My DJing While At Work?

Reader Shawn Pryzbilla writes: “Like many of us in the digital DJ realm, I work in front of a computer all day long, and, unfortunately, I am not doing much related to DJing. I am writing to Digital DJ Tips in hopes of finding new ways to maximise my time at work to the benefit my DJing. What sort of activities can I do at work while away from my home library? Are there any tools you would suggest that would allow me to listen and manage my home library from work? What sites / aggregators do you use to make use of your “ear” time while working on other things?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Good question. Everyone in your position reading this will have thoughts, so I’m hoping our community of DJs will help you out in the comments. For me, I like to listen to aggregators like The Hype Machine; I keep a scratchpad of tracks, albums and artists I’m interested in in a Dropbox folder that’s synced between all of my computers and which I can shuffle in a lightweight media player like VLC really easily from anywhere for background music so I can constantly be auditioning new music (I load the same music onto my iPod Shuffle for when I go running etc).

I also subscribe to radio shows I love on services like like the excellent Mixcloud; and for when I really should be concentrating and can’t afford the distraction of the music I love, I zone out with Soma FM’s Drone Zone so at least I’ve got some kind of music on.

So, over to you. What are your secrets for getting ahead in your DJing while whiling away the day in the office? Please let Shawn know in the comments.