Tuesday, September 22, 2015

How to Get Started as a DJ

I've been DJing (mostly in clubs, okay almost entirely in clubs when clubs would book me) for about 6 years now and can at least tell you how to get started.

Step One: Equipment

You have two choices depending on budget, either get a cheap mixing software (which I wouldn't recommend getting immediately this comes later) or find the cheapest set of CD-J's (with built in mixer preferably) that you can. Only one feature is good for this set, Autodetect BPM. Once upon a time DJ's had to calculate and memorize the Beats Per Minute of each song in their heads if they wanted to mix the way they do in the clubs today. Today the decks do all the math for you, but more on this later. What's important right now is that you get your hands on the worst piece of equipment you can find. This is what you will be practicing on.

Step Two: Practice

This sounds more rigorous than it is, what you're really doing is fucking around. Find some crappy house techno (I don't care if you like it, you need a 4/4 beat around 120 bpm and don't you dare go any more complicated than that) and pop it in then fiddle with shit until you get an idea as to what the hell is going on. Leave no button unpushed or knob unturned.

Next you're going to attempt to mix two songs together, this is why you wanted something crappy. Use auto-detect to get the two songs at the same pitch and just get used to the timing and practice timing the songs so they blend together as seamlessly as possible. You see, all the best DJ equipment can literally do all this for you. It leaves you with more time to focus on your levels, effects, or even running multiple tracks together on a four deck set up. But the technology isn't perfect, some songs can confuse the software and sometimes it just doesn't work (or is available.) And if you don't acquire this skill you won't be able to compensate. Maybe your audience will never be able to tell the difference but believe me other DJs will and that could hurt you as there's always competition.

Practicing on bad equipment helps you in another important way; learning to deal with equipment failure, which happens and often. When I first went to digital I had a buddy who was still running CD-J's. The club we were booked at told him that he could just use the house set (which he'd used before and liked) so he came planning to do so. The house set was down that night; he couldn't spin. 


One night I was asked to patch into another DJs mixer but I had lost the proper cable to hook my decks up, while a friend hunted down the right cable for me I spun off a set of loners that was actually worse than the first decks I spun on. Because I had spent so much time practicing no one noticed that I sandbagged my first set, so I was able to make it up for the second set and packed the floor (I even recorded it.)

So practice with shitty music at first and as you become more comfortable with mixing and beat matching start using the music you like to hear. It's vitally important that a DJ love what they spin. DJs who are passionate about the music they play always spin the best sets. The ones who are bored and just going through the paces are plainly transparent.

Step Three: Mixing Software

This is where it gets better. After spending hours upon hours messing around with your crappy decks move up to a cheap or free mixing software, since now you know the basics you'll be able to pick up the software pretty quickly. Mixxx is free (I've never used it) I would suggest Virtual DJ because its cheap ($50) either way these will give you a better idea as to what a good set of decks can actually do. And here's where you'll want to make your first big decision:

Step Four: To Laptop or Not to Laptop

There's little difference for all but the best DJs and the truth is that most decks like OP is using can be run as controllers. The big difference is that if you already have a decent laptop, then running off your laptop is cheaper. But if you have the cash for a good set of decks (and the cases to protect them) you'll find them more versatile and give a better sound. I run off my laptop because I'm poor and already own a laptop. Though I wouldn't turn down a good univeral Numark decks. Yeah...that's some good deck.

So right about there is where to start. DJing can be as fun and rewarding as you like. Matter of fact, once you learn the basics DJing can be as easy or difficult as you like. If Steve Aoki or Tiesto have taught us anything it's that you don't necessarily have to actually spin to play a big crowd, or to get them dancing. So if you're going to spin, why not have some fun with it? God knows you're not really needed.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Cure for Tinnitus

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.

Friday, September 11, 2015

All About ISIS

The intelligence reports are saying that that there's 1.2 billion Sunni Muslims on earth, much of that population consists of young, poor, impoverished men, the Iraq and Syrian conflicts have caused 2 massive open wounds attracting foreign fighters from all over the world at a staggering pace like flies to rotting meat, the Islamic State has captured 80% of its war capital from winning battles, the group is making $1 million a day, they are run by former professional military generals and officers who know how to conduct warfare, and they have an extremely slick internet propaganda wing in a world fueled by twitter and youtube.

The reports are saying all of this, that there's no ground forces currently battling them other than the Kurds, who are out matched, out gunned, out equipped and out manned, along with the fact that Turkey is bombing them. The only other force is Shia militants from Iran, who aren't necessarily concerned with defeating ISIS as much as they are with filling in power vacuums left in ISIS wake in Iraq. Every city they capture, the people greet them with open arms, but our media and politicians would tell you its just a blood bath of murdering and slave markets. ISIS knows what they are doing, they know better than to take large urban areas that wouldn't sympathize with them, what little resistance they encounter is immediately crushed to the sound of applause and religious cheering.

One of ISIS senior bomb makers was recently captured and interviewed by western journalists. He said, "What the Islamic State has done in this last year, it cannot be undone, the Caliphate is established and Islam is coming." That statement is true, US leaders and public can't stomach another middle east war for a while so don't count on us, and Europe is just filled to the brim with pacifists who never think war is a solution even when its on their doorstep. That basically leaves Israel and Russia. Israel won't do anything because the UN would be screaming at the top of their lungs humanitarian crisis, and Russia can't do much because every bullet they fire will be supporting Assad, and apparently removing this single man from his power is more important than millions upon millions of displaced worn torn people living in a fucking gaping open wound of a country.

So Russia, one of the nations that might be willing to do what it takes to take out IS is pressured to stay out because they appear to be helping Assad (which is true). This dynamic does nothing but help IS by blocking any Western invasion because they would cross Russia, and it blocks any Russian invasion because of pressure from the west to remove Assad. Great, so all ISIS has to do is keep Assad eating lobster in Damascus and they prevent both Russia and the West from lifting a finger. The only strategy currently in place is this drivel repeated again and again about the 'Gulf states' who are secretly are rooting for ISIS (the same states who won't even take Syrian refugees) and don't even think about any of the Gulf states putting boots on the ground, for every one of their soldiers who enter Syria, 3-4 militants will enter from that same country to help ISIS. There is no 'gulf states solution' those countries are filled with young Muslim men watching IS on liveleak like its HBO prime time. We might feel warm and fuzzy when the Queen of Jordan says gulf states should fight ISIS, but make no mistake that is definitely not what the people of Jordan are saying, along with any of the other nations in the region.

This is what the intelligence reports are saying. It doesn't look good... the bombing campaign is like trying to kill a bunch of wasps with a large truck (good luck). The Islamic State will not be stopped until boots are on the ground, fighting them door to door, street to street, and good luck with that when every town and city they invade greets them with open arms. It would be Iraq 2006 all over again, but much worse. IED's going off on every block, and a much more organized, powerful and driven resistance group fighting you on every street corner. If you do manage to remove ISIS, you will have done so by leaving a generation of men, women and children with pain and suffering 10 fold of that which caused IS in the first place.

Make no fucking mistake about folks, IS is here to stay. This is the perfect example of a wicked problem, and no that's not an excuse for not having a solution for a difficult problem, its what happens when several large geopolitical forces all want to have it their way. Its what happens when a bunch of fucking elitist assholes start playing chess with human lives, nations become meat grinders.

Reminds me of Vietnam to be honest. That entire war started with everyone thinking a month of bombing runs would end the entire conflict. Several years and a few 'advisers' later and America is drenched in one of the most brutal and confusing conflicts it's ever faced half a world away with people at home defiant against it the entire time. The only difference is that Vietnam didn't have a history of religious fanatics sweeping over the entire middle east in a few decades with an ultra zealous religious army. People forget that this is not new for Islam, and history is repeating itself.