Competed at the future DJ competition held at RMIT. Had no chance of winning since the winners had much more experience than I had. The winner -- DJ Flux was really good. He was a scratch DJ. Looked like he had at least 5 years experience. He went on to the state finals which will be held on 8th October. I'll hopefully have better luck next year :-P
Bought a pair of Sony MDR V250V headphones after realising that the time is up for my (cheap) Philips headphones. The Sony has everything I needed; it had rotating speakers, was lightweight, compact, and cheap ($50 after bargain)! I'm not sure if the Sony speakers lying on my ears rather than covering them would cause difficulty when I play for 4 hours or more at a stretch though. I chose the Sony over a Senheisser HD 212 which went for $100 (after discount from $115). The only possible advantage the Senheisser could have had is better sound quality (which for me is not that important when beatmatching on headphones), since the Sony is more compact and versatile and black in color (which I preferred over the silver Senheisser).
Had an awesome time at the Whistler Ski Resort -- ranked among the top ten Ski Resorts in the World! I was there for about a week and a couple of us checked out three of the clubs there. The one that stood out was Tommy Africa's (shown in the picture). They had a fairly large dance floor, and the DJ booth was covered in glass/plastic. The DJ had 2 x technics, a Numark (rack-mount) CDN 900 CD players (but later they seem to have upgraded to 2 x CDJ800's) and a laptop. The mixing on the night wasn't all that good, and the music was jumping between Top 40, House and RnB but the place was packed and the atmosphere was awesome!
Took a cable-car and went over to Whistler Blackcomb mountain to have a look at people skiing. The mountain was pretty big compared to Mt. Hotham here in Victoria. The Whistler Resort itself was enormous compared to the Hotham Resort -- Whistler had all sorts of restaurants with any type of cuisine you can imagine, plenty of pubs and nightclubs, lots of 5 star accomodation etc. But looks like Mt. Hotham is spending $500,000,000 on a shopping centre and some luxury accommodation on the Hotham resort, so hopefully, the next time I go over to Hotham, it will look like a mini-Whistler :-)
DJed at a friend's birthday party. I also bought a set of DJ lights from BigW for $45 on the same day. My friend had a good set of speakers at the house where the party was held (300 Watts RMS) to which I connected my equipment. The lights didn't work that well because the bass wasn't distinct enough (too much vibration), but I guess I shouldn't have expected too much for $45 anyway! Hopefully the lights should work better when connected with an RCA cable to the mixer.
I played RnB and HipHop for only about 45 minutes, but looked like everyone had a good time.
My second major function at Lustre Lounge. A girl was celebrating her 21st birthday and wanted me to play RnB, but with a lot of JLo, Brittany, Beyonce and Madonna. I bought a couple of Brittany singles and I already had an old JLo album and a few Beyonce tracks so I thought I was prepared. At the actual function I realised that neither of the Brittany singles (Toxic and Me against the Music) mixed with the average paced RnB music so I ended up not playing them. I also avoided the JLo songs since it looked like everyone was enjoying, so why ruin it? :-)
Spoke to Gary Couch (webmaster of RainbowRadio.com) about the Gemini BPM500 mixer. I asked him about how accurate the automatic BPM extraction was and he said: "I never thought much about the BPM display as I have been DJing so long that I can usually pick out the BPM within 5 beats of what it actually is and/or match beats while cueing within the headphones.". Hmmm, thats pretty cool. I also asked him about auto-start of the CD player (i.e. my Numark mixer starts the CD player on moving the crossfader) to which he said:"As for the question about starting the song on the fade automatic nothing I know will do this as that would be controlled by the cd player and not the mixer. It also would not be as acurate as simply starting manually.". This I thought was pretty weird :-/ I've seen at least one professional DJ using the fader to start the CD player and I was surprised that him being a professional DJ himself hadn't heard about it. Maybe it's rarely used then.
Started using the Denon DN 1800F twin CD player at Lustre Lounge. This needed a bit of practice (about 4 hours) because it was a bit different to my twin CD player in that no scratch support was provided, no looping, no manual BPM counting (which is useful for beginners) and no fader auto-start (which wasn't really needed). Also, the cueing in the Denon was a bit different to my Numark. The mixer (Gemini BPM500) at Lustre was old, but had automatic BPM detection. This was good for many House tracks but when it came to RnB music, the BMP detection went crazy. I had to get used to mixing using only pitch control which turned out to actually be the way to go!
My first major function at Lustre Lounge. I had to play during the week for an engagement party of one of the bouncers/owners at Lustre. I was asked to play House music at the start and play the odd 80's classic (Retro, Rock 'n' Roll etc.) so I had a difficult time deciding which CDs to buy at HMV. Finally I decided to ask one of my friends to lend me his music collection, which had a lot of Retro and Rock 'n' Roll. At the actual function I had more requests than I have ever had till this day, and they were all from the Fiance :-) I didn't have a choice so I had to quickly change from House to Rock 'n' Roll, to Retro and finally to RnB. Wasn't a pretty sound :-/ Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the RnB the most.
I had my first performance (demo) at Lustre Lounge. I was nervous as hell, especially since I had never played for 4 hours before, infront of a manager and in a bar-environment. Although Lustre Lounge had their own equipment (Gemini BPM 500 mixer, two Technics 1200s and Dennon 1800F rack-mount CD players) I took my own equipment (rack-mount CDJs and mixer) and connected it all before I started.
I played RnB/Soul for four hours, most of them being music I had never heard before! I usually play RnB/HipHop but the stuff I was asked to play on the night was much more layed backthan what I was used to. The mixing wasn't that good since I didn't know the music well enough to structure the tracks well in the set.
But overall the manager and owner were satisfied with my DJing skills, but the manager said I'd have to play something a bit more upbeat from next time onwards -- i.e. he wanted me to play House music. So in other words, I was hired (with a constraint)!
I had no idea what House music was at that point, so I had a lot of catching up to do. From then on I spent about $50 a week on House CDs, and made myself a good House music collection (with quite a few dance/techno tracks as well).
I had my first performance at Lustre Lounge. Played RnB/Soul, but on finishing the manager said I'd have to play something a bit more upbeat and asked me to play House music from next time onwards. I had no idea what House music was at that point, so I had a lot of catching up to do. From then on I spent about $50 a week House CDs and made myself a good House music collection (with quite a few dance/techno tracks as well).
