DJGold

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

Okay I have the equiptment.
I have been entertaining people with
My inexperienced yet adequate DJ skills for years.
And recently I have been booking some weddings although I have yet to book a 'party/event'.

But I look around at other DJ's song lists and I do not own maybe (on average) 1000 to 1500 'essential' songs.

I know that there are DJ compilation Cd's.

Where do I find them?
Are they the cheapest fastest way to beef up my collection.
Or should I keep haunting my record shops.

I always buy way too many CD's and the less I walk into a record shop, the better.

I wonder some times if I were to just buy the 1500 songs from ITunes, maybe that would be cheaper?

Once I buy ITunes songs can I play them on other computors?
When my wife isnt using the Mac I plan on have 2 laptops and a dual cd deck.
I am also playing with the idea of bringing vinyl and turntables, but that is another subject.

DJ Teddy Bear · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:

There's always the Time-Life series and other series available online. You can find out about these on the late night info-mercials, then go online to get the full track listings.

An additional source of information, but not for the songs themselves, is Turn Up The Music. They sell a lot of compilations under a variety of brands. The most popular name is Drew's Famous. The CDs are typically sold in the impulse racks at party supply stores. While they have a very good selection of song choices, they are all cover versions performed by their own musicians and singers. Although these are talented people, they are not the originals.

If you already have a decent library, but notice a lot of holes in the 1000 song lists, then you probably are better off going the iTunes route.

As far as multiple computers go, you can play it on up to 5 computers, as long as you have to have each computer be part of the same iTunes account. The way around that is to burn an audio CD and re-rip it.

FYI: On my own site, I have a list of about 600 hit songs, sorted in a variety of genres. I selected the songs in the list myself.

TheBartman47 · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject: Re: Where to start?

For recent stuff, by far the best ever investment I ever did was subscribe to TM Century. When you first sign up, you can also get the past 52 CDs (one years worth) in one bulk shipment, then start getting one new CD each week. If you want more than the past year's worth, they usually have some left over that are even older than that, but after about a year, some will be out of stock. If you do a lot of high school dances, you'll have nearly every song they request with TM Century. Only other songs you'll need to get on your own are some classic rock like AC/DC.

For wedding receptions and other dances where people want the oldies and clasic rock/pop music and such, I've heard the TIME LIFE series CDs is a good way to get all the essential hits of old. I don't have these myself, but I already had lots of CDs in my private collection of oldies and some other stuff, then my wife had tons of CDs from the '80s that she collected all through high school, so I kind of inherited that. 8)

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

Thank you for this advice. I appreciate it.

It seems that there would be a comprehensive library of CD's available.

But then I would be forced to buy 1000 songs I already have to get 250 songs I do not.

Time Life is a cheap resource, thank you for that.

CJ Greiner · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:14 pm Post subject:

Rotations sells collections and libraries that should fill-in your songlist nicely.

I personally bought several of the professional libraries to ensure that I had a decent well-rounded collection. The libraries are actually collections of Time Life CD's at rates lower than if you went to the Time Life website and bought them yourself.

http://www.rotations.com/cd-libraries.asp?d=5

djdonny · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject:

Those Rotations sets look good. If I ever go multi-, I'll get those (the "Professional" series).

Actually, I ordered stuff from them about 10 years ago -- I think they had just started out. I seem to remember someone named Don was the owner (now why would I remember that?). Is he still in charge?

crazyd · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: Re: Where to start?

there are lots of box sets out there to purchase and you can acquire a full music library for well under a $1000 through them
keep in mind i am in canada, so our rules are a little different than in the US, but all of these box sets are AVLA licensed, so there is not need to purchase a licence for them, unless you wish to run multiple systems

personally i do not really like these sets, as it doesnt set me apart from the rest of the mish mash

but ERG, and First Sourch (now part of ERG), are the better of what is out there

these sets are usually quite cheap, becouse they are hoping you will sign a long term lease with them to maintain an up to date music library

if you can get a complete set of "Back Trax/x" originally from first source, now maintained through ERG, you will have all the main stay music for just about any party

i keep them on hand in case anybody is in need of a DJ and i am not available, on a loaner basis