Like at least some others here I'm sure, I have a ''normal' job outside of music that takes up most of my days.

I'm just curiously wondering what others do, especially those in similar "got other jobs" scenarios, to be able to consume enough music and dig through the drivel to find the gold dust to DJ with?

How do you go about it? What resources do you use? And how do you find enough "listening" time?

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2018

Networking with other DJs means it's not just my eyes an ears out there, searching for diamonds in the rough. Shared info on cool "finds" can drive one to check out a particular artist, or a label's back catalogue.

Also, having enough fallback material to fill a couple of weeks' worth of sets gets you some breathing space for the weeks when there's not a lot of fresh releases happening. Even if you can find no more than an hour a day for searches, it keeps the motor running.

Charts? I never use them. If it's charting, it's already old news.

 

getting tons of Promo's. and keeping track of the labels i like on Beatport

 

Networking is key. Where do I get most of my music from? Twitter and here, AS. Sometimes it's artists themselves sending me tracks, or their reps. Sometimes it's 'indie' support groups sending me tracks from new artists. Not forgetting the wealth of talent on AS.

An hour a day is about right, I understand there are certain programmes out there that will search genre's for you and list tracks that you can listen to at your leisure. Don't forget to keep a separate back-up of your tracks and keep an eye on the labelling. iTunes is notorious for mislabelling tracks, calling 'Rock' 'Metal' and vice versa. I probably don't have to tell you any of this but I like being complete.

 

crates.co

 

Maybe or maybe not useful, one resource from my bookmark:

Dave Tompkins :: Music Database - https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~davet/music/index.html

Comment: Huge database and contains most known artists/songs/genres up to 2013.
I like its search by BPM function. Pretty much fast result and display all related tracks on a single page.
Sadly, the search box is not functioning, you have to use navigation menu.

 

I listen to music at work- there's hundreds of community/college radio stations that have amazing shows you can stream from all over the world, not to mention a million podcast series worth exploring.
I go to my local charity shops on my lunch breaks and search through the cds.
I follow my favourite labels, djs, producers, music magazines/blogs on social media so i can keep up with new releases and check out the podcasts or tracks the artists I like post.
I get e-mail alerts from the online record stores i use when my favourite artists and labels release new shit.
My social media has heaps of friends who post stuff, and i joined a bunch of rad groups on facebook where people post cool shit.
I go to record stores and look for stuff on days off.
I lie in bed with my laptop, chuck some headphones on and listen to new stuff for a while before I go to bed.

If I've got a gig on the weekend I might spend a bit of extra time going through discogs and label catalogues but mostly it's from my social media, podcasts & radio shows and hanging out at record stores.

 

as hoffy says discogs is the best way to revisit your favorite artists and explore new suggestions

from there,they even have an android app thats get updated regularly,so you can always look for

tunes any time.and also junodownload have very old(2003) evergreens that i have almost

forgotten...!what influence me to not do it all the time in my free time is social behavior...so a

couple years ago i decided not to have to many social biases for relative nonsense about things you

never can change for the good.so if you feel you dont have the time for something you love

doing,than maybe its time for a bigger change den organizing your music collection,i am bin there

as i say and it was kind of lonely at the beginning,but it was worth it cause of no dumb

information from people that dont live up to there potential...!

maybe that seems hart,but time is the most valuable resource that we have and its not endless.we

have feelings and we have to respond the proper way to them to not get sick of life in general!

i have the same good feelings all the time i dig my crates,if i am down it lifts me up and wen i am

stresst it keeps me down(like on a hart day at work)!and now most of my friends that i kept do the

same,not all of them do music, but they realized that i am more focus and connected to what i really want.

dont get it the wrong way,maybe i am an old fart and you have to live another 10 years to

understand me...but you already did the first step of realizing that there is a gab in something that

drives you in the first place in to music,so just think about it and good luck of sorting live for

you in the long run...as you know “live is a rhythm”and every body have to find theyre own.

Best Regards!!!

i love this song:

 

I'm just my own DJ but I always get new music by checking Noisia Radio each week
and by browsing alot of music threads on vk.com (the russian Facebook).
The nice thing here: Almost every kind of music is uploaded in 320kbps (mp3) or as FLAC
and with a nice addon for firefox, you can download everything with one click.



Some nice threads on vk (for my kind of music) are:
Drum & Bass Community,
Музыка не для всех (Dub Tech, Minimal and Drones),
The Bassland (Dubstep, Glitch Hop, DnB)

But you also can use google to find some more threads by typing in your genre + vk.com

 

Promo pool

 

The 70s called, they would like to have their expression back, spaz.

@Vader wow, cool. Which one?

 

Franchise Promo Pool

 

i follow artists, labels and hosts on sites like soundcloud, youtube, etc and set up to be notified when they release new tracks.
like you i work constantly and life is very busy, so i often struggle to keep up with all the new releases, but its better than the crate digging i had to do when i was a hopeful youth.

i dont know your circumstances, but it sounds like you might be in a similar situation i have been in recently. personally life was getting me down and i was losing touch with music to the point where i no longer followed any labels or artists and had no idea what my idols were up to. i was like that for years until i set up a new youtube account and followed all the channels that uploaded stuff i liked. that allowed me to discover some new music and remember why i loved it so much. i then started visiting my old soundcloud accounts etc and did the same there.

im still fighting to get myself back in the right mindset, but i now have a constant flow of inspiration to keep me motivated.
damn i miss the days where i knew what all my fav artists were up to and had the vinyl the second it hit the shops!

 

i feel ya, in the last 5 years i really lost touch with my scene and what gets released (not to mention that in the years before i lost touch the amount of good music being released was getting frightfully low) but i am trying to get back in it but damn it's hard

 

work, eat, sleep, repeat gets in the way too much. adult life sucks

 

Promo pools for nice label stuff - other producer mates for exclusives, bootlegs etc sometimes months ahead of general release.

 

go off the labels ive done work for ram records monstercat etc have a quick listen to them set up a playlist on my phone go for a run (or the gym when they re open)comeback and pick out the ones i liked dled them. save them to my external drive.

 

Last edited: Jan 16, 2021