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As a DJ, your job starts with the music you buy, beg, steal and borrow!
So figuring out how to buy DJ music online is essential.
Sure, you need to spend time practising your technical DJ skills, but, great DJ's spend just as much time trying to find new, original music that…
…they love;
fits their style;
will work on the dancefloor.
A big part of your life as a DJ is an endless search for great music.
But how do you consistently find records that you love, fit your DJ style and will fill the dancefloor?
Buying records for DJ'ing used to be easier!
Seriously it did.
This isn't just an old duffer harping on about how it was all better ‘back in the day'.
Record shops, and the people that worked in them, actually cared about your personal taste in music. You'd walk through the door and they'd already be gathering up a few tunes that they thought you might want to listen to.
I'm not absolutely certain that Apple and all the other online record stores care in quite the same way.
Anyway, things are different now!
What a DJ needs now is a system for getting the best out of online music resources so that they really work in your best interests and mean you can focus on finding all that great and exciting new music.
How To Buy DJ Music Online
- Buy music regularly – If you can shop for music once or twice every week you'll stand a decent chance of finding those hard to find releases that are only available for a couple of weeks, and of getting new releases hot off the press.
- Buy only a few records at a time – Avoid lengthy bulk-buying sessions as it's too easy to get drawn in to buying quantity over quality. Keep your buying sessions short and focused and you should keep the quality level high.
- Buy only music that you love – Never intentionally buy set-fillers.
- See DJ Charts for what they are – A list of music that other people are buying and playing…and that's all. I used to get drawn in to buying records from charts, and pretty much they'd all end up never seeing the light of day.
- Follow artists, producers and labels – And find out all the different names they make music under. Loads of artists and producers use different names for different projects, so once you find someone whose music you love, hunt them down in all their guises.
- Ignore distributor recommendations – They have nothing to do with your personal tastes so are completely meaningless in your quest to build a collection of beautiful music.
- Use Shazam – If you don't already have it, get the Shazam app installed on your phone now. Never again leave a club wondering what that tune you loved so much was.
- Save records in your shopping cart…and come back to them later – Alway do this. After searching for music to buy online for over 30 or 40 minutes, you'll find that your listening skills and your decision making start to a bit jaded. The result is that you'll end up buying a load of very average records that you could easily live without. Save them and cone back to them the next day to see if they still sound worthy of your purchase.
- Use YouTube – YouTube is great for music discovery. All different types of people get on YouTube and upload all different kinds of music there. So spend some time on there and start discovering music that you might never of otherwise heard.
- Find great radio shows and podcasts – If you can find a couple of regular shows that tend to play the type of music you like, it's well worth your time becoming a loyal listener. I have found tons of great records over the years though this method. If they post a tracklist as well, and many do these days, all the better.
- Look into the remix artists – If someone has remixed a tune you already like, chances are they have a similar taste in music to you. If they have done a great job of the remix, check them out thoroughly, there's every chance you'll find a few tracks, either originals or more remixes, that are your thing.
- Use Discogs – I love Discogs “Discover new music. Track your collection and wantlist. Contribute to the database. Buy and Sell in the marketplace.” And if you're serious about tracking down great dj music online, you should too! Seriosuly, you can just dig and dig on this site and you'll find yourself uncovering all sorts of great music you would never of found otherwise.
- Use TheHypeMachine – TheHypeMachine is an MP3 blog aggregator and they are there to try and help you track down great new music. “Hype Machine indexes hundreds of music sites and collects their latest posts for easy streaming and discovery”. Tracks being favourited the most by the Hype Machine community start to chart on the ‘Popular' page.
You can also save songs to your ‘Love' list, and are given a direct link to purchase tracks. - Check out related artists – I say this with a bit of caution as while most music sites will recommend artists to you based on what you've bought so far, some of them seem to be completely skewed. Not all of them though. Definitely worth checking them out as if they're generating stuff that you like, it will save you a lot of time.
How To Buy DJ Music Online – Wrapping It Up
If you're going to be a great DJ, none of this will be a hassle to you.
Great DJ's love finding great, original music. Sure they don't always love every minute of the search, but it's all worth it when you find that one killer tune.
Get a reliable system in place for finding and buying DJ music online.
Be original and stay true to to your own musical tastes.
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