Everyone has a hobby. Something that they do after hours or outside of work to relax. I have had a number of hobbies over the 27 point something years that I have been around so far. More recently (the last four or so years) I have taken a real shine to electronic music and turntablism.
I know, I know - everyone is a DJ these days, at least thats what I think. However I genuinely enjoy everything about electronic music and the art of mixing, that is to making two separate songs blend together seamlessly whilst remaining enjoyable to listen to. Electronic music is definitely the "Beatles" of my generation and as with most of my friends I began to enjoy listening to more specific genres of dance music. Progressive and uplifting type tracks became my favorite. At this point I found myself listening carefully to the way that various DJ's mixed the music that I enjoyed.
To cut a long story short, I played the drums for eight years during school and found basic DJing skills such as beat matching easy to comprehend. It takes alot of practice to be a great mixer of electronic Music. You need to train your ear in the same way that a traditional musician trains his/her ear over time. The only difference was that my instrument of choice was 2 Technics 1200 turntables and an Allen & Heath mixer fed by my new-found rampant vinyl habit.
I gave up mixing and sold my equipment after a couple of years. I was getting reasonably proficient in the basics and I had a good vinyl collection (about 350). I kept the vinyls............
Since the day I sold my Turntables to local DJ Karn Hall - there has not been a week where I have though about how much I would enjoy having a bit of a play on my Turntables. This was a unique thing for me as I typically change hobbies regularly (thanks to trademe for the re-funding support over the years) without ever thinking about them again.
I could not ignore the strong desire to get back behind the turntables. So meet the first addition to my new set-up. It's the latest top offering from Pioneer - the DJM800. I have decided to invest in CD format turntables (CDJ's) this time around. Although to be honest I am visualizing having both analogue (traditional vinyl players) and digital (CDJ) format players in my medium term set-up.
More photos and info on the rest of my set up as the shipments roll in..for the mean time heres a snap of the new Pioneer DJM800 mixer.
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