Trading collections

Tips and techniques of the trade

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PhysicsDan
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#61 Post by PhysicsDan » Mon May 21, 2007 12:25 pm

SweetLowdown wrote:
On the other hand . . . when I had about a thousand CD's stolen from a storage locker about 4 years ago (I had stored all of my music when I moved to Italy to work for several months), for all of that money I spent on those albums . . technically I was SOL. Legally, the only recourse I had, aside from the cops finding the bugger who did it and getting my stuff back (which never happened) was to buy it over. This was before the days when I was at all technologically savvy and I hadn't ripped backup copies of anything, I never even made a list of all of the albums (my own stupidity, yes). In subsequent years I have purchased new copies of many of the albums that were lost, but I have also gotten some of it from other DJ's who offered it freely after they heard what happened. Now, technically that was wholly illegal and thoroughly despisable according to most of the opinions here, but I can tell you that I sleep okay at night knowing that I regained some of that music from friends who were also avid collectors and paid money for those albums, too.
My collection is insured; I have a special rider on my renter's insurance. I'm covered against all kinds of crazy stuff (theft, people suing me for tripping, etc), plus my music collection is covered - about $15 a month.

I'm obsessive about backups - when I first buy a disc it gets ripped to the HD (after which it doesn't leave the house), which gets backed up every few weeks on an external HD. The external goes into a waterproof/ fireproof safe (fireproof just means it stays under 451F...).

The fireproof safe is only so-so effective for magnetic media (the Curie temperature for , so on top of that every few months I copy the external over onto a (trusted) friend's system. That's a total of 4 places for the music (CD on shelf, HD on tower, HD in safe, HD at friend's) - it ain't cheap, but I've invested a lot in this, and the peace of mind is *so* worth it.

If my collection is ever lost/stolen/destroyed, it's covered, and the bazillions of hours I spent ripping and BPMing songs doesn't go to waste. I don't worry about maintaining a separate list of albums, since I rip according to artist/album, and include label and catalog notes if there's any ambiguity. My insurance company accepts that as a catalog. So they'd just write me a check for [a boatload], and I'd go ahead and make the catalog, submit it to my favorite retailers (online or brick and mortar), and just cross them off the list when they arrived - all the while spinning merrily off of my laptop and compilation discs.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
-P. Dirac

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Greg Avakian
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#62 Post by Greg Avakian » Sun May 27, 2007 10:20 pm

Trading large collections? Despicable.
Stealing collections by recording someone's sets? Despicable.
Trading or gifting a mix CD between serious buyers of music? Gray area for my morality -and I agree with Reuben that it's stealing so yeah, I'm stealing. Like most 'bad' things I do, I try to compensate in some other way.
Buying from used CD stores? Same thing. I don't buy the "relinquishing rights" argument. I've never met anybody who has actually deleted the two songs s/he liked from their computer after they decided they no longer wanted the original CD. So if you're buying a used CD you know you're playing with moral fire here. I do it all the time.

I'll accept a free CD from a band I might not like too much, but when George Gee or Barbara Morrison offers me a free CD I buy it from them.

BTW, I think my Dad (a jazz producer and ex-record co. exec.) who hates record companies, has a pretty realistic viewpoint:
The record companies will do whatever they want in terms of reissues; if they make more money from sales, they will give themselves raises, not re-issue more material. If anything gets adjusted, it will be sales price, not their salaries or their plans to make more profits.

And I do think that, in general, trading collections produces less knowledgeable "DJs".
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Greg Avakian
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#63 Post by Greg Avakian » Mon May 28, 2007 9:31 pm

Greg Avakian wrote: And I do think that, in general, trading collections produces less knowledgeable "DJs".
This is really a separate topic, but that way I see this process work is this:
Newbie DJ downloads dozens of albums that s/he knows nothing about.
Newbie DJ then gives all his/her music to friends/other "DJs".
Other "DJs" trade with more "DJs".
Most of the more experienced DJs who take pride in their collections don't participate.

Result: a bunch of DJs end up with a lot of the same music that they know nothing about -and much of which really isn't that good for dancing anyway since they don't have the experience of watching a floor and seeing how the build of their sets affects the dancers. Their collection is continually added to rather than culled.
In short: dancers end up getting the shaft from an incestuous pool of crap.

Moral: an experienced DJ with 5 mix CDs will do a better job than a newbie with 20 gigs of music. Size isn't everything.
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Lawrence
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#64 Post by Lawrence » Mon May 28, 2007 11:10 pm

Greg Avakian wrote: Moral: an experienced DJ with 5 mix CDs will do a better job than a newbie with 20 gigs of music. Size isn't everything.
I completely agree with that last bit, and I generally try to buy the music I like so as to "vote with my pocektbook" to support music I like. (Or if I happen to get a CD for free (and I like it), I go out of my way to plug it so as to give them the benefit of the promotional gift.)

But I don't understand the self-righteousness about the sentiment of sharing. Do you and Reuben work for RIAA or for Metallica? 8) Why do we need to get so huffy and pretentious about it? Yes, some people take it to ridiculous extents where "sharing" isn't at all in their hearts, but I don't see why we need to be the morality police for the miserly RIAA.

I've gone to the tremendous expense of stupidly purchasing my collection (just re-organized my thousands of CDs, yet again) but that doesn't justify my getting bitterly jealous of someone else who did it cheaper and more efficiently: spending all the time I wasted--at record shops inefficiently researching and looking for good music, including misguided recommendations from record store toadies who know nothing about Swing--actually listening to and learning about GOOD music. I wish I could shortcut the years I spent buying crap so I could focus on the good stuff.

Now, granted, some "Napster DJs" are awful DJs, but it is because they are careless and ignorant, not necessarily because of where they got their music. There are lots of careless, ignorant DJs who bought their entire collection, too.
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Greg Avakian
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#65 Post by Greg Avakian » Mon May 28, 2007 11:43 pm

Well, I don't feel jealous of traders. Although I do admire DJs who know more about their music than me, so I might be jealous of Jesse, Rayned or Shortydave for instance.

While I absolutely regret purchases that I have made, I do not regret the process that I have gone through.

And, as I said before; I do give people music. The line for me is gray in terms of morality. Trading libraries is way over the line for me; it is not gray, it's an extreme.
In terms of skills, I think that what I wrote is pretty accurate, but it is just my opinion. Whether or not other people have seen this pattern or agree with it is really their business.
Lawrence wrote: Now, granted, some "Napster DJs" are awful DJs, but it is because they are careless and ignorant, not necessarily because of where they got their music. There are lots of careless, ignorant DJs who bought their entire collection, too.
I don't disagree. It's just that, in my experience, the napster DJs often suck because they play true crap -which they do because they don't understand the process of getting to know music and develop as a DJ. The DJs who I know who do spend money tend to be more attentive about the process (perhaps just discerning about how they spend their money) and therefore my dislike of their music is based more on personal taste.
Hey, my e-mail's changed, here's the new one:
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wspeid
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#66 Post by wspeid » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:34 pm

When I first started out, some of the local DJ's got on me about wanting to "swap hard drives". It seemed like pointless one ups-manship where one guy was even ripping Broadway musicals just to get a larger collection of tracks! Sadly, he accidentally even played one for us one night. Yeesh...

The more CD's I ordered from obscure places the louder they got and the more evasive I became. One night, I even caught one DJ slipping a USB flash drive into my computer while "looking at my play list" while I was 10' away. Those things are so darned tiny I barely didn't notice.

Personally, I think when it stops being about the music and it starts looking like who's collected more Tops baseball card "by any means necessary" the concepts of art and creative integrity are long gone (if they were ever there to begin with).

I appreciate it a lot more when someone says, 'here are some names of people I like' and then throws in associated musicians to point my research off in a direction and it leads me to something else that makes a direction connection to me. Not only do I learn more, I'm not stuck carrying around somebody else's Camelot recordings until I finally get around to figuring out what they are and deleting them.

Ironically, I'm just now going back and re-listening/re-ripping most of my CD's at better bit rates since I now know better. That means rehearing a lot of music and adding things new things and even deleting others. Its fascinating how much my taste has evolved in only 18 months but this is lost on my counterparts who smugly say, "see, you should have just swapped hard drives with us a year ago and saved yourself all that trouble".

If I wasn't afraid they'd play it for our dancers I'd temporarily load my system with crap just to see them grab it like the plot from some cheesy sci-fi movie where the hero uploads some computer virus that causes the evil computer system to overload and implode just before the closing credits.

But I do have to agree, quantity for quantity's sake doesn't do anyone any favors and actually creates such a mass that it prevents DJ's from getting to know their music.

Bill

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Greg Avakian
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#67 Post by Greg Avakian » Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:18 pm

wspeid wrote: If I wasn't afraid they'd play it for our dancers I'd temporarily load my system with crap just to see them grab it like the plot from some cheesy sci-fi movie where the hero uploads some computer virus that causes the evil computer system to overload and implode just before the closing credits.

Bill
ROTFL
Last edited by Greg Avakian on Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lawrence
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#68 Post by Lawrence » Mon Jul 16, 2007 5:01 pm

wspeid wrote: Ironically, I'm just now going back and re-listening/re-ripping most of my CD's at better bit rates since I now know better. That means rehearing a lot of music and adding things new things and even deleting others. Its fascinating how much my taste has evolved in only 18 months but this is lost on my counterparts who smugly say, "see, you should have just swapped hard drives with us a year ago and saved yourself all that trouble".
Yes, exactly. That process of re-evaluating what you once thought was undanceable never seems to stop. The growth somewhat corresponds to developing your own dance ability/preferences beyond the Benny Goodman or Indigo Swing song you heard in your first few dance classes. That growth also helps keep things interesting; just as you think you're completely bored, along comes some new insight/inspiration.
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LindyChef
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#69 Post by LindyChef » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:29 am

wspeid wrote:The more CD's I ordered from obscure places the louder they got and the more evasive I became. One night, I even caught one DJ slipping a USB flash drive into my computer while "looking at my play list" while I was 10' away. Those things are so darned tiny I barely didn't notice.
Wow, that is totally low. One way to prevent that in the future is to alter your sound scheme when DJing to make a very loud (and possibly obnoxious sound) when someone adds something to your computer (in Windows this would involve altering the "Device Connect" sound).

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wspeid
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#70 Post by wspeid » Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:15 pm

A local dancer recently told me she couldn't afford to pay the admission fee for weekly dances so the local organizer offered to burn her a copy of his hard drive so she can start DJ'ing and get into the dances for free.

It wouldn't be the first, second or third time he made a copy but for a dancer to state that as their primary motivation and the promoter to enourage it, really made me feel sad for the dancers as well as insulted as a DJ.

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GemZombie
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#71 Post by GemZombie » Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:35 am

Let's see, copying files probably worth thousands of dollars, how much DJing would that be to pay it off? :P

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Eyeball
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#72 Post by Eyeball » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:20 am

wspeid wrote:A local dancer recently told me she couldn't afford to pay the admission fee for weekly dances so the local organizer offered to burn her a copy of his hard drive so she can start DJ'ing and get into the dances for free.

It wouldn't be the first, second or third time he made a copy but for a dancer to state that as their primary motivation and the promoter to enourage it, really made me feel sad for the dancers as well as insulted as a DJ.
Were the other local dancers/now 'djs' all females? Offered his hard drive, did he? Generous.

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#73 Post by Surreal » Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:22 pm

Geez, if people can't afford the admission, get them to volunteer some time. Work the door, put up flyers, carry equipment, etc.

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#74 Post by Toon Town Dave » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:10 pm

The sad part is this organizer obviously seems to rank the skill set of DJs in the same class as the volunteers who help clean up at the end of the night.

With that little respect for the music, I'm not sure I'd want that gig, paid or not.

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