How often do you add new music to your library? is it a constant process? One song a day? 25 songs month? 100 months a month?
Once you get a song into your music do you keep it around and let it stand the test of time or do you just retire it? (This is probably a more elaborate answer so if you feel to inclined to outline the method that you use to filter your set lists please do so.)
I usually take a couple days to collet some tunes and then spend an afternoon downloading them. I’m no pro but I try to contribute to the best of my ability. I usually rely on Djcity for my music but I’m starting a beatport account once my credit card gets passed on paypal.
I honestly spend a couple weeks building and tuning a crate on beatport and juno. Then when it’s around $60 or so, I buy it. Usually about every 3 weeks. I give myself a budget of about $20 a week for music, and I just find buying it “bi-monthly” if you will just works out for me.
If a particular tune is banging and I need to show it off and I’ve visiting friends, patterns can be broken however.
I shop whenever I think about it, and I buy when I get to around $50 worth of music that I know I really want. I don’t bother trying to stay up to the minute, because I know I can’t do that without getting tracks straight from producers…and I don’t know enough of them for that to be effective.
I retire tracks when I get sick of them, but I also try to keep things manageable. I have around 400-500 GB of music in my archive, and barely 250 songs on my laptop for DJing. Every now and then I’ll remember a track and go dig it up from my archive or just listen through it for the heck of it, though I don’t do that enough. There’s at least one track that I own 4 legal copies of (1 on vinyl, 1 on a stamped CD, an mp3 and a flac) because I kept forgetting that I already owned it.
For me it’s a continous process. I haw a good browse of blogs and soundcloud most days to find new stuff and then add it to my collection. However, the majority f stuff I do listen to I don’t actually end up getting because I can’t stand having all these tracks in my library that I haven’t listened to and don’t really know all that well. I’m also lazy. I would say I get about 30 tracks a month but I would like to aim for more while still being able to properly listen to and mess around with all of them
I’ve down the “download 100 songs a month” and I find that I just don’t have the way to manage that much music effectively. Most of it will never get played and then some pretty good tracks get lost in the shuffle of so much music. I also find that “good” tracks remain good for quite some time….much longer than a month and new good songs that would be considered “hits” are only a few a month. What I find interesting is the amount of remixes that come out — but then I find that I like 1 or 2 of the versions the most, but I still have a few versions that never go un played.
The advantage I see of lots of tracks Is the ability to cut loops and samples from a variety of sources, even some songs that kinda suck – but have a good loop that can be used. I just think sometimes too much is too much and makes things unmanageable. Then you end up playing what you know as opposed to what you download. I find it much easier to download a handful of Top 40 tracks each month vs. 100 house/EDM tracks a month and finding a gem in the batch (but that really is the fun in it).
I think a good answer is download as many songs as you think you could manage and incorporate into your sets.
more when i’m in between mix projects and on the hunt for new material, less when i’m working on a mix.
but even when i’m busy with a mix i’m still always digging and try to keep my finger on the pulse.
