Soporific Airs (DJ Bolivia): guide

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Video: Setting Up Your Turntables

Several years ago, I filmed Marc Carnes (a DJ and audio expert) doing a tutorial video on the proper setup of a turntable. I ended up posting it to YouTube about two years ago, although I had to cut it up into five different videos at the time because YouTube's 10-minute length-limit. I was tidying up some videos this week and noticed that the series had gotten quite a few views, so I decided to re-encode the original as a single full-length video and post it online to replace the older series. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_SWUbDgAW8

Basically, the video shows you how to properly set up your Technics 1200 turntables, including leveling, grounding, platter assembly, attaching a cartridge or headshell, and balancing the tone-arm. The Technics 1200 is the industry standard deck, but people using any other turntable brands will gain a fair amount of knowledge from the video too.

In addition to the video, I also have a page on my website that talks about this turntable in a lot of detail:

djbolivia.ca/turntables

I know that the old series turned out to be useful for thousands of people, so hopefully this single version is a bit more convenient. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments section on YouTube and I'll try to respond as quickly as possible. As always, if you find this video (or the turntable page on the website) to be useful, I appreciate you posting links on your blogs or favorite message boards.

I'd love to see this post & video shared around more. If you're a Google+ user, click on the +1 button to give them a thumbs-up:

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support! I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

YouTube: youtube.com/djbolivia

SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/djbolivia

Blogger: djbolivia.blogspot.com

Main Site: www.djbolivia.ca

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

I occasionally get asked what kind of music I play. My usual answer is "progressive house." But what IS progressive house? That's not something that even I understand. Luckily, there is a very tongue-in-cheek and amusing guide to electronic music on the internet which I can always point people to, namely Ishkur's Guide:

http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide

Now let me warn you in advance that although some of the info on this site is quite accurate, other sections are quite misleading. And the sarcasm level can be extreme - which I appreciate. But if you can't make occasional fun of your own musical tastes, then there is something wrong.

Let's look at the definition of "progressive house" to get started:

Alright, this progressive nonsense has to stop. You do not make yourself intelligent and creative by using that word. Instead, you make yourself out to be haughty and pretentious. This makes you no better than the French. This goes for progressive house, progressive rock, progressive trance ... kill the word already, it means nothing...

When you go to the main page of the site, you'll see seven main genre categories on the top left. You'll be able to explore things like:

  Jungle: The black sheep of electronic music ...
  House: The world's perennial party music ...
  Techno: The depressing, gritty, dystopian genre ...
  Hardcore: The musical genre with bi-polar order ...

Once you get into any of those seven main categories, you'll see dozens of sub-genres mapped out, each with their own description and samples of that kind of music.

I guess some DJ's and producers might be offended by some of the descriptions in the guide, but underneath the sarcasm, you'll find some good info. It wouldn't be hard to spend a couple hours on the site, "broadening your musical knowledge."

Enjoy ...