Although I have considered myself a professional DJ since receiving money for mixing the first time in 2001, I only recently formed my personal opinion about the digitization and sharing of recordings. It didn’t happen overnight, but was the result of many events, one leading to another.

When my laptop’s hard disk started to run out of space (a typical occurrence), I happened to read an article entitled Why I Just Threw Away Nearly All Of My Music written by Phil Morse, owner of a great blog called Digital DJ Tips. At that time I was doing a regular set at Cuba Café, to which I usually schlepped 2 records with Serato Scratch Live control signal and about 50 from my personal collection (not a large one, as I purchased most of my records during my years as a student, and afterwards fell to the MP3 bug like so many others). So there I was, standing behind the turntables, looking through the records I had brought with me. To my surprise I found it difficult to choose what to start with, as I wanted to play everything at once. As I shot a glance at my laptop where SSL was already open I understood that, when looking at its dark window I often felt like a girl in front of a crammed closet shouting the classic, “I’ve nothing to wear!” which in DJ vocabulary means, “~8000 tracks and nothing to play!” Such strange feelings had me lost in thought. Luckily, an article I had previously read on Hypebot (a must-read blog for anyone in the music business) helped me understand them: A Psychological Analysis Of Record Industry Decline. Upon reading it, one understands that earlier, when music wasn’t as easy to acquire for free, people were more careful about what they spent their money on. Occasionally their subconscious would dictate: “If you’ve purchased this, then you like it.” This led people to have a strong (at least stronger that in recent times) emotional connection with their purchased music. I remember sitting for hours in internet cafes listening to the 40 second clips on Juno (does anyone still remember the white interface?) again and again until I understood whether I truly wanted to buy it. Back then the clips were only fragments of title tracks, and nothing else from the release. At that time, I was only buying an average of 3 records a month as newbie DJs don’t really rake it in (0-25 $ per set). As a result I learned an important skill, which was later lost – and now learned again! – it’s one of the key phrases of this article: quality control. I really don’t have many records, but 95% of them contain music truly dear to me, which I regularly mix into sets for audiences (the remaining 5% being gifts or an occasionally received promo).

Of course, things are not always so ideal. There are copyright restrictions (this or that recording can only be purchased in this or that country). For example, I am more than ready to pay for each and every song I chose to add to my collection. But alas, you take a shine to a particular recording, and can’t find it in any internet shop because, after all, you’re in Latvia! I clearly remember when Breakbot’s “Fantasy” was released (I mean the digital single). Neither Juno nor Beatport had this release available. iTunes and Amazon did, even tempting us by including the music video. Of course, you could wait patiently until they released the version for your region. Only, DJs aren’t good at waiting patiently. Especially when you want to play a new discovery on your radio show and be able to smile and say “Oh, that’s yesterday’s news,” when that song becomes a hit 3 months later. But what to do now? Download torrents and send $5 to Ed Banger Records (to keep from ruining your karma), like one Czech guy did with a viral Barbara Streisand (a short, but wholly amusing and heartfelt story – Czech Fan Mail… Amazing)? Forgive the digress, but in the vinyl era, such situations were practically nonexistent. If a recording (such as a limited 1000-copy “white label”*) played on some hip radio show caused you to react with “I need to find this at any cost”, and it wasn’t to be found on Juno, you just had to dig around for it: eBay, Discogs, trading with other DJs who had accidentaly bought it during a trip to London and didn’t realise the value of what they had, etc.

In the end, of course, we should remember the fact that, with the onset of the downloading era, a large number of artists and producers have succumbed to its pressure and now release their music free of charge. My advice – regardless of the large quantities of free media available legally – is not to get carried away. Remember the last time you went to the grocery store and were offered a sample of some new yogurt or sauce? Very often we decline because of the product’s appearance, ignoring the fact that it’s for free. It should be the same with free music – we need to switch on the quality control and decide if we really like it and want to play it for others. Many subscribe to the mantra that if you download something illegally, you’re stealing from the artist. Granted, until the advent of computer-assisted music creation, recording was fairly pricey (check out PUTV – History Of House Music) – nowadays recording budgets are much smaller thanks to computers. It’s sometimes good to think over these issues when the urge to just download it becomes unbearable. But, in my opinion, the most important point is that the purchasing process activates your quality control, which leads to better sets. First, I’d like to invite inexperienced DJs to buy music that isn’t supposed to be gotten for free. The digital market offers us the unique ability to acquire individual recordings, without having to buy the whole CD or record. If it’s hard to let go of lazy habits, you can at least start by buying music produced by independent artists and producers. It’s also worth remembering that, regardless of the massive quantity of MP3s available for download, there are – even now in 2012 – still music stores where one can buy both CDs and records.

*White Label – a test-pressing or promo recording, a release of limited quantity distributed before the official release date, usually meant for radio DJs to whet the public’s appetite, often found in special shops at higher prices.