The Jouney Begins

Well today I did not attend school, was kind of tired and also because I went clubbing the night before. Woke up at about 11.30am. I decided on buying my equipment today as I had the whole day ahead of me. I made a few calls to check on the availability of the equipment and went off. I dont know why I was not excited.

Upon setting foot at the shop the sight of turntable mixers in the display certainly got the adrenaline pumping..haha..but I got the shock of my life when I realised that I had to pay an extra 2% of GST. ARGGGH...that really threw me off because obviously the prices of the amplifiers, mixers, stylus, cartridges have increased too. Damn. Well I purchased the turntables, stylii and the cartridges. As for the mixer, my mentor has yet to get back to me. The problem is that Technic mixers if they were to bleed, it would be difficult to do the servicing, whereas mixers like Gemini and Numark, if you were to have such problems, if can be rectified easily and quickly. So I did not want to make an investment where I would obviously lose out on. I will purchase the mixer in a few days time.

I purchased a pair of Technics SL1210 MK5 and as for the Cartridges and Stylii i got Shure M44-7. I will try to upload a few images here. Oh yeah the turntables are jet black. A very classy look.




After painstakingly carrying the equipment to the taxi stand,I placed it in the taxi and headed back home to face the greatest headache of all time. Well it really proved to be one as the setting up of the turntables took longer than I expected. The most frustrating part was when I was fixing the cartridge and stylus to the headshell. It is alot of precision work as the stylus is made out of a industrial diamond and wrecking it before it even touches the vinyl will be such a heartache. Hours passed and finally i was able to secure all the 3 pieces together. I still have one more to go for the other turntable. The only problem that I face now is the positioning of the counter-weight. I know the amount of weight needed to have the tone arm in a balanced stance but I am not quite sure about the positioning. So I just have to make a few more calls to settle that problem. Well i guess I am done with this part.

Ok I decided to divide my blog into 2 sections. One of my Dj-ing experience and journey and the other half will have my reflections and feelings of the day. That way it would be much easier for those who are reading my blog.

Reflections: Today one thing particular attitude of a person pissed me off big time. This person is none other than the owner of the shop I had visited earlier today. How many of you have actually entered a shop knowing what you want to buy only for this irritating pest (owner or salesman) to approach you and push certain products to you despite the fact that you have already made up your mind. It is a total waste of time on our side ( customer) and total waste of energy for the other party ( salesman or owner). Today that happened. I went in and told the person attending to me that I wanted to purchase my equipment. As soon as I completed my sentence, Mr. Motormouth began talking about Stanton Turntables and Mixers. He started to tell me the evolution of the turntables and stuff like that. It went on for 15 mins. Kudos to him for his knowledge in this topic but I certainly didnt remember asking him about the history of turntables and mixers. After his lesson ended. I just told him with a straight face that I was still standing by my decision and was not going to be influenced by his thoughts and ideas. In his eyes he may think by just blabbering certain facts, he is a good salesman. I certainly dont think so. I think salesman or anyone operating a shop should approach customers in a certain way.

1) Greet customer and ask what he maybe looking for and if he(salesman) could be of any help.
2) If customers is just looking around, leave him/her alone. DO NOT STALK AND FOLLOW THEIR EVERY MOVE. If they are buying something, ask them if they already know what they want or are they open to suggestions. If they know what they want, just give them what they want. They could be in a rush (girlfriends, friends,family member could be expecting them somewhere). If they are open to ideas and suggestion, than you( salesman) proceed to give him/her your product knowledge
and at the end of the day let them weigh up the options and decide. One more important thing,when talking,make sure you dont drown your customer with saliva. If that isnt possible, talk behind a glass door.

Its so simple and easy. Ok I will take my leave and get back here to update the blog and you people on the latest development in my personal life. Till than take care.