Electronic Music (A Journal)

It's kind of a tendency of mine to obsess over a lot of things. Recently, I've become infatuated with music electronics.

It all started when I got a turntable for my birthday (which I should probably thank John and the Brautigams for, thanks guys!). I've always been curious about how DJing works, how to mix tracks, and all that jazz. The night of my Sweet 16 as all my guests slept, I snuck off into the basement at 5 AM to set up the turntable.

As a young and foolish teenager I am, I thought this was a task that I could easily accomplish, and I'd be ready to MC in about 30 minutes. WRONG!

The first thing I see when I open the box is this sheet.

Immediately, I'm approached with a manual filled with many words I've never heard of before in my life. The first thing I must do is take the platter and place it on the turntable. On top of the platter goes the slipmat. Then I have to install the cartridge into the tube lock. After that, I have to adjust the stylus pressure, and if I do it wrong, I break the needle.

This is putting a lot of pressure on me. First of all, I don't know what any of these terms mean, and as much as I can try to guess, all I see are a bunch of unidentifiable pieces of technology. In addition, if I screw up, I break the machine. Being the logical person that I am (or not), I took a look at the manual.

Just my luck. The manual says the exact same thing as the previous sheet. I should probably try to identify these objects.

Carefully, I read the overview, making sure to identify every object I have laying beside me and know what it does. Then, I put the main pieces together. After watching some online videos, eventually I do figure out how to work the needle, although at the moment my knowledge on how the stylus pressure works is limited. It seems to work fine though.

Damn. That's one sexy turntable.

I believe at this point it was 6 AM. Full of excitement and anticipation, I took a spare record I found, placed it on the platter, applied the needle, and pressed play.

No sound.

I suppose you more vinyl savvy individuals know what I did wrong. Quickly, I learned that there was one part I had yet to attach. The RCA Cable.

What is this mysterious cable? And what does it connect to when the ends consist of a red output, a white output, and a metal fork?

In this case, an RCA cable carries audio signals to a device, such as an audio amplifier, or preamp. This isn't for your usual guitar amp. Trust me. I checked. Instead, the signals are received by something called a Stereo Receiver, which is a box who's soul purpose is to allow an orgy of cables infiltrate its backsaw. Apparently, this is a common device in home entertainment systems. Personally, I don't ever remember hooking my TiVo up with that box, but maybe I'm just really uneducated on the subject of entertainment technology.

Since my house is a craphole of gold, I managed to find a stereo receiver lying against a set of cabinets. 

For the longest time, I thought it was just a VCR, but alas, the box had much more magical capabilities than originally thought. The plug's got to go into one of these inputs, right?

I'm guessing by this time it was about 6:30 AM, and I was kind of going bananas. However, I happened to read on the RCA connector article on Wikipedia that it used a phono connection. And surely enough, on the bottom left of the box, I found the input for the wires. In this picture, you see them plugged right in. I admit, I did have to google how to attach the wire with the fork end. But now I could finally play music, right?

Wrong again. I never hooked up speakers. Stereo receivers only receive inputs. They don't deliver them. 

For those who are curious, those black and red switches on the mid-right side are the speaker inputs. I've never seen inputs like these in my life. But I did remember that my mom recently got some high tech speakers for our computer. Perhaps they shared the same technology.

This might work! Except for the fact that those speaker outlets are used to connect to the side speakers attached to the subwoofer. Woof woof?

It's ok though, because I found out that if I use an adapter, I can take the headphone output and plug the speakers into that. I pressed the phono button on the receiver, remembering the input, and finally, FINALLY, it works.

Ignore the beats. I got them when I was 13 and I didn't know better.

Thus, at 7:30 AM when the light came out, I set up my whole system. I guess it was time to finally learn how to DJ. I searched DJing up on some websites, but I only learned one thing. In order to have a full set up, you need 2 turntables and a mixer. Looks like I'm going to have to save up some more cash.

After learning so much about the technology, I was more curious than when I first began. I browsed google for hours, trying to figure out what each input in the back of that receiver was for. For the most part, I didn't find much. But the whole adventure had taught me so much about technology, I wasn't left particularly disappointed.

Until I can get a full DJ setup, I figure I'll try a digital turntable, to see if I can get a hang of the ropes. I downloaded Mixxx, a free app on the Mac app store for learning how to DJ. I'll get the hang of this in no time, right?

Dear goodness, what do all these buttons mean?!

Looks like I won't be a DJ anytime soon. But at least now I have a turntable so I can listen to my favorite record.

Ahh Klezmer.