I’m excited to share my latest dj mix titled Queen of the North. It’s a 65 minute mix of deep, soulful, groovin, and jacking house music. Huge thanks to the designers, my little lady, and the podcast subscribers. Hope you enjoy the mix, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free house music.

Tracklist:

01. Fred Everything – Here I Am
02. Bah Samba – Live In The Summer
03. Knee Deep – All About Love
04. Roberto De Carlo – Electric Soul Power
05. Tortured Soul – In My Fantasy
06. Deep City Soul – Groove School
07. Jay West – Love Me Not
08. Johnick – The Return Of The Meatman
09. Kirby & Damien Bailey – I Like it
10. Easily Influenced – Rockit
11. KB Swing – Klets
12. Chris Harris – This Is It
13. John Hawley – Electric Lush
14. D-t3ch – Unseen Things
15. Soydan – Funky Daddy
16. Monoman – Gotta Move
17. The Girth – Nubian Funk
18. Kinky Movement – Two Minute Warning
19. The House Inspectors – Come Back

Photo Gallery:

Downloads:

Download Queen of the North MP3 – cd available as one mp3 at 192kb
Download Queen of the North ZIP – contains 19 tracks with cover art
Download Queen of the North ISO – image CD with all 19 tracks
* For Faster Downloading [RIGHT Mouse Click, then "Save Target As.."]

Listen now:

Download audio file (Kenny_Grant_-_Queen-of-the-North.mp3)

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After selling my Mac G5 Tower, I walked down to the Vancouver Apple store and purchased a 13′ Mac Book Pro. I was really torn between the 13′ and 15′, but finally decided on the 13′ as I wanted something small and portable. I need the laptop for day to day use including djing, coding, and making beats. The 13′ comes with 2 gigs of ram and a 5200 rpm 128 gig hard drive, something I wanted to upgrade right away. I used my student discount and apple upgraded my ram from 2 to 4 gigs (in 10 minutes as i played with the beautiful 30′ apple cinema screens.. *drool*).

I found it really strange apple doesn’t offer a 7200 rpm drive on their 13′ models, I suppose they want everyone to upgrade to the 15′ model. Anyways, i spent a few days researching different 2.5 hard drives and finally decided on the Seagate 500 gig 7200 rpm hard drive. I wanted a 7200 rpm hd for music and video editing, and all of the seagate tests blew everything else out of the water. Big warning for those that are looking to upgrade, DO NOT BUY THE ASG MODEL, this model will cause mega problems and headaches. Tons of people had problems after upgrading, including loud noises, vibrations, and random beeps. If you plan on upgrading to this specific hard drive, make sure you buy the non anti shock drive. New egg offers the best prices, but make sure you read the small print and ensure you purchase the right model.

The actual installation process is super straight forward. Equipment wise, all you need is a small screwdriver set, and a torx 6 screwdriver. After removing the bottom cover, i realized i didn’t have the torx 6 screwdriver. I ended up borrowing the screwdriver from London Drugs (thanks buddy that works in computer department on Robson St). Check out the screenshots below, it should only take 5 minutes to swap out the hard drives.

After swapping out the drive, I booted up, formatted the drive, and installed snow leopard. After 45 minutes, the installation was complete and i was back up and running. It’s been a few weeks and still no beeps, pops, or errors with the new hard drive. There were a few errors, but they were quickly resolved with a pram reset and repairing disk permissions via disk utilities. The process is is very straight forward, save time and money, save some money and upgrade the drive yourself!

edit: now installing firmware update to allow SATA 3Gbps transfer - http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBook_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7_

Some useful mac utilities:
http://osx.iusethis.com/ – Nice little site for finding useful apps
NTFS-3G – read/write ntfs partitions. Should come in handy for bootcamp users. Works great and is stupid easy to install.
AppFresh – Keep your apps up to date
AppCleaner - Completely remove an app including all its settings and other files like those kept in Library
Adium – IM
Grow – notifications
Perian – QT plugin for other media types. This didn’t work that well for me. I still prefer VLC.
iStat Pro – system monitoring widget.
iStat Menus – I really like the network monitor and the hard drive activity. You can set it up to display the little color coded activity arrows to mimic the funciton of a hdd activity led. I really miss my hard drive light and this works just fine. It also displays temps which you can compare to this list of temps.
Onyx – multifunction utility. maintenance
TinkerTool – easy access to hidden settings and preferences.
The Unarchiver – It’s no winrar but then again what is.
ClamXav – antivirus
coconutBattery – all sorts of neat battery info
Handbrake – great transcoding utiltiy though I mostly use it on my quad core PC.
JollysFastVNC – It’s much faster than the built in vnc client and has an interesting zoom mode.
iStumbler – find wifi hot spots.

Here are a few details:

* QUAD 2.5 GHz PowerPC processors – Late 2005 Model
* FASTEST G5 Mac produced by Apple
* UPGRADED 4.5 GB RAM memory
* UPGRADED 500 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
* UPGRADED nVidia 7800 256 MB Video Card with dual DVI ports
* Upgraded Wireless Apple Airport Card
* Firewire 400 + 800

I’ve included a few pictures in the gallery attached.

So why bother selling it?

A few reasons really.. Mostly because my Dell Laptop died a few weeks ago, and I need a laptop for djing purposes. I made the switch from vinyl and cd to serato back in 2006, and its pretty much impossible to dj without your own dedicated laptop. Not to mention, the new laptop will come mighty handy for the road, and work meetings. Once I sell the tower, I’ll have the fun task of researching the various mac book pros, the mother board configurations, and any sound issues associated with all of them. If you have any advice or words of wisdom, i’d love to hear about them. In the mean time, check out the ebay listing and let me know if anyone’s interested!

-edit- pics to come once i get home

If you are in the market for new dj headphones, you’ve come to the right place! I have listed the most popular ones with some user reviews, specs, prices, and pictures. Headphone technology is constantly evolving and things have changed since the last time I shopped for them. Companies are using new materials, new manufactures are born, and new models are created to compete with competitors. The average dj will go through a set of headphones every 12-18 months, hopefully this guide will help you choose the correct headphones for you’re budget and daily needs.

It’s important to note what is good for me, might not be good for you and I would strongly recommend trying them out at your local record store (HMV, Virgin, or electronic store) before purchasing such an important tool.

Technics RP-DJ1210
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Retail Price:
$149.95
Lowest Price:
$114.59 – amazon.com
Pros: These headphones are tanks and very well priced. I’ve personally used and abused these headphones for 5 years, and only recently have they started to diminish in the functionality and cosmetic departments. The best feature about this headphone is the pivot lock feature. It allows you to move the headphone in different positions and lock em. This is super handy if you like to dj with the headphones resting on your neck vs wearing the actual headphones. They are loud and sound clear at high levels – perfect for club environments. Available in two colours, black and purple or black and silver.
Cons: Small headphone cups – some people like the larger headphones to cover the entire ear (I still found these headphones blocked outside noises very well). Some people don’t like the purple design.

Sony MDR-V700DJ
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Retail Price:
$149.99
Lowest Price:
$89.88 – buy.com
Pros: The cups fully cover your ears. They do a very good job of blocking out external sounds. On a recent plane ride, the headphones successfully defended us from nearby passenger’s and baby cries without forcing us to crank the volume. This is an industry fav.
Cons: Large cups, they might feel too big and might not feel right for every person. They are known as an industry favorite but these headphones are known to break and crack at the swivel joints making it near impossible to wear them (no longer enough support to hold the headphone in place).

Pioneer HDJ-1000
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Retail Price: $200.00
Lowest Price: $129.99 – amazon.com
Pros: Pioneer is a well established brand with quality dj products such as the CDJ series and DJM mixer series. They look and sound awesome.
Cons: Lots of people have problems with cracked joints and the headband becoming detached from the earpiece after 1 year of use. These headphones are still my fav to mix with, and I would encourage anyone to go for them, but if you do.. you have to accept that if you use them a fair amount they will have a pretty short lifespan.

Pioneer HDJ-2000
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Retail Price: 299.00 Euros inc VAT
Lowest Price: $290.66 USD – ebay
Pros: Pioneer is a well established brand, these headphones are the predecessor of the popular HDJ-1000s.
Cons: Price, way way way too expensive. Someone needs to tell Pioneer about the current economy struggle the world is facing. New product, limited reviews and overall uncertainty if product can withhold everyday wear and tear of dj abuse. Not too thrilled about the look, pioneer product usually have a sleek wow finish, something that is lacking here.

Sennheiser HD280s
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Retail Price: $199.95
Lowest Price: $99.90 – buy.com
Pros: The sound quality is stunning and all the parts are replaceable. Good price.
Cons: Ear cups can get a bit warm with extended use amd the headstrap is weak and cracks after a few months of use, its obvious these are likely the best sounding headphones on the market, but they will break very easily especially if you are careless and throw your headphones about.

AKG 181
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Retail Price: $279.00
Lowest Price: $159.00 – djdeals.com
Pros: Very comfortable and looks sharp. The mono/stereo option, detachable three-pin cable and (maybe) even the cheesy, left & right earcup “large/small club ambiance” [bass boost] switches might prove useful for some.
Cons: Doesn’t live up to the AKG name. Lackluster and pricey given the middling audio detail resolution, muddy bass response and flat soundstage imaging. Check out the much better-priced and better-sounding AKG K-81 (as seen within this review) if seeking a great sealed-design, portable-application headphone with solid audio performance.

AKG K 81 DJ
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Retail Price: $99.00
Lowest Price: $69.00 – djdeals.com
Pros: Typical AKG top notch sound quality at an amazing price! The K-81DJ’s mid-sized, supra-aural earcups rest on top of the ears with nicely plushy pleather-covered earpads that rotate 180 degrees, perfect for fast-paced DJ mono mixing with one ear or for just keeping your head on a swivel when you need to remain aware of your surroundings.
Cons: Headphone cables and overall quality would suit this as great headphones for the house or in the studio, but might not be the best option for clubland.

Again, the price and quality depends on the individual user and their requirements. Use this guide as an educational and unbiased reference with reviews from myself, friends, and other djs. The headphones I included within this review are the most popular headphones within the industry. If you feel I’m missing a model or would like to contribute your own person review, add your comments and let me know.