Is record collecting among DJs dying out?

if i DJed in clubs, the last thing i'd want to do is carry around 30 lbs of my favorite records and spend the night worrying some wanker was going to grab them and take off as soon as my back was turned.

Do you still buy vinyl?
100 Reasons why vinyl is the superior format.
Is moving away from vinyl killing dj-ing?
By what year will the vinyl market finally collapse?
Why Vinyl Can't Survive
Has there been a resolution to the "CD vs vinyl" debate?
Live DJing questions: Final Scratch, Ableton Live, 12"s, what do people actually use?
serato scratch live - who's tried it?
please recommend a SIMPLE program to use for live djing from a laptop

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/Pages/search.jsp

deejays who dont buy vinyl are stupid.

if i DJed in clubs, the last thing i'd want to do is carry around 30 lbs of my favorite records and spend the night worrying some wanker was going to grab them and take off as soon as my back was turned.

i'm more worried about them grabbing my laptop (as has almost happened on a couple of occasions).

i'd say at about 90% of the gigs i do, i am the only dj on the bill who uses vinyl.

wow, that is pathetic. (them, not you).

i still play mostly vinyl and the occasional CD, but have to say, once given the chance to actually mess around with serato, you really understand what the other 90% are motivated by.

i messed around with serato when i helped a friend deejay a wedding. are the other 90% motivated by crashing computers? things sounding crappy? fuckups on serato (which are supposedly so rare but i heard plenty that night) are so much worse than a skipping needle ever was. bursts of digital distortion rule!

"i'd say at about 90% of the gigs i do, i am the only dj on the bill who uses vinyl.

-- stirmonster"

i usually only deejay with vinyl people, but at a jungle night i deejayed at last month, i was the only person using vinyl (though the headliner was Fanu who was in the US for the first time and didnt wanna risk trying to bring vinyl through without proper work permits and the like, so he had an excuse!). very odd.

What are the best "fake records" to play while jiving around behind the decks to your podcast? Is it "Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan-type things or just some old generic Warp 12" with the volume turned down?

I've got a name for these non-vinyl "DJs":

MP3-JAYS

and when I hear these MP3-Jays talk about "playing records," that little voice in my head starts saying "wait a minute ... you're playing MP3s not records ... why are you lying to people, you asshole!?"

when i saw underworld a couple months back, oakenfold opened for them and i'm almost positive he was spinning air behind the decks and was instead playing some godawful mix cd he made for someone back in '95.

I think MP3-jays can be as great as vinyl djs. But the MP3 people should be held to higher expectations regarding track selection (since anything is fair game) and sound quality (it's embarrassing when someone can tell you are just playing a 128bps mp3 file off a blog, or crappy scene rip. it's even more embarrassing when it's pretty common track, like "Break 4 Love" or something).

recently, a guy was playing some Justin Timberlake song that half way through just stopped. He had only downloaded half of the song. I still laugh about it sometime.

The problem for me is less about MP3 vs. vinyl though ... it's about selection.

Many Serato DJs often choose to play mainstream crap and recognizable club fodder. Those tracks are usually super easy to dowload, but are pretty hard to find in record stores (has anyone seen Vengaboys and Mambo #5 singles lying around a shop lately? Even big hip-hop hits are hard to come by on wax these days).

And ... a lot of these Serato DJs have had success with this kind of format, so it has been adopted by beginner DJs as well, creating a whole new scene of DJs whose tastes haven't been sharpened by spending hours in record stores. These new DJs don't question whether or not a particular record is one that personally speaks to them and is thus worth spending cold hard cash on ... they're just looking for the easy crowd-pleasers.

I suppose this phenomenon has always been around, but it just seems really prevalent these days ... and it creates an atmosphere that is antithetical to the traditions of record-digging and careful selecting that were established by the likes of Mancuso, Levan, Hardy etc etc.

You folks agree or no?

yes, I mostly agree. Except for the times, I have been excited when walking into a club and hearing 80's dancehall, and wanting to see all of this old dancehall vinyl that I've never seen. But no it was Serato.

i mostly think you are corny

yeah I am.

i meant romeo

sure ... I'm corny

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/mly0951l.jpg

so what's your take, deej?

NU-nu-Rockism!

i hope we can have an argument about authenticity later on this thread.

xp spencer beat me to it

you guys are authentically stupid, there's no arguments here!

I din't want this to be an authenticity argument. It's not as if Laptop DJs aren't Djing, they are. I just thought thought collecting vinyl is a part of DJing, that it is why I started. Maybe I've lived in Texas for too long.

there go my hopes of ever being a DJ

Why is 'Diggin' for downloads off Soulseek, Torrent Sites and MP3 stores like Beatport and Kompakt going to be any different from going to a record store except giving people a better choice?

The main difference I can think of is no vinyl-pusher behind the counter, which should make people's taste more varied, not less.

and yet it doesn't

lol blogs

One (just one of many) reasons I use Serato is because I make my own tracks/remixes/mashups etc and there is no way I'm going to press up dub plates or actual vinyl. Similarly, there are many amazing tracks which were never even released on vinyl and even if they were, they might be impossible to find. Now, if there's a handy mp3 version available, should I not play it in order to remain authentic? I've even played low-bitrate rips from streaming sources that were big hits despite the quality. There is simply no question about going laptop for me (though I always keep some vinyl on hand in case of emergencies, and for the laptop transfer dance).

Whenever I play a CD, which is as rare as possible and even with audio instead of mp3 on it, I always make sure there's a vinyl record cued up and ready to go. So when the playback inevitably fucks up I got something tangible (not to mention warmer & deeper sounding) to fall back on.

What are these amazing tracks never released on vinyl? Impossible to find is no excuse as finding them is 80% of the job once you've mastered the mixing & social skills of DJing.

That just seems completely arbitrary to the ultimate point of playing music for a group of people.

And like I JUST said, there are many tracks that are not available on vinyl, namely my own and many others which are now released digitally, either through blogs or leaks, months in advance of any vinyl release (which sometimes never even comes even if the track/remix/etc is amazing because of licensing issues etc).

If the groups of people you DJ to are asking to hear impossibly new and unreleased stuff, which I can imagine, instead of "music played to them" as you say, sure.

I'm saying the "finding them is 80% of the job once you've mastered the mixing & social skills of DJing" is to me completely arbitrary, especially if you're saying that the job should exclusively involve going to stores that still stock large amounts of vinyl or browsing online sources to purchase rare vinyl (which to me seems quite a bit like downloading, just slower). I used to DJ in the 90s and have thousands of records, but when I started up again (and I probably would not have started again without Serato), I would keep a running tally in my head of how much a set would have cost me in the old days and it would make me smile.

Also, it's not like I just bring my entire collection of mp3s with me and put it on random or something. I prepare a virtual "crate" with about 50-100 tracks every time I play. I will occasionally go outside of that if something strikes me during the mix, but apart from the lack of a full crate or two, the actual art of it is really very simple. I will confess that I'm not too advanced with serato beyond just getting the tracks onto the decks - when in fact the experience becomes almost indistinguishable from the old way of doing things.

I would happily switch to Ableton completely for DJing, but I just don't feel like it's quite there yet for a number of reasons. I will admit that it is unnerving even for me to see someone just using Ableton, but it doesn't really make the music or experience any different at all if they're doing it well (and if they're doing it well, then it opens up a whole host of possibilities).

I'm sorry, I'm done with this thread and this debate, there's simply no going back for me - I am lost! Also, my point is made better by others in the earlier threads.

and yet it doesn't

-- elan,

Great answer there, cheers.

The crap, lazy, bandwagon-jumping DJ is always going to be around regardless of which format they use, my advice is to learn who they are and avoid them.

You will still find good DJs who will forge their own sound through an individual taste in music, and I don't see any evidence around that sticking to one format over another is going to produce a "better" result.

I love reocrds and at the moment I'm porbably buying more than I have for a number of years, but to say that collecting and playing a track digitally is objectively worse is an opinion formed from vinyl fetishisation.

Most of the "vinyl sound" which people talk about is a result of distortion, and the biggest one is bass feedback, which you can easily simulate by leaving one of your vinyl channels turned up on the mixer.

Nonsense- and how about focusing on the "mp3 sound" people talk about instead? You know, where cymbals sound like kicking a metal trashcan? Where all the dynamics are compressed into a samey sonic tunnel (esp. obvious when using DJ software or Ableton)?

As a former "vinyl pusher" behind the counter, I will have you know that a lot of time and effort was spent diverting customers's blinkered purchase habits ("how about you listen to some of this other stuff instead of only new releases on the same labels you keep checking for").

Don't know anything about Serato but don't have a problem with Ableton DJs...especially when djing and production can get blurred

I do find it weird that people would play MP3s out instead of Wavs, if they are doing this

Nonsense- and how about focusing on the "mp3 sound" people talk about instead? You know, where cymbals sound like kicking a metal trashcan? Where all the dynamics are compressed into a samey sonic tunnel (esp. obvious when using DJ software or Ableton)?

This is why I was carefull not to mention MP3s, lossless is definitely the way to go - either Wav, Flac or as the highest MP3 available. Over 192kbps most people will find it hard to notice a difference anyway, but this depends of a variety of factors from original source of rip, to encoding, to - yes - using Ableton with the time-stretching turned on, which doesn't preserve "optimum" sound quality.

However, I think the Optimo guys seem to do a lot of time-stretching in Ableton and I like the aesthetic it gives their sound, so there you go: another example of 'distortion' adding to the sound.

As a former "vinyl pusher" behind the counter, I will have you know that a lot of time and effort was spent diverting customers's blinkered purchase habits ("how about you listen to some of this other stuff instead of only new releases on the same labels you keep checking for").

True. But I would argue these you are partly acting as a taste-maker here. I'm not saying it's a bad thing - it depends on the variety of tastes you are offering, but you are to a degree restricting the range of sounds available to the punter in the first place as you are physically unable to stock every record available, let alone order everything in you think will sell.

Anyway, people will always buy shit and samey records whatever people try and do.

What is "Nonsense" by the way? My whole post or one point?

lossless is definitely the way to go - either Wav, Flac or as the highest MP3 available.

By this I mean use the highest-quality lossy file available to you if lossless is unavailable.

'Nonsense' referred to your idea of leaving a decks fader all the way up to simulate feedback, therefore achieving a similar sound to that of vinyl. So it also applies to your judgement of "vinyl fetishisation".

i have back problems form carrying around all those wreckords. youngsters aren't paying them dues.

ancient memories of Ab3 Duqu3 refusing my help with that: IT'S MY TRAINING! by which he meant (his only) physical activity.

'Nonsense' referred to your idea of leaving a decks fader all the way up to simulate feedback, therefore achieving a similar sound to that of vinyl. So it also applies to your judgement of "vinyl fetishisation".

So you think that vinyl sounds "deeper", or at least different from digital because... why? I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Do you subscribe to the notion of 'higher resolutiion' in which case would a 98 or 192Khz, 32-bit file sound indistinguishable from vinyl to you?

Is it just a matter of vinyl mastering being more tailored for a club system than home perhaps? If that was the case a good rip from vinyl to WAV with a good deck, cartridge and phono-setup and soundcard to digtial should sound almost identical, shouldn't it?

Pesonally at the moment I prefer to buy vinyl because I refuse to use the online stores until they start stocking lossless files, but when they do I imagine my vinyl buying rate will drop as I will just buy the one track I want, rather than 2 or 3 fillers. Buying MP3s feel a little bit like a rip-off to me, even though I can't always hear a difference at the higher bitrates.

Moving away from the sound debate, my own thoughts are why stay stuck in the past when new possibilities are open to you? I feel that although mixing on vinyl is nice and tactile, digital offer new dimesions via looping, sound-creation and automatic beat-matching allowing super-quick re-edits. Not to mention the possibility to gain access to rare tracls previously unavailable to me. More people playing these rare gems gives exposure to these tracks and introduces more people to them, and without wanting to sound too trite: isn't that what Djing is about, a love of music?

NU-nu-Rockism!

-- Spencer Chow, T

Spot on.

digital offer new dimesions via looping, sound-creation and automatic beat-matching allowing super-quick re-edits. Not to mention the possibility to gain access to rare tracls previously unavailable to me. More people playing these rare gems gives exposure to these tracks and introduces more people to them

that's pretty uncomeback-able

plus u r all acting as if it's "either or" and that's not the case - that's what's so awesome about 2007

i like buying records because of the album art and because its kind of a cool lifestyle accessory in my apartment, like a nice lamp or painting.

What's so awesome about 2007?

The thought that in 1970, you'd think we'd all be in space and shopping in hyperspacemarkets, and here we all are, goin' to Netto.

dude they don't call it multi-touch for nothing

but I never scratch on a CDJ anyway, I just find it SOOOO much easier to cue stuff up with scratch mode then that stuttering pause method of lesser CD players.

dan when you dj with the pioneers do you scratch on the downbeat like you would on a record or do you just cue it to a downbeat?

dude they don't call it multi-touch for nothing

-- tricky, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 7:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

haha

it should also be said that there are several deejays who don't "collect" records at all.

i had no idea that actually existed, christ

xpost

i wonder if there will be a jeff mills or dj craze of ableton.

x post to this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSVqh6ryLho

So the way the program works is by reading the audio signal provided by the vinyl that comes with the program and modulating the mp3 the same way the signal is?

You could probably then mess around with this to make some cool noise stuff. Just send in all sorts of crazy signals.

well, i suppose.

i mean, it would be like having any sound you wanted on a 12". just take any noise sample you want and put it in the program.

further:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buxj--u7hWE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Hpr1ZWUOs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K62Vh4QpQc

No I meant more like, play a regular MP3 but change the physical vinyl signal by either playing a different pitch or cutting that out altogether and sending a new signal into the audio input.

lol thread

hm. good question. i really have no idea. my understanding is that you wouldn't really be able to fuck with anything except the speed/pitch, but it might be worth a try. like hook a tone generator up to the mixer instead of a turntable/blank vinyl?

i bet you could fuck around with the calibration settings in serato to get something noisy, as shown here:

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

dan when you dj with the pioneers do you scratch on the downbeat like you would on a record or do you just cue it to a downbeat?

I scratch on the downbeat, hit pause, then when I'm ready to go, I hit play and scratch to match the beat. Thats more vinyl like and natural then setting a cue point and hitting play at the right moment.

hmmm I dunno, I learned on vinyl but I set a cue point and tap the "cue" button in the same way you'd scratch on the downbeat

yeah i do what ronan does but im still learning and i dont have a vinyl collection so i use my radio stations pioneer 1000s... if there's no advantage to scratching other than having it feel more "vinyl-like" i will probably keep using the cue button.

i am very much into the randomness that comes from shopping in physical shops for vinyl records. i dont like using ebay or gemm or any of those kinds of things (except in a very few cases of tunes that i know dont show up locally, pittsburgh's used stock of chicago house and italo disco is very very limited compared to nearly every other genre im interested in) because it takes away the fun from discovering random records that you just arent gonna find online in any way shape or form. a friend of mine has the annoying tendency to just jack selections from deejay mixes and then ebay them for silly money. that shit is just as wack as using Beatport or slsk or whatever else for deejaying.

i like playing off of all vinyl formats, when i deejay i take some 45's, some LPs, some 12"s. i like them all for different reasons: 45's are small and fun to mix since you have to move so fast, 12"s are cool because they are loud and have super deep bass, and LPs are great because you get to play the obscure album cuts that were never popular but kill it every time.

i like the process of combing through my collection for a couple hours before every gig. my vinyl is nearly completely unorganized, so i have to look through tons and tons of stuff to find a record that i am looking for, and in that process i come upon so many other records that i may have forgotten about but now are coming out with me to the gig. i like throwing LPs on the tables for listening while im going through all my records, its a good way to learn your music even better.

i like the commitment it takes to be a serious deejay who plays vinyl. sure, there are jokers who buy a record here and there and play the same sets 1,000,000 times. theyre the same people who go with Serato or CDJs but with a slightly less dull selection. if you have room in your house for all the records that are basically required for being a deejay, if you go out all the time digging for new and old records that will make people go nuts, and you drag those heavy fuckers out to clubs and take care of your wax and all the nonsense that comes with it, you have to be very into music! which is how it should be to be a deejay! it takes serious time and energy to do this shit right, and the fact is that sitting behind a computer screen DLing whatever happens to be available online (a super tiny fraction of the music that is out there!) and then rolling out with a small book of CDs shows you are committed to one thing: laziness. and believe me, i can appreciate some laziness, but not from deejays.

theoretically, it is possible for someone to be able to be a mindblowing deejay without ever having used vinyl and now utilising either CDJs or Serato, but that is just not happening. i cant see how this is just a coincidence. deejaying is just like doing anything else, the more you work at it, the more time and energy you put into it, the better the results are going to be. the truly great deejays that i know live music and records are just an extension of that. if "convenience" is more important than living music, it shows when you play out!

ive never used anything but vinyl to deejay, and i wont start. i can see using a CDJ on the side for my own edits and unreleased jams from my producer friends, but that would be a strictly occasional thing. ive taken some CDs with me for cases like that a couple times, it has never ended up with me playing anything but vinyl.

two turntables and two laptops is the way forward.

http://www.optimo.co.uk/cowl1.jpg

hm. good question. i really have no idea. my understanding is that you wouldn't really be able to fuck with anything except the speed/pitch, but it might be worth a try. like hook a tone generator up to the mixer instead of a turntable/blank vinyl?

actually i don't think this would work. since the whole appeal of using real turntables w/ serato is that you can take a blank off the deck and put a real 12" on and play it alongside your mp3s. it would probably read anything else as just a regular record.

xpost $5 says those turntables are turned off. anyway good luck with the 'sleeves of wizard' hovering over the cartridges

our turntables are NEVER switched off! the sleeves were a nightmare, as were the hoods which blocked out most of the monitors. it was our halloween party and we went as optim o))).

lololololol

more photos here

anyway, sorry to go off topic. as long as i dj i imagine i will use vinyl but i do worry that one day turntables will disappear from clubs. i played in barcelona earlier in the year and when the promoter picked me up at the airport he had a look of panic in his eyes when he saw i had a record box and had to make a few frantic phone calls to track down 2 technics for the club.

in fact, on reflection, perhaps ironically it will be serato that will end up keeping turntables alive in clubs.

Scottish parties are visibly insane. I was just reading about how Robert Burns' birthday is now celebrated the world over as “Robbie Burns Night” with special suppers of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis, and typsy laird for dessert. Guests Address the Haggis, Toast the Lasses with Whiskey, and recite his poems and sing his songs.

....which reminds me of a story that i remembered recently. robert burn's birthday aka burn's night is HUGE in scotland. one year we had green velvet staying for the weekend on burn's night and my then girlfriend made a burns supper which consists of haggis, mashed potatoes and turnip (which in scottish vernacular is haggis, neeps and tatties). when it was almost ready she came out of the kitchen and announced to everyone in the room "tatties ready, prepare to mash" and green velvet proceeded to mash the potatoes (this will only make sense if you are familiar with his song "flash").

scottish parties are insane. we're all going to die young(ish)!

Did Guy Veale takes these pictures? Fookin' ell!

you know guy veale?!?!

hellz yeah. some truly sidesplitting laffs with guy on several occasions...

The answer is yes.

"tatties ready, prepare to mash" = classic!!

excellent post, pipecock. this spells out why I prefer seeing a DJs use vinyl:

i like the commitment it takes to be a serious deejay who plays vinyl. sure .... if you have room in your house for all the records that are basically required for being a deejay, if you go out all the time digging for new and old records that will make people go nuts, and you drag those heavy fuckers out to clubs and take care of your wax and all the nonsense that comes with it, you have to be very into music! which is how it should be to be a deejay! it takes serious time and energy to do this shit right, and the fact is that sitting behind a computer screen DLing whatever happens to be available online (a super tiny fraction of the music that is out there!) and then rolling out with a small book of CDs shows you are committed to one thing: laziness. and believe me, i can appreciate some laziness, but not from deejays.

no

djing is about enjoying music and allowing others to do so. the more other things that get in the way of that the older you have probably become.

isnt pipecock like the Geir Hongro of djhistory.com forums?

http://www.optimo.co.uk/sidebottom.jpg

frank sidebottom!

Fake Sidebottom!

i like the physical aspect of vinyl a lot, and part of why i bought decks was to get away from the computer! however i am not a working DJ, so have no worries about hauling a bunch of records to a club and back. CDs are fairly horrible, if I traded up to something more hi-tech (and first I'd have to have a need to do it, ie: hustle myself some gigs) then that denon thing that dan mentioned sounds good. (screen and controls could be a bit bigger though, especially the screen cos i'm blind as a bat.)

that is a truly classic story about green velvet.

isnt pipecock like the Geir Hongro of djhistory.com forums?

I don't know about that, but he's definitely the Geir Hongro of www.littledetroit.net

We call it D-Jism?

I was just reading about how Robert Burns' birthday is now celebrated the world over as “Robbie Burns Night”

Never Robbie. Robert, or if you're that way inclined, Rabbie.

Rab C Burnsit

i've been talking this same shit on email lists (!!) and now message boards for almost 12 years now. everyone else can get off my dick, they are the pipecock's of other boards.

what

TRACER HAND IS THE PIPECOCK OF ILX

that's right, and everybody is invited onto my dick

hellz yeah. some truly sidesplitting laffs with guy on several occasions...

small world! he informs me you have tracked him down. glad to have assisted in a small way in hooking you two up again.

what a terrible sn, 'pipecock'

"what a terrible sn, 'pipecock'

-- deej"

its a reference to my favorite alias of one of my heroes, lee "pipecock jackson" perry, as well as a reference to my last name of "cox". terrible, eh? i rather love it.

wouldn't 'pipecox' make more sense then?

"wouldn't 'pipecox' make more sense then?

-- deej"

who said anything about making sense?>!?!!?#>%>?#

Love the Green Velvet story stirmonster.