Could someone make a case for DCJs?

DJ Gear & Hardware CDJ & Vinyl DJing
1

Could someone make a case for DCJs?

I just don’t see the reason to love CDJs, or maybe I just don’t quite get it. Could someone “sell” me on them?

2

If you need to be sold on the idea, it probably isn’t for you…but ill give it a go explaining

If you want to know the benefits of CDJing, you need to consider ‘as opposed to what?’, for example.

-As opposed to computers:

  • They are standard pieces of equipment, and most clubs will have one. All you need to do is bring your CDs
  • CDJs are much less likely to go FUBAR than a computer. And when they do, its usually because your CDs are scratched. Having said that, it’s cheap/easy to make backups and use them inplace of original CDs
  • You don’t have to shell out for a MP3 license/extortion fee. Having said that no one really checks for this, nor has anyone ever been been punished for violating it. We all have more prioritising issue (record labels included)
    -Also much better for learning to beatmatch etc

however:

  • It’s expensive. A single professional CDJ costs £200. And remember that you need to buy two, plus a mixer.
  • It’s more restrictive, in that you can’t use effects and filters (or you have to shell out for hardware filters, insanely expensive), so any smart stuff you want to do with limiters etc, is a no-go.

-As opposed to vinyl

  • You have a much larger choice in music
  • Much cheaper in the long run
  • Easy to make backups

but

  • You lose the slightest bit of sound quality (your audeince really won’t care however)
  • Some rare records can only be found on vinyl

As opposed to iPads

  • you have physical buttons that you can feel being pressed etc, you don’t have to keep looking at the screen
  • you are not limited to a simplistic POS interface
  • you are not limited to one I/O port
  • you are not locked in to any mobile platform of any vendor
  • you are not limited to essentially a locked down and underpowered (for DJing at least) computer.

however

  • … can’t think of any advantages to iPad DJing except consumer-level convenience…which isn’t really that much of a factor for professional DJing (as far as I know)

This is all as far as I know.

Adios
DJ Artformz

3

Thank you so much! One thing that never occurred to me is the difference in licensing and associated fees.

4

Having been painstakingly trying to record a bunch of vinyl I have recently, I will have to disagree on the sound quality point. I prefer vinyl and in many ways I even prefer the sound of vinyl, but it’s not better quality in the sense of fidelity. It’s noisier (“warmer” if you will) and there are always imperfections and dust in the physical medium - even on the first play. Nevertheless, I prefer to hear music on vinyl almost every time. But the only thing that will sound better on vinyl is something that was mastered for vinyl (and not remastered for CD). Such records exist, particularly older recordings, but rarely for anything since the mid-1990s or so.

But yes the audience is unlikely to care either way.

5

Also I would like to point out that many CDJs now are USB cabable. Meaning just bring a thumb and some headphones and you can play your gig.

6

I’m not sure I understand this part. A large percentage of underground music (before CD decks & MP3’s were common) was only ever released on vinyl. Are you saying that the masterers in the cutting house mastered tunes for a digital format when it was only ever goung to be released as a twelve?

7

Sorry, not what I meant. I’m saying that those records will sound better than CDs made from the same masters. And I probably have the language wrong because I’m not a sound engineer. If you have the original masters you can re-record for CD if you’re releasing a CD and mix it down so it sounds better on the CD. But if you don’t (e.g. Oscar Peterson’s Nigerian Marketplace), or if something goes wrong in the process of moving to digital (e.g. Iggy + The Stooges Raw Power album), the CD will sound noticeably inferior to vinyl. But obviously records that aren’t released digitally will sound better on vinyl, since there is no digital copy to speak of.

Not the same of course as just playing an old record and recording it digitally, in which case the recording has already been “re-interpreted” by your phono preamp, so it will sound as good as the record (with all the pops and crackles too, of course).

So, my point is just that vinyl and digital are very different storage media, and the source material is prepared in different ways for each.

8

That’s not entirely true…and there are masters in existence somewhere from before they were prepared for the medium……meaning vinyl, since digital distribution doesn’t take much after premastering.

I’d just like to point out that I’ve had Pioneer CDJs fail on me more times than computers. And that a pair of top-end CDJs costs more than a Mac Pro.

I think they’re kinda dumb for individuals to own.

9

For me its the simplicity behind it.

Just throw a CD in or a flash drive on the CDJ and your mixing. No screwing around with cables, moving the computer around and/or trying to find space for your gear. I don’t have to worry about my computer being damaged or stolen either.

To each their own though.