Is vinyl dead? Is digital Djing finally taking over?
As many of you know by now Technics has ended the production of the amazing 1200 turntables, what does this mean for many djs out there? Of course there are other companies still making turntables like Stanton, Vestax, Numark but how much time are they going to last? And also I know there are products like Traktor and Serato that have created interfaces so that turntables can be used with their respective programs, but what if you don’t have a turntable anymore? As time goes on the Digital djing world it’s getting bigger and bigger, basically new equipment is coming out almost monthly now it’s sometimes overwhelming for all of us that love technology, everything now its controllers and interfaces to work with do you guys think this is a good thing or a bad thing?
Like many djs have said in the past vinyl if the way to start, but where is the vinyl? Does not using vinyl makes me a less of a dj than others? I don’t think so but this is something’s that comes out from time to time, to me it comes down to personal preference and from what you can get to start making music.
Feel free to let me know your opinions on this I think it’s a very interesting topic thanks guys.
Huh? Vinyl’s over. It’s a good thing for most people but for some it is a travesty. You’re still a DJ and I’m sure you’re a very nice gentleman as well.
serious: i think vinyls/vinyl-djs are a cool thing but digital-djing(i include dvs to this) just brought so much stuff to the table, that i dont see a reason to use vinyl-only other then the nostalgy ( or whatever its called in english)
Tectonics is going to stop producing the 12’s but you can still get a new or used pair. Playing on vinyl shows you the basics when it comes to djing, now technology has taking the hard work out and let the DJ be more creative.
Qoute of the Day: Vinyl is Dead, just like the Smiths…No matter how much we bitch, we cant bring them back.
Id say vinyl is dead at this point. I know every ten years vinyl is dead and then somehow makes a come back. But this time I dont think thats the case, at least for the DJ.
For the music lover the indie hipster dufus type vinyle is probably not dying anytime soon. Bands still release stuff on vinyle, 7 inchs last i checked where still alive and well within the smaller scenes, Punk mostly but ska to.
But for the DJ the days of having to lug a coffin full of 1200s, a mixer & a crate of records are pretty much over. I know I see Ron D core still spins vinyle and prodly claims hes the only REAL dj left cuase he spins vinyl however really i think with that statement he is saying, Im afraid of technolgy and i dont want to change. and thats fine, in ten years he will either be a novelty or doing somthing else with his time.
As someone who started Djing in 98 and has the aforementioned coffin with 2 1200s, a mixer, & countless crates of vinyl goodness (GOD that thing takes up SOOOO much room, My cat love it though its like one of those cat trees they sell.) I jumped on going digital the second I saw the technology. I add a CDJ back in 98 when really only big names and Euro djs where using them. And then when I saw what could be done with abelton I was just Awestruck. I remember sitting here at my desktop, I had finished playing poker for the day and had like 3 hours to kil b4 the wife came home. I went to you tube and searched for warping videos. Within an hour or two I was using abelton to DJ. My wife came home I ripped my headphones off and said, Alright we can sell the 1200’s.
And lets be honest here, With Abelton (tracktor etc..) DJing becomes an art its not longer mixing two records together. You can reconstruct an entire track LIVE, which U could never do unless u have skills like Dj craze or Qbert.
Once there becomes an “Industry Standard” controller based turntable that can preform up to technics standards and do even more. Sure vinyl will be over.
It’s not dead. People have called out its death since the late 80s (when CDs first outsold records).
I give you that much: it’s getting marginalized even more than it used to. But it will never die. Myself and many ppl I know still purchase a few “special” records on vinyl. We keep our 1200s. Good thing that Technics are build to last
Imo, there’s something peculiar to DJing with actual records (as opposed to TCs). There’s a certain magic to it which isn’t easily recreated with digital setups. Look at Sven Vaeth, for example, who’s still spinning vinyl almost exclusively. Not saying he’s my hero or anything but I cannot imagine him being the type of DJ that his is with DVS or controllers
I think once technics stopped selling the 1200-1210 that pretty much marks the end of Vinyl DJS. Numark, vestex etc turntables are crap and cant stay locked to save their lives.
Thanks a lot for all of you guys responses on this, is really interesting to me also really cool to see the different types of thinking when it comes to this topic, hope more ppl pitch in and give there points thanks again.
That’s how I look at it really. There will ALWAYS be a place for vinyl. It’s just one of the true foundations of music as an industry. But now (relatively speaking) we can’t easily go out and buy a brand new set of Technics 1200’s. So the muscle car of our past, isn’t in production anymore.
There will always be a market for records, albeit small. Above all other forms of media, I really feel that they aren’t going anywhere. But it’s not going to be the “main” form of transportation anymore. It’s going to be a collective of enthusiasts, and others will be able to bask in the glory of “what once was” if you will.
I think vinyl always will have it’s place in DJing. There’s something truly magical about seeing someone get up there and just spin a nasty set on vinyl, and vinyl only. But as it being the norm? We’re already pretty much past that point.
The future is before us, and honestly right now we are just getting into technology as it stands. I honestly feel that CDJ’s as we see them will become extinct in the near future, but the basic concepts will still be there. How many people do you know who actually BUY CD’s nowadays.
The controller concept is the future. I’m waiting on Pioneer to jump into the game, and make a “CDJ” without an actual CD drive.
But in the end, we’ll always have diehard fans of particular forms of hardware. Be it analogue or digital, people enjoy what they grew up with and are comfortable on.
One big component of vinyl DJing is digging at a brick and mortar shop.
The absence of this in today’s world has relegated vinyl DJing to a niche. Listen, I love ordering 12’s and LPs of my favorite releases too, but they’re only coming special ordered from TTL or Juno (no shop in my city orders new pressings of the party music variety), and it is a VERY special treat in this day in age to have them available in this format.
It’s a collector’s throwback game. Not for casual hobbyists, not for working DJs trying to make a supplementary income, not for guys and girls playing out a few times a month for the fun and good times. It’s for the passionate geeks who can’t shake the romance of the spinning disc. I don’t play out with mine unless my laptop is fuxed.
So maybe it’s a matter of semantics then. If you don’t want to call it dead, call it barely alive.
I really feel you on the “magic”, though, and I think most people wouldn’t argue that it’s there. I didn’t come up on vinyl by any means, but I know exactly what you’re talking about and appreciate its role in our culture as if I were there when it happened.
That argument is flawed. The proposition then was having the public switch form one form of physical media to another. Most people didn’t really care, because when it comes down to it there is very little difference. The people talking about the death of vinyl back in the 80s were engaging in a little sensationalism.
The environment is different now. The public is transitioning from physical media to NO physical media. That’s a BIG difference, and it shows in sales. Sales of digital music is skyrocketing, so are the sales of controllers. Sales of ALL physical media is spiraling downward. Sales of what we consider “traditional DJ gear” is also trending sharply downward. When talking about vinyl specifically, this decline in sales has a ripple effect that accelerates the decline.
Vinyl is a complicated medium. It requires expensive petrochemicals (and oil prices are skyrocketing), specialized factories (pressing facilities) that aren’t suited to produce anything else to defray losses, expensive packaging and distribution, inherent loss due to heat exposure or damage (palettes falling over, etc), and a very limited lifetime (due to wear). And on top of that, they require a specialized player that is of course also declining in sales. Carts and needles are made by companies who are also finding it more expensive to produce and generating less revenue overall. And stores that sell vinyl are seeing sales slow to a point that they’re left with (literally) tons of music left unsold.
It’s a death spiral. And a failure in any single part of this complicated system means a failure for the medium as a whole. So when vinyl finally dies, it’s not like there’s going to be a group of DIYers keeping it alive by making their own needles, etc. It’s going to die like cassette tapes died.
There is a whole new generation of DJs who do not romanticize the vinyl medium - or physical media at all. They are leading the charge into the next iteration of DJing, and that doesn’t include physical media.
I still think for some reason there will be the indie types that will keep it alive. limited release 7 inchs. I think radiohead released a vinyl copy of there last album, u know the one that was released on the internet and u only had to pay what u wanted. I think it will be a special thing to own vinyle. ETC ETC.
however the op was talking more about djing with vinyl. Which is just dead. I mean seriously. Even if u dont use a laptop, CDJs have been around for years now, and if u can make a track, master it and burn it before ur set Y would u only play vinyl?
I dont think u really appreciate Digtal DJing until u have carted a damned record bag around from gig to gig all night long. Damn thing weights like a 75 to 100 effing pounds.
My guess is that vinyl will still be around for a while, especially in certain subcultures, although it will be marginalized more and more.
I share the nostalgia, but there is one more thing I will miss very much. Up until now, each and every club I played at had the MKIIs, readily hooked up, just waiting to be switched on. Hence there was no hassle with hooking up your own gear, only to find out that the club’s mixer doesn’t have enough working inputs or even space for my controller. And that won’t change for now, since there is the CDJs now to take up space and inputs. So basically, there was a standard setup for a very long time that was around everywhere, which simplified things a lot. Sure, almost the same goes for the CDJs nowadays, but they lack the hassle free element (you have to burn the music you buy first, nobody buys EDM CDs anymore), so why not skip those?
Club owners: If (more accurately when) you throw the MKIIs out of the booth, do the same with the CDJs. Put them in the closet for those nights when they’re actually needed, otherwise give me some free space for my controller and free inputs on the mixer.
I feel as long as things like the DMC and scatch dj’s are around, turntables will be. You just cant scratch on anything else like a turntable (or at least not yet). But other than scratching, i dont really see why it would still be very relevant to the DJ world, other than nostalgia.
Yeah, turntablism is one of those subcultures that will live on for quite a long time.
The dubstep folks around here all go for vinyl only, they claim that the bass is heavier than from a digital system. Some DnB guys still go for the same argument. Those people will bring their own MKIIs, if they have to, for as long as they can.
It’s not just romanticizing. An ebook is not the same as a real book, it doesn’t provide exactly the same functionality. A TC vinyl is not the same as a real vinyl, for example, I can’t gauge from it how long a track is, where the breaks in the track are, it doesn’t come with cover art, etc. You often cannot resell digital media (sometimes you don’t even own them, you just own the right to use them) whereas you can sell your vinyl/CDs/etc.
I do embrace digital media. They have advantages. But vinyl has advantages, too. It’s more than just nostalgia. And therefore, I don’t think it’ll die anytime soon.
@the poster with the record store argument: it’s a fair point. I guess I’ve been lucky in that in the last two cities I’ve lived in, there are a number of decent records stores carrying all the vinyl I would ever want.
I think the real point is that it’s not going to be up to them. Product manufacturing and sales is a business. And for vinyl, it’s going to come down to whether a business can survive producing products for a niche market that has so little profit potential. And like I said, if just one part of the process breaks down, the whole thing breaks down.
I agree. But look at what’s happening. We have products on the market that can deliver decent performance. If the economy hadn’t tanked so badly we would be in even better shape. And the DMCs are starting to allow digital devices into their competition.
But the general public doesn’t care about those minor differences. That’s why digital media sales are exploding and physical media sales are tanking. That’s why portable digital media players (including things like eBook readers) are selling like hotcakes, and traditional media sales are declining. And if the general public makes the switch to digital media, DJs will be forced to as well.
I’ve been DJing for a very long time, and I still keep turntables at the heart of my setup (I’ve tried to switch, but that didn’t last long). But I truly believe that this time vinyl is on the ropes. Every indicator I see points to it’s demise.
I’m not old…I haven’t been in the scene forever. But I did start on vinyl. Now, I don’t own decks. My only regret is the crates of vinyl sitting in my closet collecting dust. I wish I could turn them into Cash. I’ve already re-purchased a few tracks because it was easier, faster, or more convenient than recording them.
I’m annoyed by people who’ve never played on vinyl saying there’s something magical about it…there’s not. It’s just plastic. It’s plastic that has a smaller dynamic range and worse (less flat; less consistent) frequency response than MP3s and usually contains more distortions (harmonic, intermodulation, other big words, etc.) in the audio signal. It’s heavier. It’s harder to keep clean. It pops. It clicks. It reacts a lot worse to being bumped, and it reacts worse to really loud bass.
There’s nothing magical about vinyl. Less–imho–than there is magical about the iPad.
It looks kinda cool. And it’s fun to spin. Not $12/track fun. But kinda fun. I’ll probably end up with TSP or SSL and some decks in the long run, but I’m enjoying my turntable-free existence. I’m not actually convinced that’s going to change.
Seriously…vinyl was like $12/track when I quit buying it. For normal tracks. WTF? How did I ever think I could afford that? Seriously, the tracks that I bought today would have cost as much as my first mixer if I’d bought them on vinyl instead of beatport. If nothing else, vinyl’s dead because amateurs are either smarter or less gullible than we were a few years ago.
but I cannot imagine him being the type of DJ that his is with DVS or controllers