Not really. There are a ton of reasons to move to a hardware setup, like getting rid of the problems laptops cause, or just generally simplifying your setup. Having track analysis info catalogued is an extremely useful tool, and takes a lot of the guesswork and arduousness out of a software-free setup. Hence why Rekordbox exists, and why CDJ-1000’s have had that capability since the beginning.
To OP, stick an SD card in the slot on the front of your deck, and put a CD in the deck. Let the BPM counter do it’s thing, and let it finish drawing the waveform, then repeat this for all the tracks on a CD. Steadily do this with your CD library (it’s meant to be done over time as you play the CDs), and when it’s finished, duplicate the card with the few button presses that’s on pg 21 of the manual. Congratz, the tempo, cue, and waveform data for your entire collection is stored on those two cards, and pull up automatically when you load them.
Please watch the video on post #16.
This technique you call “a waste of time” is also called “categorising music”.
I invite you to re-read the posts #6, #8 and #10 to understand how DJs that play with CDs categorise their music.
Actually I believe some DJs don’t want and don’t need to deal with the problems caused by softwares (either bugs/errors while performing or simply too much gear to use).
Some DJs can play flawlessly and with no tension on CDJs (the “old” way like you say) just like it was a software + controller setup.
You can export a text file from MIK to Excel, or print straight from MIK. Perhaps print a couple, one sorted by key, one by BPM… pop them in a folder and away you go!
Re: Organizing. Not exactly the romantic side of being a DJ, is it? My new years resolution entails [finally] settling on a system of tagging my tracks and 1.) Actually doing it for X minutes a day until its done and 2.) Doing it without fail for each new track. So far I’ve gotten through 500+… tedious but not exactly boring, so long as you like your music. The tagging can get as deep as you need and it is quite nice to have it properly sorted. I will say this, if there was ever incentive to back up your library… spending a zillion hours and brain cells cataloging does it for me.
Re: You “beat match by ear” types. You crack me up. It’s like the ol’ “I don’t play anything but Techs, you Stanton guys suck…” Good grief, it’s not rocket surgery and it doesn’t take much to learn, if you are putting in the effort. I think it is a lot more gratifying and engaging to play manually, but that little (bpm) sync button is plenty bueno with 3-4 decks! FWIW, I think we should have a no “sync speak” zone. Nothing good ever comes from it.
Anyway, I say good on you for ditching the performance computer. Among other things, it means you have established your own personal standard. I did it, er… am doing it. Making eye contact with your guests on the dance floor is so much more effective than wave riding… rather amazing!
How to take all your CDs and get them turned into vinyl dubplates… then how to categorise them with coloured record labels to know their genre and bpm.
Whatever man, obviously people have different work flows and that’s cool if you want to know bpms on your Cds. Also people used to play their records with a keyboard next to them to work out key… but computer does that now.
I was flippantly making the point that technology is moving in another direction, be it USB sticks and rekordbox or software Traktor / Serato etc.
It just seems like if you want to retain stuff that rekordbox or software will do for you then maybe a more technologically forward thinking approach and set up is the answer. In fact you had it with a controller?
That Armin Van Burin video is from 2009 btw… He defo doesn’t take a CD wallet with him anymore.
Anyway, I was being unhelpful for sure… Everyman do their ting a liccle way different.
Hopefully you found you answers from the other man here.
You make a great point. There is too much contradiction nowadays. Djs want to be able to move forward with technology but at the same time “keep the original feel of djing”.. The original definition of djing “by ear” was used as a challenge so djs wouldn’t write bpms on the record. But now with cdjs and visual aid like bpm on screens and software, we are so used to it and they are not going away but further advancing. So it doesn’t make sense to revert back to old school ways and disrupt your work flow “just to be cool or a real dj” So I totally agree, we all have different work flows.
I suggest going the tedius route of placing them in traktor or the MixMeister BPM Analyzer.
Also, people forget that there are so many different types of djs out there. ITS NOT ONLY DANCE DJ. Open format djs play hip hop, R&B, rock, Latin, Reggae, Dance, and Freestyle- dating back to 1970s. Many dance djs specialize to only 2 genres and don’t even play songs older than 2 years. It is so hard as an open format dj to “know your records” if you have so much music dating back so long…
It’s beautiful to see the technology evolving and to be part of it.
The ones who play with no software should be thankful for the ones who do, because this ones are making possible for the technology to evolve faster.
Also, the ones who do play with softwares should be thankful for the ones who do not, because this ones created all the basis for the complex algorithms softwares use.
Honestly I have no need to know (ie write down) the bpms of my tunes. This isn’t me giving large, it’s the truth. I used vinyl for 10-15 years. Tunes mixed together by ear and I would just know that certain records were either up or down tempo records cause I got to know my music.
I can tell if a tune is roughly 120 bpm or 125bpm and if it’s somewhere in between I can mix em by ear with each other. Songs within their genre tend to be similar bpm so beat matching ain’t really a thing. Hip Hop was always varied but again practise mixes at home, listen carefully and you could work it out.
This to me should be a standard Dj skill.
Nowadays I play out using traktor and I leave sync on most of the time and just nudge the phase to my liking. I’m not gonna sell traktor and move backwards to some 2009 tech. Makes no sense to me is all… But if I did I would embrace the challenge that comes with the “old way”
But as I say that’s just where I was coming from and didn’t mean to be unhelpful
So the answer is either “Do it entirely by hand” or “Have a computer entirely do it for you”? I wasn’t aware that having catalogued BPM data was “2009 tech”…
This is a public “forum” for discussion, I was just giving my thoughts.
IMO CDs are old tech when CDJs now take USB and have rekord box and or software with cue points and bpm etc taken care of if that’s what you want (which OP does)
OP was asking about a workflow and I thought it sounded like a problem that’s been resolved by technology and just thought it odd that he had a controller and moved back.
But everyone can do whatever they want that makes em happy.
I’m pretty sure OP has the answers he was looking for now
Everything is ageing, you are ageing and I am too.
Just because something is ageing it doesn’t mean it’s automatically becoming useless.
In 3-4 years CDs won’t be gone from Brazil or Bristol.
I invite you to come to Brazil to have fun on our clubs. We have a lot of options, like the best club in the world voted by the public. It is covered in trees and, at the same time, has one of the most advanced sound systems on earth.
CDs work fine, have great audio quality and a lot of DJs are very confortable with them.
I know this is a digital-dj-forum, but you should understand that things are evolving a little bit slower than they seem to be.
CDJ-2000Nexus is out and it is being pushed hard by pioneer to become the new club standard… truth is… it is buggy and sync simply doesn’t work sometimes.
Just because something is more “advanced” it doesn’t mean its better and people are not forced to change technology if they do not find it necessary.
The clubs change their setup to facilitate the life of dj, not the oposite.
The 2000 Nexuses performed fine for a 6 hour gig we had recently, but Sync wasn’t being used. It looks like many of the bugs have been fixed from a quick browse of the Pio DJ forum.
Actually I browse the Pioneer Dj Forum quite a lot, and the top threads on the CDJ-2000 forum being:
“BEAT SYNC , IS THIS A LONG WAY OFF BEING GOOD ENOUGH TO USE ?”;
“Can’t scratch/spin back on CDJ2000 Nexus”;
“2 TB WD Passport USB 3.0 hard drive not working in either one of my 2000 NXS” and
“CDJ 2000NXS Slipping” don’t make me believe that many of the bugs have been fixed.
I use the Pioneer DJ Forum just as much I use this one and I’ve been reading hundreds of complaints about the CDJ-2000Nexus.
Also I had the oportunity to be one of the first djs to test the CDJ-2000Nexus in Latin America, on the São Paulo ExpoMusic 2012. I got exited to use my iPhone to play on the CDJs but it didn’t worked well and the sync simply didn’t worked on half of the tracks, all happening on the Pioneer stand in front of almost one hundred people. I had to quickly switch to usb stick, making me very desapointed with the Nexus.
The beat sync complaint is a very extreme use case (shortening loops to tiny fractions of a bar), so it’s hardly significant.
The scratch/backspin problem seems to be a hardware fault, so that’s irrelevant.
The “slipping” thread is likely someone using CDs and finding the BPMs aren’t accurate. Again, not a bug or serious issue.
Any personal experience you had in 2012 is not representative of the players as they have had several firmware updates since then - they were probably even on a beta version of software at the time. I doubt Iphone support is of much significance to the majority of users.
Brichi seems to be one of the most knowledgeable users on that forum and actually owns the gear in question, and seems to think that the important Nexus bugs have been fixed. I’d tend to to believe his advice from 2 days ago over your anecdotal experience from 2 years ago.
I find all this threads relevant, as I am having a hard time to find a single thread that says a CDJ-2000 MK1 is showing problems.
If there was just one thread there saying a Nexus had a bug that would be acceptable, but, no joke, they are hundreds.
Any personal experience that you had on your 6 hour gig is, analogously, not representative either, as 6 hours has no significance to all the time the majority of users spend playing.
You obviously didn’t understood why I explained that experience I had.
Pioneer was too afraid of the DJ Softwares that released the Nexus before they should. Now they are developing the equipment at the same time they sell it as extremely reliable.
The moderators seem to be much more knowledgeable than BriChi, and even they can’t figure out all the problems that are happening, since I spectate lots of cases that are closed when the person’s problem is not solved yet.
I invite you to enter the Pioneer DJ Forum on a weekly basis to see with your eyes (and not BriChi’s ones) what is happening with CDJ-2000Nexus’s users from all over the world.
The pair is costing 3,400 USD in USA. Double it and you have the price in my country. For this price it should be much less buggy than it is.
