I caught the vinyl bug a while ago. I’ve been slowly building a collection of records. I started out with Digital Djing on Traktor and Ableton, but something is constantly pulling me to vinyl. My setup right now uses a 2 ch vestex mixer to mix between sound coming from Traktor and Ableton. I also own an Audio Technica AT-LP120 that I use with Traktor for a bit of DVS. I’ve been looking on ebay trying to score a second one. Best case I’ll get one for $170. Besides the equipment, vinyl is fucking expensive…I can use my time codes and just do DVS, but idk. it will never be the same.
Has anyone picked up vinyl equipment and regretted it? Is it even worth learning how to DJ with vinyl these days?
Yes, it’s a lot of fun and it can come in handy if you have to spin with someone who uses vinyl/dvs.
If in doubt, stick to DVS - best of both worlds - and spring for a piece of vinyl you really like every now and then for those quick “unplugged” sessions with no laptop
HAd a really nice session last night - strictly vinyl - for the first time ever. A mate came over to dinner with a sack of records and we had a couple of bottles of wine in the manshed and played random tunes to one another.
I’m picking up some tt’s too, I really want to know what vinyl is like. I’n gonna stick to dvs because I can’t afford (and don’t really see the point in) buying vinyls, but I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!
I manually beatmatch (largely as gridding all of the tunes is a little impractical given to old soul and funk I play) and prefer the feel of vinyl to a platter for doing that …
Why not compromise with the best of both worlds Use your dvs system, and play a vinyl every once in a while, i’m guessing most mixers have phono-line input switches. There’s a great video of this being done (0:45):
I started out Djing a while ago on controllers to learn all the basics as I simply didn’t have the money for a vinyl setup/records, but that is the ultimate goal that I am working towards.
You see quite a few nights plugged as vinyl only, Soul Clap did their essential selection on vinyl only…vinyl will always persist I think.
I’ve contemplated that very argument for over a year now. And finally decided that learning to beatmatch manually (on whatever system) is the way to go. Know your roots, then branch out from there.
I really like all the digital stuff going on. It’s fucking amazing, and it’s a lot cheaper to get into the whole game these days. But there’s something to be said for at least having the experience of doing it the “traditional” way, and then making the choice to move on from it.
It’s silly, but that shit counts for a lot in the industry.
There are a few trolls on forums, but I haven’t seen any haters in the real world. Technically, I’ve never met someone IRL who knows what DJTT is or has ever even seen a midi fighter. Whatever. People on other parts of the internet seem to hate the prevalence of beat-repeat and other over-used effects.
Frankly, I share that sentiment. But that has nothing to do with hating the equipment or the minset.
But, yeah, it is funny.
I don’t think vinyl will persist that much longer. I mean…yeah, as a controller. And there will still be some holdouts.
Have you ever seen what happens when someone used to well-made, not overly compressed (as in compressors, not mp3, etc.) CD audio listens to records for the first time? They keep getting better and better stuff because they think things are broken…no, they’re not. Vinyl is almost century-old technology that kind of sounds like crap. It has no dynamic range, it rolls off the highs, its bass will never have the same presence…it’s kind of a worthless medium that worked for DJing because it gave good tactile control…that’s it.
Objectively, CDs just give truer sound.
The loudness war seems to make you gloss over a lot of that crap…as long as there are only 6-10 dB of dynamic range in a master, Vinyl can reproduce that. If dynamic range day ever wins and producers start actually using anywhere near the 144dB of dynamic range that even entry-level production and recording gear allows…you’ll see vinyl die.
Oh, you think that it sounds warmer…yea…it does…it’s called noise.
If you really do want to get into the vinyl thing, I have a closet full of modern-ish house and trance vinyl that I’ll sell you for cheap. There’s probably once piece or two I want to keep for sentimental reasons, but it’s gotten to the point that it’s not even worth buying a cheap turntable to be able to play it again. And I’d rather spend the $3.50 it costs to get a flac than to expose even more flaws in the record by recording it well.
There’s one white label (a promo record) that never got released that I kind of wish I’d be able to play…it’s an early psybreaks record from like 05ish. But there are rips online that sound better than my record…which sounds like someone had already played it a few dozen times with a ridiculously over-weighted m-447. Great EP, but I only got to play it a couple times before it got so noisy that I couldn’t stand to listen to it anymore.
