Vinyl dying (for DJ's)

dave quam

Well-known member
Personally, I don't really give a shit about all that. I collected records for the last 10 years, but I was never really any kind of vinyl purist. I liked buy the vinyl of an album over the CD when I could find it, and all the while i've had huge mp3 collections, tapes, cd-rs, reel to reels ect. I've sold a lot of my record and CD collection in the last year since I've been super broke, but honestly I don't really regret it. I don't really give a fuck about a piece of plastic, I LOVE MUSIC. I really don't associate times in my life with LPs, but the actual audio on them. A song or album could remind me of a certain time in my life, and could have only heard the mp3s. I feel like many of the records that changed my life in my teenage years will also always be available (at least in my lifetime) in some form for me to hear, so when I sold albums I loved, I told myself that and everything was OK, and that eating was more important than owning a shitty re-issue of White Light White Heat. Also, while I certainly used to live record stores, I get the same gleam in my eyes when I find huge folders of weird mp3s to dig through, or someone gives me a hard drive to dig through, as I did when I walked into a record store at age 16. If any excitement has been lost, it's not the record stores fault, it's because I'm not hearing Throbbing Gristle or Can for the first time. Then again, finding things on fucking Youtube have given me similar chills down my spine.

On the DJ side of things, I respect people who play all vinyl, and when I went to a soul night not long ago and the DJ was using Serato, I thought it was pretty fucking lame. Not to say it was much of a serious soul night (obviously), but to me, that's really lame. Much of the music I play never came out on vinyl, or never even came out at all. I dig very deep digitally (as well as trade a lot), and a lot of the tracks I play aren't even from Beatport, or even illegal copies of stuff from Beatport. There is still an art to the hunt, whether your in a smelly record store with dickhead clerks, or your just finding weird kids on social network sites. Maybe this isn't as respectable, but I can't say I really give a shit. While technology makes it so "anybody can be a DJ" nowadays, if you download your entire set in an hour, your probably not going to have a very interesting set. The skill of sifting through all the bullshit is obviously a very important skill these days.

All this said the culture is different in the US than it is in the UK though, in the last 10 years or so that is (or well, when Serato started popping off at least). There wasn't as strong of a white label/dubplate culture in the 2000s out here as there was in London, at least with, dare I say "forward thinking music" or whatever the hell you want to call it. Also today, there definitely aren't that many US labels putting out vinyl (at least not anything good IMO), so it's kinda rare to find a DJ playing all vinyl these days.
 

daddek

Well-known member
thing is, a large percentage people will always love to own physical tokens of the art they love.
I still feel moved to buy DVDs of movies I already digitally possess, if the packaging is aesthetically pretty and comes with a bunch of extra physical tokens eg art cards. Mostly, because I'm a typically vein human who likes to display material signifiers of my identity around my living space.

It might be only 2% of the audience will consider buying a physical representation of music / film (ie, the hardcore fans), but that's enough to warrent a small run of physical items. The problem with music, is all the available physical mediums come up lacking. Vinyl is oversized, easily damaged, faceless when stacked up horizontally against one another (no one can read the tattered spine), hugely expensive to produce, and hideously unwieldily to move en masse. CDs, are just a shitty way to transfer mp3s, & the jewel case is hateful, dogshit. Cassettes are far from perfect, especially with the long, inaccurate load & find times. But tape racks are cool things to have around you, I love gazing over other people's tape collections much more than fingering through their vinyl. Most of all, they have a lovely aesthetic personality to them. That plus their cheapness, is why their so popularity with arty indie labels and art school types.

So I've started buying tapes again. even tho i listen hardly to them! its almost beside the point. I simply love having the music I love around me, and looking nice.

It would be amazing if the record industry had the inventiveness and balls to create a new fetishist analog physical medium for digital era. Something analog with unique saturation properties, but with mini-disc like digital search. the logistics arent insurmountable. But the record industry is about the most pathetically un-innovative creative/tech field i can think of. never gonna happen.
 

daddek

Well-known member
re DJs not mixing vinyl.. no more clanky beat matching fails, sickly pitch bendy finger pushing to keep the records synched, no more alllmost-in-key but actually gratingly-out-of-key harmonic mixing attempts. yeh im definitely okay with that.
 

wise

bare BARE BONES
I don't really give a fuck about a piece of plastic, I LOVE MUSIC. I really don't associate times in my life with LPs, but the actual audio on them.

This sums it up for me, I don't give a shit about displaying 'tokens' around my house either, I want rid of all that stuff and i'll use the money to buy better speakers :D
 

BareBones

wheezy
yeah it's super easy

you have 2 sets of outputs on the serato interface, one working with the control vinyl and one which sort of bypasses the interface so you can play regular vinyl. you have them going into separate inputs on the mixer then you can just switch it over as and when you like.
 
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UFO over easy

online mahjong
yeah it's super easy

you have 2 sets of outputs on the serato interface, one working with the control vinyl and one which sort of bypasses the interface so you can play regular vinyl. you have them going into separate inputs on the mixer then you can just switch it over as and when you like.

on SL3 it's the same output and same mixer input, you switch to and from real vinyl in the software

i cut a couple of dubs for a vinyl night the other day, first time in ages. it did feel good. they sounded great as well. but i ripped them straight away.

daddek said:
re DJs not mixing vinyl.. no more clanky beat matching fails, sickly pitch bendy finger pushing to keep the records synched, no more alllmost-in-key but actually gratingly-out-of-key harmonic mixing attempts. yeh im definitely okay with that.

master tempo gets rid of the sickly synth bends but it sounds like shit. its a bit better on cdjs than with serato but even so. you still get clangs and out of key mixes - you still have to be able to DJ well

re: the death of vinyl in mainstream clubs, depends what kinda mainstream clubs we're talking about. places like fabric are some of the only places left where you can turn up with a bag of records and be sure everything will be fine - the system will be tuned for it, the turntables and needles will be fine, there'll be a sound guy around. if you're talking like slick west end clubs then yeah, i doubt people have played vinyl in those for years.
 
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BareBones

wheezy
ben what do you do about the serato problem (well i think it's a problem anyway) of having a near limitless choice of selection? Do you just treat it like your records and decide on a bunch of tunes beforehand, put em in a crate and stick to that? having hundreds or thousands of tunes to choose from during a mix is like the most maddening thing ever i think. unless you instinctively know what tune you're looking for every single time, which is i guess what the really good djs are like, and which is totally what i'm not like.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
yeah i cant deal with that either. i put tunes in a crate beforehand and stick to it, unless there's a particular tune i think would work in the moment

having records helps too though, cos you're restricted vibe wise a bit. if you want to play the records you've brought with you what you play in serato has to fit around those
 

daddek

Well-known member
master tempo gets rid of the sickly synth bends but it sounds like shit. its a bit better on cdjs than with serato but even so. you still get clangs and out of key mixes
fwiw its worth, the pitch lock is impressive on traktor. better than ableton or the cdjs ive heard. & algorithms will keep getting better. you'd want to soon bring the tempo back to the tune's own once the blend is over. but it allows melodic keymixing over differences of 10bpms or so, a lot of impossible vinyl melodic blends become easily do-able.

you still have to be able to DJ well
thats actually my point. alligning tempos isnt a creative skill as much a technical chore (ok some people like watching djs perform that task, but some people like keeping tabs on train movements). if the software can carry that burden for you, then the DJ is freerer to concentrate on timing, track selection, creative blends, and all the real creativity that elevates great DJs from everyone else.
what do you do about the serato problem (well i think it's a problem anyway) of having a near limitless choice of selection?
playlists.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
fwiw its worth, the pitch lock is impressive on traktor. better than ableton or the cdjs ive heard. & algorithms will keep getting better. you'd want to soon bring the tempo back to the tune's own once the blend is over. but it allows melodic keymixing over differences of 10bpms or so, a lot of impossible vinyl melodic blends become easily do-able.

ah cool, so with traktor can you lock the pitch anywhere along the pitch control? serato just has a master tempo function, locked at zero

i do still like the sound of people beatmatching though, the slight imperfections
 

4linehaiku

Repetitive
One think I don't see mentioned in these sorts of discussions (this may be because I'm alone in this opinion), is that beatmatching and vinyl fuck-ups are really fun. Maybe not relevant to being a top DJ wrecking clubs and elevating the artform etc etc, but from the point of view of a bedroom DJ. Going round a mate's house, having some beers and mixing some records is just a fun way to spend time, that I don't think Ableton or whatever can emulate. I guess it's not really trying to.
Tangential to the topic at hand perhaps.
 

Phaedo

Well-known member
if the software can carry that burden for you, then the DJ is freerer to concentrate on timing, track selection, creative blends, and all the real creativity that elevates great DJs from everyone else.

I think technical mixing skill does elevate a good DJ from anyone else. If everyone played vinyl, no Serato/Traktor i guess this would show up more but now all context has got lost on it, plenty of DJ's who trainwrecked vinyl mixes have gone to CDJ's and are suddenly ridiculously tight. Granted though, doesn't make them good DJ's.

There's been amazing DJ's around for years who could mix spot on and deal with timing, selection, creativity.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
One think I don't see mentioned in these sorts of discussions (this may be because I'm alone in this opinion), is that beatmatching and vinyl fuck-ups are really fun. Maybe not relevant to being a top DJ wrecking clubs and elevating the artform etc etc, but from the point of view of a bedroom DJ. Going round a mate's house, having some beers and mixing some records is just a fun way to spend time, that I don't think Ableton or whatever can emulate. I guess it's not really trying to. Tangential to the topic at hand perhaps.

Really good point this. Can't believe its the first time I've seen it mentioned in all the years.

Can't say I have ever minded sickly bendy finger pushing and all the rest. All those little idiosyncrasies really make some of the best vinyl mixes for me. Plus its always reassuring to hear the top boys having the odd clang too.

Another thing is some styles of DJing are better with that 'live' ruff element of chopping between two decks and others suit that liner long blend you can pull off with software.
 

benjybars

village elder.
One think I don't see mentioned in these sorts of discussions (this may be because I'm alone in this opinion), is that beatmatching and vinyl fuck-ups are really fun. Maybe not relevant to being a top DJ wrecking clubs and elevating the artform etc etc, but from the point of view of a bedroom DJ. Going round a mate's house, having some beers and mixing some records is just a fun way to spend time, that I don't think Ableton or whatever can emulate. I guess it's not really trying to.
Tangential to the topic at hand perhaps.

yep, couldn't agree more.

big up all the bedroom DJs!
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Yeah, mixing with vinyl is hugely enjoyable, partly cos (for subhuman clangers like myself) its challenging. I haven't really mixed on CDR/Serato so I dunno how easy it is.

Mind you, I have often thought (as another mix span off the road into a lamp-post) that it would be nice to have the technical side of things more easily taken care of so you could get on with the business of eqing and working out how you want to mix the tunes more quickly.
 

Alfons

Way of the future
on SL3 it's the same output and same mixer input, you switch to and from real vinyl in the software

so you just put the turntable cables into the sl3 box and then one set of rca cables to each phono input (not the two line & through/phono combo)? Does that mean that the box doesn't have to be connected to power or a computer if you just want to play vinyl?
 
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