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DJs Spinning Those Hard Drives
Mipmap writes "Ben Kirkendoll leaves the records at home in favor of his iPods, Apple Computer's disk-based music player, which he simply plugs into an audio system's mixer. He's part of a small but growing number of DJs who have turned to MP3 music files for their accessibility and convenience..."
Needless to say, yeah, you still need skills to be a good mixer these days.
I'd hate to walk into a club with a nice sound system and hear it pumping a 128 kbps mp3 encoded with Xing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
DJ's have been putting mp3s on CDs for a while now. It's only a natural progression for them to put the mp3s on smart media.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I hope these guys don't show up with a mp3 that has that annoying bleeps. Guess what most idiots on the dance floor would consider that a new style and might actually become a new craze just like scratch!
And he can't use iPods to match up beats, alter the pitch of music or spin records back and forth for a scratching effect -- all things that professional club DJs consider essential.
The performance aspect- hinted to in the quote above- is a big part of what makes club DJ's so popular. If you've never seen one at work, it can get quite physical- they literally throw those records around the platter in an attempt to generate sounds and synchronize beats. A good DJ can elicit cheers and applause from an otherwise oblivious crowd.
The DJs with the MP3 players are acting more like radio DJs- they're programming the night with a list of songs, not cutting up raw material into a performance. There's a place for both, obviously, but one will not replace the other- similar to the way theater and movies continue to coexist.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
The disadvantage is that DJs just won't look as impressive anymore - I love seeing a DJ moving sporatically and energetically to control his equipment. How boring would it be to see a DJ sitting down in front of computer, occasionally clicking something unseen on the screen? It's sort of like comparing Neil Peart playing his drum set to some dude of equal talent tapping on his triggered pads. *shrug* Just a thought.
Good Techno music is arranged with a DJ in mind. Only a few, very monotone tracks that hardly evolve give the DJ a lot of freedom in putting together his mix and working the crowd. Getting people to flip out and scream is part of that, but also continuity, flow and other terribly in-crowd things.
--[Nothing important]--
...so instead of saying a good dj is 'bad', we can now say he is LAME!
Ok I can't see an Ipod replacing turntables, but Stanton came with a product that really rocks.(http://www.finalscratch.com/fs2/pictures.as p) It uses the turntables as an interface for for a computer to control mp3 streaming. Now that's smart. And it runs on Linux.
"It doesn't take much talent to be a DJ anymore. You just have to have a good flow of songs"
Spinning records and beatmatching isn't hard to do. I think the skill of a dj is to be able to build up a night, play good tunes that'll make people in the crowd react.
...would be if DJ's would use Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3. That'd be news, and it'd convince a lot of people about what you can do with Ogg Vorbis.
I know of one pub in Sydney and have heard about some more night clubs which have PC's set up playing huge MP3 play lists over and over off of MP3's on removable hard drives.
DJ at home mixes music until his removable hdd is full, then takes it to the night club, swaps hdd's, goes home and does it all again to keep the mixes fresh.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
If Apple or someone made a (software, I pressume) mod to the iPod to allow for pitch control) and they already have the jog dial, which could come inhandy), i'd buy two without a moments thought.
As I suspect lots of other people would.
Is anyone working on this?
I've been a DJ at a dance/techno club for a year and a half now, and have absolutely no vinyl :-)
:-) Also, I've found that people are more often intrigued by the use of pro CD players and want to find out how they work, rather than being put off by them because they "aren't vinyl".
:-)
:-)
:-)
While I don't use an MP3 solution directly, I use Pioneer CDJ-500's. Most of my CDs are made from well-encoded MP3's, and occasionally my own tracks.
No, you can't scratch with the old CDJ-500's, but the style of music I spin (mostly house and techno) doesn't necessitate scratching to get a good enough sound for people to have a good time and even cheer!
Club DJing is NOT all about scratching, it's about providing a great set of tunes, mixed well and mixed appropriately, that your audience that evening will enjoy... no matter what method you use to get that.
Now turntablism -- that is about scratching
Speaking of turntables and scratching, there are products out there that do a fine job of bridging the gap between traditional vinyl and the "digital DJ" world.
One is Pioneer's CDJ-1000, which allows you to scratch audio CDs with its touch sensitive jog dial. I've had the chance to play around with these, and they're awesome!! While there is obviously SOME sort of latency, it's definitely not noticeable by humans, and approaches zero
Also, Pioneer now has a professional CD player that can play MP3 CDs. I'm sure before too long they will merge the two together into a unit that will play MP3 CDs and let you scratch them intuitively like the 1000.
Perhaps the best example yet is Final Scratch. Some well-known DJs use this, including some that've used it back when it ran on BeOS. Now it runs on Linux though!
It consists of specially-encoded vinyl that you play on standard turntables, which are hooked up to a controller, which is in turn hooked up to your laptop which is presumably filled with MP3 and WAV files.
Essentially, you are able to play MP3 files WITH VINYL. I believe there is a slightly more perceptible latency than the CDJ-1000 but not so much that it's frustrating to work with.
Right now I'm happy, but if I upgrade my setup I will more than likely go with the Final Scratch solution...
And he's making a living off of doing this? Hello? RIAA? You know where this guy is and where he works now. Hello? How about you go after the people actually profiting off of you rather than those of us doing no-profit sharing. Is anybody in there? Hello?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"When I was younger I felt like there was a talent to it because they were spinning records backwards and forwards and really cutting it in and overlapping songs," Parrish says. "It doesn't take much talent to be a DJ anymore. You just have to have a good flow of songs."
Basically what Parrish is saying here is: I wanted to be talented DJ but I couldn't. So I decided that there's no talent to being a DJ.
What Parrish is describing (slecting a playlist) is, as mentioned in the article, something any moron can do. The only problem is the fact that this isn't DJing. Picking a playlist is only the start of what a good DJ does. The DJ then has to mix them together in a way that sounds natural and unforced, that takes more than just matching the beats up, it's also good to make sure that the sections are matched (sections being the 32 or 64 beat repetitions in music). If they really know what they are doing then they can start to think about key mixing (ie. keeping the songs you are mixing together in the same key), a difficult trick when altering the speed of the record will put into a different key.
Then there is the fact that REAL DJs can have at least two tracks going at the same time, without making it sound awful. They don't just use this to mix from one track to another. They can also use this to add an element of one track into another, without leaving the original track.
DJs can also use their mixer to make a track sound very different to what's on the vinyl. Using EQs the DJ can emphasize or reduce the Bass Midrange and Treble, effectively cutting instruments out or bringing them to the fore. Some mixers like the Pioneer DJM-600 allow the DJ to also add effects like Echo, Flange, or Reverb. It's even got a mini-sampler built in, allowing the DJ to grab a section of a track and create something new with it. Well, partially new anyhow.
In short, if you don't think there's any artistry or talent required to be a DJ, then you simply don't understand what it is that DJs can do. I haven't even begun to cover the fact that a DJ is also required to understand, respond to, and influence the vibe of an evening.
I also haven't mentioned the idiocy of using MP3s over a commercial grade sound system. Let's just say that the ear can detect lots of frequencies and lots of frequency ranges. When speakers have the ability to playback all those frequencies clearly the ear can easily hear the difference between analogue/44.1kHz/MP3.
Conclusion: this "DJ" is an idiot and I won't be going to BQE bar for the music anytime soon. (The fact that I'm on the other side of the world is worth considering too...)
True you can do it for yourself - but half the skill of a DJ is to turn up on the night and with a finite number of albums make a playlist that the folk in the place would like.
I've done a lot of DJ'ing in the past for goth/industrial/metal/punk clubs and I've had a tricky time or two in the past when I'll turn up with 200 albums and the place will be full of punks - instantly wiping out half the tunes that I'd planned to play..
I think DJ's that most are overrated, especially people like Fatboy Slim here in the UK - but I would seriously say that it is harder than it looks. You have to keep things flowing for hours at a time, dealing with drunk people who want you to play their favourite track which either you don't have, or would totally kill the mood you've setup.
To my mind a DJ is good when you don't actually notice them...
I think we all know the answer to that question.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
ObAbstract - i've been DJing for over 10 years, headlining festivals with up to thousands of people, and been a long time fan and admirer of really good DJs. I learned on vinyl, but have been encompassing more advanced media in recent years.
;) And if you're into vinyl-based DJs can show you the different sorts of tricks that can be achieved with these mediums.
The move onto solid state media is a good, and inevitable one. The demands on a DJ are higher than ever before, and more tools are needed for the job. Some tricks *need* preparation to be performed, if for instance you want to cut out a middle chunk of a song, or want to overlay a track with a large number of samples very close together - these simply aren't possible on a traditional dual-turntable setup.
Some very big DJs have access to vinyl-pressing facilities, so can play around with tracks and then have them available to play from a 12" - but hardly anyone can afford that. So there have to be other solutions.
There will always be people arguing that one approach is better than the other, that one needs more skill than the other. This is ridiculous - both approaches can take time and skill, to become adept enough to create a good set with the tools you have. Vinyl is (for now at least) the most tactile "interface" for playing with music, though many other dj-quality units (such as CD players) compensate for their lack of interactivity with some neat tools, such as automatic BPM counters, instant dropping, better pitch or indeed fixed-pitch tempo controls, and frame by frame shifting. These already show some benefits over vinyl in some situations. Harddrive or solid-state solutions provide further benefits, such as instant accessibility, visual wave representations (it's really nice to be given an on-screen reminder that the track goes into a break in 15 seconds time), and so forth.
The real benefit is that both approaches have their strong points, as well as limitations, so people benefit from even more variation, tricks and fun stuff in their sets. The best solution would be to have all the equipment available, but this would require all the skills across the board to use properly.
If you're interested, I've been using a laptop/mp3 player live to augment DJ sets for years now. I ususally use the mp3 player for sample queuing, the laptop for processing or playing preprocessed tracks, or queueing large numbers of samples - you want to get 15 samples right in a minute, it'll be VERY tough with a regular mp3 player. And impossible on vinyl. Add these to 2 CD players (sometimes more) and sometimes a turntable, and you have what I usually use.
I have some sets available for download, that hopefully can withstand a slashdotting
There are a bunch of mirrors for the sets available here, around the US and Europe.
Fross
Interesting, but using the control medium from the previous technology to control the new one is akin to using a set of reins to control your car. It's a good metaphor to transition the old people into the new, but it's not the most efficient way to control the new medium.
.8 kilos of iPod to the club.
We can argue that mp3 players aren't the same as vinyl, and it's true, they're not. But technology, for good or for ill, marches onwards, and you'll be hard pressed to convince a DJ who's just starting it that it's better to lug 10 kilos of records instead of
It won't be the same as vinyl, certainly, but the only thing constant is change.
Is a hard drive really that much smarter than a cd-r?
It's easier to access multiple portions of a HD at the same time because seeking on HD is much faster than seeking on CD. This is important unless your device has a very large RAM cache to load the next song you're trying to beatmatch to.
A single CD stores 8 hours of 192 kbps Ogg audio. If your set is larger than that (one copy for each Ogg CD player), you have to carry multiple CDs and possibly swap after every song, which brings me to the next part:
Unlike a CD-R, a HD has an airtight seal between scratches and your data.
I could be talking out myWill I retire or break 10K?
One reason is that a lot of music is only released on vinyl, and its really really hard to find it in mp3 form, mostly because its a bigger pain in the ass to convert from vinyl to mp3 compared to CD to mp3.
Another reason to have a DJ is that the good ones will find new tracks that are unheard of, fresh sounds. This is good for the club, because if word gets around that their resident DJ is spinning some hot UK garage or something, people will come to check it out. Not neccessarily because of trendiness, but more out of a desire to be exposed to new things. I'll admit that there's posers out there who stand around and nod their heads a bit, but really have no idea what they are listening to. Depends on the club you go to.
Vinyl sounds warmer and has more sonic range than CDs, and also its easier to beat-match on turntables than on CDs (IMO).
If you are going hear a club where the DJ is advertised as playing hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s, the DJ is basically playing to the lowest common denominator, and you really might as well stay home.
I also think that some DJs, like Donald Glaude, can be really entertaining and engage the audience, although a good majority of them end up looking like complete knobs. One of the reasons that electronic music has not acheived the mainstream success is the lack of DJ personalities. That's a good thing, if you ask me. Its time we stop idolizing and mythologizing musicians, and if the people who can't enjoy music without that are dissuaded from the genre, its no great loss.
"It's Dot Com!"
At the very high sound levels in clubs a human ear cannot distinguish any longer between the high frequency pitchs which would be affected be low quality encoding.
Additionally the standard audience of a club is usually exposed to high sound levels over longer periods therefore having a reduced ability of hearing these high frequencies.
BTW: This also affects the DJs, you can check this by making a spectrum analysis of the standard techno/club stuff on MTV. You'll notice extremely repetitive/monotone patterns in the high frequency bands. This is were the club saying: "I'm addicted to bass" comes from.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
And he can't use iPods to match up beats
How do you know he doesn't just go pull up some wav editor and normalize everything to (say) 125 bpm before encoding his set and copying it to the iPod players?
Here's a short essay I wrote about a year ago about digital DJing.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But downloading music and then getting paid to play it out is evil. Not a cent goes to the artist.
The club already pays ASCAP and BMI for the right to publicly perform music, and most of that goes to the songwriter's publisher, who in turn cuts a check to the songwriter. And in electronic dance music, the lead songwriter is usually the same person as the artist because that kind of music is generally composed on modplug or some MIDI sequencer anyway.
I'm less concerned about the RIAA
By USA copyright law, the record label isn't owed anything for a public performance over loudspeakers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
Well I hate to disagree but I've actually HAD experience DJ'n both with vinyl (crappy ass gemini hand me downs admittedly) and with some tweaked mp3 & similar rigs. While 128 IS fairly acceptable for club/party/etc, you have to understand by the time it GETS to the floor it's been routed through GOD knows how many jury rigged XLR cables and half assed patch bays. Your "decent" encoded signal will pick up noise like Armani picks up cat hair and end up sounding like the south side of 64kbps. I hate to say it but from having played at a number of venues (one of which gave me the joy of actually MAKING and laying my own cables bless their souls) that unless you're dealing with a pristine route from DJ booth to said speakers, you're gonna get noise. And noise loves a low quality signal. It's like they're drinking buddies or something. As for "mixing" and similar, I think the real skill of a DJ is indeed as the article stated "reading" the crowd and playing what they want to hear. It's well and good to scratch and master mixing beats and transitions but if you're not picking the right tracks in the first place it's just a waste of skill (impressive skill that I envy and lust for the spare time to develop). . . . - end psychotic 6am rant-
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
Let me know when you can beatmix with iPods. :D Oh wait, you can't!
You're right, you can't beatmix with an iPod.
with a laptop, and two usb soundcards like this offering from CreativeLabs you can do beatmixing, and quite well I might add.
There are plugins available for winamp for pitch/temp control (run multisession, each out to a different soundcard) or even better use professional mixing software, i.e. something from SonicFoundry (like Acid, or Vegas)
You setup the two extigys as separate buses and you can do mixes straight to your board (at which point you add your analogue filters and panning). You use the internal built-in soundcard on the laptop for your monitor. You can do some really amazing stuff.
Don't knock it till u've tried it... although I'm assuming since you're completely clueless on the available digital alternatives, you haven't even tried oldskool vinyl.
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Video games don't affect childrens' minds... If Pac-Man had affected us, we would all be running around in darkened rooms and hallways, eating magic pills, and listening to repetetive electronic music now, wouldn't we?
I am not saying that we are looking as MP3s as the future of DJing, because each DJ will have their own media of choice. But just as you saw CDs become more popular once they had some solid CD mixers out there, with the advent of solid MP3 mixing options, I am sure that we will see MP3s (well, lets just say digital music files) become more prominent.
And I don't agree that it is just with the type of music you DJ. It doesn't mater the style of music you play, because the equipment will catch up to allow you to do what you want (again, see what happened with CDs).
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
It's not DJ'ing in the strictest sense of the word, but I switched the sound system at the improv comedy club I'm a part of over from tapes and CDs to an MP3/OGG based system about a year ago to good results.
Under the tape and CD system, it took a significant amount of time to find the music selection that you needed. Even if the tapes and CDs were well-organized, it could take 20-30 seconds to find the right audio clip, where you'd need to be able to get it in 3-4 seconds to hit "the moment." Plus, especially with the tapes, you'd always have to worry if the person in front of you had rewound it to the right spot.
So I converted most of the common clips to MP3, wrote a Perl/Tk frontend running with XMMS, MySQL, and Linux to allow for quick searches, and put it into production. The results have been great - the people running the audio can get to their samples incredibly fast, and it really impresses the audience.
So a digital audio solution worked wonders for us, even though we're not the traditional "DJ".
The next step ought to be DJing from multitrack recordings, with each instrument on a separate track. That's usually what was originally recorded, but it was mixed down to two tracks for volume distribution. Some DJs now are trying to separate instruments by frequency, but that never works very well. Special multitrack recordings for DJs might be worth trying. Just being able to cleanly pull the vocals from one song and synch them to another minus vocals would be fun.
Thanks, glad it sounds good so far. When you get through the whole thing, drop me a line (here or email) and let me know what you think.
:>
I wasn't aware of tech noir, it looks very cool - friend of mine runs/ran Monochrome, again in Sweden. but hey, who says a visit and a gig isn't out of the question? That would be amazing
Getting back on topic, a lot of the early mixes are ones that couldn't be done on vinyl. the intro with all the attendees samples, of course, and then say the mix from Solitary to Until the end of the world (2nd to 3rd tracks) - takes a chunk from later on in Until to overlay over the transition - have a close listen, you'll see what I mean. As well of course as the film sample laid over the top of it.
Fross
while you're watching the DJ, I'll be horning in on your girl...
"And like that
I think this is just a matter of DJ's catching up to what current technology has to offer. I laugh every time I hear about this type of story, where a traditional DJ, or even radio station, starts adopting MP3 or some other digital format for their source of music. I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but when I became Chief Engineer, and later General Manager of WGHR in Marietta, the first thing I did was set up a massive file server, and a new computer in the DJ booth. That allowed people to use digital music as a supplement to the supply of CD's and vinyl already in the studio. Since then, almost all of the DJ's have turned to using MP3's, since they're available in one place, and much easier to organize than shelves of CD's. There's still a personal preference available to use the "old" style of spinning tracks, but now it's much easier for the beginners to just throw some tracks into Winamp--something they already know how to do at home.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Like the poster above said, a guy who plays one song after another is not a "DJ", he's a "Dude that plays music at your bar mitzvah/wedding/party". The difference between "DJ" and "Dude" is that you might pay money to hear a DJ spin and create a continuous musical experience, while Dude is just there filling the time with whatever crap he's got on his iPod. I'm sure he can keep the folks entertained, but a DJ has to be able to touch and manipulate his music, not just play it.
Though I don't see MP3's as a real problem, I mean the guys chopping up the music, adjusting the EQ and pitch and speed, so what if the music has a little barely-detectable MP3 sound.
(flamebait)Besides, vinyl is so shitty anyway, MP3 is probably an improvement.(/flamebait)
Surprised more folks haven't mentioned Traktor amd similar software, which lets you do real DJ stuff with the tracks, besides just playing one after the other. Another cool thing about Traktor is you can record a mix and save it independently of the MP3 files, which would be a cool way to distribute mixes (if everybody has the same MP3 files).
What'll really be cool is when the DJs go beyond just emulating the vinyl tricks, and create new MP3-only tricks, like resample the sound or combining it with another track in a unique way. That's what I"m waiting to hear. It'll really blur the lines between DJing, live improvisation, and sampling. Or maybe an artist that continuously combines other people's songs into his own in some funky way. The RIAA will love that guy.....
And please ignore the "gee whiz, them computers is nifty" CNN/Yahoo/AP articles.
$10,000* to the first hacker who figures out how to mod the iPod to create a "song speed" menu option. Or better yet, maybe this'll encourage Apple to add the option themselves. Or even better yet, maybe this'll convince Apple to open-source their iPod software, so people can continue to use the iPod in was it was never intended (thus increasing profits).
*before $10,000 processing fee
c-hack.com |
Exactly. Even DJs that play from a CD get no respect.
...or SoundForge for that matter. Both allow you to cut up raw material. Mixmeister allows you to beatmix, cut, splice and overlay. About the only thing you can't do is scratch, and there are other ways of adding in scratches. doing it on the fly takes some doing, but with a little practice, it still can be done...especially since you can pre-save a bunch of cool effects and drop them in at the appropriate points.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Disclaimer: I work at both a radio and in a nightclub.
Remember how they used to call people on the radio "disc jockies"? They are no longer referred to as such...they are "air personalities" because most of radio is now computerized (Prophet Sys, Audiovault, etc).
The same goes for club jocks...if you're MP3-man and you try to impress the ladies with technology rather than skill, you're a "clown pushing play", not a disc jockey.
Ok...so from a DJ to you...why do we spend $500 on a turntable when a CD player can be cheaper? Why do we opt for the vinyl from the record pool and lug around 2 heavy milk crates (or USPS mail bins...come sue me USPS)?
It's easier. It gives you more options while spinning.
On the other side of things, it puts you among the others before you...since you use the same 'ole Technics 1200s, same 'ole black discs...
To put it in perspective, what do you think about the Windoze 5cr1p7 k1dd135? Don't you get insulted when you've been using DOS, Linux, Win3.11, Desqview, OS/2, Solaris..maybe you even did some C64 programming..used a PDP.....everything learned from the ground up? Now, anyone can hop on a PC and be "1337", regardless of history, talent or natural skill.
Are you sure? I've had no problems scratching my CDs...
Er, wait, we're talking about two different things. Never mind. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
You're wrong there. A friend and I did a club-style radio show for 8 years, mixing with Denon CD Players and vinyl. We brought approximately 250 CDs every week, which at roughly 50MB/CD once converted, which comes out to 12.5GB. However, our complete collection of DJable music is much closer to 1500 CDs, which comes out to 75GB. I think it'll be a while yet before you can fit that in two off-the-shelf, unmodified ipods, much less one.
You'll also notice I've made no mention of the 18 crates of records we own which have not been ripped yet.
I'm currently experimenting with a mobile unit that includes a Fujitsu P-2110 Laptop, PCDJ, A 120GB firewire drive (for now), and a Creative Labs Extigy. Complete mobile DJ solution for under 10 pounds.
The recent Slashdot article on Digital DJ Turntable was far more interesting.
Lets recap this article. Some people have figured out that you can put a bunch of music on a computer or ipod and play that at events. Wow! You say this technology allows you to put together a list of songs and then play then in a row one after another???
Look at who they interviewed:
In other words, this is the guy who plays music at your wedding.
What the story should be about is about some of the developments in technology that allow *real DJs* to perform instead of vinyl. When I say *real DJs", I mean those that perform at clubs that use beatchmatching, effects, and other techniques to create a fluid music listening experience.
AtomixMP3 has been making some good progress at allowing people to use MP3s like turntables. Unfortunately, it still doesn't have anything that allows DJs to be able to "see" the CD the same way real DJs can apparently visually check out the grooves on the record.
Evolution: love it or leave it
FM radio and MP3 encoding both degrade audio quality, but do it in different ways. So if you play an MP3 over FM radio, you don't get the worse of the two qualities (which would be normal FM radio quality, as you seem to assume), but you get in effect quality that's degraded by the sum of each separate degradation. So it sounds terrible.
As a simple example you can try at home, take a CD and encode it to a 128 kbps mp3. Then decode that mp3 back to WAV, and encode it to a 128 kbps mp3 again, using a different codec. Your re-encoded 128 kbps mp3 will sound terrible compared even to the original 128 kbps mp3.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Perhaps soon the legal issues will weigh over the artistic issues. The RIAA is working to make every public performance illegal and then decide whether to prosecute according to how much money you feed back to them after the commission of your 'crime'.
In these situations, it's a lot easier to run away from the police with 4000 songs in storage medium the size of a video cassette than to try and make a quick exit carrying two turntables and 4000 albums.
that article mentioned some commercial software due out by the end of the year to make dj-ing with mp3s easy.
time to shamelessly plug gdam an open source mp3 dj-ing app some friends of mine have been hacking for over three years now, which imho is totally awesome. using gtk and runs under linux, os/x, and maybe even windows (don't know about that last one for sure).
one of the main developers is a dj in the burgeoning new york electronic dj scene.
check it out.
The topic is about DJ'ing with MP3's. Now, I can see arguments about the lack of scratching (still something of a problem), beatmatching (programs do exist & and are pretty damn good, IMHO), and possibly computer problems "crashing" the party, so to speak. What I can't understand is all this bullshit about lack of sound quality! This is the same bullshit all the analog-obsessed DJ's of the world started spouting when the rest of us started using CD's in our performances. Who the hell cares about the "warmth" of the sound??? I still remember when I started using MP3's to DJ and I never had comments about them. Starting with parties I did back in 1997 while I was the house DJ at the Delta Upsilon house at Carnegie Mellon, I would switch between vinyl, CD, CD-R's with converted MP3's on them, and MP3's played off my laptop. Guess what? It wasn't a bunch of old people sitting around bitching about the lack of "warmth" in the sound. It was a shitload of college kids getting piss-drunk and having fun, in part because of me. They didn't complain about the sound quality at the beginning of the parties when sober & they didn't say a word at the end when they were drunk & tone-deaf. I would mix & beatmatch with simple utilities (whose names escape me) downloaded off the net. For scratches, I would impose the turntable's sound with the mixer. The trick was finding something appropraite to scratch with a paticular song, however this made me a much stronger DJ, not the other way around. And as far as the image goes, the bitches loved coming up there and seeing a laptop running Winamp mixing in with the CD's. They thought it was the coolest shit they'd ever seen.
So, to conclude, not only does your argument (sound quality) have nothing to do with parties, but all of the other arguments against MP3 DJ'ing are either bullshit or pretty weak as well.
-Kikta
P.S. If it makes you vinyl guys feel any better, I was against automatic-HTML generation programs for a long time in favor of text editors. So I guess I can sort-of see how you feel...
Since the music is being used in a public performace, I'm sure he pays the appropriate ASCAP and BMC licensing fees...
"has more sonic range than CDs"
... So, what is it?
Sonic range? What?
Dynamic range: no...
Frequency range: no...
Oh, if you meant frequency response, you would also be wrong. CD's reproduce the extreme lows much better.
The main thing that vinyl has going for it is the fact that a 44.1 sampling rate means that a signal at 11 KHz (which is high, but well in the range of human hearing) has only 4 samples representing the entire wave, so the timbre of high-pitched instruments (like trumpets and violins) can sometimes be a little off on CD's. There are a lot of overtones above the range of human hearing that we can notice the absence of if it's part of a note that we can hear. However, on a PA system in a noisy dance club, nobody will notice that difference. Our brains tend to fill in the lost sound we expect to hear remarkably well.
By the way, the "warmer" sound of vinyl is really due to equalization error. The bass on all records is tweaked way down to make cutting the grooves more practical, and a little equalizing pre-amp in your turntable pumps it back up. (That's why amplifiers have separate inputs just for phonographs.) This process tends to add a little mushiness to the bass and low mids. The vinyl "warmths" is actually a distortion of the source material. A pleasant distortion, yes... but fans of turntables began to admit this to themselves over a decade ago. It's warmer than CD because it's warmer than the source track. Digital actually got kind of a bad rap in the early days because of it... a lot of studio methods and a lot of "high end" equipment that people considered ideal were built around making records sound more realistic, which meant compensating for the quirks of vinyl sound. When playing CD's of albums recorded for vinyl, on systems tweaked for vinyl, a lot of audio critics found CD's to sound "too bright". It wasn't the fault of the media, it was just that the problems all that stuff was compensating for no longer existed, resulting in a sound that was bad in the other direction.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.