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Hercules USB DJ Console Reviewed
SpinnerBait writes "Professional DJs and House-Party Beat Masters alike, will certainly be
interested in a new product that the folks at Hercules Audio are bringing to
market shortly. Although you may remember Hercules for being one of the
first in PC Graphics, HotHardware has a review and showcase up that takes a look at the new Hercules
USB DJ Console. This little deck comes with dual mixing pads, for
blending and scratching of your favorite MP3s etc. It also takes over as your main
PC sound system, with full Dolby 5.1 capabilities, when plugged into any PC via
USB."
and it's unneccessarily difficult
Vinyl is much, much easier to work with that CDs or any other type of digital format. On a record, you can see the changes in the track by the variations in the groove pattern. This makes it easier to find your cue point and know when the breakdowns and other changes are coming up. It also makes beatmatching and cueing easier as you can manipulate the actual movement of the record and not just a 'play' button and some stationary jog wheel (though there are CD players that try to emulate the rotation of a record.)
The only digital media that seems to come close to vinyl is Staton's Final Scratch which I have yet to try.
Here's a basic history of rap as I, a 30 year-old white guy, know it:
Modern rap goes back to NYC in the late 70's. "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang dates back to then. Also, around the same time, DJ Kool Herc was the first guy known to use two turntables to cut seamlessly back and forth between songs.
Things picked up in the early to mid 80's, when we saw NYC-based acts like L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run-DMC. The Beastie Boys became the first white rappers to hit it big. Rap crossed over to young, white America (the MTV generation) mostly thanks to Run-DMC collaborating with Aerosmith on the remake of "Walk This Way" in 1986. Most pre-1988 rap was innocent (and mostly clean) braggadocio of the "I'm cooler than you [and here's why]" variety.
In the late 80's and early 90's, gangsta rap got big with acts like Ice-T, Eazy-E and N.W.A., and later Snoop Doggy Dogg, who were actually gang members/criminals, whose violent lyrics raised the ire of older whitebread America. It was around this time that the whole east coast rapper vs. west coast rapper war broke out. At the same time, Vanilla Ice gave white rappers a bad name.
Around 1994 I felt that most new rap that was coming out was shit, so it is at this point that my history gets sketchy. In the late 90's there was essentially a cavalcade of mush-mouthed, lowlife bastards like Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Ja Rule, 50-Cent, Busta Rhymes, etc, whose already-incoherent words were further drowned out by overly-thunderous bass. Oh, and Tupac, who became quite prolific and released more albums after he was dead than he did while alive. Videos became nothing but pissing contests to see who could squeeze the most whorish-looking women and the most garish Cadillac Escalades into a few minutes of video. The music became secondary because every fucking rapper on the planet was too busy trying to do movies. It was also around this time that we got the highly-annoying Eminem. Oh, and let's not forget shitty rap-rock acts like Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, etc. Yuck.
My iPod has about 400 rap/hip-hop songs on it, and very damn few of them are dated after 1995-- but I still listen to and enjoy almost everything that came before.
Perhaps I should have been a little more specific: the real DJs who wish to spin stuff from a computer will use Final Scratch.
Also, FYI Final Scratch does support lossless formats. In fact the newest version uses NI Traktor as its front end.
A certain amount of kudos is due to Stanton here, because the intel version is Linux, and there is no Windows version. Version 1.1 adds OS X support too.
Finally if you check the web site you'll see that there are two different records available for it - one optimized for scratching and the other for mixing. But I will admit I'm by no means an expert DJ.
I agree with you however, that Final Scratch will not replace genuine pressed records. But for the DJ who also creates music, Final Scratch is an invaluable tool to bring that cool groove you put together to a gig the same evening.