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-- The Fascination of Vinyl ...

The Fascination of Vinyl ...

I've been mixing on traktor for a few months now, and I'm looking to invest in a set of decks (NB: I don't have lots of money). At the moment, im leaning towards getting turntables, since it seems more hands-on/interesting ... CD decks seems boring, just like mixing on the computer. What I wanna know is, does the fascination of vinyl .. cuein' and rockin' the beat, and handling it ever wear off? I just don't wanna spend shitloads on committing to vinyl and then just getting bored with it and wish i bought CDs instead. I think my want for vinyl is just a fad that i'll get over if i get turntables .. i love watching PVD in videos and shit with the single-ear shoulder listening, and rockin' the record etc and (this'll prolly sound lame)just kinda wanna do what he does lol ...

Anyhow, i just wanna know if any of you guys have got sick of touching/handling the vinyl and suggest whether i should by turntables of cd decks. Cheers!

if dj's have been using the technics for over 30 yrs,, no one got bored

I don't think it's possible to get sick of using vinyl.

I think if you have a real passion for the music that you spin, vinyl will give you a more realistic feel because you are in total control of it. There's no lag like on traktor, or hidden feel that you get with a CDJ where the cd is in some drive where you can't see it... vinyl certainly is a more wholesome and passionate experience imo, and aslong as you are passionate about the music you're spinning, you'll love your turntables. good luck

I spun with CD's for 12 years and have switched to vinyl. The reasons for me are the following in no particular order:

More titles available on vinyl (insanely more)
The sound is richer, warmer, whatever
More interactive then CD, i.e Fun

To tell you the truth, i wish i would have taken the vinyl path from the get go, so happy i switched

Zzyzx

I'd suggest going to a local store, like Sam Ash, and asking to use their turntables. Also, go to your local small music store (That supplies vinyls). Mine, let's me use their turntables to listen to vinyls that are already in open packages, prior to me buying them (Only as long as I bring my headphones). If you think you can spend X amount of hours every week, mixing, then you're ready! =D

nope.. it doesnt wear off, if gets stronger and stronger.

the more skills you get with vinyl, the more fun it becomes. you realize all these cool things you can do that you never thought of before, because vinyl is physical and flexible.

the more I learn, the more I love the medium.

vinyl has this little thing called accuracy - an analog pitch fader. no .1% resoltion like a CD deck.. so if you have the skills to really beatmatch, you can make your mixes stay on target alot longer.

there's also something about the waveform a good turntable cartidge generates, and the low input signal level. it's very conducive to air-tight beat matching - the smooth analog waveforms tend to blend with eachother in very pleasing fashion...

but with anything, the more control and ability to control, the more skill required. getting the feel for vinyl and really being able to work with it takes a lot of practice!

but, it's not hard. very straight forward. start/stop, pitch and 33/45. that's it.

no looping, fancy buttons, LCD displays, BPM counters, cueing controls, etc. who needs it!

Meridian said it all -- the words of a true vinyl lover. I wholeheartedly agree

quote:

Originally posted by MERiDiAN5i2 nope.. it doesnt wear off, if gets stronger and stronger. the more skills you get with vinyl, the more fun it becomes. you realize all these cool things you can do that you never thought of before, because vinyl is physical and flexible. the more I learn, the more I love the medium. vinyl has this little thing called accuracy - an analog pitch fader. no .1% resoltion like a CD deck.. so if you have the skills to really beatmatch, you can make your mixes stay on target alot longer. there's also something about the waveform a good turntable cartidge generates, and the low input signal level. it's very conducive to air-tight beat matching - the smooth analog waveforms tend to blend with eachother in very pleasing fashion... but with anything, the more control and ability to control, the more skill required. getting the feel for vinyl and really being able to work with it takes a lot of practice! but, it's not hard. very straight forward. start/stop, pitch and 33/45. that's it. no looping, fancy buttons, LCD displays, BPM counters, cueing controls, etc. who needs it!

Very, VERY well put. **Applauds**

Thanks a heap for all ur responses!

records have always fascinated me and always will

I spin both...

And I am impartial.... certainly turntables are a bit more elegant...more like a piece of fine, minimalist industrial art - form & function in balance.

But the jabs against CD players are unwarranted and not based in fact. The Pioneer decks, for example, offer 0.02% pitch resolution, not 0.1% as stated earlier. I can let a 2 - 3 minute mix ride on CDJs, turntables, or any combination thereof - without fiddling with the fader.

I understand that some of you guys are die-hard vinyl loyalists, and that's cool, but take off the rose-colored glasses when someone comes in here asking for objective, factual information.

CDs offer a wealth of creative possibilities with looping, hot cues, etc. You can really add a LOT to your sets with a good CDJ. I'm of the 'less is more' school of thought when it comes to effects & such, but a well placed loop, vocal stab or sample can really make a track come alive.

Do I think a CDJ1000 will age as gracefully as a Technics 1200? No, it will look clunky just as the CDJ500II does now, but hey... looks aren't everything....

Anyway bent, it comes down to personal preference. If you just like handling the vinyl, go for turntables.... if mixing the music is of paramount importance - no matter the medium - you might look at CDs.

Of course, if you go for the CDJ1000, 800, or Denon's decks (or even the new Technics) you'll find that it is still a very manually intensive process: cueing up your track, rocking it back & forth to find the perfect release point, swapping discs, scratching, etc. It's very similar to handling vinyl if you want it to be. Of course you can use them as traditional CD players too and eliminate a lot of the platter manipulation.

I would say this: Grab some CDs, records, & cartridges. Go to your nearest dealer, and play on the stuff. Go several times a week for a month. You will develop a preference. Go from there.

Cheers.

CDs definitely have the edge on creativity. Loops & instant cue starts alone can potentially create endless creativity in your sets.

Although I hardly use my CMX3000, I use it for some cool, low tech effects w/ just the fader start with my DJM. Also loops to create sort of a remix on the fly. When I get lazy or need to take a break, I also use it to mix because it's a lot less involving (having a bunch of songs on each CD vs having to go through your vinyl every 3-5mins and cueing). Also w/ CDs, although they have less pitch resolution compared to analog TTs, there are no variables that throw it off and it'll never drift once matched spot on.

But in the end, there is no substitute for having total control and feeling that vinyl.

I will buy a CD deck, but the only reason why I would use it is to play songs that arent released yet, simple as that.

Vinyl all the way baby!

As has been put, if DJs have been using vinyls for over 30 years, then i dooont really think that the fascination of them has worn off. And besides, CD things are very very costly. I once saw a small CD mixer for something like $600 USD. Trust me, thats expensive when its just a mixer. Vinyls are the backbone of DJing, and their fascination will never wear off. Get a couple of Direct Drive(thats the #1 brand, right?) TTs, go to the local vinyl store and listen to some vinyls, bring them home, and start your journey towards the fascination of vinyl mixing.

quote:

Originally posted by Kamikaze Badger As has been put, if DJs have been using vinyls for over 30 years, then i dooont really think that the fascination of them has worn off. And besides, CD things are very very costly. I once saw a small CD mixer for something like $600 USD. Trust me, thats expensive when its just a mixer. Vinyls are the backbone of DJing, and their fascination will never wear off. Get a couple of Direct Drive(thats the #1 brand, right?) TTs, go to the local vinyl store and listen to some vinyls, bring them home, and start your journey towards the fascination of vinyl mixing.

Kamikaze you have alot to learn... some CD DJ's dont go and buy CD's... they just download them, burn them onto CD and use them. And if you want to see a CDJ, check out either the Denon DN-S5000 (USD $900) and the Pioneer CDJ-1000 mk2 (USD $1100) anyway, vinyls are costly, you will find that out sooner or later. Paying $10 per record isnt as cheap as it sounds. A decent DJ set, depending on how long the set (Im estimating a 2hr set), would be around 15-20 records, 15x10-20x10.. you will be spending $150-$200 on records. Buying records never stops for as long as you DJ - they are the MOST costly thing within the industry.

Here we go again...

Oh lordy. Like this hasn't been rehashed a million times before, but OK I'll bite...

quote:

no .1% resoltion like a CD deck..

Remember that this is only the resolution of the display, not the internal A/D converter on the CD Deck. If you were to be totally fair then you would say that the Technics turntable only has -8, -4, 0, 4 and 8% pitch, because they are the only numbers on the scale! Also, I defy you to be able to tell the difference betweeen a pitch scale that is quantised into 160 increments, and an analog pitch scale. *sigh*

quote:

I once saw a small CD mixer for something like $600 USD.

You don't need a dedicated CD mixer, any analog mixer works just fine if you've got CD decks. The only reason you'd get a CD mixer is perhaps for remote start of songs, but that's a bit silly really.

There will always be that certain technophobe element, just as some people prefer guitars to electronic music. It never ceases to amuse me how people can love music that is completely created on an _electronic_, _quantised_ medium, with nothing recorded from the real world AT ALL, and yet still rave on about how the analog representation of that signal is somehow superior to the digital representation. Crikey people, work it out! The sound is created electronically, recorded electronically, and every time you make an analog copy of that signal you're degrading it. Once when you make the vinyl, and again when you play it. And that's not taking into account the way that the needle smooths out the high frequencies after a while. CD's have better sound quality, period. Yes, you can hear it.

There is however one advantage to vinyl that people don't talk about much -- most turntables are pretty much the same. If you go to a party or club with vinyl, you can be sure that the turntables there will behave pretty much the same as the ones at home. CD players have different cue mechanisms, different ways to select a track, different ways to rewind, loop and so on. But try doing these on vinyl:

* Buy a mix CD, put that on the left hand CD player, and mix your own stuff in with the right, stopping the mix CD and mixing it back in when your own song is about to finish.
* Find a cool sample in a track, and put that into another track, once per beat then twice per beat when close to the transition.
* Start a song without a big rrrrreeeewwworgh as the sound is smeared all over the place.

I say try both of them out, and go with whatever feels best. For bedroom DJ'ing you really can't go past CD's, they beat the stuffing out of vinyl. If you're really serious then you must learn vinyl but hey it's all about having fun, in the end :-)

I started out using CDs, and the day I bought my first TT, my cd decks took a back seat. I use them when I have to...if I want to play a song that hasn't come out on Vinyl yet, but for all intensive purposes, I try to use vinyl as much as possible. It's more fun, and it's more of a challenge.

ya, that's true. There's something magic about vinyl even a CDJ1000 from pioneer can't create. You feel and see the music. Someone who has never touched vinyl, doesn't understand that feeling.

When i get my first DJ setup, it will be turntables. I want to experience the vinyl fascination (and become poor at the same time ) in full force before going and buying a CD player. Plus vinyl seems to get a lot more releases (and sooner), even if it is more expensive to purchase.

Re: The Fascination of Vinyl ...

quote:

Originally posted by bent Anyhow, i just wanna know if any of you guys have got sick of touching/handling the vinyl and suggest whether i should by turntables of cd decks. Cheers!

i always could have more vinyl to touch hehe!

if ur worried that this is a fad.. or ur fascination for vinyl will go away.. u should be more worried that ur fascination w/ dj'ing will go away.. and that u might be considering dj'ing in general as just a fad.. im not trying to clown you, im seriously saying you should really think about this before you drop some major cash.. it IS an investment and you WILL always be putting MORE money into it. so why bother getting started if ur having second thoughts in the first place.. just something to think about

quote:

Originally posted by hapamoto if ur worried that this is a fad.. or ur fascination for vinyl will go away.. u should be more worried that ur fascination w/ dj'ing will go away.. and that u might be considering dj'ing in general as just a fad.. im not trying to clown you, im seriously saying you should really think about this before you drop some major cash.. it IS an investment and you WILL always be putting MORE money into it. so why bother getting started if ur having second thoughts in the first place.. just something to think about

yeah good point. i was thinking the same thing a while back too ... thats wh i mucked around on vtt, and now use traktor for a few months .. just to see if i get sick of it or not

I used to spin cd's... after the 1st time I got a chance to try vinyl I GAVE all my cd's away as a gift the same evening... vinyl ever since and I think it's almost impossible to get bored of vinyl

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