Hmm having just bought some numark 9 cd decks after using technics for 15 yrs ive got to admit that that there very easy to use and cd s can be manipulated in ways vinyl never will be .So the 2 formats will probably be used in conjuction with one another .Just another point about some peoples attitude on this forum stop being so arsey about the subject i dont think ive ever been into a club and demanded that dj s play vinyl. Sounds like some of you guys are in to it for the wrong reasons MONEY AND WEARING SPANDEX TOPS hehe at the end of the day you play other peoples records or even your own, so what! dj are every where now, the original ethos of house music was for eveybody to have a good time and dance not argue about diffent formats etc and slagging other people off because they ve downloaded some tunes off the internet .If your into the music then good if your into it to be famous or have people kissing your arse then then your a cock end who s missing the point and more likely than not a shit dj and a complete wanker to boot .

Anyone know where they sell spandex body suits?

Hey Masterblaster, good to see more people seeing the value of learning more skills.

The true essence of DJing is making people have a good time plain and simple.
It's worth remembering that people come to the club so that you can entertain them, they are not there to worship you.
If a DJ with CDs rocks the crowd better than a guy with vinyl no one is going to say "ah... hold on a second, he's using CDs so we had better stop having a good time". Most people don't actually have the chance to see what you are using anyway.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am not a fan but that refers to my own use of them not the skills that someone has built up.

That's the fun thing about this forum as you allways have to ask yourself, how many of these people actually DJ seriously and how many have even been to a night club for that matter? (This is not aimed at anyone in particular, just a general comment).

Cheers
Nemesis

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Well, I've read through this entire thread and haven't found the answer I'm looking for. Currently I am just starting to get into DJing, for the time being while I am learning I am just mixing mp3s. Not with mixmeister though, I am actually using my ears with two outputs and beatmatching by ear with a program for Mac computers called Megaseg. Anyways, my point is that I have a very basic understanding of how to mix by ear. I am now ready to start getting mixing equipment and am now wondering on the difference on how one would mix a CD as opposed to a vinyl. I also have some idea on how to mix on a turntable even though I have never done it, I'm saying I have an idea on how it would be done, I would just need to practice to get it properly.

To mix I first find a cue point for the next song and let the two play on beat. I then wait for them to lose beat and then figure out which is faster and nudge the cued song and adjust the speed accordingly and try again to see if they hold beat. I'm sure there are probably much faster ways to do this but I am just a beginner and am not intersted in how eveyone else does it, I want to figure it out for myself.

Now to my question. how would the technique differ between CDJs and Turntables for mixing? I know if you want to slow down the cued song on turntables you would just put pressure on the platter to bring it back into beat. To speed it up you can just grab the 'nob' in the middle of the plater and twist it. On a turntable you also have a pitch adjuster which adjusts the speed. How would you do these things on a CDJ? I've also thought of trying to spin the record with my finger(s) so that keeps beat with the other song and then adjust the speed of the platter until the vinyl stops slipping on the slipmat. Is this a good way to mix? Can I use this same method with CDJs?

I apologise if this is the wrong thread for this question but I want to use this information to help me decide which equipment to purchse.

Also, on a separate note, about sound quality, I don't know at what frequency productions are recorded to the computer but I know that they are encoded at 44.1kHz to CD. One useful piece of information that would pertain to the earlier discussion about sound quality is that ANY ANALOGUE SIGNAL WHICH IS BAND LIMITED (all frequencies are below a given frequency f) CAN BE DIGITALLY REPRODUCED WITH NO DEGREDATION IF IT IS SAMPLED AT A RATE THAT IS TWICE AS MUCH AS THE BAND LIMIT (2f), in our third year communications course at university this was known as the Sampling theorem. it can be proven but I am not going to do it here. My point is, if CDs are sampled at 44.1Khz, they must have frequencies no higher than 22.05kHz if they are to be reproduced with no signal degredation.

I eagerly await an answer to my question.

Cheers.

Hi Physe!

Good to see you're not letting the stereotypes get in the way of enjoying your music, and even better you're using a mac!! (I'm a proud iBook owner myself :-) )

OK to beatmatch on a CDJ system:

Get one song playing at 0% pitch.

Now listen to the other song in your headphones. When you hear the cue point (the point at which the beat starts), hit pause. Now you can scroll the cue point back and forwards with the jog wheel (most CDJ's have a jog wheel). The player will repetatively play about a quarter of a second of song, so you can hear when the right cue point is selected.

Hit play, and the beat should start straightaway. Then hit cue again, and the player will go back to the cue point. If the beat started too early then move the jog wheel to the left, if it started too late then move it right, and hit play again to see if you got it right. This process usually takes me about 3-5 seconds to get right.

Now that you've got the cue point set up properly, wait for a suitable beat on the playing track, and hit Play on your cued track. The aim here is to get the pitch right. Every CDJ I've seen has pitch bend buttons. These are for speeding up and slowing down the 'platter'. Chances are you won't get the beats bang on time when you hit Play, so hit these buttons until the beats line up. My CDJ's have a bit of momentum in them to simulate a moving platter (which is more annoying than useful) so don't worry if you can't figure out why you keep overshooting.
If you get it completely wrong then don't worry, just hit 'cue' and wait for another suitable part of the playing song.

OK, now that the beats are lined up, keep them lined up with the pitch bend buttons. If you keep hitting the + button, then move the pitch slider in the + direction. If you keep hitting the - button, then slow the pitch slider down. Eventually you'll reach the point where the two beats happen at exactly the same time, and you don't have to hit the buttons any more.

OK, cue point set, pitch set, all that you need to do now is hit 'cue' again, to get your cue point back, and wait for a suitable point in the playing track before starting your cued track! Once again, when the new song starts you have to correct the phase with the + and - buttons, and now you're right to start fading the new track in. Fade this in on a transition (16 or 32 beats after your cue point) and you can do funky things with the bass and treble controls on your mixer if you feel like it.

And that's how I do it.

I can go from putting a CD into the deck to having it beatmatched and going out the speakers in roughly 30 seconds, and I'm by no means an expert...

Good luck, go into your local musical instrument store (that sell guitars and the like), chances are they might have a CDJ or two sitting up the back that you can have a play with.

Most of all, have fun

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CD Vs Vinyl ?

CD = 44.1 KHz
Vinyl = 48 KHz

The human ear can hear upto about 18 KHz (20 KHz if your ear is "newly born" ).
Considering I'm 18 y/o, I'm more used to CDs... which are the standart to me, so when I listen to a vinyl - I can listen to the differencey between the two!

Vinyl sounds better comparing to a CD... although after 18KHz - you can only FEEL the frequencies.
48KHz > 44.1 KHz, therefore you can feel more.

And going more into it - a Vinyl is physically "written" on. It's analog, which means it has a nice "unbroken" wave-form coming from it (using the needle).
CD is binary, meaning- it's wave-form is "broken" and can't contain all the musical data of an "unbroken" wave-form. it can NEVER get to the vinyl's quality.


That's it folks... come back next week fooooor - s0undw4v3's horror picture show!

Salamtek! (or cya'll in english )

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Wow...

That is some good info.

Thanks
Nem

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I prefer to spin with vinyl ...
But i don't care what other people use, so long as it sounds good

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~PFUNK~

quote:

Originally posted by s0undw4v3 CD Vs Vinyl ? CD = 44.1 KHz Vinyl = 48 KHz The human ear can hear upto about 18 KHz (20 KHz if your ear is "newly born" ). Considering I'm 18 y/o, I'm more used to CDs... which are the standart to me, so when I listen to a vinyl - I can listen to the differencey between the two! Vinyl sounds better comparing to a CD... although after 18KHz - you can only FEEL the frequencies. 48KHz > 44.1 KHz, therefore you can feel more. And going more into it - a Vinyl is physically "written" on. It's analog, which means it has a nice "unbroken" wave-form coming from it (using the needle). CD is binary, meaning- it's wave-form is "broken" and can't contain all the musical data of an "unbroken" wave-form. it can NEVER get to the vinyl's quality. That's it folks... come back next week fooooor - s0undw4v3's horror picture show! Salamtek! (or cya'll in english )

I assume that since vinyl is analog there is no sampling rate and the 48kHz refers to the bandlimit of the sound. Therefore if you were to sample at 96kHz on a CD and had an digital to analog converter then there would be absolutely no loss in signal quality, period.

If the 48kHz does not refer to this, please let me know what it does refer to. I only am familiar with the theory, I don't know exactly how a vinyl is created, but I know the idea behind how a CD is created.

I'm just guessing so correct me if I am wrong.
I got the impression that ultimately the thing that made the difference was the 'unbroken' vs 'broken' wave form and not the Khz of the sample rate.

If anyone knows it would be pretty cool

Cheers
Nem

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quote:

Originally posted by Nemesis44 I'm just guessing so correct me if I am wrong. I got the impression that ultimately the thing that made the difference was the 'unbroken' vs 'broken' wave form and not the Khz of the sample rate. If anyone knows it would be pretty cool Cheers Nem

Sorry, I'll try to make state my point in terms that may be easier to understand. I'm saying that basically if you make a CD by sampling at a high enough rate, (this depends on the highest frequency of your signal), you can completely reconstruct the original analogue waveform out of it. If you have the equipment it is possible to do this. I should state that I have no idea what a digital to analogue converter would cost so I don't even know if it would be practical for a DJ. I just know that it is possible to do if you have the equipment to do it.

I have another semi-related question. Does anyone know how much it would cost to make your own vinyls with a vinyl cutter? To burn CDs it would cost about a dollar per CD in Canadian for me. If I were to have a vinyl cuttter how much would each vinyl cost and how long does it take to make a vinyl with a vinyl cutter? Please sepcify what curency your answer is in so I can convert it to Canadian dolars if I have to.

Cheers.

PS: Sorry, yes I believe that is the main difference as well (broken vs. unbroken) but I'm trying to say that there is a way around it so that it is no longer a factor but I don't know if it's actually used in practice. There could be another factor but I haven't given it enough thought to state here whether or not I am certain on it because I want to avoid people attacking me if possible. =)

Last edited by physe on Sep-06-2003 at 17:11

Hi Physe,

I am not sure about the cost of producing vinyl with your own cutter but the rates that I pay for my test pressings are as follows depending on how many I think I will need: (Prices are in GBP Sterling)

12"

100 for £349
200 for £379
500 for £499
1000 for £745

I would imagine that if you had the machine yourself you could probably get the cost down even more but the initial cost of the machine is massive. And I'm not to sure what the 'unwritten' vinyl costs.

I know this doesn't directly answer your question but it may help.


Cheers
Nem

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quote:

Originally posted by annon185 what's better (DJwise that is....)?

Hmm,that`s a hard one.. vinyl or cd..

Mixing with vinyl: You get much more respect,and you can express (when you mix or scratch with hip hop & R&B)your feelings,it gets more personal.. But the vinyl cost a lot more money than cd`s.

Mixing with cd: You can have more fun (if you have a professional cd player)because the tecnology is good at that point..
You can burn cd`s, (cheap) or you can by them (cheaper THAN Vinyl) but expencive..

Conclution: I haven`t got ANY idea

Ok.. Vinyl then ..

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