First of all - to the thread starter - do you want to make your own trance music, or do you want to play records, possibly to an audience? Just trying to make the distinction between producer and DJ a bit clearer, it can be very confusing to those not in the know...

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Originally posted by BelgianGuru Limit, aren't CD singles equally expensive as vinyl singles (I'm not being sarcastic, this is an actual question) ? Or are you saying you would rather have bought the cheaper mp3's ? (but they sound like shit !) And most tracks, if you want them before anyone else (unless you're a big name Dj who gets promo CD's) can only be found on vinyl .. as far as I know. Could you give some more info on the CD stuff maybe ? Or PM me if people don't care to be arsed in this thread. Because I also find vinyl to be pretty darn expensive, butit's easily forgotten once you spin them at a gig But still, I would like to hear some of your solutions to the things mentioned in my post. Cheers

I'm just sayin' that go for cd's at first...use mp3's..i'm pretty sure you can get em at 192 or even higher bit rates to burn...this is a much cheaper solution...oh and remeber that even if you do get a gig(which will take a long time since you don't know anyting about mixing what so ever)The sound systems are very missleading and don't sound that great..so using mp3's at higher bit rates should be just fine. Oh and don't think you have to have the newewst tunes before anybody else when your just playing to your walls...which they probably don't care what you play...this is one massive mistake I made. I always thought I would end up being the greatest DJ in the world and said "man I gots to have this new shit"...well what eventually happened was I started adding breaks and samples and just found myself trying to make teh tracks I played better...then I said fuck it all, I was spending way too much money and quit..I was working for awhile as a dj making $ but nothing major..just parties and school dances..did a few clubs. After two years of being musicless the call came back but in a different form..."it said to bring whats in your soul to the people" so I started producing...and now here I am 4 years l8r and very close to fulfilling the prophacy.

Well thats my story and I hope it helps you in your journey.
The funny thing is I still can;t bear to let go of my turntables..but I'm close.

to limit. you cannot use mp3s to DJ out. mp3 is a form of compression that works by taking the full waveform of a song and then cuts the inaudible/ultra high/ultra low frequencies out but i should stress - you will lose something that wasnt meant to be lost when you squash a file into a fifth of its actual size (and thats about 320kbps). significantly below that (192kbps) and below you can hear quite clearly the difference if you play them side by side on a home stereo at low volume. how much is cut out depends on the compression ratio. the waveform afterwards is considerably smaller than before. now its hard to explain but you can feel inaudible frequencies. when a dog whistle goes off near you, you cant hear anything but your ear twitches and you do notice something. same in music. worst offenders are 1) sub frequencies arent complete even in 320kbps mp3 and this absolutely kills sub heavy tracks. or the sub cuts off for the whole song. what a way to ruin a stomper. 2) the ultra highs disappear so stuff like hats loses their top end and alot of percussion beginds to feel tinny. you can notice it if you put a cd on and an mp3 copy of it side by side. its even more noticeable at club level volumes.

although i do agree that it pays peanuts. i dont expect to make any significant amount of money from my DJing or production. i just do it cuz i love it.

to the thread starter. a DJ is a person who has 2 turntables and a mixer + speakers and mixes commercially available music. a producer is a person who writes dance music (broadly speaking. a producer assembles the record and creates the instruments and can do so either for themselves or for other people. in dance music the producer usually always writes their own music too). a producer would use things like synthesizers, samplers, grooveboxes (quite often a turntable too). theres a big difference. if you want to write trance music you should get yourself a copy of fl studio or some such application and screw around with it for a few months. if you like it, get yourself some instruments (VSTi or hardware. some VSTi instruments: reFX vanguard, G-Media impOSCar, linplug albino etc. some hardware synths to look into: access virus classic (rack mount is cheaper), clavia nord lead 2x (rackmount is cheaper), korg ms2000).

if you want to DJ you might want to invest in those technics 1200s. they are expensive decks but if you choose to persue DJing seriously you will end up with these in the end either way. almost every club that has decks on the premises has 1200s so if you can spin records on them you can spin records anywhere. if you choose not to persue it seriously 1200s generally have good resell values provided you look after them.

Last edited by Derivative on Oct-09-2004 at 16:50

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Originally posted by Limit I'm just sayin' that go for cd's at first...use mp3's..i'm pretty sure you can get em at 192 or even higher bit rates to burn...this is a much cheaper solution...

hmz
even now a lot of parties have no cd players at all or crappy ones. Think I'll stick to the black gold. It sounds phatter too and at least every non-amateurish party has the 1200 standard.

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That's weird Dez, I live in the same country as you do, in our capital, and most of the parties that are medium sized have CD players as a standard and Tech-12's as 'optional' meaning that I have to tell them I want some I haven't spinned in any of our clubs yet (except for a contest) so I don't know anything about that, maybe you do. I don't think it's an issue though, if you spin with CD or vinyl, the organisation will rent/get whatever you need/ask for.

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I can't believe I'm sayin' this because I stricly against CD djing...but cd's will last longer and sound better. Man I can't belieb I just said that. I remeber teh first tim I tried to spin with cd's..it was horrible...I don't know but I just love the vinyl.

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Originally posted by Limit I can't believe I'm sayin' this because I stricly against CD djing...but cd's will last longer and sound better. Man I can't belieb I just said that. I remeber teh first tim I tried to spin with cd's..it was horrible...I don't know but I just love the vinyl.

Not entirely true. A pressed CD will last for longer than a burned CD... and vinyl will last for forever as long as you take good care of it.

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Weird, at the university the professor told us the exact opposite, a burned CD (the stuff you do at home) will last longer then a pressed CD (the stuff you buy in stores).

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eh? ive worn out a few really old vinyls by playing them constantly.

i used to like vinyl only for the feel and just because im used to spinning 12 inch records. i hate spinning the 6 inchers. too small and fiddly. so when i first got on a cd deck i hated it. but. you can do mad scratches on cd decks...stuff that would normally jog the needle or wreck a vinyl completely. the pitch control is insane. + you can burn cds full of dj tools and create sound FX cds for scratching, live performance, production. doing that is easier and more convenient than pressing the stuff you need to a record. overall its just more versatile than a turntable. but it takes loads of getting used to. and if you've been spinning 12 inchers for years i can see a few vinyl purists never going digital as long as records are still on sale.

honest;y i can say that if I were to ever go back to DJing I don;t think that I would use cd's...It's just not the same. If IU'm spinning I'm using vinyl and thats the send of it. But I see your point.

While I used to always use records when I DJ'ed, if you are just starting learn the basics with CD's. You can start with MP3's and you CD collection, and you will not have to spend days upon days looking for the old limited DJ version of some odd record.

CD's also have the benefit of being able to burn copies so if some fuck at a party raids your shit, you will lose hard to find records, or worry about breaking a record on a scratch. Also if your buddies are into the scene you can share shit by burning.

I wish I had the shit out now when I started to DJ. Back in like 92 when I was spinning CD DJ's were a joke and the internet was not as big, so I would have to take 3 hour trips to spend all my money on records whihc now I do not even listen too. It would have been so much cooler if I could have just used CD's.