Is The Party Over For Vinyl?! If So CD or PC?

[DEEPDOWNINSIDE]

I think you all have covered this numerous times. However, I didn't think it would affect me much, until now. I was asked by a friend who just got into club and event promotion, to fill some slots Djaying for some upcoming gigs. I have been a bedroom DJ for sometime. My equipment is super basic. Whats basic you say? I have two belt drive turntables and a super simple gemini mixer. A djay friend of mine back in So Cal insisted I start with belt drives. His logic was " If you can rock belt driven turntables you can mix with anything." So I got belt drives okay... I have a solid crate of house tunes and my skills are pretty average at best. I have rocked a few house parties so I know the basics. I have mostly focused on music production and not much on perfecting my DJ skills. I always wanted to someday be able to do both, dj and produce house music. But I really thought I could never break into the art form and play gigs. Coming from Los Angeles its a big deal if you can even spin one night for 30 minutes at semi popular place on a weeknight. Its epic if you can get paid to spin for the same amount of time at a weekend spot in LA. But, now I'm out here attending university and Nashville & St. Louis both have nice scenes. I've just fallen in to luck of possibly breaking into Djaying and I am very excited about the opportunity.

So my question is should I invest in new turntables, buy CD djay system, or go the laptop/software route. I've noticed a few djays that I have followed though the years switching up. For instance I have seen Andy Caldwell (Naked Music SF,CA) many times and recently I noticed he has dumped vinyl for a MacBook setup. Also I heard that Louie Vega(MAW) was seen carrying CD case along with a small selection of vinyl to a gig. Both occurrences were outside of their native spots. I saw Andy in Chicago and Nashville. A friend of mine saw Louie V. in California. So its possible they dont travel with vinyl anymore. But get this, I have seen a few other Big Name Djays STILL spinning vinyl. What gives?!

Now are these folks spinning vinyl cos they can afford to buy the stuff, since they are superstar deejays? Or maybe vinyl is not going out and I have been caught up in the hype.
Local Djays seem to be going the Laptop/ CD system setup route. You can download new tracks so much faster and somewhat cheaper if you decide on a Laptop or CD setup. Whats the deal? What should I do?

I've been practicing lately and I just would like to know if I am wasting time learning a soon defunct art form. Should I stop wasting my time behind the turntables and try to set my nice new MacBook up with some swank deejay program. Or should I start ripping my vinyl to CD and sell my turntables on eBay as soon as possible?

[Ashwell]

That's definitley a personal decision. But if you don't have much vinyl than it probably doesn't make sense to go with turntables unless you want the feel of turntables or plan on accumulating a lot of vinyl. CDJ's are the standard in most venues now. The main advantage is that they're solid and dependable but they're also pretty expensive and you don't really need them.

Investing in a good laptop and dj software along with a audio interface & external harddrive is a no-brainer but the question is really what you want to use as a controller? What do you want to lug around when you play out? What are you going to feel the most comfortable playing on? Is portability and the weight or size of gear an issue?, etc..

You could get something like traktor scratch pro and then use the CDJ's or turntables as a controller and/or you could just get a good midi Dj Controller. There's a ton of them to choose from and a bunch of new models just came out. So, just do your homework before you invest in anything. The new numark ns7 looks cool and that eks otus looks interesting. Also, check out ableton live 8 and the akai apc40 controller - it's a totally different way of dj'ing but if you're already into production it might be up your alley. I personally use traktor at home and then serato at the club - and I still play a ton of vinyl. I've never been into the cdj thing - but if I had the money I wouldn't mind having a pair.

Hope this helps.

[deejaysoul]

I would suggest just a pair of CDJs, since you already have TTs and most clubs are setup with CDJs. Of course if you can afford the MK3 1000s, by all means get thems, but if you're on more a budget and want some with a bit of option., I recommend CDJ400s, they play CDs, and can play music from any USB drive or thumb stick and can be used as a midi control. And I would also get DVS there's plenty to choose from, I currently use Torq and Traktor Scratch Pro, both give you the option of playing with CDs, TTs, Midi or stand-alone. They also have built in effects, mixer and tons of options to play the way you want. Traktor has the 4 deck option and is totally killer unless you get Traktor Duo which is only 2 decks. Torq is good, but the database management is not so great at the moment, so I made my move to Traktor. You can get Traktor Scratch Duo for $349 and you get a nice soundcard, cds and vinyls.

[dj aakmael]

Yeah, it really is personal choice. What I did was kept my tables and got Serato. Backup all your main (favorite) music files from your desktop/records on cd's, then rip the cd's into your laptop (or put them on a flashdrive into your laptop).

This way you are covered on all angles:

1 - you still have records and your tables
2 - you have a program like Serato that emables you to play files and records
3 - if you happen to do a gig that has Serato, or a gig that has cdj's you're straight either way
4 - everything is backed up, and back-ups for back-ups.

Should your computer crash, you have backups on your cd's and laptop. Should your laptop crash you have backups on your cd's and computer. Should your cd's get stolen at a gig, you have backups on your laptop and computer.

This way you're covered on all angles, plus will be able to play pretty much any setup.

Just my op

peace
aak