DJ'ing with records - Could you do it?

It's all about the equipment

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Message
Author
User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

DJ'ing with records - Could you do it?

#1 Post by Eyeball » Mon Jun 04, 2007 8:12 pm

In the thread 'dump the CD player', some people seem to rely very heavily on technology.

Would you be able to DJ a dance using records only? Either 78, 45 or 33 rpm? Or would you have exploded?
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
Mr Awesomer
Posts: 1089
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 10:21 pm
Location: Altadena, CA
Contact:

Re: DJ'ing with records - Could you do it?

#2 Post by Mr Awesomer » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:31 pm

Eyeball wrote:Would you be able to DJ a dance using records only?
It's fundamentally the same process... only one is more manually intensive.
Instead of hauling in crates of records and big turn tables, you set up a laptop and perhaps an external hard drive.
Instead of flipping to "E" for Ellington you type in Ellington.
Instead of removing a record, placing it on a turntable, and dropping the needle on the correct groove, you drag, drop and click play.
Everyone here could DJ a dance using records... the real question is why bother?
Reuben Brown
Southern California

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#3 Post by Eyeball » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:40 pm

To me, it seems that the DJ is very much more connected with the music when using records as opposed to any other medium. There is less between you and the music.

Technically - no, I dont want to haul records around. I have nothing, at heart, against technological upgrades, but I feel a loss of connection when I am not handling the object itself. The essence of the tactile connection is lost.

And judging from some of the comments here, I am not sure that everyone could handle DJ'ing with records. There is no place to hide and few tricks to utilize.

zzzzoom
Posts: 142
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 12:52 pm
Location: Cleveland, OH

#4 Post by zzzzoom » Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:56 am

We had a dj a while back who was really into dj'ing with vinyl. It was so cool. So he would play a track that was scratchy with lots of pops - the same track that was available remastered on cd without the scratch and pops. :roll: I just did not understand the allure.

User avatar
Jonas
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:00 am
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

#5 Post by Jonas » Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:04 am

We had a guy who spun 78:s on a dance night in Stockholm this spring, with a beautiful turntable, phono pre-amp, and crates of records. Once the initial "coolness" factor faded away, about ten minutes after he started playing, all I wanted was good music, regardless of the source, and since it was his first ever gig, unfortunately he couldn't deliver.

Turntable deejaying seems nice like a novelty song every once in a while is nice, but for spinning on a regular basis it seems so much easier to give dancers the same music with less hiss and pops from a laptop.

/Jonas

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#6 Post by Eyeball » Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:06 am

zzzzoom wrote:We had a dj a while back who was really into dj'ing with vinyl. It was so cool. So he would play a track that was scratchy with lots of pops - the same track that was available remastered on cd without the scratch and pops. :roll: I just did not understand the allure.
Maybe you don't undertstand it b/c you have mimimalized it to just scratches and pops.
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
CafeSavoy
Posts: 1138
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 6:25 pm
Location: Mobtown
Contact:

#7 Post by CafeSavoy » Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:09 am

I don't think sound quality is really a reason against using records unless you're insisting on djing with old old records. There are lots of classic swing music on LPs that have good audio quality. Granted it will probably be easier to just rip them.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#8 Post by Eyeball » Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:11 am

Jonas wrote:We had a guy who spun 78:s on a dance night in Stockholm this spring, with a beautiful turntable, phono pre-amp, and crates of records. Once the initial "coolness" factor faded away, about ten minutes after he started playing, all I wanted was good music, regardless of the source, and since it was his first ever gig, unfortunately he couldn't deliver.

Turntable deejaying seems nice like a novelty song every once in a while is nice, but for spinning on a regular basis it seems so much easier to give dancers the same music with less hiss and pops from a laptop.

/Jonas
There is a guy out here in North Hollywood who spins 78s at a dance club and he is not very good for any number of reasons. It was impossible to tell, if with him, he was better than he would be under different recorded medium circumstances.
Will big bands ever come back?

SoundInMotionDJ
Posts: 154
Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 8:27 pm

#9 Post by SoundInMotionDJ » Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:23 am

Eyeball wrote:To me, it seems that the DJ is very much more connected with the music when using records as opposed to any other medium. There is less between you and the music.

Technically - no, I dont want to haul records around. I have nothing, at heart, against technological upgrades, but I feel a loss of connection when I am not handling the object itself. The essence of the tactile connection is lost.
I feel the same connection with vinyl or CDs. I've played off both for several years. I prefer CDs to vinyl...but there is nothing particularly magical about either format. CDs are much more forgiving of physcial handling over time, and tend to have "better" (cleaner? louder?) sound than vinyl.

There are two different kinds of connections that are lost when you move from "tangible" media to a computer...
SoundInMotionDJ wrote:Random Thoughts about DJing with a computer:


1) Computers can make you a lazy DJ

It takes a lot of effort to stay "in the moment" when you are using a computer. Staying connected to the dancers in the room is vital. With CDs you might be thinking 2 or 3 songs ahead - but the physical act of moving the CDs in and out of the players helps to keep you connected to the moment. With a computer playlist, you could setup 4 hours of music and walk away. That would be a big mistake.

It is common to see DJs create a playlist and reuse it with minor tweaks for several weeks. I think this is the wrong approach. I begin every event with a blank playlist. I build the playlist on-site and based on who is actually in the room. It is more work, but it's worth it. It keeps me in the moment.

There are exceptions - if I know I need a few songs for that evening (birthday, dedication, J&J, etc) I'll build those into a playlist ahead of time. For social dancing, my rule is to build the playlist from scratch. I try to stay no more than 4 to 5 songs ahead when building the playlist.


2) Selecting music is harder

The single hardest part of the transition from CDs to a computer for DJing is the loss of tangible cues and the lack of any physical organization to your music collection.

With CD's there are a lot of "cues" about where songs are, and what songs you have. You might have a "blues CD" or a kewl song "near the front of the case." There might be a good fast song on a "red CD" that's "near the back" of the case. You might have drawn little stars on a CD with good "panic pull" songs. It will surprise you how much you have been relying on the physical layout of your CDs to know your music.

With a computer, you need to know the artist or title of a song to find it. There are things that can make it easier - having the ID3 tags filled out is very important. Comments, ratings, bpm, genre, and album can all be vital clues to finding the song you want to play next.

I can keep about 500 songs in my head at a given time - artist, title, genre, tempo, what the intro and outro sound like, the breaks, the chorus, etc. I'm constantly listening to music that I know I will be playing over the next few weeks to keep my head current. That was probably true when I was using CDs, but I’m much more aware of the limits of my memory now that I have instant access to my entire music collection.

There is hope - once you “get it” and adapt to finding music on a computer, going back to CDs feels so “antiquated” – you’ll miss being able to sort by bpm, or search by rating or genre.
--Stan Graves

zzzzoom
Posts: 142
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 12:52 pm
Location: Cleveland, OH

#10 Post by zzzzoom » Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:53 am

Eyeball wrote:
zzzzoom wrote:We had a dj a while back who was really into dj'ing with vinyl. It was so cool. So he would play a track that was scratchy with lots of pops - the same track that was available remastered on cd without the scratch and pops. :roll: I just did not understand the allure.
Maybe you don't undertstand it b/c you have mimimalized it to just scratches and pops.
I don't think I minimalized anything . . . with everything else being equal, you are saying you would rather spin an LP with inferior sound (hiss, pops, etc which is what this person did) to a remastered CD/mp3? That just doesn't make any sense to me. Sorry.

User avatar
Mr Awesomer
Posts: 1089
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 10:21 pm
Location: Altadena, CA
Contact:

#11 Post by Mr Awesomer » Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:05 am

zzzzoom wrote:I don't think I minimalized anything . . . with everything else being equal, you are saying you would rather spin an LP with inferior sound (hiss, pops, etc which is what this person did) to a remastered CD/mp3? That just doesn't make any sense to me. Sorry.
With a proper setup, quality/clean records, the guy spinning vinyl wouldn't sound inferior. In fact, to my ear, they would sound better. The problem is most people who have taken it upon themselves to spin vinyl at dances are doing so with crap equipment and yard sale records. Most, but not all.
Reuben Brown
Southern California

User avatar
GemZombie
Posts: 772
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:46 pm
Location: Alpharetta, GA (Formerly SLO, CA)
Contact:

#12 Post by GemZombie » Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:05 pm

When I DJ'd at the radio studio, they had a huge library of Vinyl, and I did a few shows that were entirely DJ'd from Vinyl.

I also had my wife DJ an entire set of music using 78's once.

User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

#13 Post by djstarr » Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:25 pm

Eyeball wrote:To me, it seems that the DJ is very much more connected with the music when using records as opposed to any other medium. There is less between you and the music.
I'm very close to the machine, so I feel very close to the music on my machine.

Joking aside, I think this is an odd comment because I connect to the music with my ears, not my hands. So media doesn't matter to me [assuming sound quality is the same].

And I was always very clumsy with records so I'm sure I would suck if I had to DJ off of vinyl, I'd be too distracted by trying to place the needle and sifting through boxes of records to actually think about putting a set together.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#14 Post by Eyeball » Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:56 pm

Not to go too off rack, but when I read something for pleasure, I really prefer that it be printed on some type of wood pulp product...like a book or even an LP album cover. I like the feel of the book or LP cover in my hands and the warmth (or non-coldness!) of the paper and the way I can make contact with it. I hate that aspect of CDs and 'removed media' - very cold, very stand-off-ish. I never read anything of an extended nature on line.

And at least vinyl has its own deep, lustrous warmth.

Music can be a very hands on experience. Ask the man who makes it. Even though it is aural, it is very touchy-feely.
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
JesseMiner
Posts: 1034
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 5:36 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: DJ'ing with records - Could you do it?

#15 Post by JesseMiner » Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:22 pm

Eyeball wrote:Would you be able to DJ a dance using records only? Either 78, 45 or 33 rpm?
The simple answer is yes, most definitely. I would love DJing with vinyl. I did it for many years when I DJed non-swing music (mostly ska and reggae).

But for my swing DJing, especially when traveling, I prefer a more portable and practical solution for many reasons. That is why over the years I have moved from LPs to original CDs to burned CDs to mp3s.

Jesse

Locked