So I came up like most DJ’s my age in the mid-nineties, using turntables and vinyl. I started collecting vinyl before I even had turntables so by the time I had my Technics turntables, I would already have a great start to practice at home. Well it’s now 13 years later and I have gone almost all digital using CDJ’s (CD Turntables). I made that jump a few years ago after attending Burning Man in the Nevada Desert (terrible place to bring vinyl).
Regardless, I am always playing out tech-funk, techno and breaks but during the winter months I end up playing a lot of Snowboard events and other electic gigs that I play different styles of music.
So I am debating going from CDJ’s to using Laptop at my gigs. However, I have not yet decided if I should make this jump and if I do, should I go with Seratto? Traktor Scratch? Or just stay with CDJ’s? As far as comfort level goes, I am very comfortable using CDJ’s. I was very comfortable using vinyl. I can adapt pretty easily so that’s not much of an issue.
I would like to know from as many people as possible the following:
– Are you using Vinyl, CDJ’s, Laptop?
– Why do you prefer the route that you’re going?
– If you are using laptop, what program are you using and what specs of laptop?
– What problems have you experienced playing out live?
– Do you have any additional thoughts or advice that you could share with me about this topic?
Coppo,
Good topic man…
1) CDJ's & vinyl
2) I prefer it because I'm too broke to afford Serrato etc. & a worthy enough laptop & I'm totally comfortable with what I use now.
3) N/A
4) Some people I have play with me, have had issues connecting the Serrato hub to the turntables sound wise.
4) I would stick to using the laptop for snowboarding gigs etc so that you have more music at your disposal & you can find it faster. Also, if your not mixing, a computer is good to just play tracks with.
Stick to CDJ's in the club/party atmosphere. You always rock it so stick to what you know, I say!
Keep on keepin' on man!
Clark-C in the 603
1) CD’s as backup if my laptop freaks out or when i hae to do a clutch setup, otherwise i use a black Macbook, TraktorScratch, and a Trigger Finger for looping/FX within traktor.
2) I tried ableton to do something new and fun, but i wound up doing the same programmed sets i was doing with records, so infact i felt like i was de-volving a bit. Plus the time compression algorithm is terrible to play out live with ableton. Obviously vinyl is wayyy too expensive to buy on a weekly basis, being able to play my own music after finishing it the night of is a wonderful thing.
3) Like i said before reading your blog fully lol, Black Macbook, 2.4 Ghz Intel, 2GB of Ram, 200 gig HD, And i use traktor scratch. And it runs like a dream.
4) Biggest problem with traktor is that it’s not serato lol, so you have to manually rewire your setup.. which as you know being in a high energy nightclub situation, pulling the wrong wires can be DISASTEROUS.
BUT i’ve also been playing out a lot more with traktor, so i am used to the wiring setup and have figured out how to set it up a lot faster than i have before.
And also i like what NI is doing, which is they are selling universal plug n play wires/RCA converters for a serato and traktor setup! So all you have to do is snap and unsnap two wires instead of painfully pulling out RCA’s from an existing serato box and into a traktor box (http://www.turntablelab.com/dj_equipment/41/31/36401.html)
I think another problem i ran into whe i first got my traktor setup was the overwhelming ammount of songs that you have access to! Once i started arranging playlists and folders, it’s gotten a lot easier to find specific tracks, and not be overhwhelmed.
4) The snowboard events i would bring CD’s as back up (always) and with a traktor setup, and serato you can play CD’s as tracking too, although im not too sure how that works since i never tried it. Vinyl is temperature sensitive, so it’s pretty frail. It’s really nice to have hip hop/house/breaks/new wave/chill shit at your disposal though! You can change the vibe and do enough fx/looping shit on traktor to make your own sets stand out more.
My favorite thing in traktor is the seamless loop though, so good for just hitting a button and not worrying about it being off a beat or something.
Good luck with your snowboard gigs, and your choosing of your DJing future lol. And get me some snowboard gigs too! I love riding 8)
pps: hit me up for some tunes, i need to send you some stuff.
http://www.myspace.com/udachi
Are you using Vinyl, CDJ's, Laptop?
100% Laptop w/ Traktor Scratch
– Why do you prefer the route that you're going?
1. I'd much rather worry about creative & technical elements of DJing than dicking around with beatmatching records.
(Yes, I still manually beatmatch within Traktor Scratch, but it's much more accurate than turntables ever were)
2. I haven't bought an actual piece of vinyl in months.
3. I got tired of playing on broken turntables/CDJs all the time. With my current setup, the only thing I'll have to deal with is a crap mixer, which is way easier to deal with than broken CDJs/turntables.
– If you are using laptop, what program are you using and what specs of laptop?
Traktor Scratch 1.3.1
Gateway Laptop w/ P4 processor, 1.5GB Ram, 80GB internal & 500GB external drives.
– What problems have you experienced playing out live?
In the beginning, I'd have overheating issues, but I worked around that by getting a laptop cooler. Aside from that, the only problem that I have now is idiots who want to claim that what I do isn't really DJing because I don't use antiquated methods of DJing anymore.
– Do you have any additional thoughts or advice that you could share with me about this topic?
If you're going to go the laptop route, you have to be ready to take some shit from people who are still using CDJs/turntables. Diehard vinyl junkies will be butthurt because you're accomplishing the same thing they're trying to do with greater ease and CD junkies will claim that it's cheating because everything is self-contained within the unit.
There will also be those people who miss the "visual" aspects of seeing a person pick a record and cue it up, but those people are going to have to get over it.
HI,
I can’t really help much.
I use serato with a mac 2.0ghz 4gRAM OSX (TIGER) and a 300GB firewire external drive.
I have setup iTunes to be “tricked out” and it thinks that the database file is local but it is really on my external drive.
I have such a hard time dj’ing now that my music collection is about 95gigs (14,000 songs) I play weddings and clubs and I have an extensive reggae collection (about 70+gigs worth)
My problem is organization, I am trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and trying to find new ways to organize, I have tried many ways and because of the immense amount of music it takes a very long time to execute one method of organization across a whole collection of music.
I tag songs that I know are killer but have trouble with genres (there are so many subgenres that labeling tracks becomes a full time job)
I can make playlists but I don’t trust them, as soon as I upgrade itunes my playlists usually get screwed up, also serato “crates” I don’t trust either …because what happens if my serato database gets screwed up? i’d be in a lot of trouble and have to start over.
my main thing now is taking notes all the time during my work day as I scan songs to remind myself to go back to a song and label it for easier retrieval.
I think I have a learning disability because when I had vinyl it was much easier to visually grab tracks but now knowing I have my entire collection at my disposal I freeze up and don’t know what to play.
it almost sounds like life was easier when i only had the money for a few records hense not much digging or second guessing to go through.
any help that your readers want to lend I’d be happy to listen.
thanks,
-Joel
appreciate the input guys. My first question to DZA. Are you running internally inside traktor? No cd’s or vinyl for controllers?
1. At the moment I have one CDJ-200 and use it for all my newer tracks and tracks that friends produce and promo to me. I have a huge collection of vinyl so at the moment I use both and it never gets old. I never plan to go all digital because I like playing on my Tech's too much. I don't plan to buy many more records though and haven't in a long time. I do plan to incorporate software into the equation very shortly though, Work in progress…
– I guess because it's cost effective with immediate gratification.
– Dell XPS 1530
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 Ghz – 6 MB cache
4 GB RAM
250 GB Internal HD
– None at the moment because I only use Technics & CDJ's
– I am not certain how I feel about the whole Tractor deal. I did watch atutorial that Richie Hawtin did and if the basic elements of beatmatching are handled by the program and it allows you to focus your energy & time on live edits & remixes then I am open to it.
I run Traktor Scratch internally. I have hotkeys setup to emulate the controls on a CDJ.
I used the control vinyl & CDJs up until mid-August. I realized that using the turntables was pretty much only for appearances sake since I'm not a turntablist and using CDJs was also pointless as it was just forcing me to use an external controller to control features that already exist in the program itself.
dza, I certainly do understand what you mean. I believe that it may be a part of “baby steps” coming off of being a vinyl or CD dj though. I would personally need to have that hands on feeling and jumping around acting like a meatball………
Unless of course, I was swapping those out for controllers, fx, etc….
I’ve been getting into controller ism I guess its called now. Sort of turntable ism but with a midi controller or controllers.
a traditional dj set for me would be.
1) make tracks in logic.
2) play tracks in traktor.
that is boring to me now so I set traktor up as master (send) and use mainstage to play keys trigger drum loops fx etc..so they are in time with traktor.
the point here is that everything can be synced freeing you up to do more creative things with your hands, and everything can be harmonically mixed, or mixed in relative major / minor keys.
its been some years since i have had a residency and when i did i used vinyl, so i can only imagine
how much more convenient using a computer would be.
i will be honest traktor and final scratch have been out for many years now and for many of those years i preferred vinyl. with the advancements of cpu’s and more companies making controllers specifically for djing its hard to not go digital.
why do you got to choose ?
you can use all three together.
you have tech 1200’s
you have cdj’s
now get serato or traktor or virtual dj and plug all that shit together.
if your cdj’s are two old to use as usb midi controllers get those time coded cds and use them like your vinyl time code.
that’s the ideal set up to have all three.
in all honesty the vinly and cdj’s are only really good if your going to scratch.
otherwise midi controllers and midi mixer is the way to go.
i keep it all digital. i make it digital and i go out digital out.
so its a pain to record all your bomb vinyls, its a pain to carry a crate around.
i use a mac book pro 2.8 ghz cpu 4 gb of ram, with 320 gb 7200 rpm internal sata drive going out digital light pipe.
i don’t have any of those traktor or serato hub connection issues cause i don’t use them although i don’t see how they would be an issue unless your trying to plug em in during someones set that is using a cdj. or your really high.
i just use the digital out of my laptop and thats only one cable to plug into the amp. there is usually only one place a spdif cable can be plugged so its hard to get it confused.
i usually use 3 usb ports but if just djing only two are needed. 1 for my Vestax VCI and the second one for headphones which honestly you can almost get away with out having now. I like them as a back up cause Im lazy at making beat grids. I also like to use a 3rd usb port to plug in a Axiom to play keys as well.
I know traktor and serato want you to buy their hubs. But if you have a mac you can use soundflower and make an aggregate device to use in traktor to route sound out multiple cards.
I usually only have a few play lists on my internal drive so choosing songs isn’t hard and thats usually done by key anyways the the actual song dosent matter, and if i feel like playing a particular song that is out of key with the other i just change it, that is some thing that vinyl can’t do unless you have a really expensive mixer.
I have used traktor with many machines since like 2000 or something. it has performed fine. works like a charm on my g4, mac book, and macbook pro. i think i had it running on a g3 at one point as well. however i have never used it with vinyl or a cdj.
people suggest using a regular mixer and to not software mix or at leaste use one of those combination audio/midi mixers.
i use all midi and have no problem mixing with just midi and software.
i have problems scratching with midi, or not problems but it just dosen’t feel like a vinyl does even though its emulated vinyl.
the plus side to using digital gear is you can use the controllers for other programs or other things as well.
im actually building a multi touch surface that i want to use as a dj controller.
shit now you can use a Nintendo controller to dj with.
i know the sign says real dj’s do it with vinyl, but this really shouldn’t be a hard decision.
Thank you to all for the feedback. It has certainly assisted me.
So have you made any decisions yet?
-dp
Yes, I am going to go for it. I get my macbook in tomorrow and will be loading it up with traktor for the controller options and previous experience I have with Native Instrument softwares. Since I have asked around and literally have received tons of feedback, which every single person has a different outlook, I believe it’s one of those things you have to do on your own.
So I am going to keep my tables, keep my CDJ’s, get the laptop, see what happens and maybe create my own little groove using the technology we have at hand.
The truth is, we are in a rather nice place as DJ’s. Some call it limbo because there really is no “industry standard” right now. I mean, yes you have a couple leading softwares and companies but really, there are so many directions you can go…..
I have always been a supporter of evolving with technology so let’s see where I end up. It should be a fun experiment to say the least.
It will definitely back up the phrase “it’s not what you use, it’s how you use it”.
Cheers to all for such great feedback.
I’m using laptop (with Trkator and now BCD2000 midi controller) for more than 5 years, used vinyl + laptop (as additional player) before that.
The pros:
* all your collection at your reach – you can get really creative and don’t give a fuck about “genres”
* looping, fx, cue points
* fast pre-listen
* you practice on exactly the same equipment you play at the club – so no “surprises” like broken CDJs or crappy mixers
The cons:
* it’s not vinyl (sound-wise). but it all depends on the quality of your files
* you have to bring your equipment and set it up every time
* crushes – you have to know your laptop and your software. what to do and what not to do. if you know what you’re doing – you will be fine and have rock solid performance for hours