Where do you see music tech going for Djing?

Starfox

Its all going digital, Vinyl is dying, cd players are big, laptop djs are on the up and i see all these weird concept players floating around... I dont want this going in any direction as to which you think is better because i think its just your own perspective and what you use is just a tool for your mixing! Personally i love cdjs i used to have 2 omnitronic turntables but i couldnt afford to keep buying records lol! and im the kind of guy that likes a big collection so i converted to cdjs and like i said i love them

So where do you see Djing tech going?

tman

Just give me a new revision of the CDJ1000 with support for USB devices and I'll be happy as a pig in ****...
Kind of hard to say where it will go next... Just look at how long it took for CDs to take over from vinyl!

Westwood

It will be something like the maven with a built in computer all-in-one with a screen displaying the lastest software abelton/traktor/whatever.

ED E

It'll all be those all in ones soon I'd say. They arent that dear either considering how much two CDJs and a Mixer will cost you. With them you can use USB Media(Pen drives), CDs, SD Cards, the internal HDD(often removeable) and IIRC external turntables if you so choose.

In a way its the same old story as modern mobile phones. They combine the features of a phone, camera and video camera, Mp3 player, web browser and soon projector:rolleyes: They do all this, but none of it very well bar maybe make calls. That said, in a few years we've gone from 1.3 to 8MP integrated cameras. Look at the video on the 3GS compared to the nokias of 5 or six years ago. In five years time I'm definitely gonna go get myself an all in one. And a plasma speaker

Westwood

^^ Yes im waiting on a phone that incorporates everything then ill stink it up my back passage and be done with it

Starfox

Westwood wrote: »

^^ Yes im waiting on a phone that incorporates everything then ill stink it up my back passage and be done with it

All the technology is already out there regarding phones, we are just being milked out what you have now and this will always be the case because if you have everything all in one now theres no money to be made from it.... Japan is miles ahead of us!

Maybe tech will be so advanced in the future that just about anyone can dj and sound good, maybe there will have to be standards to only use specific equipment, maybe im talking through my a** :rolleyes:

Executive Steve

Vinyl.

Zascar

It took a very long time for CDJ's to take over from Vinyl, with a LOT of DJ's saying they would never make the switch, eventually giving in and going to CD's or even software. The market is accelerating at a much quicker rate now than it was before and there are loads of big and small vendors putting out controllers and surfaces etc - I'd say most people will go this way within a few years.

Software used to be buggy and unstable but that's in the past now. I'd say it will stay more modular than the all-one-ones. They are expensive and propitiatory - Currently if you have a laptop you can get software and a basic controller for very little money - then add to it to being new possibilities that the software allows. You can piece together several controllers/surfaces - along with multiple software apps, and do some brilliant things.

Personally I love laptop+controller - so simple and does everything you need (and more). Although I have had CDJ's and enjoyed them, and i currently have vinyl in my house and like that too - but I always go back to my digital setup. Regardless, it does not matter, its all just a medium - the music is what is important, so whichever you feel most comfortable on is the best one for you.

seannash

i honestly think there will be a technology backlash as it seems to be taking alot of the human element out of the equation.

i dont condem digital djing but i dont think its a medium ill ever go back to.

i think its much like production.we have emanulations of guitars,drums,wind instruments,string instruments etc but this has not led to a decline in people picking up an instrument.

people like that interaction,the responsiveness they get from vinyl and cdjs(yawn,heard it all before i know) and its something that i dont think will disappear.

cdjs have bridged this gap brilliantly between digital and traditional imo.programmes like ableton i cant fall in love with for djing.it seems to take a simple process and sap all the fun out of it.

on the other hand it does let you do some amazing things but these possibilities are very rarely put into effect in a live setting,besides we most got into dance music/djing from hearing djs playing great tracks and mixing them well without ****ing with them or cutting and glitching the crap out of them.
i honestly think people dont want those effects laiden mixes anymore.i think weve seen what technology can do and most of us would choose good tracks mixed well.

Hectorjelly

I've mixed with vinyl, cds and mp3s. Personally I think the benefits of mp3s far outweigh any percieved difficulty. Id almost rather give up listening to music than have to trudge my way into town each week to hear new tunes

Executive Steve

Hectorjelly wrote: »

I've mixed with vinyl, cds and mp3s. Personally I think the benefits of mp3s far outweigh any percieved difficulty. Id almost rather give up listening to music than have to trudge my way into town each week to hear new tunes

The amount of craic i've had in record shops over the years - and the amount of contacts i've made through hanging out in record shops - hands down beats anything i've ever gotten out of the internet tbh

DJ culture is a culture, and cultures need hives of social activity to perpetuate themselves...

You'll all miss record shops when they're gone...

francois

Hectorjelly wrote: »

I've mixed with vinyl, cds and mp3s. Personally I think the benefits of mp3s far outweigh any percieved difficulty. Id almost rather give up listening to music than have to trudge my way into town each week to hear new tunes

Has to be one of the oddest comments I have read here.

Klim

In my opinion, dance music has become so accessable, to the point where its nearly throwaway now.

You can hear a tune, played live by your favourite dj, and have it downloaded and ready for your own set, within hours. If you dont like it, who cares, you've got another 30 new tunes to try.

Whereas years ago, it may have taken you months until you physically have for yourself, the tune you've been looking for. If you ever find it that is.

Not saying this is in anyway a bad thing, I just think you had a bit more love for your tunes when you went out of your way to get them, like you did in the vinyl age.

Starfox

francois wrote: »

Has to be one of the oddest comments I have read here.

+1

seannash

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

You'll all miss record shops when they're gone...

sorry to say man but i think they are pretty much gone at this stage.
i definitely agree its a shame.i actaully almost set up one with my mate when i was younger,thank god i didnt.

there was definitely some magic in the air in record shops.

i think forums are the modern day equivalent of a record shop unfortunately

jonny68

Vinyl is far from dying and like Hardcore will never die;)

Luke Creed

Vinyl wont die! Maybe not as popular as 10 years ago but still nowhere near dead! HTFR and Juno have made it even easier to find records you want!

Four-Percent

jonny68 wrote: »

Vinyl is far from dying and like Hardcore will never die;)

:pac: Hear hear!

milltown

jonny68 wrote: »

Vinyl is far from dying and like Hardcore will never die;)

Hardcore is still alive??!! Does anyone else know? I heard that lad that never lost his can't even remember where he left it now.

Seriously, I just posted similar elsewhere but, IMO CDs never really took hold in the land of the DJ and will be a footnote between vinyl and MP3/digital. At the moment there are very compelling arguments for full digital, though I'll be the first to admit I miss the tactile pleasure of unsheathing a 12" (ooh err missus!) and cuing it up, but it's only either months or €€€s away that the miniscule latency/lag in digital DJing becomes a thing of the past and we are left with no rational reason to persist with 120 year old technology.

Once we fully embrace the 1s and 0s then there's no logical reason why we need to read them from a shiny external disc instead of a shiny internal one.

Hectorjelly

francois wrote: »

Has to be one of the oddest comments I have read here.

Why? I just find it brilliant having a huge range of new music available at your fingertips. A good example was years ago I read an article in Face magazine (now sadly defunct) around 2001 that Vitalics the Poney Ep was incredible. I was determined to get a listen to it, but it took over 6 months for me to get my hands on because none of the record shops got it in. (Despite me repeatedly asking them). That couldn't happen now, I would be able to get a copy of it within minutes, and if I particularly liked any of it I could download a high quality version on beatport. An infinitely better process.

Forums/Blogs/misc other websites have all taken the place of the people who worked in record shops. Don't get me wrong, some of them were fantastic (ollie moore, sunil sharp, killian, simon etc); but they cant compete with the internet.

Riesen_Meal

milltown wrote: »

IMO CDs never really took hold in the land of the DJ and will be a footnote between vinyl and MP3/digital

I definitely dont agree with this, I was a vinyl junkie, still am, im 100% digital about 3/4 years now, the cdjs changed everything, I got my first one maybe 01/02, and I was the first person I knew who had a cdj1000 (credit union loan at the time!) I initially purchased it for accapellas / fx, over what I was mixing on the 2 vinyls, then started to get lots of hard to find stuff on mp3 and was able to rip most of the vinyls I was using to CD also, couple of years later I did my back in, from actually carrying vinyl around in my bag every week doing my radio show, so it was a no brainer for the likes of me to get another cdj1000 and go 100% digital, it kinda just happened really.....

bohsboy

Hectorjelly wrote: »

Why? I just find it brilliant having a huge range of new music available at your fingertips. A good example was years ago I read an article in Face magazine (now sadly defunct) around 2001 that Vitalics the Poney Ep was incredible. I was determined to get a listen to it, but it took over 6 months for me to get my hands on because none of the record shops got it in. (Despite me repeatedly asking them). That couldn't happen now, I would be able to get a copy of it within minutes, and if I particularly liked any of it I could download a high quality version on beatport. An infinitely better process.

Forums/Blogs/misc other websites have all taken the place of the people who worked in record shops. Don't get me wrong, some of them were fantastic (ollie moore, sunil sharp, killian, simon etc); but they cant compete with the internet.

Have to agree, I spent years and I mean YEARS hunting through record shops, charity shops, ect for old school classics. Within about a year online I've found everything I've always wanted to get my hands on. I found record shops very cliquey and any orders I tried to leave were ignored.

milltown

Fieldog wrote: »

I definitely dont agree with this, I was a vinyl junkie, still am, im 100% digital about 3/4 years now, the cdjs changed everything, I got my first one maybe 01/02, and I was the first person I knew who had a cdj1000 (credit union loan at the time!) I initially purchased it for accapellas / fx, over what I was mixing on the 2 vinyls, then started to get lots of hard to find stuff on mp3 and was able to rip most of the vinyls I was using to CD also, couple of years later I did my back in, from actually carrying vinyl around in my bag every week doing my radio show, so it was a no brainer for the likes of me to get another cdj1000 and go 100% digital, it kinda just happened really.....

I'm not sure I see your point.

Yes, CDJs were an advance, but the real advance they brought was in sound quality and robustness. If you agree that carrying bags/boxes of vinyl is now an unecessary health risk then obviously a portable hard drive is even better than a bag/box of CDs, no?

I'll hold my hand up and admit I've never actually used CDJs so I'm open to correction here but at worst they allowed DJs to cue, pitch and mix their music on CDs instead of records, and at best they open up as many possibilities as MIDI/MP3/Software solutions do. I stand by my assertion that there's no need for CDs anymore and they weren't around long enough as a DJing medium. Vinyl has been around over a century and DJs have been getting creative with it for a good few decades but it's time is at an end and I'm sentimental about it too (hell, my first mixing was 20+ years ago, covering the erase head on my cassette deck so I could dub one song over another!). CDs (IMO) haven't even had a full decade as the medium of choice and I can guarantee you that within five years you won't even find the cheesiest of 21st or wedding DJs hauling a case of CDs out of his Astravan.

You're ripping vinyl to CD (digitizing it) and finding hard to find stuff on MP3. It's like you're typing out an e-mail, then printing it out to stick it in the post!

Executive Steve

seannash wrote: »

sorry to say man but i think they are pretty much gone at this stage.
i definitely agree its a shame.i actaully almost set up one with my mate when i was younger,thank god i didnt.

there was definitely some magic in the air in record shops.

i think forums are the modern day equivalent of a record shop unfortunately

I still spend around 150 euros a month in just the one and regularly visit three other ones too! And that's just the independent ones!

Freebird have GREAT service; I get the distributor's catalogue emailed to me every weekend, I get to pick and choose what i want from it, and I then get an email the day it comes in! They'll even order stuff off discogs for me if I ask nicely...

seannash

milltown wrote: »

I'm not sure I see your point.

Yes, CDJs were an advance, but the real advance they brought was in sound quality and robustness. If you agree that carrying bags/boxes of vinyl is now an unecessary health risk then obviously a portable hard drive is even better than a bag/box of CDs, no?

I'll hold my hand up and admit I've never actually used CDJs so I'm open to correction here but at worst they allowed DJs to cue, pitch and mix their music on CDs instead of records, and at best they open up as many possibilities as MIDI/MP3/Software solutions do. I stand by my assertion that there's no need for CDs anymore and they weren't around long enough as a DJing medium. Vinyl has been around over a century and DJs have been getting creative with it for a good few decades but it's time is at an end and I'm sentimental about it too (hell, my first mixing was 20+ years ago, covering the erase head on my cassette deck so I could dub one song over another!). CDs (IMO) haven't even had a full decade as the medium of choice and I can guarantee you that within five years you won't even find the cheesiest of 21st or wedding DJs hauling a case of CDs out of his Astravan.

You're ripping vinyl to CD (digitizing it) and finding hard to find stuff on MP3. It's like you're typing out an e-mail, then printing it out to stick it in the post!

cdjs are the most popular dj medium right now.to say they havent taken hold is a bit silly.every club install has em now.

milltown

seannash wrote: »

cdjs are the most popular dj medium right now.to say they havent taken hold is a bit silly.every club install has em now.

I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is, their time as the big cheese will be very short in comparison to vinyl and full digital.

Luke Creed

milltown wrote: »

I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is, their time as the big cheese will be very short in comparison to vinyl and full digital.

Agree there. Why bother burning disk after disk when you can have 1000's of tracks ready go in traktor, vdj or ableton and i think its going to be interesting where full digital goes!

Starfox

Luke Creed wrote: »

Agree there. Why bother burning disk after disk when you can have 1000's of tracks ready go in traktor, vdj or ableton and i think its going to be interesting where full digital goes!

Because people like me like to mix it up on cdjs, im actually really addicted to it at this stage i get withdrawals :eek:

seannash

milltown wrote: »

I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is, their time as the big cheese will be very short in comparison to vinyl and full digital.

dont count your chickens,i know plenty of people who have gone back to cdjs after using ableton(myself included).

if your doing regular old one track into the next mixing full digital is dull as dishwater,i can get no joy from that.

the way its going to go is usb on cdjs(like they have on the lesser cdj models).
all the convenience of not having to burn cds but you still have the fun of playing on cdjs

Luke Creed

Starfox wrote: »

Because people like me like to mix it up on cdjs, im actually really addicted to it at this stage i get withdrawals :eek:

I imagine so :pac: I have turntables but i cannot create the sound i want on them but i can with ableton and i find out more ways to do more things with it all the time so i will stick with that for now!

Executive Steve

Luke Creed wrote: »

I imagine so :pac: I have turntables but i cannot create the sound i want on them but i can with ableton and i find out more ways to do more things with it all the time so i will stick with that for now!

Why not just practice until you CAN create the sound on them?

And if you can't create the sound on them, why not just bide your time and wait your turn until you can?

Luke Creed

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

Why not just practice until you CAN create the sound on them?

And if you can't create the sound on them, why not just bide your time and wait your turn until you can?

Well i only have one vinyl with 3 tracks and that is not even out yet, i have a copy obviously enough. haha I would prefer to play more of my tracks and mash up other peoples work into my own thing.. I dont like cdjs (i have no problem with people using them i just dont like the feel of them).

And as well as that, i have no money to be buying new vinyl week in week out sadly.

Zascar

milltown wrote: »

I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is, their time as the big cheese will be very short in comparison to vinyl and full digital.

I think I'm with you on that one, but its going to be a long long time until that happens.

CDJ's are great but seriously I just could not be bothered p1sing about with dozens of CD's that can get scratched, and trying to know what tracks are on each one - its a pain in the ass. Plus what is the point of having mp3 compatibility when the screen you are supposed to read them off only let soy see the first 12 characters and ticks along soooo sloooooly - so if you have 10 tracks from "Billy Veryverylonglongname" it takes you forever to find the right one!

DVS is something I don't really get either. Ok, if you still want to play vinyl AND be able to use mp3's - perfect, that's exactly what its made for. However if you don't use records at all any more, why bother with turntables at all? I have platters on my controller and can beatmatch perfectly with them. I have 1210's in my house too and I like to occasionally play some records and have a mix using vinly - I do see the appeal of the tactile feel etc etc - but its something that is nice when its not important. I would have no desire gig live with it.

seannash

Zascar wrote: »

I think I'm with you on that one, but its going to be a long long time until that happens.

CDJ's are great but seriously I just could not be bothered p1sing about with dozens of CD's that can get scratched, and trying to know what tracks are on each one - its a pain in the ass. Plus what is the point of having mp3 compatibility when the screen you are supposed to read them off only let soy see the first 12 characters and ticks along soooo sloooooly - so if you have 10 tracks from "Billy Veryverylonglongname" it takes you forever to find the right one!

DVS is something I don't really get either. Ok, if you still want to play vinyl AND be able to use mp3's - perfect, that's exactly what its made for. However if you don't use records at all any more, why bother with turntables at all? I have platters on my controller and can beatmatch perfectly with them. I have 1210's in my house too and I like to occasionally play some records and have a mix using vinly - I do see the appeal of the tactile feel etc etc - but its something that is nice when its not important. I would have no desire gig live with it.

whhats gonna happen is cdjs will incorpoate a lager screen thatll read hard drives like a computer so youll be able to flick quickly.

Zascar

It would be good alright if you could bring all your music to a club on a usb stick and navigate with a bigger screen with info and waveform etc

Hectorjelly

Zascar wrote: »

DVS is something I don't really get either. Ok, if you still want to play vinyl AND be able to use mp3's - perfect, that's exactly what its made for. However if you don't use records at all any more, why bother with turntables at all? I have platters on my controller and can beatmatch perfectly with them. I have 1210's in my house too and I like to occasionally play some records and have a mix using vinly - I do see the appeal of the tactile feel etc etc - but its something that is nice when its not important. I would have no desire gig live with it.

Yeah I agree completely, to me its just a toy

milltown

seannash wrote: »

Whats gonna happen is cdjs will incorporate a lager screen that'll read hard drives like a computer so youll be able to flick quickly.

So when do they cease to be CDJs in your eyes and just become another interface with a big jog wheel (that happen to read CDs when needed)?

Unless I'm picking you up wrong, you see CDJs becoming exactly what a laptop and MIDI controller is already. Aside from latency which only effects some DJing styles, we're already where you see things going. It just doesn't say Pioneer or CDJ on the box.

seannash

milltown wrote: »

So when do they cease to be CDJs in your eyes and just become another interface with a big jog wheel (that happen to read CDs when needed)?

Unless I'm picking you up wrong, you see CDJs becoming exactly what a laptop and MIDI controller is already. Aside from latency which only effects some DJing styles, we're already where you see things going. It just doesn't say Pioneer or CDJ on the box.

i guess so,never really thought of it like that.i have used serato with cdjs and it was a pretty nice set up.im all for digital technology but i honestly think using a setup that beatmatchs your tracks for you is a waste if your doing simple a-b mixes with that software.it kinda saps ,what little fun and interaction that could be left, out of it for me.maybe its the midi controllers that havent quite made it.i know theres controllers with jog wheels on them but there **** to use.i also just dont like having a laptop in the booth.

ive tried ableton and didnt like it at all(personal preference),traktor is cool i guess but for me i just love playing on cdjs too much to change yet.especially when i think itll be around for a long time.
ive tried the all digital set up and it didnt work for me.it wasnt fun so i went back to what was fun.

i think thats the way cdjs will go but i dont think itll happen fro a long time