A look at Numark Virtual Vinyl , Backbeat Records Aberystwyth

0:00 My name's Andy, I'm half owner of BackBeat Records, DJ as well

Right guys, here we are at BackBeat Records and we're going to check out a bit of virtual vinyl in there. Right, so if you don't know what virtual vinyl is, basically you've got a piece of vinyl there, you've got a piece of vinyl there, basic normal box standard DJ turntables, mixer in the middle, and then all the music is actually on that laptop there. Okay, my name's Andy, I'm half owner of BackBeat Records, DJ as well. Play out four nights a week. Currently been running this system, Virtual Vinyl, for the last four weeks in the nightclub and we've been running it for about two months in the shop and at home and on one of the nights. I'm principally a vinyl DJ. I'm not a big lover of CDs. The advantage of this system over...

Play and take loads of records, you don't have to carry loads of records with you so you've got a lot more choice of music to get to. Basically the system is Numark Virtual Vinyl, there's loads of different variations of it, Rain Serato, Stanton Final Scratch, but we've gone with Numark because we're a Numark dealer and we hear great reviews from it. We were told by C2C World DMC Champions when they played in my club earlier this year. The idea is that you store all your music onto MP3 format, you can record your records or CDs, whatever. It's all stored then on a hard drive and stored into different sections of folders, which like you can see on the left hand side there, so all your music is stored into different folders. Basically this is a direct copy of what I've got in my nightclub at the moment. So you've got different sections, say 2005 dance.

2:29 Hard drive, flying

Do you find as well very quickly a good idea? So you've got some old classic vinyl, because you've legally bought it, so you've got a copy, you're allowed to make a backup copy, aren't you? Yeah. So if you can record that onto your hard drive, then of course your vinyl is kept in perfect condition and then you're using that on the hard drive, aren't you? That's one of the other advantages. The first saw this sort of thing being used, as I said, by C2C when they played my club. Dan Greenpeace was another one that used it. I looked into it and I just thought, well, it made sense for these guys were flying over from France doing two or three gigs and sort of flying back and flying back over all the time. And their records were kept in good condition. They're not having to carry their records around with them. It's literally gone from my DJ booth in the club I work in, Yoko's, having...

It's all on the hard drive, yeah? Brilliant makes it a lot easier. Basically, the way the system works is a program called Numark Virtual Vinyl. It's basically Numark Cue, except the differences between this and Cue is it runs off a small box, which is down by here. Now this box basically converts the signal the records are picking up into a bleep, which the computer reads as where the start is, the speed it's going, etc.

4:14 The idea is you can scratch it

Sound the computer's picking up on, so right space lead, the sound that it picks up to read the speed of whatever and music and that, so that's the way it works. So the idea is you can scratch it. The other reason I like this program is because physically I can actually see the peaks and troughs in the music. It's one thing beatmatching music, but it's another thing to actually know where the peaks are and where the breaks are. I can actually physically see this on the screen. Which is this just here, isn't it? Along there, yeah. The blue line is the one that will be playing now. Yeah. So I'll let this play and show you. So that's the track that's actually playing. So this line here is physically where I'm seeing what is actually going out of that time. Yeah. So also as well from someone who...

Also, there's loads of advantages to this. In the past I've run Pioneer FX units for DJing. I don't need to run that anymore because I've now got every single effect possible and you can download a lot more as well. I used to run the Pioneer FX500, so Flanger, and it's very simple to use. Nice. The other advantage is I've got a built-in sampler. Again, we used to run Red Sound samplers, which I don't bother anymore because it's better only at home because of this. Now all I've got to do is just like... So I've got samples already set up. which I can pre-record, etc. The possibilities endless. Also, comparing this to vinyl, I've got the chance, I can loop. Go on, yeah. So I can loop it. So I can loop it physically, which you can't do with vinyl. It'd be literally like having to put it back all the time. That's it, you have to end up being a turntable as full song, innit? And what I like about that as well, it's a perfect loop, isn't it? Yeah, it's perfect. You've got a choice of like... But even like, without a loop, yeah, I can actually...

I can actually bring it down to like, so at the moment it was running on, so if I loop in at number 4, I can actually physically bring it down. Nice. Because the Pioneer 800s, they can do that as well. Knits are sort of a similar thing, but even though the CD players are good, you haven't really... What I can see of this now, because this is the first time I've ever been close to virtual vinyl, full stop, you know. And I can see there's a lot more to this. Definitely a lot more to it, you know. I mean, I'm not knocking CDs or vinyl, but, you know, I remember the last time we came in the shop, I said to you, what do you think? And you said, oh, this is the way forward. In a sense, you know, you've got vinyl. You haven't got CDs. A lot of CDs...

7:38 Vinyl DJs say CDs are crap, and vice versa

Vinyl DJs say CDs are crap, and vice versa. But with this, you're using the vinyl, you're still manipulating the turntables, but the difference is, you haven't got to hunt the music around, and you've just got much more of a choice of music. And it's more readily available, and you've got more effects, and you can do more with it, can't you? Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of people slate CDs, and I'm not going to slate them, because they are... They've got their use so I can understand why people use them. A lot of people are put off by vinyl by the fact it's big, it's bulky and it does take a long time to learn how to use vinyl compared to CD mixing or anything else. It's my personal choice that I've been playing out for over 20 years, nearly 20 years now, and I just think vinyl is my choice. Twice I've got rid of CDs and gone back to vinyl because you've got something physically to hold and it's just...

I think it's more of an art form playing on turntables, hence turntablism and the DMC World Championships. This is it, if you think about it, the DMC World Championships, when have they used CDs? Exactly, yeah. Alright that's cool, well I'll tell you what we'll do now, do you want to give us a quick little demo? Well basically what I'm going to do now, I've got one track playing at the moment, Booty Loves Shine. I'd say the advantage is I don't actually physically have to listen to headphones. Yeah. Because I know these two records off my heart, play them virtually every Saturday night. Yeah. Physically what I'm doing now, I'm going to line them up. And again, I mean it's like anything sort of, it's just practice isn't it? Yeah. Practice and practice. The main reason I'm doing this now like this is because I know they play this mix virtually every Saturday. You can actually beat juggle because rather than having two copies of a record. Yeah.

You could actually just double it up, so drag that track up, drag it up to there, and like I said you can actually beat juggle with them. Or you can give us a ring on 01970. 61009 if you want more information on it, or if you want to come and have a demo of it, or if you want to know more about it. Excellent. Alright, nice one. Thank you very much. Take care. Nice one. Practice and enjoy!

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