Get to Know Everything About Your Vinyl Turntable DJ

0:00 Jonathan here, Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

All right guys, Jonathan here, Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. Let me ask you a question. Let's say you're legally allowed to drive a vehicle and all of a sudden your mum, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, maybe you win the lottery, you get a brand new car. What's the first thing you do? I'll tell you what the first thing is that you will not do, is you will not get into that car and turn the key and just drive off somewhere straight away. No. Well, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do that. I've never actually had a new car myself, but I know I would not do that. What would I do? I'd get in it. I'd check out the seats, look in the mirror, look in the glove box, just press the buttons. What I would do, I'd investigate that vehicle. I would just look at everything. I'd be fiddling and pressing buttons and see how the sat-nav works and look at the radio, check out the sound system. Yeah.

Has it got electric windows? Does it have central locking? What button does that do? I would be messing around with it. I would be starting to get to know the car that I am going to be driving for however long. Turntable, a vinyl turntable. Now, if you're not familiar with turntablism or you have never used a vinyl turntable before, imagine this is your brand new car. All right. The last thing I want you to do is put the needle on the record and just let it play. All right. I want you to get to know the turntable. What does it do? How does it feel? How do you interact with it? How can you, sorry, interact with it? You know, will it make funny noises if you press there? Will it work properly if you press here? What will it do?

2:08 For example, now I'm not going to say names, places, who or why

So for some people, you may think, well, this video, it's got no purpose. But for others, hopefully you will understand my train of thought. Because when you buy a turntable for the very first time, let's say you started DJing a year ago and you've got a controller and you want to be a vinyl turntable stroke DJ. Do not go and buy any sort of vinyl turntable and then just put a record on and hope for the best. You need to make sure you understand the turntable, understand how it works, what it does. For example, now I'm not going to say names, places, who or why. Let me just move this around slightly. Hold on, move this out of the way and I am going to put the camera a little bit closer because I want you to have a look at certain parts of this deck.

OK, so that should be close enough. Right. So you've got yourself a turntable. This is a Technics SL1200 Mark II. It is undisputedly still the world's best deck and most well-known turntable. So. So, for example, the pitch, have a feel with it. Have a play. Why does it click there?

3:03 Why does it hold in that position?

Why does it hold in that position? All right. What's this for here? OK, it lifts the arm. All right. So, for example, if you see something like that, that's wrong because what's happened now is the arm is on the armrest, the tonearm lifter is lifting the arm, giving a necessary pressure in the whole housing. So watch what happens if you lift that, see it jumps up. So that has to be down when the clasp or whatever you want to call it is holding the arm in place. What does this do? What's that for anti-skating? What's this button around here for this thing with lock on it? I mean, should it be at 12 o'clock position or should it be at the three o'clock position? What's it for? And, for example, these numbers around here, what do they do?

I mean, why have numbers there? Oh, did you realize that you can move this up and down? You see. So now what's happening is you are finding out not only that your vehicle can take you from A to B. In other words, the turntable can play some music, but you're now finding out a little bit more about your vehicle, the correct way of driving it. The correct way of using this vinyl turntable instead of just putting the needle on there and wondering why on earth it's jumping. So this here is sorry, this here is I don't know what I'm saying. Sorry, they're not doing it again. Sorry, turntable. Okay, this here is a sorry, an Autofon Concord cartridge now that is set for a distance height weight everything so there's no need to start putting coins

On there now at the back here we have what's known as the counterweight. There is someone I have taught who has got who had a little weight attached to the back. Can you get that, please? Cheers. A little weight at the back by me just saying take that weight off the back. They realized that the needle didn't jump anymore. Little things like that. So just look at your deck. I hope that's been a help practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.