3:10
What to buy, and in what order
On YouTube this video is called Want to Be a DJ, What Should You Buy?
What this lesson teaches
He gets this question by email constantly, and his answer avoids the argument everyone else has.
Watch before you buy
The test he proposes is to go and watch a lot of DJs - on CDJs, on vinyl, on a laptop - and notice which one you enjoy watching. Not which is most capable. Which one makes you want to have a go.
That sounds soft and it is actually the most practical advice in the whole stage. Beatmatching takes months of repetition, and the single biggest predictor of whether you get through those months is whether you look forward to sitting down at the thing. Somebody who loves the look of turntables and buys a controller because a forum said it was sensible will practise less, and no specification sheet compensates for that.
The constraint he raises, and why it has gone
The other half of the video is about where you live. In 2008 the honest answer to "should I buy turntables" depended on whether you could get records, and if the nearest shop was a day away, vinyl was a hard road.
His solution is the one that killed the question: timecode vinyl, which he knows as Serato Scratch Live. The record on the platter carries no music at all - it carries a control signal. A box between the decks and the computer reads that signal, works out exactly where the needle is and how fast it is moving, and plays your digital library in step with it.
So you get real turntables, real stylus, real hand-on-record feel, with a library you downloaded. The format question stopped being a question about music supply.
Where this leaves the argument
His conclusion is that in a digital age the format barely matters, and the ongoing saga about vinyl being better than CDJs being better than software is mostly noise.
That holds up, with one qualification worth adding. The formats differ in what they teach, not in what they can do. Vinyl shows you position physically and forgives nothing. A CDJ gives you exact cue points and a screen. A controller puts the whole library under your fingers and will beat-match for you if you let it. Any of them will make you a DJ; they will just make you a slightly different one.
Which brings you back to his test. Pick the one you want to spend the hours with.
Contents of the video
0:00 Should it be CDJ, vinyl turntables or PC?
Alright folks, a lot of people have been emailing me and asking me exactly the same question. And that is, they'd like to become a DJ, but what gear should they buy? Should it be CDJ, vinyl turntables or PC? Now the first question you have to ask yourself, and that is, what rocks your boat? In other words, I would like you to watch loads of videos of DJs using gear. I'd like you just to watch CDJ, the whole lot, watch everything. What tickles your fancy, alright? What do you prefer to watch? Do you prefer to watch CDJs? Do you prefer to watch vinyl or PC? Because that's your answer, first of all. Now then, again what you have to consider is where you live. Now for example, you may live in the middle of Australia, the middle of Africa, the middle of Russia, China, Japan, it doesn't matter, with virtually no record shops around you. Let's say if you like and you like the idea of vinyl turntables.
0:54 You buy the likes of Serato Scratch Live or New Marker
Now, all is not lost because we've got the likes of Serato Scratch Live, Numark I think do a similar thing whereby you have what are known as virtual vinyls. Two pieces of vinyl that you have just a normal vinyl and you put your needle on the record and what you do, you can actually use the music from your PC. You have a little box with all the gubbins in and what happens is all the music is like it is on your PC. As soon as you put the needle on the record, spin it forwards backwards www.mixingonbeat.com No record shops. You buy the likes of Serato Scratch Live or New Marker. Just post any more comments on names of other virtual vinyls. And then, all you can do then is go to the music shops online and then download your music and it's on your hard drive and there you go. You've got vinyl turntables. Alright, vinyl and your vinyl turntables. Now then, again...
2:09 Of course, there is this ongoing saga
If, let's say, you like CDJs, and again there's no record shops about, then of course you can go online, you can download your music, burn it onto CDs and there you go. And exactly the same applies with a PC program. So really, because we're in such a digital age and music is quite readily available, it doesn't really matter what format you use, whether it's CDJs, vinyl turntables or PC. Now, of course, there is this ongoing saga. A vinyl is better than PC and CDJs and all this sort of stuff. Well, at the end of the day, I have said in a video a while ago, the only thing that really matters is the music. If music rocks your boat, to be quite honest, it doesn't matter if it's played through a tin can. If you're enjoying it and you're having fun, then who gives a monkeys? That's where you've got to practice and enjoy. I hope this has been a help. Take it easy.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
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