WHY You Should or Should Not Buy Reall Vinyl Turntables

0:01 Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

Right, ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. Now, hopefully this video will help you to make the right choice because once you have spent your money, it's very difficult to get it back, but it also isn't. Well, again, that sounds a bit bizarre, but it depends on what you buy. If you buy yourself a set of Technics today, you want to sell them tomorrow, you probably get your money back. Anyway, I don't really want to digress. This video hopefully will give you a lot of information into whether you should buy vinyl, you should buy a set of vinyl turntables, or you should just buy yourself a regular controller and just forget about vinyl altogether. Now, I personally think I am 100% in a position to give you this information, even though, you know,

This should be taken, this video should be taken for entertainment purposes only. So please do not take my advice as rock solid kind of law. You have to make it your own mind. All right, so that's my sort of disclaimer. But let's go back to the 70s and 80s. You pretty much just had vinyl and most DJs had very, very dodgy belt driven turntables. Until, of course, they could either afford or predominantly sort of like was pushed out there. You had the Technics turntable in that case, then everyone really desperately tried to get hold of those because they were just the dogs rather large doodoo's and every single nightclub eventually had Technics. In fact, if you walked into a nightclub that didn't have Technics and you were a professional DJ, you could probably walk straight out because that should have been in the rider. But anyway, so again,

2:28 Another one here from Casual Records, Johnny Fiasco

In the 70s and 80s, it was just vinyl. Then towards the latter part of the 80s and 90s, it was CDs and we went to MP3 and now we're pretty much on hard drives, a lot of people, the cloud and controllers. So again, this whole video is about explaining the pros and cons about vinyl. Should you buy vinyl? Have you got this seed in the back of your mind thinking I would love to have vinyl? I would love to physically play vinyl. Put the, you know, that piece of plastic, the wax onto the turntable and play it. You know, Basement Jacks, Red Alert, got a tune here, original 12 inch Casual Records, Johnny Fiasco. Another one here from Casual Records, Johnny Fiasco. These, these some of these tunes are so collectible now. And if you can find them, you're lucky. But let's go back to basics here. Now, first of all, if you want to get vinyl turntables,

And you are adamant that you want to go down the vinyl route, I highly recommend 100% you buy direct drive turntables. Now, Technics, the SL 1200 was the original direct drive turntable. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the SL 1200 was a direct drive turntable, but it didn't have the pitch control. Then the Mark II did have the pitch control. And Technics manufactured and produced the first direct drive turntable. Basically, the top of the turntable, the platter was half of the actual motor, and the underside was the other half. So you needed the two together, you've got a direct drive turntable. And for many years, Technics was the only company that had a direct drive turntable like this, because they had the patent for it. I'm not sure if it was 20 or

25 years, until people then could bring out their own copies or their own versions of direct drive. I don't know the exact logistics behind it, but I'm pretty sure Technics was the first. So again, going back to what I said about two or three minutes ago, if you are adamant, you want to go down the vinyl turntable route, it's imperative, it's really important you get direct drive. If you get belt drive, then you will find that when you move the pitch up and down, you've got a really tiny bit of latency from moving it faster, then it will eventually go faster. But you've got a tiny delay. Whereas with direct drive, it's practically bang on the money. Of course, invest in good quality direct drive turntables. And there you want to look at the overall construction. Now for example, the Technics is pretty much the daddy. I mean, SL

4:58 Fast cars, everyone's on about, oh

1200 Mark II is a bit like the CDJ 1000 Mark III, a bit like, you know, a 911, you know, it epitomizes, you know, the 911 epitomizes sort of, you know, the fast car, you talk about fast cars, everyone's on about, oh, it's probably a Porsche or whatever. All right, there are others, but not everyone can afford a fantastic Ferrari, but quite a few people can afford a Porsche, similar to something like this Technics SL 1200 Mark II, but you've got to save up. Now, of course, these have been discontinued. There are other copies that you've got the Mark III, the 5G, and I think it's the 5G and so on. So that's the first thing to consider is the direct drive. Now, if you go belt drive, be wary, direct drive. Now something that is controversial here, I need to talk about, and

I've got my own opinion. Maybe you've got yours, please in a comment, let me know what you think. But I am not really one for virtual vinyl. I personally, personally don't understand the logic behind virtual, oh, one of my cats is wanting to go out. Just let a cat out. I don't understand the logic behind virtual vinyl, simply because if you think about this logically, you are taking a piece of plastic with a tone on it. You're putting that on a turntable, you're putting the needle on that, and then you are using MP3 files off your computer. Now it may look good, you may have turntables in front of you. But for me, the whole idea of a real vinyl turntable is to use real vinyl. If you're going to use what's known as DVS virtual vinyl, you might as well just use a controller.

Because it just defeats the object, unless of course, you're in a position where let's say, you've got a whole bunch of old school tunes, and you've got modern day music. But you want to be able to mix the two. So you go from virtual vinyl to real vinyl, I sort of get that. But I do not understand, I can't comprehend why a DJ will spend all that money on real turntables only to never use real vinyl. But just of course, use virtual vinyl. Makes no sense. Now, I would say that the biggest point of all here really, that you have to take on board is the cost of your music. And it could shock you. So for example, something like that, when that was out in the 90s, I probably paid £7.50 for that. It's an American import.

8:30 Cost plays a role

Nowadays, an import is probably £15-20. And that's per vinyl, whereas for 20 quid, you could probably get yourself 20 to 30 downloads. So there's a big difference. Also with vinyl, if you scratch this, that's it. Okay, you know, you're either going to have to use the other side or, you know, politely take the needle off the record, put it forward and hope for the best. So cost plays a role. That's a big part. Also, carrying items in and out. Now, gone are the days now for me, for the most part of carrying massive boxes of vinyl in and out of gigs. And believe me, been seen and done it. I've got some down there where you have 100 vinyl in, and that's a lot of weight. You're looking at probably 20 plus kilos, if not more. You take four or five of those to a gig, you do the math there. So a lot of weight involved.

Plus the fact the turntables themselves, that turntable is probably heavier than some of the biggest Pioneer and Denon controllers by itself. Then you have to think of plugging everything in. So if you have a controller, you pretty much microphone in output into your PA and your USB into your laptop. That's it. Whereas with vinyl, you have to plug everything in. You have to earth it. You have to make sure you've plugged into the mains. You have to make sure you're plugged in to the phono in, not the auxiliary in. Very important. Two turntables and then of course your separate mixer and then from your mixer then into the likes of PA microphone and so on. So there's a lot there. All right, so I'm going to close this video very simply with giving you a couple of bullet points. First of all, the overall cost.

10:31 Again, if you're thinking about buying vinyl turntables, make sure you

Also, secondly, the fact that you have to spend a lot of money on vinyl as well. Carrying the items in and out. Now I'm going to finish off with something I haven't discussed, but it again is very important is your styli needles. You're going to have to replace those quite often. You can't buy a set of needles and then they think they're going to last you for the next 10 years or so. Setting up your turntable as well, making sure it's all balanced so it doesn't skip. But again, if you're using virtual vinyl, you don't really have to worry that much there. So all in all, there is a lot of cost involved, a lot of effort and not so much time because the time if you enjoy it, fair enough. But hopefully this video has given you a bit of an insight. So again, if you're thinking about buying vinyl turntables, make sure you get

Direct drive. Now again, the SL 1200 Mark II is pretty much the daddy. It's like the Don of all turntables. And again, this isn't advice. I'm not saying you do this. But if I didn't have turntables and I wanted to buy a set, I would still buy the Technics SL 1200 Mark II because it's the equivalent of let's say today going out and buying a classic car, making sure that loads of parts readily available. And you're pretty much guaranteed that you buy the classic car today, you spend a great deal of money on it, you keep it in good condition, you keep it well maintained, and you will get your money back when you sell it, if not more, because they don't make these anymore. Now, lastly, all right, finish with this. It's eye candy. Now there are a lot of nightclubs and places around the world that will pay you more money

If you are a pure vinyl DJ, because it looks good. It's original. It's awe inspiring. There's nothing better than to turn up to a venue and have a box of vinyl and use real vinyl turntables and have the crowd go wow. Lastly, I think I said lastly, I will finish off with this, which is more a technical kind of point. And this is paramount. This is like top of the tree. You cannot treat these analog pieces of kit, like the digital pieces of kit you've got. Because when you use real vinyl, you haven't got the beauty of key lock master tempo of seeing BPM readout and wave formats on a computer screen. All you've got is your ears. I'll leave it like that. Practice and enjoy. Thank you

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