
Originally Posted by
MARK EG
about 6 months ago i forced myself to record all my vinyl into the computer and play a whole set of cd's. and then i suddenly realised holy shit, i'm not having to worry about that pissed up twat at the front bouncing too much. it was a revalation. since then i've played lots and lots of complete cd sets. that walking on eggshells feeling when the decks are badly set up completely goes and i'm alot less drained at the end of a set. more time for dancing and enjoying the music! also these days, lots of ppl play cd sets and they tend to put their cd case on the decks and i'm noticing they are sometimes pressing against the needle. ie more deck problems if you then play vinyl. not only that, sound crew just arent paying attention to setting up decks properly anymore (not that they always did), cause more and more ppl are on cd's.
and that's only half the pluses of playing a set of cd's. sound wise (and believe me, i have analyzed this like a cunt on stick) the pitching up and down of cd's is much more digital and sounds more clinical than doing it via the analog medium of a vinyl and a technics 1210. so to get round this, i've been recording the vinyl onto cd at approxiamately the pitch i would be playing them at a club. this way, the clinic sound of cd pitching up is not there. ok, well to go one better i've now started remastering all the pitched up vinyls so the freq ranges are back in the correct places. phew, it's a damn hard job and it now takes me a full day longer to get ready for a set, but the result is entirely worth it. sound wise, my set is the shit, it can't be any better imho. i am super happy with the result. i could never have got this type of perfection with vinyl, plus i can do some nice sneaky edits in ableton and make some exclusive mixes of the tracks. i just feel more creative and focused than ever.
ok so you might say that's that. good job! well actually it's not. and what's made it like that is the odd person coming up to me playing cd's and saying 'play vinyl, you cunt!'. to the point that even my own girlfriend chrissi tells me 'mark, it just looks shit, you wanna see someone playing vinyl'. so off i went on youtube armed with a glass of vino and sure enough, a dj playing vinyl looks damn good. cd's look awful. then there's the morality of the fact i've bought vinyl for the past 20 years and now, it looks like i'm not supporting it (when in fact i'm still buying as much vinyl as i ever did, only it's not looking that way cause i'm recording to cd). vinyl is such a special medium. without it, i would be screwed. i don't want it to disappear.
so now, i'm onto another mission. in the next few weeks i'm going to start using a virtual turntable system with timecoded vinyl. now, if the decks are set up good (which is becoming less and less), i will force myself to play vinyl (or at least try to consider it more than i have been the last 6 months). if not, i will then set up this system. if it's too dangerous, gonna destroy my equipment or impractical, then we swap to cd's. that way, we get the best of both worlds, 66% of the time, the performance looks good, 66% of the time the sound quality is spot on, and 33% of the time i look shit playing cd's. Much better imho than the way I've been doing the last 6 months.
Well this is just my thoughts and experiences. PS I voted option 3 ;)