Comments on: Numark’s $99 Portable Turntable, Torture Tested in the Burning Man Desert

By: travis

travis — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:12:39 +0000

i stumbled across this page trying to find portable dj gear. two cents:

first off, in the beginning turn tables were just made for cueing records and playing them. dj’s still made scratches on them.

i scratch on a good direct drive ( i won’t mention the make/model since people are hating on everything that isn’t their personal top shelf race car deck.). it took me a long time to get the cash to get good dj gear. i scratched on a belt drive with a sandwich of slip mats on it until i could get to a direct drive. no one is arguing that belt drive even compares to a direct drive. but, i have to say, its fun to roll to a gig with nothing but portable gear and bust out some of the belt drive technique i came up with back in the day.

if yr just in it to win battles and get boring, then yeah, you can rule out any of the creative possibilities that come along with the limitations of convenient gear. yr just not gonna have as much fun!

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:57:41 +0000

damn, serious hating on the poor portable. I’ve got one of these. While ‘on tour’ in Japan, without decks to practice on, one of these and a piece of junk vestax PDX-d3 and matching mixer picked up at a second hand shop did the trick.
In fact, the PT01 was easier to queue, and beatmatch with, than the dj quality looking d3.
I also used it at an in store gig (More Music, Matsuyama) where they only had cd decks. Turned some heads with a scratch drop or two with 7″s.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 20:55:08 +0000

what does the speaker sound like - could you use this without xtra speakers?

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:54:44 +0000

Can you explain why? Or do we have to guess?

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 10:45:55 +0000

technics sl-dz1200 are actually worse to mix on than these portable decks. despite costing 20x more. probably the worst-designed piece of technology i have ever used.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 06:31:28 +0000

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 18:55:03 +0000

http://www.scratchlive.net

dominating

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 07:45:53 +0000

Allready exists, Look up Denon DN-S3500, Pioneer CDJ-1000MK2,Numark CDX & HDX, Technics SL-DZ1200, Tascam TTM1 & Stanton FinalScratch. What kind of a name is Eldorado anyway?

By: admin

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:16:37 +0000

Yeah, I can see that.

Serious alternative to a couple of Tech 1210s — no.

Fun, light-use way of playing vinyl on the road — sure.

Perfect scratch deck — eep, no.

Fun to play with — yeah, why not.

On a completely different note: I wonder if you could built a lighter high-torque table. For that matter, I’d love to see a computer interface that takes the idea of the turntable and really runs with it for physical control of digital sounds . . . maybe even extends the basic idea (a table that turns). I think the time is right for some new ideas. And if they get the physical feel right, I’m willing to spend months practicing with it.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:52:33 +0000

The Numarks PT01 & The Vestax Handy Teax are designed for listening to music, nothing more. A Real Dj Table has High torque (strong motor), a removable cartridge designed specifically to be scrubbed back & forth in the groove, a pitch adjust fader, quarts lock, A 12 inch platter (!!!), a direct drive, adjustable counterweight. Playing on belt drives is a completly different game to playing on directs. The PT01, although useful is a prortable version of record player like on your home Hi-fi, not a Dj Deck. I find it difficult to believe any Dj (especially one who claimes to have Tech 1210’s) woule take this product seriously as a viable alternative to thier existing setup. Take it from someone who knows, there is absolutely no way you could scratch on this thing.