Comments on: NAMM: You Have Less Than a Day to Enjoy Your Turntables and Records…

By: Create Digital Music » I can use my Conectiv under Linux, but not Vista. Why, again?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:34:31 +0000

[...] I’ve written on CDM before, I’m a big fan of the M-Audio Conectiv USB DJ audio interface. It’s a great [...]

By: Create Digital Music » NAMM: M-Audio Announces Xponent. DJing Stays Pretty Much the Same.

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:31:02 +0000

[...] Let me get this straight - an overpriced control surface is what’s gonna change DJing? [...]

By: james

james — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:54:35 +0000

re: nonstatic

germany is a weird territory to judge by - cdjs aren’t really properly accepted there, and it has one of the strongest markets for vinyl in europe.

i’ve been asked a hundred times by germans why i use cds, and after the long explanation of keymixing tricks, loop tricks and reediting they almost always say “yes, and records are much heavier too!”.

anyway, the controllers are all wrong. imo.

By: typodaemon

typodaemon — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:48:49 +0000

Really I think there’s two crowds that are going to care (yes, there are lots of people who show up, get drunk, and have a good time regardless of what’s playing).

There’s people who only care about what they’re hearing, in which case going digital is great because it gives the dj more options.

And there’s people who care what the dj is doing, strongly backed by the turntablist crowd.

Lots of places here in the states don’t even have the booths setup to where you can really see what’s going on in there.

By: dave ahl

dave ahl — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:38:16 +0000

i dunno that m-audio torq eXponent thing looks a little play-skool to me. i appreciate having your equipment light up in the dark but i think if i brought this into a club i would get laughed at.

By: Niall

Niall — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:01:32 +0000

Well, here’s M-Audio’s… thing:

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.main&ID=d45a40965327c968eda528464bcd984c

By: nonstatic

nonstatic — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:42:46 +0000

yeah, lets just say with more underground music, it doesnt fly. for instance, Highfish, famous resident DJ at Berlin’s WMF club, tried to go Ableton and the crowd completely rejected him. He had to switch to Final Scratch to keep his job.

the NI interface doesnt really offer me anything which i am talking about. i dont want to have to carry an external soundcard at all…the DJ mixer should be the soundcard. i will be sticking with my RME RPM and djdecks until i see that happen.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:28:03 +0000

Well, I’ve seen audiences fully accept Sasha using a controller and Ableton Live, pretty far from a traditional set — and that was a truly conventional (ahem, bridge & tunnel, hello, Crobar) audience. I don’t want to get into a Sasha pro/con argument (I’m not a fan, necessarily, though he and other computer-based DJs are going some interesting directions); my point is more about the audience. I’m not sure they really cared what the DJ was doing. That to me is actually more of a concern. I’d rather people got *more* demanding in terms of what they got out of the performance of a set, and *less* involved with what particular technology got someone there. Too often, they’re just not paying any attention.

Anyway, nonstatic, I’ll be curious to see if the NI gear just introduced comes closer to what you were looking for … all of the mixing happening in the computer.

By: nonstatic

nonstatic — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:25:05 +0000

i still think we are a long ways away from audiences accepting a controller-based DJ set. they still want to see some decks (whether this is vinyl or cdj) up there. personally, i consider beatmatching to be a part of the artform, but that is another argument altogether.

what i really want to see is the convergence of these systems with DJ mixers. rane is starting to go there with that mixer they introduced last year…but unfortunately it is A&H and Pioneer who dominate the clubs with their mixers.

i want to be able to plug a Firewire cable into the mixer and be ready to go…it seems silly that we have to do all these RCA ins and outs with external interfaces when it could all just be in the mixer.

i just want someone to win the digital DJ battle so that this can happen sooner. i am fine with there being only 1 option, as long as it works. you dont see anything other than technics decks at a club, do you?

By: Fabio FZero

Fabio FZero — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:34:58 +0000

That reminds me of the great lyrics from LCD Soundsystem’s “I’m losing my edge”:

“I hear you’re buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.”

Full lyrics here.