SKRUFFF NEWS

Digweed predicts the death of vinyl 16/09/2005

Bedrock boss John Digweed chatted to Skrufff this week about his upcoming label compilation Layered Sounds 2 and revealed that he?s lost faith in the future of vinyl.

We can safely say that as far as the era of vinyl is concerned it?s not a question of ?if? but ?when?,? said John, ?Which is a shame.?

The superstar DJ?s conclusion is particularly significant since he?s long been acknowledged as one of vinyl?s most enthusiastic supporters (DJ Mag dubbed him ?still a vinyl lover at heart? in their 2004 Top 100 poll) and he predicted the change is coming sooner rather than later.

?So many DJs are nowadays using only CDs that you go to clubs and you?re lucky if you can find a turntable working properly,? he revealed. ?Because it?s been so long since they?ve been used in some of these places that you turn up playing records and they skip and start jumping.?

?I was playing with Danny Howells recently and he was telling me he was doing some festival recently and he was the first DJ to use vinyl for the whole event and no-one had set the turntables up properly before he started. So it took him a while to sort all the decks out properly. It?s a shame but that?s how the technology has gone,? he added.

The key factor driving the change is the internet, John suggested, with digital downloads making vinyl increasingly obsolete.

?You?ve got to accept the fact that kids aged between 12 and 14 probably don?t even know what a record looks like, or CDs either. For them, choosing vinyl over CDs doesn?t make sense,? he said.

?When I travel I meet so many different DJs in places like Buenos Aires, and for them to buy a Bedrock 12? vinyl, by the time you?ve added up the import costs, the packaging, the shipping etc, they could be paying over $15 for one 12? record. Or, they could go onto Bedrock.org.uk and buy the same track for a pound. So if you?re an up and coming DJ who hasn?t got a lot of gigs and not a lot of disposable cash are you going to spunk all your money on three of four records as opposed to 20 or 30 downloads?

From that economic aspect, you can?t blame kids for only wanting downloads now, they can also get them instantly. Sure you can order records online, but they take two or three days whereas you can hear a track online, download it instantly and be playing it out that night,? he pointed out.

Layered Sounds 2 is out now on Bedrock.

[url]http://www.bedrock.org.uk[/url]

Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

welcome back disko :)

oooooh... so we finally know the real identity of Captain Obvious. It's John. it makes total sense now

:shock:

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

sad but true news :(

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

i killed my vinyl long ago..i sold my turntables to a friend ..what sucks is that i didn't transfer all the vinyl i had..too much of a pain in the ass

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[quote=Weizy]sad but true news :([/quote]

indeed...a lot of DJ's in those countries aforementioned just don't have the $$$; $15 is actually more toward the lower side in some places...it's like blowing half your paycheck to buy 1 record. In this day and age of economics, not worth it.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

the vinyl era is going to an end i supose, digital is evolving so much, in some years, dj's wont use cds either, will use computers to build up a set as long as it's good music, i guess it's alright

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

The real power of digital is the fact that a producer can burn a track thats not even finished yet and then get it played out to see how it goes down. Having records pressed can be a pain in the arse and takes ages.

I havnt bought vinly for a long time now and I too sold my decks as they wernt getting used anymore.

not a shocker hearing john proclaim this in 2005. didnt he make the full switch to cd somewhere in 2004 anyway? its a shame vinyl does cost sooo much. i dont know anyone, who in their right mind, would choose 3 or 4 records (maybe 8-12 tracks) over 30-60 digitally downloaded tracks. :not me: there was a time about a year ago i thought i may give up spinning cos i was buying like 6 records a year. not good. digital is the way of the future. obviously!

very true.

but I don't get why you're all so sad about it... :NotMe: music is music.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

i am throwing all of my records away.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[quote=Hambrecht]i am throwing all of my records away.[/quote]

too risky, I'm going to melt mine down :P

[quote=ubiqe] but I don't get why you're all so sad about it... :NotMe: music is music.[/quote]

I think it's the sentimental value of records, they're so romantic :LoveYou: but then again I can get pretty sentimental about $20 in my pockey, so buh-bye vinyl.

I can see this all ending up pretty quickly because as more and more people stop buying vinyls, there will be less justification for pressing them. I will miss digging through the bins in record shops though (not that I've done that in years, but it is a time honored DJ activity)

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Final Scratch. 8)

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

i'm still keeping my records and tables ....they will always be "classic"....but yes it's time remaining does appear to be less and less... for most bedroom dj's/ or even those djing regularly u cant beat the price of mp3 stores (event though some UK stores are pushing it)....and the more and more labels put up there back catalogues the happier i get..cheers to that

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[QUOTE=Jenks]Final Scratch. 8)[/QUOTE]

jenks you should try serato is way better in my opinion

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[QUOTE=remoh]jenks you should try serato is way better in my opinion[/QUOTE]

Serato doesn't have a lot of the editing options with it tho does it? since it doesn't have Traktor with it like FS does?

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

As far as digital versus vinyl goes, I have come to this settlement... the platform of media will depend on genre... i.e. house will be bought as vinyl and techno on CDRs (digital downloads). For some reason this all makes sense in my head.

Oh, and I can't wait for Traktor DJ Studio 3 in November

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Man.... I agree that buying vinyl is very expensive... thats the reason why stopped doing it myself. But it IS indeed sad that vinyl will soon disappear.. there's nothing like the good ole vinyl feeling... :RightOn:

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Ideally I guess no mattter what format, if you can't program a set, your not worth much, even if you can beatmatch on vinyl..........however, I kind of feel that the ability to work with vinyl/cd does set the dj apart from the random clubber in the club, where as with a program like Ableton or Traktor, it doesn't take that much to beatmatch or complie a set. However I guess if someone can be extremely creative with what they do with those programs, then there will be a separation.........I dunno, just babbling

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

yeap i heared that .. sad story the vinyls and turntables in music are like the hand in human body :( that electronic women want to destroy that :(

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[QUOTE=Sobo]yeap i heared that .. sad story the vinyls and turntables in music are like the hand in human body :( that electronic women want to destroy that :([/QUOTE]

????

[QUOTE=Jenks]Serato doesn't have a lot of the editing options with it tho does it? since it doesn't have Traktor with it like FS does?[/QUOTE]

i guess i havent got that far yet..but good to know and will definetly look into it

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

To my knowledge, Serato is just a turntable emulator, like final scratch without Traktor. Traktor adds a whole different aspect to your djing, editing, cue points, looping, fx, etc, which FS has and Serato doesn't <at least i didn't think Rane had anything like that. It's just supposed to be more stable. (I think Serato looks like ass compared to the FS interface tho.)

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Where can i find this Serato machine? to download...

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

^Knob.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[quote=teeeb0r]Where can i find this Serato machine? to download...[/quote]

You?ll need a big pipe to do that, dude... :roll:

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Well I'm still buying vinyl. and I think it's mainly because I dont own any CDJ's. Haven't looked into it (price, type, bands, etc).

What you all recomend? Until I get my hands on some of those, I'll still be buying vinyl, .. my Juno Whishlist is about 4 pages long! D'oh!

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

I view it this way: There was a point in which only things could be learned on vinyl and there were only things that cd's could do.

But with the advent of the active matrix platter on most cd players now. The cd turntable has turned into some beast of its own nature.

And to answer your questions burn one: CDJ-1000 or CDJ-800... Google it and you can find a wealth of information on them.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

cdj200 is fine. half the price. i have two cd players at home, and the club i play has 1000s, and i still play about 80% records. I've gotten to the point where the track has to be REALLY good for me to buy it on beatport. Otherwise, i'm buying records that aren't available digitally.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

It seems a lot of the good tracks are only available on record. A lot of the tech house labels seem to be doing well with this electro/tech phase in the dance scene. Of course, big time tracks will get the push into the digi realm, just to push sales. Still have no problem finding more records than I can afford. So don't ditch those decks yet, just try to find some of those obscure tracks people on the digi sites seem so readily to pass up. Good Example: Mashtronic

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

vinyl is the best thing in tne world... a;part fopm beer and women. And sandwiches. I'm goignt to bed. good night nice poeple, stop showing offd :D

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

...........

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

That's quite obvious, isn't it?

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

[quote]When I travel I meet so many different DJs in places like Buenos Aires, and for them to buy a Bedrock 12? vinyl, by the time you?ve added up the import costs, the packaging, the shipping etc, they could be paying over $15 for one 12? record. Or, they could go onto Bedrock.org.uk and buy the same track for a pound.[/quote] And there it is in a nutshell people. Just like anything else...it all comes down to money. But even then, could anyone honestly say they could listen to a set, and judging by quality of track selection alone, tell if it was vinyl or digital?? And isn't quality of track selection what really matters?? Bring it on...I say. I've never spun, so I don't have any attachements to the nostalgia of vinyl. The possiblities opened by digtal music are way more intiguing to me.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

not to mention its a bitch to carry around...all those records around with you.

i can't believe even digweed has finally said this !!

now only if we could solve the problem of whether a vinyl does sound "fresher" than a cd.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

Deffinatly don't like the sound quality but the conveince and cost has deffinatly got me hooked on them. I did read a quote from diggers saying there was no quality loss which kind of suprised me. Figured even supporters of CD's admit to that generally.

Re: digweed predicts the death of vinyl

I am reaching a point now where I have to decide what I want to do with my dj'ing. I have bought only 6 records in the past 12 months, mainly due to financial issues. Also because my town has no scene and it's hard to break that.

The only reason I am deciding against selling my decks is because at least once a fortnight I will come in half pissed and muck about on them - just the other night I found a load of my old records in my mums loft and I spent about 6 hours mixing them up, had great fun.

But sooner or later I need to decide if i want to sell them and get cdj's or just sell them and blow the money on an iPod or something.

Can anyone clarify - am I right in saying that people are buying mp3 versions of tracks off of Beatport (for example), burning it to cd, then playing their whole set from cdj's?Or am I missing a vital component somewhere?