When I started to DJ back in 2001, I learnt on equipment that had been used in the industry for decades. This would be 2 record players (Decks) and a mixer. I begun on cheap turntables that I had for a 21st birthday present and a mixer that wasn’t much cop either. But they played records. And these records played on my cheap turntables, and they played on the expensive ones too. When I started playing in clubs and bars I would turn up to find clubs and venues kitted out with DJ turntables (usually Technics 1210’s). The system was universal and was pretty simple. The biggest downside of this system was that I had a much more limited range of music I could carry to a night. That vinyl was heavy and I would generally carry a bag with about 100 records and 2 flightier cases with 50 records in each. If someone requested a song that I didn’t have with me, it couldn’t be played- simples.
This became updated when may venues fitted CD players to their setups in the mid 00’s- sometimes they were the original style twin CD players (Usually made by Denon) or the now ubiquitous Pioneer CDJ, but again the setup was simple- bring CD’s, play them to the crowds, have fun.
As A DJ, it was quite a welcome change as carting around cases of vinyl (which my arms knew about only too much), to a much larger library of songs, for a much lower weight- Happy days.
But then things changes massively with the introduction of digital music and laptops.
The first big change was the use of Mp3’s, which the DJ community resisted with great ferocity. ‘Surely you can’t be playing that inferior quality music when your playing professionally’ they said, but then it become quite clear that if Mp3’s were kept in their highest quality, only on the biggest of sound systems and to the most highly tuned ears could the difference really be heard. This led to the replacement of a big CD walled, with a tiny USB stick carrying thousands of tracks.
This then made way for the next big transition- laptops. Again the DJ community screamed in hatred. ‘having a laptop in the DJ booth is unprofessional. it just looks like your playing a CD while checking your email’ came the shouts. But the introduction of laptops made several things change heavily and the DJ world sat up and began to take notice. Some of these were:
- The cost of entry to DJ equipment was much lower than it was in the past- the computer acts as the processor and internals of the previous generation equipment an the learner DJ can work on equipment that can allow easy transition to more professional gear as they progress (in the past, cheap turntables were just plain rubbish, and getting used to professional gear was a big learning curve.
- Your music library can move to a bigger hard drive and can now be in the hundreds of thousands
- Using a DVS system (digital vinyl system) it can used in conjunction with old school turntables to give a user of these access to thousands of tracks without having to carry tonnes of record boxes.
- The actual mixing of tracks can be controlled with software (on some software) leaving the DJ to concentrate more on performance using effects and tricks.
- A recent development of some software is the inclusion of streaming services (e.g spotify/tidal) so a library of literally millions of tracks can be accessed and played
So with all this progress, why am I suggesting that the move to digital isn’t all the progress it’s supposed to be? Well the biggest problem is compatibility. As suggested earlier, in the old days it was simple. turn up with your records/CDs/ headphones and play – pretty stress free. it did mean that bars or clubs were responsible for the maintenance of this gear and it has to be said that when this wad the norm, you could tell how much a venue appreciated their DJ by their choice of equipment and it’s maintenance. sometimes knobs or faders were missing, or turntables were pretty beat up. but on the whole it was a simple system that worked. Now there are many systems out there. Pioneer have the most popular system in clubs with their CDJ and Rekordbox system. But here is an issue, their system is quite limiting and if you don’t have a usb stick prepared with their rekordbox software, life for the DJ that night is going to be pretty damn hard. Also while their software is free to download, to buy players compatible with their software is pretty expensive for people to buy/learn on. If you want to use a laptop that you learnt on, then there are so ny systems that it may well be the case that your system isn’t compatible with the gear that the venue has- I have found that I am having quite deep discussions with venues in the lead up to gig, not so much about the type/style of music, but mores what equipment they have and what it works with (and often with bar managers who don’t really know what I’m asking about).
This has lead to a lot of venues not even having a house system installed which DJ’s just turn up and use- they love it as it means their isn’t the expense of purchase or maintenance moving forward, but from a DJ’s perspective carrying those heavy crates of vinyl have now been replaced with carrying your own laptops/media players/controllers and also brings with it the risk of people falling on/spilling this n your gear- it could end being an expensive night if someone drops a drink on your laptop.
I have to say I do love the freedom that digital DJing provides and it’s something that is here to stay, but whilst I used to worry and stress about what music was going to work on a particular night, I don’t worry so much about this any more as I have so much music that I can easily move from one genre to another if something isn’t working. What I do worry about now is what system am i working with/plugging into and will it work with my laptop/usb sticks, and what if I forget a vital cable that means I can’t play- fortunately this hasn’t happened to me yet, but it has dominated my pre gig mindset more than it used to.