Pioneering DJ Seb, happily tossed out his vinyl a decade ago

[liqidtouch]

Pioneering DJ Seb Chan happily tossed out his vinyl a decade ago.

The American music iconoclast Beck once declared that he had all the essentials for making music using just "two turntables and a microphone". It was a reference, for those born after 1980, to playing those round black things with holes in the middle that reproduce music. We called them records.

These days Beck might get an argument. Despite a resurgence in the popularity of vinyl in the 1990s, it seems that the century-old technology is finally dying out - again.

DJs, dance and hip-hop fans kept turntables spinning in the 1980s and 1990s, partly because of tradition but also because vinyl could be manipulated to create sounds that just weren't possible with CDs.

Turntables became the basis of hip-hop and the British-driven genre of drum'n'bass, helping vinyl retain its place as the universal weaponry of all dance DJs, from globetrotters such as Pete Tong to enthusiastic amateurs running the school disco.

Even though the general public lost interest in vinyl, there was enough demand from DJs, dance music fans and diehards, who believed vinyl had a "warmer" sound than CDs, to keep a handful of vinyl pressing plants operating in Europe and the US.

In the US, for instance, sales of vinyl LPs and EPs fell from 11.7 million in 1990 to 1.2 million in 1993 - then rose each year until 1998, recovering to 3.4 million. Since then, however, sales have fallen back to 1993 levels.

In Australia, the sales of vinyl albums and singles fell by 20 and 17 per cent respectively last year. In Britain - where only a few years ago it was said turntables outsold guitars - vinyl sales are falling by more than 20 per cent a year, according to Britain's Official Charts Company. The fact that demand for vinyl consistently grew year by year in the dance-music boom years encouraged record companies to continue releasing some big-selling CDs in limited runs on vinyl.

Two of the eight companies still making vinyl records in Britain closed last month.

Meantime, Pete Tong, who commands fees in the tens of thousands of dollars for an hour or two behind the turntables, recently confessed that 85 per cent of the music he plays now is on CD. And he's not the only big DJ to 'fess up.

In Australia, prominent DJ Goodwill happily admits that "95 per cent of my set consists of CDs these days and the 5 per cent that are still on vinyl are usually just the records I haven't had time to put on CD yet".

New "CD turntables" allow DJs to scratch and mix without vinyl. Many DJs don't even bother with CDs, choosing to copy all their music onto laptop computers as digital MP3 files. Hence the falling demand for vinyl.

In Australia, in clubs big and small, the music you are likely to hear comes from CDs or even digital MP3 files played on laptop computers.

"CDs offered us portability and a point of difference from other DJs," says Seb Chan, of Sub Bass Snarl, a pioneering DJ duo that has been using CDs almost exclusively for 10 years.

"I used to laugh when other DJs would literally fight over limited shipments of records from Belgium in the early '90s," Chan says. "I'd be the DJ sitting at the back, relaxed, looking through a pile of CDs."

The slow drift from vinyl to newer forms has caused passionate arguments in the dance community.

Online forums and the letters pages of the street press are regularly filled with sharp exchanges between those who argue that vinyl is obsolete technology and those who denounce DJs who use CD/MP3 as betraying the essence of the community and not deserving the title.

Andrew James, editor of Inpress dance music supplement Zebra, says it was not long ago that he observed "vehement discussion from both sides". Although many DJs "are warming to the idea of working on multiple formats", there is still fervent argument from those adamant about sticking with their beloved vinyl and turntables, he says.

One of the most passionate is Melbourne hip-hop DJ Selekt, who believes vinyl is essential to hip-hop culture and that turntables, a mixer and a crate of records are still the most important tools for a DJ.

"Vinyl is the traditional style of DJing," he says. "It's a foundation that everyone should know how to use . . . you can do more things with vinyl."

Although he occasionally uses CDs for songs unavailable on vinyl in Australia, Selekt maintains that there's more to playing music than ease of distribution.

"If I see someone playing with just CDs, I think that's boring. I could go and program a jukebox somewhere," Selekt says. "It's also much more fun to watch vinyl. Who wants to go and watch some kid press buttons on a computer for two hours?"

The medium used by DJs has changed radically in the past few years. DJs were at first tempted to abandon turntables for high-quality CD players with extras such as variable speed controls that mimic the way records could be handled at different speeds.

Later, recordable CDs allowed producers and DJs to instantly burn new music mixes onto discs to test on audiences. In the past, it would take weeks before a DJ would receive a test pressing after sending off a test mix to a vinyl plant.

In some cases, a DJ may not even need a CD, explains Tim McGee, a DJ and managing director of dance label Ministry of Sound. "You can walk into a club with your own memory chip, put it into the CD player and it saves all your cue points, your loops, and instead of fast-forwarding to find a starting point on a record you can just skip to it."

New computer programs such as FinalScratch have also made it possible for DJs to manipulate the sound in the same way they would do with vinyl, including pitch shifting, cuing, spinning up and down, and even "scratching", the effect when a record is pushed back and forth by hand.

"I can see a day that the majority of DJs will be playing only CDs," Goodwill says.

"I have been championing the CD turntables since their invention and find the doors they open up amazing. I can do edits of all my records before I play them out, loop them live, use cue points to stretch out a cappellas, scratch on them just like a turntable, and I can carry 10 times more music to my gigs."

But is it real DJing? Purists such as Selekt argue that using vinyl is a craft that calls for skill and dexterity "not like a computer where you can press a button and it mixes (the songs) exactly".

McGee counters that the skills are still required to select the right music, make the right changes and manipulate the technology just as the old-school DJs manipulated the turntables.

So does this really mean the end of vinyl?

No, says drum'n'bass DJ Lefroy Verghese, who works under the name Ritual and uses MP3s and CDs only "because we have to in Australia (because) you don't have hundreds of producer friends nearby giving you new music". He believes "vinyl won't die, CDs won't become more prominent. Everything will have its place."

Selekt agrees. "Why do people still go out and see a band play live when the CD they've bought is mastered and a lot better? When they (a band) play live, they'll sound half as good and they'll mess up and make mistakes and people still want to go.

"It's the same with vinyl - music isn't meant to be 100 per cent clean, computerised and perfect."

But wait, there's more, says McGee. "When people can start walking in with their iPod, their whole catalogue on it, that's going to really shake things up as well."

Forget vinyl, the next headline could well be MP3 and CDs are dead

[iamsamurai]

I dont think vinyl will ever go out. Pickin up that needle and laying it down feels great. I accept cds and mp3s and even dvds, combine them all and you can do so much.

[liqidtouch]

thanks for thinking FORWARD man

technology is something we as a society will always cherrish weather we like how its used in some cases or not - but in the end - we will still end up all owning those "floating cars"

I say floating cars as a metophor because the idea of a suped up auto a long time ago was taken as a SIN of technology

yet we look for PLASMA tv's - when theres really no need for it

we look for a fast car - when what we really need is efficient

"As humans, it is in our own nature to destroy ourselves"

i dont know who that quote is from - but i do think its truth

[iamsamurai]

thanks for thinking FORWARD man

technology is something we as a society will always cherrish weather we like how its used in some cases or not - but in the end - we will still end up all owning those "floating cars"

I say floating cars as a metophor because the idea of a suped up auto a long time ago was taken as a SIN of technology

yet we look for PLASMA tv's - when theres really no need for it

we look for a fast car - when what we really need is efficient

"As humans, it is in our own nature to destroy ourselves"

i dont know who that quote is from - but i do think its truth

a friend of mine said "the past dictates the future"

i dunno if it's in our nature to destroy ourselves. I think Vinyl will always have a warmer sound, more natural but i'm not against the new dj technology out there, I embrace it and look foward to what's possible with it.

[kenl]

As a dj for nearly 12 years I was one of those who for a long time refused to accecpt the use of cds, mp3s and other technology, I was the vinyl junkie purist.. But I must say that in the last year or so, my eyes have been opened to these new approaches to djing. Some of the new digital turntables that have come out are extremely versatile and exciting to use and tools like final scratch, traktor etc... can be really fun as well.. As mentioned above, when they are incorporated into a traditional setup, the possibilities of creativeness are endless. I spent a few hours playing with the new Technics Digital tables last weekend and I was blown away. It was the first device that really came close to the hands on feel of an actual turntable. Now I just hope they come down in price from the current 1,000 tag they hold. I dont see myself completely tossing vinyl to the side anytime soon, but I am now willing to utilize the other options we have available.

[liqidtouch]

[siceone]

Vinyl is warmer it's true

[liqidtouch]

Vinyl is warmer it's true

i hear this statement olt from djs mainly

but u take a room with 600 ppl & the dj is GREAT at programming - and music selection

but hes using only CDS

and the crwod never even knows it --

i have seen it time andtime again

Over at VUE in manhattan on the main floor they have the hookup already there for you if you want to use tracktor

and the crowd keeps moving

[smgarret]

i hear this statement olt from djs mainly

but u take a room with 600 ppl & the dj is GREAT at programming - and music selection

but hes using only CDS

and the crwod never even knows it --

i have seen it time andtime again

Over at VUE in manhattan on the main floor they have the hookup already there for you if you want to use tracktor

and the crowd keeps moving

Nah, you can tell when they switch from cds to vinyls to pc and back, the sound quality and the crispness of highs and bass are better from a vinyl. Not that there's anything wrong with cds, etc, they just don't sound as good.

[liqidtouch]

Nah, you can tell when they switch from cds to vinyls to pc and back, the sound quality and the crispness of highs and bass are better from a vinyl. Not that there's anything wrong with cds, etc, they just don't sound as good.

i know what u mean- but thats really evident to ppl like us eho listen so closely

any1 else (general public) still think that even the music u hear on the radio is also top quality in sound

I have seen what they do in there. They compress the shit out ofthe music and speed it up

unreal

[highmay]

this article was actually taken from this website: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Livewire/Turning-the-tables/2004/11/17/1100574526409.html?from=moreStories&oneclick=true

whats worse is that you never even mention the original writer of the article...next, give credit to where credit is due...

[liqidtouch]

this article was actually taken from this website: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Livewire/Turning-the-tables/2004/11/17/1100574526409.html?from=moreStories&oneclick=true

whats worse is that you never even mention the original writer of the article...next, give credit to where credit is due...

they asked me not to

get your facts straight first

then post all you want on them

[highmay]

they asked me not to

get your facts straight first

then post all you want on them

oh, so they wanted you to make it look like you wrote it...who the fuck doesnt want credit for something they wrote?? that's such bullshit...it's not like this was a scathing and shit talking article...

and this is just one example of the many i found when back searching the threads you started...i feel bad for anyone who does business with you...