DEATH of VINYL, Record SHopS, Real Djing

[dvoskin]

I wanted to talk about something new... before the other thread would be bigger then the average JP threads...

So my questions is

DO U BELIEVE THAT VINYL IS dead? There for it causes the end and closing of some of the best city record shops.... thus leads to the destruction of original djing and etc

Is CD and DIGITAL gadgets from all over the world - destroying originalism and the Vinyls...

YOUR THOUGHTS !

[rhythmofvision]

How is vinyl related to originalism? Vinyl is cumbersome and expensive to produce. Bedroom producers and poor DJs who can't buy $500 worth of records a week have a much better chance now with the digital age and therefore cultivating 'originalism'.

As the medium becomes less esoteric, more people can actually do these things and in the long run, will be beneficial to all of us who love the music.

[skylab]

Hm what will happen when cds overpass vinyls in quality?

[lucky13]

I don't see what the big deal is about DJs embracing new technology. I think it would be pretty stupid for them to ignore it, since CDs/laptops offer many more capabilities than a set of turntables do. Most big name DJs today have begun using CDs/laptops in addition to vinyl, while some have abandoned vinyl altogether. I don't really care what medium they use to bring the music...being a good DJ is more about playing good tracks and having good technical skills. If new technology allows them to mix better and do other kinds of cool things, then I'm all for it.

[edubz]

Not so much the death of vinyl, but file sharing hurts the dance industry the most. For a tiny dance label is gonna cost them alot to press vinyl... if DJ's and music lovers support the industry then its a good thing. There is a good read on how digital has changed the game...

Record stores cannot afford to stay open. Electronic Dance Music events attract a frighteningly severe level of attention from authorities yet, more often than not, fail to be financially solvent, eventually being forced to give way to the Hip-Hop and Reggaeton behemoths. And finally, that age-old question: Do people really think that music should be free, or worse yet, a commodity?

File sharing has hurt all corners of the music scene, but the dance music scene was hit particularly hard and is indeed still recovering. Independent Dance record labels don’t have deep pockets, nor do they have the corporate sponsorship that Metallica, Britney or Madonna and the “big 5” record labels enjoy. So a decline in sales has more of a ripple effect in the small pond of the Dance music scene. Additionally, the damage caused by file sharing does not lie simply in lost record sales, but also in lost marketability. Declining record sales will not convince a record label exec to sign and invest a lot of money in a DJ or a Producer. As a result, Producers and DJs become less able to create music for a large audience and the availability of House and Dance music may diminish greatly.

To catch up, there had to be an across the board (read: across all genres) acceptance of the modern technology that could not simply be “uninvented.” In order to catch up, in order for artists (remember them?) to start making money again, there had to be an evolution from the Vinyl-exclusive format of dance music. Historically, by gearing dance music towards DJs and those select few “in the know”, a large consumer population was excluded and alienated. They eventually turned to file sharing, armed with the rationale of “it’s not available in stores so I’m not hurting anyone.”

Additionally, it is worthy to note that history may very well be repeating itself right now. This could well be the 1980s after Disco crashed down from the heady heights of commercial success to full-blown rejection. Disco met such a vicious backlash because the consumers found themselves in the middle of a saturated market -- with no quality assurance, anything and everything was given the disco treatment, often with the hopes of making a quick buck.

Today, greed is not the only reason the market has become flooded. Technology, you see, has become a curse as well as a blessing. The wide availability of recording and production equipment (and its reasonably affordable price) has made every other music fan a bedroom DJ/Producer. There’s no need to worry about high manufacturing costs or even paying a promotions staff when you can simply upload the your tracks to your website, or fileshare them with friends who will pass them on to their friends, and so on. Even starting your own independent record label is not the lofty task it once was. The effect that is now being seen is that, faced with a diluted market of average quality or worse music, the consumer feels this music should be free.

All these factors have lead to a sharp increase in the quantity of releases on record store shelves. With a no filter for quality, it becomes difficult for the casual fan (and even some professional DJs) to sift through a hundred or more new releases each week for three or four good records. Additionally, as shelf life decreases, even the quality records don’t stay on the shelves as long as they used to.

So, the last 7 years have been Sodom and Gomorrah: Free music, more advanced technology, music piracy is perfectly acceptable! But let’s look at one consequence that goes beyond the mere fact of lawsuits, fines and declining record sales: our shortening attention spans. (You’re still reading… good for you! There may be hope for your attention at least.)

During the early-mid 1990s, club-goers and radio-mix-show-listeners would hear unreleased tracks months, even up to a year before they saw a release. Even a large majority of the material that was released was so underground that most people wouldn’t know where to find it. They would have to pick out specific identifying qualities of the track in an effort to track it down (“oh, you know, that track with the Elmo-sounding voice on it!” or “it sounded like a male vocal, but maybe it had been pitched way, wayy down – I don’t even know!!”).

Today, after dancing to a record in a club, you can get home as the sun is rising, flip on your computer, connect to your favorite file-sharing program and, without much difficulty, find and download that track. But the process of producing and releasing records hasn’t quite caught up to that speed yet. By the time a record sees a proper release, people have already been dancing to it in the clubs, hearing it in online DJ mixes and downloading it to their iPods for the past six months. At this point, very few people really feel the need to actually buy that record to support the label and the artist and to ensure that the quality music they love will continue to be available.

And while we’re at it, take a look around the music scene as a whole (and I mean any genre of music here): you might notice that independent dance music is not the only scene that is suffering. Go to any city with a mall and/or a handful of national chain music stores in the nearby vicinity. Now, look for the independent music shop. It’s kinda hard to find, eh? Whether you’re digging in crates for old jazz records, early 80’s punk or new wave or an old Chicago house track, there are increasingly fewer stores that can afford to offer the music lover this luxury.

The so-called death of dance music is not being rung in by the tolling of the digital download bell. To put it in overly-dramatic terms, the grim-reaper has already walked among us – illegal downloads. Yes, it was a lot of fun to get music for free and rationalize that “This music isn’t available anywhere else,” and “I’m only using these downloads as a sampling device to see if I want to buy it”. And yes, it seems preachy to say that illegal downloads take money out of artists pockets and food from their family’s mouths. It does not only that but also deprives the rest of the world of this music that we all supposedly love.

Going beyond the consumer, the technology of legal download sites has made the global dance music scene smaller, a more close-knit community that is accessible even to kids in the Deep South, Industrial Midwest or even the Alaskan Tundra. This is overwhelmingly good in that it ensures the continued vitality of dance music.

People complain that legal downloads and CDJs are forcing the old fashioned record stores out of business. Perhaps they are to a degree, but think about the kid who has no access to this kind of music (since you’d be hard-pressed to find that rare David Morales mix of Mariah Carey at your average Best Buy, Sam Goody and Wal Mart) and has to rely on buying records from Ebay or downloading MP3s from a variety of legal download sites. When a kid in Indiana or Kansas gets bitten by the dance music bug, whether he’s seeking out vinyl or burning mixes onto CDs, this is someone who is going to dig as deep as he can to get to this music; listening and learning about its history, and just about jumping out of his skin when he finds old 12” dance records in the back room of his college’s radio station. These are people who will ultimately keep dance music alive, whether it is in its original underground home or at the height of commercial success before being relegated back to the underground once again.

That is why, with House becoming more widely available, we have to do our part to truly show our support. Every legitimate sale, be it traditional vinyl or CD or the less-tangible MP3 file, shows the world (including those corporate shot-callers and their purse strings) that House music is worth supporting. This will insure House music’s future availability and vitality; and who would want to argue with that?

[dvoskin]

One producer once said ...Nothing can match the analog sound of the vinyl, that rich unique sound....

your thoughts

[edubz]

One producer once said ...Nothing can match the analog sound of the vinyl, that rich unique sound....

your thoughts

"Digital preserves music the way formaldehyde preserves frogs. You kill it, and it lasts forever."

[dvoskin]

i dont know about that... my hardrive crashed a few month ago.... almost lost all my files... a company told me 5000$ to retrieve it from my dead harddrive....thank god a friend of a friend who has a friend who knows a friend took care of it for me.... so i dont know about "Forever"

[mkutlass]

the real underground stuff is not on any filesharing websites, i could be wrong...........takes awhile before it gets to them........ nothing beats vinyl nothing ever will...... Most of the dj's i see using laptops aren't that good, i would love to see how good they do on turntables with no beat counters or whatever else garbage is out there...... only thing i would use technology for would be sampling.... but this is just me....

NOTHING BEATS DROPPING A NEEDLE AND HEARING SOME SICK BEATS COME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

[mtmartin]

bravo! great insight edubz

Not so much the death of vinyl, but file sharing hurts the dance industry the most. For a tiny dance label is gonna cost them alot to press vinyl... if DJ's and music lovers support the industry then its a good thing. There is a good read on how digital has changed the game...

Record stores cannot afford to stay open. Electronic Dance Music events attract a frighteningly severe level of attention from authorities yet, more often than not, fail to be financially solvent, eventually being forced to give way to the Hip-Hop and Reggaeton behemoths. And finally, that age-old question: Do people really think that music should be free, or worse yet, a commodity?

File sharing has hurt all corners of the music scene, but the dance music scene was hit particularly hard and is indeed still recovering. Independent Dance record labels don’t have deep pockets, nor do they have the corporate sponsorship that Metallica, Britney or Madonna and the “big 5†record labels enjoy. So a decline in sales has more of a ripple effect in the small pond of the Dance music scene. Additionally, the damage caused by file sharing does not lie simply in lost record sales, but also in lost marketability. Declining record sales will not convince a record label exec to sign and invest a lot of money in a DJ or a Producer. As a result, Producers and DJs become less able to create music for a large audience and the availability of House and Dance music may diminish greatly.

To catch up, there had to be an across the board (read: across all genres) acceptance of the modern technology that could not simply be “uninvented.†In order to catch up, in order for artists (remember them?) to start making money again, there had to be an evolution from the Vinyl-exclusive format of dance music. Historically, by gearing dance music towards DJs and those select few “in the knowâ€, a large consumer population was excluded and alienated. They eventually turned to file sharing, armed with the rationale of “it’s not available in stores so I’m not hurting anyone.â€

Additionally, it is worthy to note that history may very well be repeating itself right now. This could well be the 1980s after Disco crashed down from the heady heights of commercial success to full-blown rejection. Disco met such a vicious backlash because the consumers found themselves in the middle of a saturated market -- with no quality assurance, anything and everything was given the disco treatment, often with the hopes of making a quick buck.

Today, greed is not the only reason the market has become flooded. Technology, you see, has become a curse as well as a blessing. The wide availability of recording and production equipment (and its reasonably affordable price) has made every other music fan a bedroom DJ/Producer. There’s no need to worry about high manufacturing costs or even paying a promotions staff when you can simply upload the your tracks to your website, or fileshare them with friends who will pass them on to their friends, and so on. Even starting your own independent record label is not the lofty task it once was. The effect that is now being seen is that, faced with a diluted market of average quality or worse music, the consumer feels this music should be free.

All these factors have lead to a sharp increase in the quantity of releases on record store shelves. With a no filter for quality, it becomes difficult for the casual fan (and even some professional DJs) to sift through a hundred or more new releases each week for three or four good records. Additionally, as shelf life decreases, even the quality records don’t stay on the shelves as long as they used to.

So, the last 7 years have been Sodom and Gomorrah: Free music, more advanced technology, music piracy is perfectly acceptable! But let’s look at one consequence that goes beyond the mere fact of lawsuits, fines and declining record sales: our shortening attention spans. (You’re still reading… good for you! There may be hope for your attention at least.)

During the early-mid 1990s, club-goers and radio-mix-show-listeners would hear unreleased tracks months, even up to a year before they saw a release. Even a large majority of the material that was released was so underground that most people wouldn’t know where to find it. They would have to pick out specific identifying qualities of the track in an effort to track it down (“oh, you know, that track with the Elmo-sounding voice on it!†or “it sounded like a male vocal, but maybe it had been pitched way, wayy down – I don’t even know!!â€).

Today, after dancing to a record in a club, you can get home as the sun is rising, flip on your computer, connect to your favorite file-sharing program and, without much difficulty, find and download that track. But the process of producing and releasing records hasn’t quite caught up to that speed yet. By the time a record sees a proper release, people have already been dancing to it in the clubs, hearing it in online DJ mixes and downloading it to their iPods for the past six months. At this point, very few people really feel the need to actually buy that record to support the label and the artist and to ensure that the quality music they love will continue to be available.

And while we’re at it, take a look around the music scene as a whole (and I mean any genre of music here): you might notice that independent dance music is not the only scene that is suffering. Go to any city with a mall and/or a handful of national chain music stores in the nearby vicinity. Now, look for the independent music shop. It’s kinda hard to find, eh? Whether you’re digging in crates for old jazz records, early 80’s punk or new wave or an old Chicago house track, there are increasingly fewer stores that can afford to offer the music lover this luxury.

The so-called death of dance music is not being rung in by the tolling of the digital download bell. To put it in overly-dramatic terms, the grim-reaper has already walked among us – illegal downloads. Yes, it was a lot of fun to get music for free and rationalize that “This music isn’t available anywhere else,†and “I’m only using these downloads as a sampling device to see if I want to buy itâ€. And yes, it seems preachy to say that illegal downloads take money out of artists pockets and food from their family’s mouths. It does not only that but also deprives the rest of the world of this music that we all supposedly love.

Going beyond the consumer, the technology of legal download sites has made the global dance music scene smaller, a more close-knit community that is accessible even to kids in the Deep South, Industrial Midwest or even the Alaskan Tundra. This is overwhelmingly good in that it ensures the continued vitality of dance music.

People complain that legal downloads and CDJs are forcing the old fashioned record stores out of business. Perhaps they are to a degree, but think about the kid who has no access to this kind of music (since you’d be hard-pressed to find that rare David Morales mix of Mariah Carey at your average Best Buy, Sam Goody and Wal Mart) and has to rely on buying records from Ebay or downloading MP3s from a variety of legal download sites. When a kid in Indiana or Kansas gets bitten by the dance music bug, whether he’s seeking out vinyl or burning mixes onto CDs, this is someone who is going to dig as deep as he can to get to this music; listening and learning about its history, and just about jumping out of his skin when he finds old 12†dance records in the back room of his college’s radio station. These are people who will ultimately keep dance music alive, whether it is in its original underground home or at the height of commercial success before being relegated back to the underground once again.

That is why, with House becoming more widely available, we have to do our part to truly show our support. Every legitimate sale, be it traditional vinyl or CD or the less-tangible MP3 file, shows the world (including those corporate shot-callers and their purse strings) that House music is worth supporting. This will insure House music’s future availability and vitality; and who would want to argue with that?

[mtmartin]

the real underground stuff is not on any filesharing websites, i could be wrong...........takes awhile before it gets to them........ nothing beats vinyl nothing ever will...... Most of the dj's i see using laptops aren't that good, i would love to see how good they do on turntables with no beat counters or whatever else garbage is out there...... only thing i would use technology for would be sampling.... but this is just me....

NOTHING BEATS DROPPING A NEEDLE AND HEARING SOME SICK BEATS COME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

i find filesharing sites are filled with underground music more than anything else...there are also tons of e-labels, forums, messageboards where you can get free downloads, tracks by bedroom producers, beatport even offers the occasional free downloads ( yes, most of the time it sucks, but hey..)

so all this free music...GREAT!! .... BUT, IT isn't generating any income for anyone.

[edubz]

i find filesharing sites are filled with underground music more than anything else...there are also tons of e-labels, forums, messageboards where you can get free downloads, tracks by bedroom producers, beatport even offers the occasional free downloads ( yes, most of the time it sucks, but hey..)

so all this free music...GREAT!! .... BUT, IT isn't generating any income for anyone.

the future looks bad....

think of it this way. Record labels(I am speaking about dance labels, not the billion dollar corporations like sony) are forced to shut down. Even by going online and selling their music, people still get over by just free downloads.

What will happen? Soon, all the music that will come out, will all be from people using bootlegged copies of reason, that will just be shared from friend to friend to friend, ect,ect....

I have noticed a huge decrease in the quality of music since 2000 onward. Hex hector made alot of what people call "classic tracks" as if you go to a NY "classics night" it plays like a hex hector discography tracklisting. if you go to his site, from like 1996 to 2001 hex was doing like 50-80 remixes a year. After 2001, nose dive to the point where he hasnt even done 10 remixes this year.

in general, there is hardly any good tracks out anymore. Sure you find a good one here and there, but how long does it last?

Think about this, has there been any classic tracks released recently? 2005 is over, name me some classic tracks, as I have been out of the dance scene for like 4 years, and just started getting back into it. any classics in 2005? scary isnt it...

[iamsamurai]

i use ranes serato scratch, nuff said

[flavanugz]

i use ranes serato scratch, nuff said

totally dude. u said it ALL!

[mtmartin]

i use ranes serato scratch, nuff said

someone was using this at sullivan room one night.... his laptop froze..had to wait a few minutes til' he re-booted everything....real smooth, lol

[edubz]

someone was using this at sullivan room one night.... his laptop froze..had to wait a few minutes til' he re-booted everything....real smooth, lol

also. you deal with this thing called LATENCY... a real pain in the ass.

[dvoskin]

So Then We Back To Square One ----- Vinyl Is The Best

[skylab]

didn't jps computer go down at wmc last year?

[edubz]

didn't jps computer go down at wmc last year?

duhh...!

[skylab]

I dont remember that day much but didnt it take like an hour for him to set it back up?

[robbiewoodside]

Vinyl is on life support. A lot of people are playing music in the digital form now and it is killing the scene. I say this not as a vinyl "purest" who feels DJs should play records and nothing else, but as a concerned lover of the quality of our music. It is from a sociological standpoint that I feel we have to look at the situation and the effects the digital revolution has had, and will continue to have, on dance music.

I always looked at the local record store like one from the inner city may look at his local barber shop. It's a place to meet people. It's where you go when you want to find out about what's going on. You hear stories from all types of people who are, and have been, actually involved in the scene. It's a place where you share your skills, talents and styles with other DJ's. Hell, you don't even have to be a DJ to hang out. You can go and listen to other DJ's at 2 in the afternoon that you may have never otherwise heard of. It is more than just a place to buy records. Stepping into a record store for the first time is almost like a passage into the dance music scene. Now, due to the advent of availability of dance music in digital form, the local record stores are having a hard time keeping up and thus, having to close their doors. This just isn't affecting store owners and DJ's, but the whole scene.

It used to work like this: Someone decides to become a DJ. He/she buys equipment and records (at a record store). They eventually make money as a DJ. Everyone profits. The producer, the label, the DJ, the promoter, the venue, the record store, and the fans hear quality music when they go out. It's a cycle which sustains itself. Now, when the DJ stops spending money the entire loop is affected: The Producer isn't making money and has to sustain themselves in other ways (such as cutting hair. True story.), the label goes bankrupt, there becomes less quality music and people go out less frequently which hurts the promoters and venues, and the record store goes under.

That is just the beginning. Watch how this spirals out of control: With the lack of quality music being produced and released the bar is set much lower. Bedroom producers are now able to have their music more easily heard and played. Bottom line is most of it isn't that good to begin with. If it was labels would have been signing their stuff more frequently. Any DJ's that were buying vinyl are now buying much less because they can't rationalize spending their hard earned money on poorly made music. The record stores that were able to survive the first elimination are having a hard time surviving the second one. Downloading music starts becoming popular and everyone wants to be a DJ. These people who don't give a damn about the scene then start working their ways into clubs by lowballing other DJs. Venues begin to see a drop in talent. The new generation of DJs don't put the money back into the scene. The cycle continues....

Bottom line is we need to support each other, but it begins with the music buyer. If you're not going to buy the music on wax, fine, but be sure that you PAY FOR THE MUSIC! In the end, you're you're going to pay for it one way or another.

[majinbuu]

digtal is easier. throw out all your records.

[silverbull]

Impressive reads, and i agree goin digital does make things easier and faster but that doesnt mean its better for the overall scene. All this filesharing nonsense is rediculous and the people who are doing it dont seem to care at all and thats saddening.

and then you have all the clowns who dont give a shit and just wanna do their drugs and get their free music and talk nonsense on messageboards.

[djjeffg]

As far as CD's vs Vinyl, analog records always have more depth & clarity than a cd will & I'll tell you why.........

When a Cd is produced, there is a thin layer of metal in which a digital "press" stamps in a coded image on this sheet which is then sandwiched between 2 layers of plastic - hence a factory bought CD.

CDR's came on the market for home use because the blue-green layer you see on them is actually a liquid that is applied & then dried, soft enough for a home computer's recordable drive to "press" in the the coded images now.

Every CD player in the market has some type of converter, most are DA converters and range in different bit depths, for example a 24 bit Da converter.

When the optical laser reads the CD info, this converter has to transform the optical info into audio - this is where a small loss of sound quality happens.

With Vinyl, there is no loss of quality since it is a physical contact & there is no loss. If you can really pay attention, there is a hell of alot more depth (range from highs to lows in sound) with analog. Hope this helps!

[silverbull]

ANALOG baby, i wonder if you poll a lot of djs and ask them if the reason they use cds now more than vinyls is because of the sound or because its easier to carry?