"It seems today that we move further & further into the digital domain as far as DJing is concerned & as our piers & contemporaries move into this domain there's an added pressure for all & sundry to follow suit.
The whole world seems to be going digital & our beloved analog is slowly disappearing from our lives.
This is the case with film, both moving & still, being replaced by digital high definition which is simply not as good, not as rich, but much cheaper to produce. The same is happening with sound, with the warmth of recording to tape a distant memory, analog synths are being replaced by soft synths & vinyl being replaced by CD's & laptops.
As an aging DJ who's been a professional in the art of spinning records for over 20 years there is always the temptation to switch to digital from vinyl. My first thoughts about this were almost 2 years ago when suffering severe back problems. Due to not being 21 anymore & not having the discipline to do my stretching exercises or any exercises for that matter as well as suffering the stress of losing my mother, I had a serious back problem. The bottom but 1 disk in my spine came completely out of place whilst sleeping on my sister's sofa.
Of course I went to the Osteopath immediately who gave me some back adjustments putting my spine back into line & doing muscle manipulations & he also gave me specific stretching exercises to straighten & strengthen my back. Through DJing, carrying heavy records & bad posture when sitting, mostly from many long haul flights, I'd earned for my trouble a slight curvature in my mid spine that had developed over the years due to what is now becoming commonly known as the DJ stance. This curvature has caused me to lose over 1mm in height over 20+ years as well as causing my muscles in my back to take on a form that isn't completely natural to them.
Of course being the undisciplined idiot that I am, as soon as the stretching exercises that my Osteopath gave to me had rendered my back OK & pain free, I stopped doing the exercises only for the problem to come back & for the disk to come out again, indeed 5 times in the last year & a half.
This would be the perfect excuse for me to switch from lugging around heavy record boxes to maybe carrying only a couple of CD cases or switching to Serato or Final Scratch, thus alleviating my back from the said pressure of carrying heavy records.
After much mental deliberation I simply couldn't do it!
This is why.
I truly believe that the people that pay good money to come & hear me spin deserve the very best sound that I can possibly give them & with vinyl being indisputably the best sound, I've chosen to stick with this format even though it's not good for my health.
Vinyl sounds better than both CD's & laptops for a few simple reasons.
The first is MP3's sound like shit. Even the high rate MP3's are only a quarter of the quality of CD's. This is because the digital information is compressed which in turn compresses the sound which not only starts to make all kick drums sound a little similar & bass tones become a little similar but also the width of the high end becomes squashed making the music much less dynamic. Also the space between the sounds completely disappears as the compression pulls frequencies out of the sounds in the track that were not meant to be there which is why the producer didn't compress those sounds when he/she made the track in the first place. This brings me swiftly to my next point of contention.
Laptops. Not only has the sound of the tune been all but ruined by converting it into an MP3 file but there is also compression in the system within these digital computer DJ formats that compresses the sound even more causing more of the problem mentioned above. By removing the space between the sounds the individual sounds do become a lot less dynamic.
Use AIFF or WAV files I hear you say. Even playing AIFF & WAV files on computers still doesn't sound as good as if you burned the file directly to CD because of the compression in the computer system.
So why not use CD's? The music was recorded digitally using digital software, it's how it sounded in the studio. Correct, but there is still room for improvement which is why when you cut to vinyl from a 24 bit WAV or from a DAT it always improves in sound. Just the process of cutting the record onto a slate or a copper plate ads a warmth & richness to the music that sounds better than the original digital recording. Any record label will tell that they've been impressed with the improved "feel" of the music after it's been well cut for vinyl.
Next is for me the most important issue. The needle on a turntable is a tiny microphone, which picks up the sound of the room, which feeds back when the needle touches the playing surface of the vinyl & when played on a big system gives the music another warmth again. The sound of the system, the sound of the monitors & even the sound of the crowd come through the needle, it's these sounds regenerating on themselves that give this extra warmth to you, the end user, who's experiencing the sound on the dance floor.
How many times have you been listening to a recording of a live mix & when it breaks down you can hear the crowd screaming & whistling? This is coming through the needles & is completely lost when playing with CD's or computers. This sound of the crowd screaming etc comes back out of the speakers so the crowd subliminally hear themselves in real time coming through the speakers. This is a spiritual thing, a body thing, a soul thing, which is simply lost in all digital DJ sets. There is a solution to this problem, which can be obtained by setting up a microphone that picks up & amplifies the crowd & the room, which I urge all digital DJs to do. But even with the spirit of the crowd back in the mix, the warmth provided by the sound of the room feeding back through the needle which is touching a piece of material called vinyl is still lost.
I understand that the DJ does not want to carry heavy records anymore as I'm so there myself but the DJs are getting paid a hell of a lot of money for this small piece of labour. Too much to ask? I understand female DJ's switching as it's so difficult for them to carry heavy records in their high heel shoes & all but then they can stipulate in their contracts that some big guy is to carry them for them. These girls don't mind dragging heavy suitcases full of their favourite clothes off of baggage reclaim belts, all of which are much heavier than a 70 record capacity box which usually comes in at around 16 kilos, full of tunes!
Also, the actual playing of vinyl, the looking through the record box for that tune you love, pulling it out of a well designed sleeve & throwing it onto the turntables is also an interactive thing with the crowd which the dancing public love to see. The interaction is completely lost when watching a DJ play from a laptop who looks like he's standing there doing his or her emails. Not a pretty sight. Does watching a DJ flipping the pages of his / her CD case & whipping one out turn you on? I didn't think so.
Lastly, spare a thought for the artists & the record labels that make so much effort in creating the finished product & a thought for the dedicated record store that continues to struggle to make ends meet & the distributers that are now going under because the DJs who really should be supporting these artists, labels et al are simply to lazy to carry vinyl! They should be ashamed of themselves!
The only valid exceptions for me, are DJs spinning with computers or CDs because they live in a third world country & simply don't have access, or indeed the funds to buy real tunes, which is why I'm happy that digital formats even exist.
So, I for one will be sticking with the vinyl, as I believe that the paying public deserves the very best sound that I can possibly give them. If only all DJs were made this way?
Oh, & another thing, VINYL IS ART!"