Hi I'm dj sweet I'm new to this forum thing but I have mixed with dual cd players but i am planning on getting some turntables and would like to know the basics for mixing with turntables cause I have heard differnt ways of mixing at a great event from 2 people but would like to hear what other great djs out there have to say about the basics wirth viynl and how to make mixing better than basic? Thanx

~DJ Sweet~

Welcome to the forum!

Mixing has been discussed many times. Try to do a Search (upper right of page) for "Mixing" in the "Turntablism" section. The fundamentals are the same for digital or vinyl. You have to speed up or slow down the music, and match the beats.

Check out these to start:
http://www.americandj.com/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_...;f=6;t=000380#000000

http://www.americandj.com/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000222;p=1

http://www.americandj.com/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_...;f=6;t=000311#000001

Good luck! And practice, practice, practice!

Thanks

Very good suggestion Bill, this topic has been covered to death, there is a heap of info regarding this topic.

I will say, having used both over the years I find using vinyl very tedious in terms of having to always be careful with needles, shaking floors, kids/drunks grabbing your tone arm.....I could go on, suffice to say that all these annoyances can really disturb your concentration when trying to mix/scratch with vinyl.

A lot of mis-informed and inexperienced DJs will argue that nothing beets the feel of vinyl and it sounds better. Come on theres more to it than that, feel is a matter of interpretation. Your crowd will not understand or care about comments like that, all they are interested in is if you are keeping up with the vibe.

The media always portrays DJ'ing as this a kind of glorious and perfect world of straight happy party people dancing around a DJ and his turntables. If you can put your ego away you'll realise that it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

Sorry guys, I'll stop ranting now....

ROQ out.

Not a rant, ROQ. The truth!
I started with CD, then picked up vinyl. Yes, it does "feel" cool using vinyl, and there's a lot of good dance/club music that's only on vinyl. But I prefer CDs. Mostly for a neat feature called "Tempo Lock". And that you can set up loops, instant start, never need a new needle, etc.
But it does look cool with the wheels of steel spinnin!

Agree totally Bill. As you know I started out on vinyl and ended up on CD. I see these kids, at the clubs I've been working at, dragging in their crates of records. I ask them why? And I get the typical response "because they feel better"! So I'm watching them work and I have to say their performances are very average compared to the smart ones using CD.

But like I said, it's all a matter of interpretation, some like it, some don't and some don't care. I think I'm all of the above. I have a love/hate relationship with using vinyl and because I prefer to spin/scratch/sample/trick/trip/tempo whatever on CD I really don't care. I'm way over the vinyl feel fantasy, I instead put my efforts into entertaining my crowd above passifying my ego.

ROQ out.

ROQ wrote:
"I will say, having used both over the years I find using vinyl very tedious in terms of having to always be careful with needles, shaking floors, kids/drunks grabbing your tone arm."
********************
I have never used anything but CD's in a party situation. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to have drunks banging on a table with a tonearm on the loose, but I have heard stories. I understand that there was a time when it was vinyl records or nothing, that's all there was. But why would you use vinyl records if there was another choice? Not to mention lugging a thousand LP's around like I do CD's. Those things would weigh a ton. To carry around a set of turntables and an LP library in addition to dual CD players and CD's is borderline insanity. Talk about a glutton for punishment!

Turntables and records have their place at turntablist exhibitions or with a scratch DJ in a band, but that is a whole 'nother world from mobile dj'ing.

My two cents. Go ahead & fire away.

M-artin you are 100% right, back in the day we had no choice, it was either vinyl or tape. I used to lug around Technics TTs, along with 5-6 crates of records along with speakers and amps all by myself, the workout was great but the money was bad and the gigs were extreme nerve intensive; drunks, kids, floor vibrations, wind, sun, needle maintenance, scratched/warped records, 33rpm/45rpm, constantly wiping dust off every record I put on the platter and on top of that with a basic mobile sound system it sounded cr@pola.

The thing I hated the most was telling people to be careful when dancing to stop the record from jumping errrrrr! You know come to mention it back then people understood the dynamics of needle jumping and they would actually dance more carfully if you asked them too - it was weird watching 300 people dancing in the one spot without their feet leaving the ground - like Smurfs! Seriously I don't miss those days one bit.

So I laugh everytime these kids come up with stupid justifications for using vinyl, I'd love to see how quickly they change their minds if they'd stepped into my shoes for one day back then.

ROQ out.

I don't want to be totally negative towards vinyl but in answer to the original post, DJ Sweet with CDs you can mix and scratch exactly like turntables/vinyl if not better.

With vinyl there are limitations. Depending on the type and options of your CD deck you can do 100 times more creative and intelligent mixes than with vinyl. I will emphasize this all depends on the type of CD deck you have.

ROQ out.

Hey its dj sweet I'm getting in the habbit of practicing more and more . Thanks for all the replies I have always thought viynl was better and cooler now cause of you great djs I have ben convinced that you could still mix with cds as good as viynl. Thanx

Back to the Sweet Mix!!
Dj Sweet