I looking for someone to tell me which is better?
CDs or computer?

Obviously each has it's own good and bad points...I recently went to laptop (computer music)

Computer: ALL your music is at your fingertips easier than CD's..the weight factor alone was the reason I changed to laptop, better than lugging a bunch of CD's around..setting up and tearing down is now cut in half...BUT the bad part is (which has never happended to me but others may have experienced this) your computer crashes or the hard drive decides to give up...than your screwed (even thou I take a external hard drive to my gigs)so therefore I take my cd's etc as back-up only...there is alot more DJ's on here who have been DJing longer than me and I am sure you will get lots of advice...but I will tell you this I am not sorry I went to laptop, heck I am 59 and those crates get heavy hahah...I use PCDJ blue edition there is also a red version as well and there are lots more devices one can use..

Just adding my two cents

Jim in Ohio

quote:

Originally posted by Big B The DJ:
Obviously each has it's own good and bad points...I recently went to laptop (computer music)

Computer: ALL your music is at your fingertips easier than CD's..the weight factor alone was the reason I changed to laptop, better than lugging a bunch of CD's around..setting up and tearing down is now cut in half...BUT the bad part is (which has never happended to me but others may have experienced this) your computer crashes or the hard drive decides to give up...than your screwed (even thou I take a external hard drive to my gigs)so therefore I take my cd's etc as back-up only...there is alot more DJ's on here who have been DJing longer than me and I am sure you will get lots of advice...but I will tell you this I am not sorry I went to laptop, heck I am 59 and those crates get heavy hahah...I use PCDJ blue edition there is also a red version as well and there are lots more devices one can use..

Just adding my two cents

Jim in Ohio

59 and using computers. Sorry to say this not putting you down, but I only know 2 people over 50 who uses computers, oh 3 people you too!!!

GOOD JOB!!!! Some older people can't be bothered with new technology. I use CD players myself. The fact is the computer could go down at any time, even if you bought a $5000 laptop. Did you ever hear of a CD player going down? I never did, mine never did. I never even had any equipment failures.

Only thing bad about using a computer is, of course, having it take a dump on you. External hard drives means you can store your data there and keep rolling with a second laptop. Make sure you carry a pair of active direct boxes so you can properly impedence match your audio signal output unless you're using a device with true line outs(+4 prefered, -10 OK). I recommend active direct boxes since I typically get better results in sonic quality. No phantom power? Use batteries.

Another issue is scratching. If you're not into or needing to scratch, then doesn't really matter then.

As far as gear failures, Mysticm, they are an eventual fact of live. Gear will fail when it will fail for a wide variety of reasons. I recently had my DVD/LD deck dump on me before an event, or maybe at the event. It worked fine 4 days before. Who knows what happened. Karaoke, so I was fine, I have 2 other decks that can handle the task at hand. Taking good care of your gear helps, but even the best of us can take a hit in the gear failure department. The key is having back-up in place so you can keep on going.

This year has been a year of maintenance. Two cameras in for repair, that deck, quite a few cables needing to be salvaged. Maybe not that much in my overall scheme of things, but it's work and down-time and less money going around the bank account.

Then again, I'm not a DJ, I'm a sound engineer. I've seen way more than I'd care to remember.

I use a double cd-player, it never failed me.
I'm currently fixing a computer as an addition to this set to easely browse trough my music en play them with BPM-studio with a good controller, that has the same feeling as using my cdplayer.

don't use laptop, but pc with redundant harddisk (RAID) and a small UPS. I'm currently creating a system with the VIA-epia motherboard, these are quick enough at 1,3 Ghz to do the job, and can be mounted in a small 19" housing.

i use a double CD player.. it works perfectly... i love it =] Alot of my clients use it too

Wow, did I step into a quagmire or what?
I have a question What software is better PCDJ Red, Blue, or FX and why choose the particular software that you recomended. As well as what is the best compliment to this software; the DAC 2 or the DAC 3.
On another note your external hard drive's can be cool for longer use, by use of some computer fans I've made and invertion of sort, to cool two 80's for more than eight hours of constant use....Cool Huh?