I'll tell you what I'm definitley a dinosaur...I love vinyl too much...don't get me wrong CDR's are convenient especially since producers can't afford test vinyl but I think an accetate the first few plays still sounds better...anyway I did sell a lot of doubles because I move...but it does help refind your vinyl...ha ha its all exciting to me but **** how can you not get vinyl??? it's DOPE...I just like maintaning my skills...don't you? Yeah it's heavy but what happens when the power goes out I can still play a record...no more digital nothing I can paint play an instrument and play an old dusty record...besides didn't vinyl die in the early 80's with disco???

Hey guy's if you want a great price a on Serato, Give Vin a call @ DJ World 203-230-2449 tell him Karl sent ya and he will give ya a killer deal.

there's always two sides to the argument and i hear both. with this new technology, a lot of the things that came hand in hand with dj-ing might become more of a novelty in the near future. i'm sure there will still be purists who keep as much of the culture's origins alive, which i have the utmost respect for.

but, i think this technological advance should be embraced by the dj community. yes, it is extremely portable, but i think its biggest positive is the potential to do day to day things more efficiently. transitions, mashes, and mixes become that much more easy to test out. no more looking through a huge catalogue to find a few records. on the fly, a dj has more time to test out those couple extra songs that you think is going to kill it. essentially, dj's can manage more/plan ahead more/get more work done in the limits of time whether it be in the studio or at the club.

I'm planning to venture into spinning out more this year, and so this is a relevant topic to be sure.

Several people that I know of are planning to go the Serato route this year. One of them that I know seems to be planning on using Serato exclusively both for spinning out and for remixing; another is gushing over the new Rane mixer with Serato built-in.

Personally, I feel that the paramount thing that separates the best DJs from all others is the music selection and a really good flow. It doesn't matter what tool one decides to use, in the end it's about getting the crowd to rock and and go nuts.

Having said that, I can see that Serato is a good thing to have if one's travelling a lot and can't be bothered hauling a great deal of heavy vinyl. But I'm also a fan of vinyl and will always love wax. I'm still collecting them, so I don't see it as a dying thing. If anything, I'd rather that the vinyl either supplements my set or become the majority of it. And then there are the advanced CD-R's, which I get quite a bit of from Europe due to the costly expense that labels have to shell out for vinyl promos.

All-in-all, I feel it's good to know how to work the turntables, the CD decks, and Serato (or Final Scratch). Because when nasty surprises come up (like the aforementioned computer crashes), or if you really want to show off your waxing skills, or want to hit up the crowd with that up-front tune that's not pressed on wax yet, the options are more widely open.

As for that new Rane mixer, I think it's a neat thing to have if it's going to be stationary in a single location; not very practical, though, for lugging around from gig to gig.

Just my two cents; would love to read more reactions on this. Peace.
V.

I am hauling records... I thread carefully here, because a lot of good friends are getting into Serato and I have heard good sets performed on Serato... having said that, I just don't see myself going that route.. I am aiming to be THAT novelty dj who's going to be rocking vinyl when everyone else is doing the wave.. With Serato its a must that you rock a song NO longer than 30 seconds! I heard a mix where a dj did exactly that and had people wide open with his selections... so it still requires that you know your stuff... and then several weeks later heard somebody else stumbling through a mix on Serato.. still comes down to ear and skills... oh and when the program crashes? or the screen freezes? at least when my record skips, its just "oops"... but it grinds right on to the next groove..

while i love vinyl and think that every dj should experience the pleasures of hauling hundreds of pounds of wax to every gig, up and down three stories of their tenement building, or slicing up finger-tips while digging through dusty crates in the basement of brooklyn record vaults, i can't be a complete luddite in regards to serato. while i was hesitant to accept embrace the little black box at first, i'm definitely trying to cop it ASAP. i threw a party on friday and out of 6 djs, only 2 of us rocked vinyl. i think that tells you where most djs are headed. while serato has made some djs pretty complacent, i think the potential benefits are hard to resist: carrying your entire dj setup in your backpack, instantly having "doubles" of every song in your collection, the ability to drop remixes/mashups/tracks that you made or found THAT DAY without fussing with janky cdplayer buttons and wheels, pitch correction (a blessing if used correctly), and the potential of using the technology for live remixing and tweaking of multitrack files during a dj set (i'm patenting this, FYI)... Like the digital camera revolution, which many photographers protested against at first, there are just too many benefits to this technology to completely reject it outright, and in the end i think everyone will eventually make at least a partial switch (how many of you out there still use film?). there are just a few thinks that i think every dj should keep in mind:

1. don't stare at your screen!!! (music is best viewed through the ears, not the eyes. watching your beats match-up on the screen, despite the ultra-cool coloring of different frequency ranges, will only screw you up in the long run and make you look like a passenger on a cross-country JetBlue flight). if you're gonna watch anything, it should be your audience.
2. save your files on the highest quality settings (you still can FEEL the difference between an MP3 and a piece of wax, especially on a club soundsystem). hopefully advances in codecs will eliminate the need to worry about this in the future.
3. have backup cds/vinyl: you never know when your computer may freeze or a cord pulls out... and it don't stop.
4. especially if you get all your files for free, don't forget to support the artists whose tracks you are playing. they need to eat too.
5. just because you got the tracks, doesn't mean you're a dope dj. build your skills, pay your dues. then perhaps you can feel cool about being a dj.
6. don't hate on vinyl just because you've gone digital! respect the culture.

that being said, i think the future of djing is gonna be ill. our culture thrives on technology, as long as we use it to innovate instead of becoming slaves to our tools, there is a lot to look forward to.

sorry for the rant. i've been thinking a lot about this recently...

>>> something cool to peep out, RANE is releasing a new mixer with serato built in, so you can just connect a USB cord directly to your computer. check it out at: www.turntablelab.com

I don't want to launch into a long monologue here, but I'm really curious to hear what you are all thinking about more and more DJs making the move to Serato? I thought seeing a DJ play a couple exclusive CDs on a CDJ during a set was bad enough, but watching a DJ play on Serato is like watching someone send a text message out over and over again. Is anyone else kind of bummed that so many DJs are moving further and further away from vinyl? Or am I the only dinosaur on here?