DJs, seratos on the playa, good/bad?

[jadewombat]

I'm considering buying a setup and want opinions of how well they work on the playa. Good? Bad?

The dust and vinyl don't mix well, but you can at least keep going, unless a large wettish clump lands on it. The needle most of the time just pushes it out of the way, I couldn't hear much of a difference either, even in the worst dust storms. Of course, clean up when you get home is always a bitch...

[steveboy]

I can't speak to the survivability of the timecode vinyl, but you will want to prep the hell out of your laptop. The heat and dust are friggin crazy.

[Stickygreen]

or just sell your computer when you get home....

[Jake]

for what it is worth, we've been doing vinyl only for about 9 years now....same turntables, same mixer.....never an issue. Just get a good travel case and baby wipe shit off, buy a can of compressed air and you be good to go.

Believe it or not, CDs tend to skip once they become dust infected (specifically the player you might want to bring a spare) A laptop is just not the same....you are a DJ, not ane engineer

[steveboy]

Wow, it took exactly three posts for someone to start the same old bullshit "laptop DJs aren't really DJs" argument. Let's just treat the subsequent posts as read, shall we, since this argument has been xeroxed all over the net for years now.

The guy just asked for some advice and you took the chance to jump on his shit with pure irrelevance.

[jadewombat]

A laptop is just not the same....you are a DJ, not ane engineer ;-)

Actually I am an engineer, at work anyway. :wink: Richie Hawtin shows up with two Ipods, it doesn't make him any less of a DJ now does it?

Thanks for all the advice guys, I wasn't trying to start anything, just trying to get into the digital age here and bypassing CDs altogether because I mixed with those once and did NOT like the cue wheel at all. A lot of stuff isn't available on vinyl and I'm much better and quicker at pulling songs out of mixes I like and converting to MP3, ID it and buy it electronically, than to go searching, buy it on a record, then wait for something to show up in the mail. I am bringing vinyl as a backup and that most of my d n' b is in record form. I've wanted to start spinning dubstep as well, but where I live the record selection sucks, that and the big cost of buying another whole collection of records...I'm rambling though.

I have heard wax paper works pretty well at attracting dust away from what you want to protect.

[steveboy]

I've got a guide to playa-proofing a laptop here if you like: http://picasaweb.google.com/djsteveboy/BurnproofALaptop

[djjuicyjay]

Well I am going to be prepared for all types of DJing myself, I would not consider DJing on ipods really DJing it's just playing songs cause there is no pitch control unless you have the very newest ipod mixer w/ pitch control to make a proper mix. Cd's are easiest and I am also downloading mp3's on CD and on Memory stick for that occassional Serato/Tracktor set. Vinyl is always good but a pain to carry around across the playa especially if you are playing from camp to camp and the camps are all over. So if anyone has any time slots available for a SuperStar DJ let me know I'm planning my schedule now. *JUICYJAY*

[Diverse]

you gotta be kidding me if you think you are less of a dj if you use serato over vinyl. it is the same thing except you only need 2 records instead of a whole crate. when I used to still play vinyl, it sucked ass for these two reasons the most. biking miles across the playa with 80 pounds of records is nooo fun, and cleaning all of those when you get back is also no fun. so 2 records and a laptop and tiny scratch amp is the way to go. I always bring cd so I have a back up and for systems with no tables. but it has made djing on the playa so much better than the old days.

Even with all the dust and crazy elements out there, I have never had any electronic die on me or even a record get damaged.
Which amazes me but every thing always gets home working properly.

[steveboy]

...or you could skip the two records entirely and use pretty much the same application without them. Or are you any less of a DJ if you don't use any kind of vinyl at all?

[Diverse]

If your not beat matching the music then I would have to say it is clearly not as cool. It just takes no talent if you have the machine doing it for you. And I guess if you want to mix music with a laptop mouse rather than tables, more power to you. but turntables are by far the best way to mix music IMO. Why would you want to do it with a mouse when you could spin records?

[steveboy]

Sure, a DJ should know how to beatmatch, but that's not what DJing is. A monkey can beatmatch. If you think DJing is all about that, then anyone who can set their treadmill to their music BPM is a DJ. I mean, if it was easy, everyone would -- hey, wait, everyone *does* do it.

As I mentioned earlier, the chain of posts here is so inevitable someone should just go ahead and copyright it and paste it every time it comes up. So I'm not weighing in any more. Y'all have fun.

[playasnake]

to answer the question... the main problem with a seratto rig is that since you dont change records... you get dust build-up since you dont change the records after every song

[jadewombat]

Well guys, wanted to give some feedback on the whole Serato experience. I got completely hooked on it before heading out to the playa, there is a whole new world of MP3s to me now. BTW, I tried CDs at one point in time and didn't dig the whole button/paddle wheel thing. Anyhoo, practiced exactly twice with the Serato before the playa and got my spot on the Ellipsis artcar Friday night. Everything was going great mixing with the vinyl and Serato until we started moving. The needle jumped all over the place. I instantly switched to internal mode and had to mix that way almost the whole night. I wasn't used to, and didn't really like, such a tiny pitch control on the screen. It took a while to get used to and a lot of careful movements. Even when we parked the artcar for a while, I still couldn't go back to vinyl because the wind had picked up and the needle would still jump(I never mixed a cut-record the whole night-all digital). Anyhoo, I could get the mixes really close electronically, but never spot-on enough to hang the beats out there for a long time. It was fun though and everything turned out alright, the computer survived too.

For all you purists, Serato has NO insta-mix beat match button either, at least nowhere I've found. All the mixing still had to be done the old fashioned-way. I'm still hooked on Serato, glad to be home and able to throw down some beats with the feel of vinyl again and the decks not moving and bumping all over the place.

[DVD Burner]

Thanks.

I'll check out Serato.

[somekind]

A monkey can beatmatch.

Humans are among the only species which identifies with music. Almost all other species don't.


[quote]Rare talent
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/scie ... 4bird.html

Moving rhythmically to a musical beat is a behavior found in every human culture, but it is not commonly seen in other animals, according to Patel. “It is a remarkable fact that despite decades of research in psychology and neuroscience in which animals have been trained to do elaborate tasks, there is not a single report of an animal that was trained to tap, peck or move in synchronicity with an auditory beat,â€