Reply To: Is it worth it to me…to get turntables?? help

Back when I was DJing three or four nights a week, up to 8 hours a set (none of this turn up, play 10 records, trouser the cash and scarper for me), vinyl was the main option, many clubs didn’t have CDJs, if you were lucky they had a standard CD player. I used the original version of Final Scratch with a laptop (the laptop paid for itself with the volume of records I didn’t have to buy), and the number of people who didn’t believe I was actually DJing was phenomenal. At that time, however, all a DJ was expected to do was beatmatch, perhaps with the occasional bit of scratching.

Nowadays, with software such as Ableton auto-beatmatching, DJs turning up with a laptop (and perhaps an external controller) is perfectly acceptible. However, simply mixing one tune into the next is no longer considered a challenge – the traditional basic skill of the DJ has been superseded. If I go to a club and the DJ is using software, I expect live edits, looping and other wizardry that’s not possible with two turntables and a mixer.