[hnlmorg]

> sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment).

I was with you right up until this point.

People care about the music, not about how tight the beats line up. I’ve heard some amazing DJs who were actually shit at beat matching but had unparalleled track selection.

I’ve also heard some technically amazing DJs who were incredibly dull to listen to because their songs and set progression just went nowhere.

I’ve also had far more technical problems, both as a DJ myself and as a clubber, with modern controllers than with vinyl. The fact is there’s less to actually go wrong with vinyl. And I say this as someone who never had any love for Technics 1210s as vinyl turntables.

To give an example of “less to go wrong”, I was at one gig and the turntable stopped working. We opened it up, replaced an internal fuse and it started working again. The whole thing took literally 10 minutes to fix. If a CDJ died like that you’d be looking at replacing it with a whole new unit.

At the end of the day, I never really cared how the music was performed just as long as the music was good. Because of that, I was one of the early adopters of Ableton. But these days I have a family so just DJ vinyl at the occasional house party.

[jrowen]

I'll give you that I was being overly harsh or generalizing too broadly, perhaps with the hope that someone would challenge that.

The points you make about DJs are valid but irrelevant to the hardware. If "all else is equal," the newer tech just has the benefit of decades of engineering and feedback loops and is purpose-built for that exact application.

It's not going to be beat by 1970s tech, your once-in-a-blue-moon anecdote is outweighed by countless frustrations with turntables[1], and you won't find anyone in the industry that thinks it's going to work easier/better to set up turntables than CDJs. Supporting vinyl is a huge hassle and it's generally only done for special events or artists (or vinyl-specific bars that have gone to great lengths and leave their setup intact).

[1] Not to mention that yes, having a replacement on hand (or already hooked up) is the pro move to solve that problem quickly. As badass as it is, I don't think it's all that desirable for a DJ to be opening up hardware mid-gig.

[hnlmorg]

It’s only a huge hassle now because most DJs don’t spin vinyl so a special effort has to be made for them.

Modern turntables aren’t 1970s tech any more than CDJs are 1980s tech because it has a CPU in it. For starters DJ turntables are direct drive whereas the stuff from the 70s (and, to be fair, most home record players too) are belt drive.

The reason vinyl turntables fail less is because there’s less stuff in them to fail.

That’s doesn’t mean that vinyl turntables are better. Like with a lot of modern conveniences, we gladly enjoy the benefits of the extra tech knowing that it makes those devices harder to repair. But when you say that CDJs are more reliable, I have to call that out as incorrect. It’s just reliability here isn’t the primary concern because CDJ reliability is still very good.

It’s also worth noting that DJs don’t really use CDJs any more either. These days turntables take USB pen drives rather than CDs. I forget the model name for the Pioneers off hand though.

> As badass as it is, I don't think it's all that desirable for a DJ to be opening up hardware mid-gig.

This was a squat party, so very different circumstance to your typical club. But you’d be surprised at just how crappy a lot of club gear can be. I’ve played at places that didn’t even have a working DJ mixer. And this was an iconic London venue too

[jrowen]

It’s only a huge hassle now because most DJs don’t spin vinyl so a special effort has to be made for them.

If you're standing in front of an empty table before a show at an actual venue with money and stakes on the line, and the hypothetical is posed, "which is more likely to produce a smooth listening experience for our guests tonight?" the answer is always CDJs. The vibrations, the stabilization required, the needle quality, people bumping the table, the wear and tear of records that have been played and lugged around...vs a digital stream that has none of those issues. The only real issue is complete malfunction of the player and you can gig for years without experiencing that. Other than that, you throw it on the table, plug it in, and It Just Works. Your sound guy isn't going to be on edge the entire night just praying that some weird turntable shit doesn't go down and make god awful noises on very loud speakers.

The current top of the line is the CDJ-3000. The is the absolute standard that you will find in bars and clubs (or one of the CDJ-2000 models if they haven't upgraded yet) and on virtually every pro DJ's rider. It doesn't play CDs anymore but it's still called that. They have a line called XDJ that is cheaper (XDJ also refers to a line of all-in-one units that are increasingly popular these days but the gold standard is still the individual CDJ player).

[hnlmorg]

I’ve seen more CDJs fail than I’ve seen sets end because someone has bumped the table while a record was spinning. And as a DJ, you don’t want the main club speakers behind you because that just makes it harder to queue up tracks, so the vibrations issue would be as a result of bad design that shouldn’t exist even in digital only clubs.

You can claim that CDJs are more reliable all you want but I call FUD on your claims of vinyl. Both as a DJ, event organiser and paying punter.

Also your claim about a completely device failure isnt the only failure mode for a CDJ. I’ve seen CDJs fail because the platter has lost its touch sensitivity. I’ve seen their buttons fail. I’ve even seen them overheat in some warehouse parties with inadequate ventilation.

But let me reiterate this: if you’re equipping a venue and you pick vinyl or CDs (or anything for that matter) because of reliability concerns then you are automatically making the wrong choice.

Their reason you shouldn’t pick vinyl has nothing to do with the risk of someone bumping the table. The reason you shouldn’t pick vinyl is simply because that’s not what most DJs will want these days.

You pick the medium based on the performers requirements not some hypothetical disaster scenario. This isn’t software engineering, it’s music performance.

[jrowen]

You can claim that CDJs are more reliable all you want but I call FUD on your claims of vinyl. Both as a DJ, event organiser and paying punter.

Ok, that's fair, it's not that crazy or anything. But it is more difficult to get right.

Buttons fail and things do go wrong with CDJs but most of the time it's an inconvenience for the DJ that can be worked around and doesn't intrinsically affect the sound. We have CDJs in use 3-4 times a week taking god knows what abuse and have them serviced sometimes for small stuff but they pretty much work without issue.

if you’re equipping a venue and you pick vinyl or CDs...

That's why I said it was a hypothetical. You're not always making that choice on a given night, I wasn't talking about purchasing decisions, just what is generally going to be a safer choice from a technical perspective. It's also not a hypothetical disaster scenario, you can't act like these issues don't exist with delicate mechanical sound reproduction. It's just kinda comical, particularly on a big stage surrounded by so much digital tech, it's like why even risk it? And yes that question goes to the performer.

[dylan604]

Because all new tech is better for the sake of being new? Your sleight of 1970s tech is weird as it’s really more of that tech was just so good it doesn’t have room for improvement. The classic build a better mouse trap conundrum.

For example, the butterfly keyboard was not a better improvement.