From ISO-8859-1 Sent Thu, Nov 30th 2000, 01:08
From ISO-8859-1 Sent Thu, Nov 30th 2000, 01:08
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Chris Ege wrote: > The point that everyone's missing is that a better solution can be > devised. True, vinyl is still the best solution. But we're quickly > approaching a point where it won't be anymore. it won't be long till > someone comes up with a truly elegant and intuitive interface for mixing > digitally. =20 > What originally attracted me to start working with vinyl was that it really is a craft that you have to learn, like so many other crafts that require manual dexterity, precision movement and a good collaboration of the senses (like playing a real instrument, e.g. the violin - my first instrument of choice). You have to practice to become adept at manipulating the variables of the mix (the pitch, the sound, the volume...) plus you have to develop that touch where you know that your selections will have the audience's hair stand on end when you make that switch from one record to another. It is one thing to be a technically skilled DJ and another to be a really good one. The pitchable CD players entered the booth around halfway my career as a DJ, and I still haven't learned to use them. They just aren't as good to work with as a pair of good direct-drive turntables. Yes, turntables are clunky, take space and makes some aspiring DJs' lifes miserable when they think of the mounds of plastic they'll have to lug around (without forgetting the trouble one has to go through to collect enough to throw a decent gig, and the money one has to spend on them). CDs seem an attractive proposition, with Case Logic carrying cases and all to get rid= =20 of those pesky plastic covers - but the interface of CD mixers compared to turntables is just afwul. Yes, one can get proficient in working with those things, but I find it lacks the depth of skill one gets with working with vinyl. That is of course subjective, but I think most of those who have been working with vinyl long before pitchable CD players became affordable think that manipulating vinyl is still superior to those pesky little silver discs. Getting an all-digital mixing booth is yet another very attractive proposition. Ultimately, you wouldn't need to carry anything with you - you could just access your multi-terabyte music collection via the network interface on the mixer (or whatever the thing would be called). I don't think the problem with digitalisation lies with the actual format of the music, but with the interface one manipulates it with. In the future we might see these all-digital networked mixing stations with goggles and datagloves as an interface, but I believe the basic manipulation techniques will still be similar to manipulating vinyl. The controls may be virtual and the music may be just bits streaming from a=20 network server, but the hand movements will probably stay similar (if not the same). I think we would need an ongoing conversation between those who manipulate music (the DJs) and interface designers to see if it is possible to create a better interface to (human-controlled) mixing than the hand movements we now use with vinyl. I don't believe that superior techniques are readily available. A few years back some company (whose name escapes me at the moment) produced a thing called ``Final Scratch'', where a pair of turntables were connected to boxes which would generate a sync signal to a computer when a specially crafted piece of ``vinyl'' was manipulated with a turntable - and the manipulations would control sound files on the computer and sound like the person was actually working with vinyl. The software and hardware used BeOS, but it disappeared without a trace. I would have liked to test-drive that system, but missed the chance. Mixed technology techniques are and will be used, but I don't think anything will replace the skill of actually manipulating vinyl in the near future, at least amongst those dedicated to the profession. Also, we would lose the very unique artform of scratching - the ultimate display of skill in vinyl manipulation. It is undoubtedly true that digitalisation will enable artists to reach wider audiences, and that there will be automated, algorithm-based mixing software that works without the need of human intervention, and that the zero-cost copies of digital music will entice newcomers to the field to assume that they will become the worlds greates DJs because of all the music in the world is at their disposal (or so they think). But if we lose vinyl as objects, the craft of mixing will disappear, and I don't think that is going to happen any time soon. I highly doubt that vinyl will disappear even if the VR mixing station scenario became true. Vinyl will be around quite a bit longer than those speaking for the all-digital future will care to admit, because if vinyl goes then one cornerstone of the profession will be lost. It is the search for that elusive tune, the one that no-one else or only relatively few have. It is the hunt, the trouble one goes through to get that one piece of vinyl still missing from that favourite label's catalogue. It is the limited editions, it is the promo releases... All those things would be lost in an all-digital future. Yes, undoubtedly all those things could be simulated, made to represent what we used to have, but it would only be a shadow of the real thing - a simulation of a past where tangible objects and skill had value. Personally, I love the smell of fresh vinyl in the morning. If I wake up when the mail carrier rings my doorbell, I know that there are new records for me. I love ripping open the boxes, carefully inspecting each record and taking them to the turntable and listening to them. I love going to shops (virtual or not) and searching for those missing pieces in my collection. I love chatting with like-minded people who appreciate the trouble one goes through to get that missing record and have the same enthusiasm towards music that I do (a friend once likened a pair of us to a couple of kids comparing their collection of card collectables - we were comparing the first and second pressings of Boards of Canada's ``Hi Scores'' vinyl - the labels of the pressings have different colour). You don't get those things with Napster or other forms of digital music distribution (and I'm not talking about CDs, should you have the need to pick nits). Yes, I do like CDs for their ease of use (I don't have to flip sides of my favourite albums all the time) and the portability of MP3s, but vinyl is still the most important medium for me to get the music I want. I'm puzzled by the fact that some kid in the middle of nowhere has the same pieces of music that I do in MP3 format,=20 and that he got them with just a few clicks of the mouse when I had to invest substantial time and money to get the music on a physical medium. But it all depends on what you appreciate and respect. It's a matter of ethics and choice - things I take quite seriously. Besides, digital music doesn't get the wear and tear, the patina of age that vinyl gets. Of course it could be once again simulated, but I can hear Baudrillard whispering from the shadows of postmodernism. Each=20 scratch has a history, each click and pop possibly being a point in time where the dog had its day (I'm not saying that scratches and clicks and pops are good when playing, but they add their own variable in the whole). Maybe I'm romanticising and waxing a bit poetic here, but that's how I feel about it. I will not directly discard the idea of a better way of mixing music, but I don't see a directly possible vinyl-free future for us DJs in the digital world. Can someone else can come up with more possible scenarios? I haven't seen too much discussion on the future of the DJ profession in the advent of digital music distribution. Popular technologies will gravitate towards all-digital and the new music formats and distribution methods will affect how DJs will work, but I'm missing the discussion on it. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places - does anyone have any pointers? Cheers, --=20 nuutti-iivari meril=E4inen gordon at diversion dot org http colon slash slash www dot diversion dot org slash