 |
mixda.com |
 |
Home Site Map This Site Is For Sale |
HD Disc Jockeys
In today's world it is essential that disc jockey's keep pace with technology. What began as a DJ lugging vinyl crates to gigs has moved to compact discs, and now to computer hard drives (HD). With products like Serato Scratchlive?, FinalScratch?, and Virtual DJ, today's DJ's have vinyl-like feel with the convenience of a large music library.
Do HD products take away from a DJ's artistic ability?
Most of the HD products do not take away from the art of being a disc jockey because they still do not do the work for you. While there are some products that will automatically beat match the music for you, there are other products like Serato Scratchlive? that take great pride in preserving the true feel of vinyl. These products further enhance the capabilities of the disc jockey by giving them new more powerful tools like time compression / expansion, auto gain control, music waveforms, drum beat analysis, and more. As well as giving the DJ complete access to a virtually unlimited library of music. HD products also give the DJ the ability to remix his/her music and have it immediately available in the library. This coupled with effects processing and other sophisticated tools, gives the HD DJ a significant advantage over traditional vinyl or CD DJs.
How does it work?
These products use specially encoded vinyl records and/or CDs. These records are time coded with the position of the song with respect to the needle location or play location. The time coded medium is played like a normal DJ device, but instead of playing music it is sending the time code to the computer. The computer then translates this code and applies the result to the song on the hard drive. This means when a DJ scratches, backspins, skips, or stops the record so does the song on the hard drive. This results in a very realistic feel and even masks the fact that the song is actually being played on a computer.
What does the future hold?
Video, light controls, effects processing, and many more things are possible with this technology. While some may argue its reliability or quality when compared to previous mediums, the fact remains that this technology is here to stay and it is bringing today's DJ into the future. The days of lugging vinyl to an event are over!
Don Crass is a professional Houston DJ with more than 10 years of experience and is co-owner of RetroDJtoGo located in Houston, Texas.
|
|
||||||||
