Friday, February 2nd 2007, 6:30 pm
After posting about my studio a guy called JAW had some things to say about my comments that vinyl are dying:
I can’t say I agree with the vinyl transitions after seeing some of the most incredible DJ performances. The movement from record to record and the finesse of the timing was part of the appreciation and “oos” and “aahhs” of the observers. Of course you’ll get me to admit that I was one of those DJs that said I would never buy a tape 20 years ago and now I’m CDS, vinyl and occassional tape (really only for recording).
I was going to answer this in the comments section but I thought that it warranted a blog post reply instead as I had a lot to say.
My opinion is this. Vinyl is definitely dying.
Firstly I have my own anecdotal evidence from the promotional tracks that I receive. Over the past ten years I have received many vinyl promos from record and promotions companies. Then from 2005 to 2007 this has gone from around 15-20 records per week and no CDs to 10-15 CDs and plenty of MP3 links but almost no vinyl. So it appears that the record companies are no longer sending over vinyl copies to the promotions companies or DJs.
Secondly, it doesn’t make financial sense for record companies to send vinyl promos any more. Just think of the costs involved. It would have cost them a minimum of £500 for a run of 500 12″ records. From my own knowledge of artist promotion this is probably a fair estimate of the number of copies of a track that get sent out to DJs. Let’s then compare that to the price of a run of 1000 CDs which will cost you a fraction of that price, probably around £200 if you don’t want any inlays. Alternatively, the company could burn their own CDs and I have seen that happen (but perhaps not for a run of 1000 copies). So the company will halve their costs to see whether a track or set of remixes work and this money can then help to promote the artists instead. The other alternative is to supply MP3 links with password protected server access. This is happening a lot more and the cost of this sort of promotion must be pretty negligble as file hosting is so cheap now.
So do the public care if vinyl dies? Well, there have been reports from September 2006 that vinyl was making a comeback. While the shops may be seeing some increase in sales of 7″ singles (note: this is a video link) I personally think this is a niche market which is fueled by the indie labels and kids who like to be different from their CD buying and MP3 downloading friends. For DJs I think that the death of vinyl is a sad time but we’re moving onto new technologies like the CDJ1000 (yes, I know CD turntables aren’t particulary new!), Final Scratch or Ableton Live.
I’ve been DJ’ing since 1988 and I got into DJ’ing because I loved scratching so I agree that seeing the performance of a DJ manipulating vinyl is amazing. I would watch hours and hours of the DMC World Championship scratching videos to see people like Aladdin, Cash Money, The X-Men, DJ Craze and the Invisible Scratch Pickles doing amazing body tricks while cutting and scratching. I’m sure that this will continue for many years to come but I believe that it has little bearing on a DJs performance in a club. I think that the advent of a usable CD turntable (i.e. the Pioneer CDJ 1000) has pushed DJ’ing in a different direction. Now DJs are thinking more about programming (i.e. tune selection) and how they can manipulate the tunes using the available technology for a better experience for clubbers. I agree that seeing a DJ running Ableton Live in a club isn’t going to be as memorable experience as the old days but if their tune selection is amazing then who cares? Some DJs, for example Pete Tong, aren’t particularly strong technical DJs but their track selection is generally amazing.
So is vinyl dying? Yes.
Does it matter? It’s sad but life moves on and we’ll get over it eventually!
Just so you all know that I won’t be posting anything on my site for a week and I won’t be answering emails. I’m heading off for a week of snowboarding in the French Alps. I’m going to Sainte Foy with some friends of mine for week of snowboard fun, plenty of beer and loads of apres ski. Fingers crossed that we get some more snow!
DJ DATES
