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I regularly seem to encounter extremes of view on this and on reflection break it down into 2 areas: Medium and Delivery.

Medium (or format) is what the music is actually originally recorded on – be it vinyl, CD, DVD, or digital file (.mp3, .wav). Delivery is what you play it from – be it record turntables, CD decks, or laptop/computer driven.

You will have many schools of thought around each – that vinyl is truer to the artists original sound and sounds much better, that CDs are more flexible, that digital allows for so many possibilities etc.

After much thought around this I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter what medium or delivery method you use, each has their pluses and minuses, rather the choice of both is initially dependent on when you started getting into music. If you started collecting and playing with vinyl then that is going to be your preference, for me the main part was CDs so that is my chosen medium.

In saying that technology moves forward and in the last 5 years many vinyl purists have moved to CD DJing for convenience (it’s much easier to carry 500 CDs in your bag than 500 pieces of vinyl) and flexibility – what you can do on CDJs and an EFX unit is truly amazing – real time loops, hot cues etc.
There are also those that have moved to incorporate digital laptop DJing as well – again much easier to carry 10,000 .mp3s on a hard drive than it is to carry the same in vinyl in record bags. also if you lose the laptop or hard drive on the road you still retain a master copy of everything back at home base unlike vinyl that would often go missing in transit. With software like Ableton Live and the more DJ orientated Traktor you can create tunes on the fly from component parts and let the software beatmatch it for you allowing you to concentrate on the combination and track selection.

Arguably there is an element of risk at being left behind as things move forward if you don’t keep up with technological advances.  case in point a few years back I remember seeing Fatboy Slim play at Global Gathering. He played his typical vinyl set and had the crowd enjoying themselves but was immediately followed by Erick Morillo who on 3 CDJs and EFX units just killed it. There was no comparison between the two. Both were entertainers so had the performance element but in Erick’s case the techology really shone through. With advances on the digital front as well now will it in a few years be the same – if you are not playing on laptops will you be left behind?

There is one important element that is universal across medium and delivery methods and that is performance. In my view the DJ is an entertainer and so there has to be a level of performance and animation in what he/she is doing up the front of the crowd behind the decks. Arguably the punters aren’t going to know what he is playing on or from, from down on the dance floor but they will notice how he/she is playing it. Case in point – early adopters of Ableton when DJing straight from laptop would look like they were checking their emails Vs actually mixing tracks. I’ll never forget seeing Sasha do it early on and it really made an impact on the crowd – sure the music was OK but part of the experience is seeing the DJ get into it as well. Compare this with Nicky Siano (The Gallery, Studio 54 resident and 1st DJ to mix on 3 decks) who also made the switch to Ableton and absolutely goes off behind the decks bouncing around and tweaking knobs and having a great time of it all – thoroughly recommend you see Nicky if he ever comes to town a true performer!

PS As a CD man myself I love winding up a vinyl only DJs – best way is to just mention that there’s just no love/soul/feeling in the medium and that it just doesn’t compare to CDs for looks, sleeve art, taste, sound range etc!

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