This is very helpful. Thankyou. I am going to try and find some videos which show how loud that high pitched noise is when interchanging between vinyl and timecoded and will make a decision based on that. Thanks again
That sounds great gavin. I will hit you up after Iâve made a final decision. Iâm still doing a bit of research. Cheers man. Sounds like a bargain
Iâve got a set up for serato control discs that work on a second hand Rane 62 mixer. I play the two control discs on Technics 1200s and itâs a nice way to âfeelâ digital tracks and ripsâ the biggest drawback is that it also requires a laptop to run software. I can also play one table with an actual musical track and the other table plays digital on the time code. You can work it out pretty easily switching between vinyl and timecode, but I usually just do one or the other.
I also bought a cheap cdj 850 and that is more fun in different ways to me. Less time staring at a screen most of all.
I started out with a Rekordbox DVS system, but quickly aquired some cheap CDJs. Mainly because I wanted to avoid looking at a laptop screen and to replicate a proper club set-up at home. Iâm much happier now but I can see why timecode/DVS would work for some.
Yeh this works fine. I did it for years when I used to play out more often. You just have traktor (time code vinyl) on line and records on phono and can switch between them no bother. Same with serato.
Any mixer will do.
Can anybody here help out a luddite/idiot?
Iâve got a Numark NDX 500, only ever played CDs on it but decided iâd like to use the USB function, downloaded some tracks & transferred them to a USB stick put the stick in the NDX pressed play & heard nothing, no sound at all, the display shows the tracks iâve downloaded but thatâs it.
CDs still play as normal btw.
It looks like youâll need to import the tracks into Serato where you can sort them and make playlists. Then youâll have to export them to the USB via Serato. Thatâs how it works with Rekordbox and CDJs anyway.
Ah okay, thanks, i know nothing about Serato so iâll have to educate myself
I would expect it should be possible to play off usb without Serato or Rekordbox. It just wonât automatically sync the beats. Youâd have to find the cue and press play on the beat and youâd have to adjust the tempo, all manually.
Thatâs how i understand it anyway. I could be wrong.
Check the files are in a format supported by the player.
Iâm not familiar with the Numark but I do know the older Pioneer players donât support flac or alac files for example.
Theyâre mp3s which it supports, so must be the Serato thing i guess.
Thatâs me out of ideas then. Hope you get it sorted.
Thanks anyway mate
You also need to check the USB is formatted correctly. On a Mac youâd go into Disk Utility and see what format it is. On Rekordbox it needs to be FAT 16 or FAT 32 otherwise it doesnât recognise the USB stick. Might be similar for Serato/Numark.
And I still have Rekordbox issues where it doesnât like a particular type of WAV but if youâve got MP3s that shouldnât be an issue.
You might just need a firmware update to the ndxâs or as already mentioned the usb might need formatting.
If Youâre going the Serato route Youâll need a dj controller as the ndxâs are not plug and play with Serato afaik (will work in addition to a Serato approved dj controller to control a third or fourth deck but wonât work alone)
Think iâm gonna stick with vinyl tbh, i only make mixes for my own amusement mainly.
i was pretty close to the rane folks when serato was first introduced and while i wanted to be supportive - frankly everything about it seemed like it was defeating all the purposes. all the inconveniences of vinyl (turntable configuration, potential for skipping) combined with the degraded sound quality issues of digital media files!
oh sure, i knew it was nice to not have to drag hundreds of lbs worth of records to the club, but you still had to worry about RCA connectivity, dipshits dive-bombing your turntables, dust on the stylii, the whole deal. and you also had to drag a laptop around - and usually an external hd, and the serato box and man, everything just seemed like a configuation nightmare.
using CDJs as controllers made more sense to me at the time - but at the time, you still needed actual timecode cdâs.
anyway, i guess i just kept buying records - that worked for me.
Did you ever have people trying to set up their Serato DJ station while you are playing records? Thatâs just the worst. Itâs the complete opposite of everything thatâs fun to do in a club. If I wanted to have a rewiring session I would do it on a Monday evening, not at the weekend in a club.
I find Serato great to be fair never really got into recordbox as I originally used Serato so stuck with it- like everything it has itâs pros / cons
My main gripes would be the sound quality of digital files (vinyl sounds so much nicer, not all but most of the time)and the audible whine from the control vinyl I find quite annoying at times especially if listening to music in a quite room(dj controller cuts this out)
Definitely not starting a digital v vinyl here of all places from My perspective vinyl will win hands down all Day on the other hand though I have four youngish kids so buying vinyl is a rare luxury these Days .
For instance I bought 2Lps and a double 12â over Christmas which came to 102 quid before p+p just couldnât justify spending that kind of money on vinyl regularly at this point in time nor would it feed the habit whereas itâs probably a months plus spending on Bandcamp.
Now this time 7/8 Years ago I owned probably north of 10000 vinyl which Iâve slimmed down to about 250/300 so Iâm viewing this from both sides of the fence but needs must
On a side note the one and only time Iâve used serato at a gig everything ran nice and smooth bar the walk home my external hd fell out of my shirt pocket and smashed may be an omen there somewhere .
Even listening to mates who previously I would have called vinyl purists are finding it hard to justify the price of vinyl at the moment especially during lockdown with gigs drying up etc
Apologies for the minor rant
Have a great weekend
Seems to be a huge discrepancy in pricing depending on label or artist. I do not buy the more expensive records. Certainly not at those prices you stated. Better to buy beer and listen to the music on bandcamp or YouTube. You can still find good records at around 10 or 11 pounds, although with decreasing frequency, i realise.