From: John Book (johnbook9@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 03 2002 - 23:37:00 CET
Scratching Without Vinyl: A Hip-Hop Revolution
By MICHAEL ENDELMAN
When the hip-hop D.J. Rob Swift went on tour with his
group the X-Ecutioners earlier this year, he brought
along the basics, vinyl records and a pair of
turntables. This winter, though, when he sets out from
New York City on a solo tour, he intends to pack an
additional device: a compact disc player.
He is not alone. Recently some of hip-hop's most
celebrated D.J.'s have similarly made the leap from
analog to digital. From Jurassic 5's Cut Chemist to
California's DJ Shadow to DJ Swamp, a member of Beck's
touring band, the list of converts includes some of
the most respected hip-hop D.J.'s in America.
In hip-hop, CD players have always been second best, a
tool unworthy of a serious performer.
In dance club performances and the highly specialized
style known as turntablism, vinyl offers users the
ability to cut quickly between two records, stop and
start almost instantly and most important to
manipulate the record against the needle to create the
percussive scratching sounds that serve as rhythmic
embellishments in the music.
Over the past year, however, digital technology has
caught up with hip-hop's techniques. Companies like
Pioneer and Stanton have introduced digital devices
that offer many of the same sonic qualities as
traditional turntables. Fans of them are finding that
these digital turntables also allow new creative
freedoms and musical opportunities. The results are
changing the nature of live performance while sparking
some controversy within the D.J. scene.
"It's like if baseball players switched from wooden
bats to aluminum," Rob Swift explained. "The aluminum
bat will help you hit more home runs, but the feel
just isn't the same."
Technology companies have been trying to attract the
hip-hop market since the mid-90's, but the earliest
"CD turntables" couldn't meet the needs of working
D.J.'s. The newer machines are much more successful in
recreating the sound and feel of a turntable.
Among the products attracting a hip-hop clientele are
the Numark Axis 8, Stanton's Final Scratch, the
American DJ Pro-Scratch 2 and the Pioneer CDJ-1000.
The Pioneer CDJ-1000 has been the most successful at
winning over hip-hop D.J.'s, with prominent advocates
like DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist.
A rectangular tabletop device, the CDJ-1000 imitates
many of the tactile qualities of an analog record
player, including the ability to "scratch" the compact
disc and manually speed up or slow down a song. Users
are not actually moving the CD against the laser;
rather, using a touch-sensitive "jog dial" that
imitates the spinning platter of a turntable, they are
"scratching" a copy of the song stored in the
machine's memory.
Digital turntables have become so popular that they
are now often de rigueur in many dance clubs,
occupying a spot alongside the traditional turntable
workhorse, the Technics 1200. "It's just become
standard operating procedure," said Darren Ressler,
senior manager of the DMC organization, which
organizes yearly hip-hop D.J. championships. "Every
single nightclub has one now."
For D.J.'s this means they can come to a club armed
with beats and songs they put together hours or even
minutes before. "I used to have to get samples and new
beats cut onto a temporary acetate, which costs $50,
doesn't sound very good or last very long," said DJ
Swamp. "Now I just burn the music onto a CD. My laptop
burns CD's internally, so I can be backstage putting
stuff together right before I go onstage."
Cut Chemist of Jurassic 5 takes the process even
further; at recent shows he has ventured into the
crowd to record audience members talking, quickly
burned a CD onstage and then immediately scratched up
the vocals using the CDJ-1000. "It's something that
you could never do with vinyl or a traditional
turntable," Cut Chemist said. "And the audience just
freaks out when they hear it."
There are still pockets of resistance, though. Hip-hop
D.J.'s are a stubborn and purist bunch, dedicated to
the pairing of vinyl and turntables for reasons
romantic as well as rational. In a genre that is
obsessed with notions of authenticity, vinyl signifies
a connection to hip-hop's historical lineage, which
starts with those South Bronx pioneers who began a
global movement with little more than two turntables
and a microphone.
In last year's turntablist documentary "Scratch,"
D.J.'s mused about the thrill of tracking down rare
vinyl, a pursuit memorialized in many a song.
"I still like playing the original records," Cut
Chemist said. "It's just a bigger thrill. If I pay
money for that rare record, I want to share it with
you. And it's just not the same with a CD."
So it is unsurprising that a philosophical divide has
popped up along with the growth of this new
technology, not dissimilar to the uproar when Bob
Dylan and Miles Davis went electric in the 1960's.
Even avid practitioners of the new, though, feel a tug
toward the old. "I feel kind of torn, because I like
to consider myself a purist," Rob Swift said. "I just
hope the turntable doesn't get lost in it all."
It well may not. "Some people are always going to like
the rawness of vinyl," said DJ Q-Bert, the pioneering
San Francisco-based turntablist. "It's like what
happened with keyboards. First there were pianos, and
then there were electronic keyboards, and then a whole
new style of music emerged."
"But," he added, "people are still playing pianos."
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