New Media Research Studio

Inspired by Mushon ‘s feedback and the comments on my last post, I thought I’d conclude my travelogue with interviews of some DJ’s about the impact of new media on the profession. Because of some technical and logistical problems, I couldn’t record both of the interviews by today. Stay tuned for the actual video interviews, coming in a few days. I’ll be talking with a DJ, producer and photographer named Gasuza, and a DJ, writer and designer named Alex Barnes.

Since I’m examining how new media developments, specifically the digitalization of music, have affected the DJ profession, I’m going to focus on the divide between the analogue and the digital, and bridges being built. This clash/collaboration between newly developed technologies and more traditional ones, is most obvious in the wide range of reactions to the Rane-Serato “Scratch Live” system. Serato is a software (and hardware by the company Rane, which makes mixers and other DJ equipment) that allows DJ’s as much, if not more, control over their mp3s, as they would with traditional vinyl turntables. This is one of many softwares that allow the capability to link digital music to analogue hardware, but it has been by far the most successful.

Since Serato seamlessly connects regular turntables with a computer’s digital library, it has aided in the proliferation of mp3′s as the main format of music. After talking with several DJ’s, it seems there has been a considerable back-lash to the take over of mp3s. There’s the strictly-vinyl, purist camp, and there’s the hard-core digitalists camp, and there’s people like me who are somewhere in between. I love the aesthetics and sound quality of real vinyl, but will definitely buy Serato when I have the money, because of its versatility and the sheer amount of music available in mp3 format.

To give you all an idea of why this is such a big deal, I’ll break down the basic problem of mp3′s before Serato came out. If you mix mp3′s, with any software that allows mixing directly on the computer, you have very little access to the actual sound. Like in a program like ProTools, you can see the physical structure of the sound waves, but the only way to move them around or modify them is with the mouse or keyboard. This is useful when you are mixing something for an album, not mixing something live. With vinyl on a turntable, the music is literally at your fingertips, and your direct movements instantaneously affect the music output. Vinyl had this advantage over mp3′s only for a short time. I made a video showing a short mix of real vinyl on my turntables, so you guys can feel how much access the turn table interface gives the DJ. I’m not very good at scratching yet, so I don’t usually do this much when I play, but I want you guys to see all the various ways one can change the sound with vinyl. Bear with me:

So that’s a sample of what turn tables can do. Now just as mp3′s are limited by their digital format, vinyl is limited because it is so heavy, cumbersome and many artists don’t ever release vinyl. You have to pick your set ahead of time if you don’t want to carry crates of records around with you.

Serato caused such a revolution and ruckus because it gives the DJ the same physical control, by playing mp3′s through the turn tables. It even adds the visualized soundwaves, so you can hear, feel and see the music all at the same time. This allows DJ’s to take advantage of the best of both worlds…

Unfortunately, I don’t have Serato yet. So I couldn’t make you a video showing you how it works. So check out this tutorial video by some buy named Brian, that shows how Serato works:

In the interviews to come, we will talk about the use of Serato vs. vinyl as well as the impact of new forms of social media that allow greater access and communication (which we all know about already…)