"And the real backbone of Hip-Hop is the Disc Jocks..."
Rockin' breaks paved the way for all Hip-Hop music in general. When you listen to an instrumental, what is it essentially? It's a loop! Drums patterns are looped, instruments are looped, samples are looped, etc. In the beginning there were no complex beat machines. There were DJs looping drum breaks for bboys to get down to and for MCs to spit over. Obviously, the DJ has evolved since then -- but to know your future you must know your past. For example, club DJs won't be doubling up much music, but you should know where your roots came from and understand it...
So I went digging today and ended up buying a bunch of records I needed a second copy of, and when I got home I decided to pull out some other records and practice with vinyl. To be perfectly honest, since getting my laptop and Serato about a year ago, I can't remember the last time I really spun vinyl (don't get it twisted, I'm buying that shit every damn day! lol). But I have to say, its much more fun spinning real records! Much more challenging to have to deal with all the other elements again (needle skipping, warped records, scratched records, etc). I'm glad to have started with real vinyl before switching to Serato because it teaches you a lot of the fundamentals you might miss using your laptop.
Serato is very convenient but when you're spinning with a crate of vinyl its not going to tell you what BPM the song is, you just have to know what's what! Knowing your records is just as important as actually having them. I could steal a crate of breaks from someone but if I don't know what the records are, how am I going to know which track, which break, how fast it is, or what it sounds like? Spinning with real vinyl forces it much more on you to know your records, especially when it comes to spinning breaks. You don't have a lot of time when you're switching records so you have to be on point the entire time you're spinning. Scrolling through a list of files is a lot different than fingering through your crate of records. Don't get me wrong, this isn't an anti-Serato rant, I LOVE my Serato. I truly do. But I personally will always have my vinyl ready to rock..
So anywhere here's a little snippet of practicing today. I'm definitely going to start making this a normal routine!
i agree...serato has made things a lot easier for dj's nowadays. when i was rocking vinyl back in days i had a few tricks i would use to help me organize my records.
ReplyDelete1. i would bpm all my records by placing a sticker on the record jacket and labeling all the bpm's on the record. that way i can easily flip through my crate and see what speeds the records are.
2. i would organize my records from slowest to fastest. that way i can figure out what records would work best with each other.
3. i would also organzie by "feel". tracks that had a lot of "energy" or "hype" to them i would group in one area of my crate (or i would place a colored dot on the record sleeve). tracks with lower "energy" to it i would place in a different area of my crate (again i would place a different color sticker on these records). that way i can always figure out what to play.
Very inspirational! I'll try to do it also
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