Being a DJ isn’t as straight as forward as you might think, going down to the record shop, picking out a few tracks you like and playing them isn’t what its all about. you got to think about when you should play each track, in what order and be able to gage an audiences response. Another important factor is what equipment to use, it used to be easy, buy Technics 1210’s and you cant go wrong or buy Vestax PDX-2000’s if your feeling adventurous.

But now we find ourselves in a digital age where vinyl has become all but unnecessary, with only those dedicated enough to trudge down to the record shop and haul a ton of plastic home with them using it, as its so much easier to download a few tracks for a fraction of the price whilst sitting in your jim jams with soccer am on in the background and gobbling up a piece of toast.

So what now, what sturdy reliable CD player do we buy? Obviously were all stuck in our ways and want them to be able to make them feel like were playing vinys, and we want them to last. The name Pioneer comes to mind, as thats what you see being used in every club and bar, thats what everyone tells you is the “Industry Standard”. Industry standard? who comes up with these terms? Thing is who else are you to listen to? its not like you can try out every deck before you buy them, you just have a go on someone elses to see how much your £700 actually will get you, but seeming everyones got pioneers, how are you supposed to try any others?

One of my close friends bought the Gemini CDT 05 Hybrid deck the other day, it was better for him to buy one piece of equipment rather that a deck and a CD player after one of his decks broke down. and after using it for five minutes I realised what a fool I had been. Bankrupting myself to get a cdj1000, I feel like a frog sitting in a pan without realising the chefs at pioneer had put the gas on underneath me.

This deck is half the price of the CDJ1000 with practically all the same features, Hot cues, Reverse, Realtime Looping and has an ingenious solution to making it feel like you are playing a vinyl, it uses a vinyl to control the playback with miraculous results! All the cueing and scratching that took you a month to get used to on the CDJ seem like a waste of time. This machine should be the “Industry Standard” so if your loking for a new cd player and a new deck make sure you take the Gemini CDT 05 Hybrid into consideration!

Check out this vid to see the deck being used to its full potential

If you were lucky enough to download this weeks podcast (if not do so now!) you will find at the very end of my mix there’s a remix by Mickey Slim. The song in question is ‘The Girls’ by Calvin Harris. After hearing that MF mix and falling in love with its dirty electro nonsense we felt compelled to play it to the masses via an MP3.We searched in vein through iTunes, Beatport, DJDownload. We even looked on Calvin Harris’s label’s website but to no avail. So back to the hunt for plastic, £7 and a search on Juno and we had to wait 2 days to play it.Now many labels and record shops would emphasise that we getting three tracks for that price of £7. That we own an actual physical record instead of a digital file but did they ask if we really wanted it?Since Push Music invested in CDJ’s we’ve been progressively buying less and less vinyl, it’s come to the point where we try our darn hardest not to any more. We do miss the artwork, the smell and the durability of vinyl but it’s a lot easier to knock up a 30 minute re-edit when you have the track as an mp3 or Wav.Digital downloads to us are much more desirable. They’re cheaper, you only pay for the tracks you want, if you scratch your CD you can just burn a new one, they never jump, you can scratch and loop the tracks etc.The pros of digital go on and on and on and on…So EMI if you are reading this, stop clutching on to wax please. The record industry woke up, rolled out of its bed in it’s plush river facing apartment in Shoreditch 2 years too late to stop any resistance to digital. If music is your business why the hell would you let some one come and steal its distribution away from you anyway. I-Tunes and Apple have switched it up on the majors from under their own noses and paved the way for instant access to music. So don’t make us pay for Vinyl to recoup a loss you inflicted on yourselves.As vinyl lovers our houses are filled with 12”s from a life time collecting. We’re bored and our arms ache so please stop making us fill our houses with plastic.On a somber note, boy do we miss the Saturday morning social at the record shop, but when you think about it, it’s a lot easier to download this weeks releases at home, with a cup of tea slice of toast and Soccer AM on in the background.OVN May have the answer.