The iPod as a DJ Device?

The Independent has a good, if somewhat slow-to-the-game story on DJs exploring iPods as alternatives to turntables and CD decks. Being something of a DJ, having owned all three such devices, and presently owning both an iPod and turntables with MP3 mixing package Final Scratch, I’ve got some thoughts on this.

Truth be told, I don’t like vinyl. As far as what’s on wax, there’s a degree of novelty in old records, but the skratch/sample soul supply has long since been mined by the likes of DJ Shadow and his crate-digging predecessors. Plenty of new music is available on vinyl, of course, but it’s terribly expensive and not widely available via retail outside fashionable cities. As far as the format itself, I use it because it’s the most tactile out there, but records and turntables have many failings: records getting dusty and wearing out, needles dulling and skipping and breaking, tone arms becoming unbalanced at inopportune times, and so forth. The whole vinyl setup is bulky, cumbersome, fragile, and expensive.

CD decks have at least paved the way for the acceptance of digital DJing. The Pioneer CDJ-1000 has become the Technics 1200 standard-bearer of CD turntables and ever more DJs are using them, often to the exclusion of aging vinyl. But, for my money, the CD format is on the way out, as much as it was every established within the realm of music most DJs play; a “single” culture never evolved around short CDs in the same way it did for 12" vinyl singles, and that culture is essential for getting tunes out there. Burning a CD of tracks ripped from vinyl or downloaded as MP3s and spinning them is, while more portable and flexible than vinyl, still cumbersome and lacking in the “fluidity” of buying a record, putting it on your platter, and just spinning. And while some of the CD turntable interfaces are innovative, providing most of the tactile benefits of vinyl in a smaller package, my gut tells me that they’re just not the be- and end-all digital DJ solution.

But then, neither is the iPod in its present incarnation. I’ve not tried DJing with two iPods connected via a mixer but it’s a fine idea for certain types of music (and, conversely, a terrible idea for others). If you had music that was all at roughly the same tempo/BPM it would be easy enough to use iPods as they can cue through tracks as elegantly as any CD deck with their touchwheel. Without a pitch control, however, slowing down or speeding up tracks to match is impossible. That limitation means that, personally, I could spin little more than minimal techno or tech-house, or maybe some downtempo or IDM if I mixed between tracks “atmospherically” (that is, finding points of elegant sonic overlap rather than matching up beats). As it stands today iPod Djing is a novelty, not a solution.

However, the iPod has it right in terms of track acquisition-to-dancefloor fluidity. I can download a hot joint, pop it into iTunes, sync my iPod(s) and be on my way to the radio station or club with ‘Pod in pocket. When I compare that with my present solution of carrying my iBook, the USB Scratch Amp, cables, associated power adaptors, and then wiring the whole mess up to someone else’s turntables while trying not to interrupt another DJ’s set… well, even iPods without pitch bend seem pretty tight.

An anecdote in the CD deck and pitch bend vein: my one experience playing out on CD decks was (nearly) a disaster. The decks were wonky and skipped like crazy if you tried to adjust pitch. My set was contained entirely on two CDs, to be mixed “left-to-right-and-back” if that makes sense; I had no vinyl to back me up. I ended up somehow making it through the set without messing with the pitch controls. People got down to it, but I wasn’t happy. Between disasters with needles and classic turntable trappings and broken CD decks I’d pretty confidently say that a reliable DJ product is both a rarity and a prize.

If Apple can turn the iPod into a simple, stable, portable full-fledged DJ tool they will, in my eyes, make Final Scratch’s attempt to push DJing into the MP3 age look laughable. And, having found some instability in my (really f—-ing expensive) FS setup, I’d be first on my block to switch. But something tells me Apple has already crunched the numbers on this one and it’s just not financially viable for them. We’ll see.