Technics SL-1200LTD

Oh I almost forgot. That golden "special" edition Empath looks pretty good next to this:

Rane Empath Grandmaster Flash Edition

That's what's up and that's all folks.

Rodec Scratch Box

This arrived today. I'm still looking for that perfect vinyl sound through a DJ mixer and I believe I'm getting closer and closer. I'm also about to mod Technics SL-1200mk2 -turntable with a Rega RB251 arm. Then my equipment is as audiophile as I can afford.

DJ Cartridges

Yes I own a few cartridges as picture shows. I don't really know about hifi-carts, but I do have my favorite DJ carts. Actually some have different purposes. Like the classic Stanton 500 (which was my first cart) is so rugged it won't need stylus replacing in years. That's propably the reason every record store here has Stanton 500's on listening decks. They'll last years of abuse! And they're very tolerant to record pops and cracks. You can listen to a second hand record at a store and it will sound ok, but at home you will notice a lot more pops and cracks with your Ortofon.

At home I try to listen my records with Ortofon Night Club mk2 and Grado DJ200i which sounds really good with older stuff.

Enough with the bullshit, here's a track which is recorded with the following carts in order. Post a comment and tell me which you like the best. This embed file is 320kbps mp3, but the actual AIFF link is below.

All the carts have different output voltage, so I had to adjust gain on my Rane TTM56S differently for each cart. Of course styluses were in different condition and weights too. Here's how every cart was adjusted:

cartridge         stylus         condition  weight  gain Ortofon OM Pro S pretty good 3 g 1 o'clock Ortofon OM Scratch (pink) unknown 3 g 11 o'clock Stanton 500 (gold) Stanton unknown 4 g 1 o'clock Shure M447 N447 good 3 g 10 o'clock Stanton 680HP D6800HP unknown 3 g 10 o'clock Ortofon OM mk2 NightClub mk2 very good 3 g 10 o'clock Grado DJ200i DJ200i very good 2,5 g 4 o'clock ! Stanton Diablo Red (htfr) pretty worn 3 g 10 o'clock

High Quality AIFF DOWNLOAD

Vestax PMC-46mk2

 

Near mint condition. Only the bulbs of analogue VU meters are burned.

Some specs:

• 15 inputs: 4 Phono, 8 Line, 3 Mic
• Master Output XLR and 1/4 Jack
• Booth Output
• 2 Band EQ per channel
• Gain per Channel
• LED Beat indicators per channel
  Analogue VU Meters 
• Crossfader with VCA control
• Cross Fader Curve control

BEEF+TRAKTOR=WIN

We pretty much always bring our (mine) mixer to gigs, unless we know the condition of installed equipment in clubs. It's just amazing how so many bars/clubs in Helsinki has pretty much fucked up gear. Or they just have Pioneer DJM600 which is just crappy mixer in every way.

Last night we were at WGB where we usually use Allen&Heath Xone:42 mixer, but this time we brought the "allmighty" Rane TTM56S because it's just more enjoyable to use due it's 2 channel rugged battle mixer instead of 4 channel club mixer style. Anyway instantly we realised that Rane there sounds like shit compared to A&H. Yes here we said it! It is stated as one of the best sounding DJ mixer there is, but still in a club situation it lacked bass completely while A&H sounded more warm. It was just too flat sounding, maybe perfect for studio, but not nice for dance floor. We are both Traktor Scratch Pro users so we were lucky that the program itself has an internal EQ to tweak the sound. It even has an EQ preset called "Xone", so it was pretty easy to just adjust more bass to the sound and cut some highs and hi-mids. So after all everything went well and sound was just fine.

Next time we might test how Vestax PMC-08 or Pioneer DJM707 sounds there.

Who invented DVS?

We use Traktor Scratch Pro on our gigs and atleast i couldn't be happier with it. I've had Mixvibes and Serato too, but I prefer TSP.
Anyway i came across to this interesting article of the history of DVS's. They go back to 90's...that's right. Here's the link, I highly recommend to check it out:

http://who-invented-digital-vinyl.co.uk/.

I also drooled to those old school mixers, like Apex Gold. Beautiful rotary mixer from the nineties with full EQ kills. Damn nice! And what's really nice about it? It's only 250€ shipped! Yes, original and new for 250€.

Even though I'm more of a hip hop DJ I really like the looks of rotary mixers. That's why I got this classic looking beast to my mixer collection. Vestax PMC-46mk2:

(no i haven't received it yet, but I will post an actual photo soon as i get it)