However, I’m betting this is beginning to exclude the EDM genre, where waves of DJs (just from eye-witness accounts of the transition the past 4-5 yrs) are moving over to the more affordable formats of .wav and .mp3, purchased primarily on EDM download sites. It’s Economics 101. However the brief reference to DRM certainly applies. With the ability to directly record a vinyl record from a turntable now (ION USB Turntable & Stanton t90) into a computer, I definitely see the possibilities for a resurgence.
Besides, from a collector’s stand point, vinyl has never really faded from use or popularity.
With the advent of products like Scratch Live though, even an audiophile like myself, who has dedicated himself to vinyl, simply cannot resist the temptation.
The reason for this post is because NPR is running a story about the comeback of vinyl. It seems that sales of new vinyl records are up about 10%; sales will approach a million this year (as against half a billion for CDs). NPR mentioned the popularity of a turntable with a USB interface and speculated on other possible reasons for the resurgence. They mentioned sound quality and lack of DRM as possible causes. Sound quality can and will be debated, but DRM rates a resounding DUH!!!.
Vinyl is (or ‘used to be’ depending upon your point-of-view) the de-facto standard for DJ’s at parties and clubs, particularly in the EDM genre. The CD equivalent which allows you to mix and scratch used to be somewhat frowned upon in the artistic arena, but that mindset has quickly changed and while the EDM scene has lost much of it’s earlier millennium popularity, there are still quite a few electronic music fans who support it in any format. Vinyl will never overtake CDs or other digital formats in popularity, but we’d be silly not to acknowledge that the vinyl format is still thriving and shows no sign of disappearing any time soon. Nonetheless, I do remember 5 or 6 years ago, when all of my DJ peeps would balk at any DJ who used anything other than tech 1200’s and purely vinyl. Clearly, the industry has come a long way since, and while digital formats are increasingly becoming more accepted, I doubt vinyl will ever disappear completely from the scene.
Today, artists like Richie Hawtin and Sasha are even using software like Ableton Live to produce a dynamic set that is almost impossible to trainspot. Wikipedia has a list of known Ableton users.
Others, like Mark Farina, use CDs.
Judging by what I witnessed at the Miami Winter Music Conference this year (and occasionally here in the Queen City), the standard set-up now is four decks – two CDJs and two turntables. And even though five+ years ago vinyl was the standard, as mentioned earlier, times are dramatically changing. Soon I’m expecting to see laptops standard at a club with either Serato Scratch, Final Scratch or Traktor Scratch installed and ready to use. (For limited use I’m sure.)
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