DJ Turntables: Buying Guide by Vekked (2016)

https://djtechtools.com/amp/2016/02/15/2016-dj-turntables-buying-guide-dmc-world-champion/

by tosh • 4 years ago

35 48 4 years ago

dopamean2• 4 years ago

It's pretty incredible how bad nearly all new turntables are. I have a 20 year old pair of 1200s that are better than just about anything you can buy today.

With that said... two of my favorite djs right now, who are talented vinyl djs, often bring their own gear to events and they use the Pioneer PLX. I wouldn't be surprised if they've modded them somehow though. In my short time with some PLXs it seems the tone arm was not very well built.

jmercouris• 4 years ago

Really? You would say that the 1200s are better than a new top of the line Reloop?

rfreiberger2• 4 years ago

I can speak on this owning a pair of Technics 1200 mk2 I bought new in 1995 and a pair of Reloop RP8000mk2 I bought two years ago. What might be confusing is many DJ turntables are made by the same company now, and are reffered to as "super oem", so the small things are changed, like logos, but they come from the same factory. My Reloops weight close to the same amount as the Technics but the base allows for more rumble through the feet. If you tap the body, you can clearly hear this compared to the Technics.

The tonearm on the Reloop has bearing that have a small amount of play, on my Technics, they are extremely solid after 100's hours of play time. But the biggest issue is the Reloop has the flutter at 0.5%, while the Technics at 0.05%. Doesn't sound like a huge issue, but when playing a song on Reloop, the beats per minute will fluctuate from 100 to 100.5 to 99.5, non-stop. The Technics has the same flutter but at a much lower tolerance, so you don't see this appear. Performance, they both do well on startup and stop, and of course improved RCA jacks.

philjohn• 4 years ago

Also have a pair of 1210's I've had now for 22 years - they still work as good as the day I first took them out of the box, even though they've been dragged all over the place.

If looked after, they're almost bomb-proof.

Lio4• 4 years ago

I think it's the cost of tooling and materials.

The original 1200 was a pure hi-fi deck in a large and very competitive market. DJs just adopted because it could be repurposed for their needs.

When Matsushita redesigned the 1200Mk2 they could afford to maintain their market leading position by investing in things like die casting and superior bearing.

Any OEM manufacture now is unlikely to want to spend that kind of money to manufacture something sold in small numbers.

chiefalchemist2• 4 years ago

The original 1200 was a pure hi-fi deck in a large and very competitive market. DJs just adopted because it could be repurposed for their needs.

Funny, originally the Roland drum machines were not targeted at dance music producers. Initially a handful of such producers adopted those machine for their purposes.

Amazing how a set of failed products spawned a massive industry *and* cultural movement.

Can you feel it?

Lio4• 4 years ago

I bought a pair of Technics 1210 Mk2s[1] back in 1996 and gigged them 2 or 3 nights a week for about 4 years.

They still run exactly like new and are about the most reliable machines I own.

I have a few tips for anyone getting to turntable DJing:

  1.  Feedback from speakers is picked up[sic] through both L and R channels but is inverted on one of them, I forget which.  Combining the channels as mono cancels it out, a bit like active noise cancelling.  If you have a mixer with a mono/stereo switch it's easy to test this out by tapping the deck as it's playing.  Stereo depends on fixed listener position relative to speakers anyway so almost never miss it in a venue.  

  2.  If you really want the effect (including very high record wear and poor sound quality) of a straight tonearm you can angle your cartridge outwards on the headshell.

  3.  You're probably going to turn the bias to zero so that your arm doesn't jump off the record when you back cue.  However, if you ever have record that skips at particular spot when playing, either due to a bit of dirt or damage, you can turn bias back on for a moment and the stylus will usually ride past it just fine.  When you're playing in front of a crowd that's a handy get out of jail card.

  4.  For DJing you'll want a spherical stylus as it will track better when moving the record backwards.  You can get better sound quality from an elliptical stylus if you're just playing or recording from vinyl though.  The absolute best sound quality is from a stylus shaped like a record cutting lathe tip but never ever use that for DJing.

  5.  Clean your stylus.

1. A 1210 Mk2 is basically a dark grey 1200 Mk2 but they always come dual voltage which I think is not always the case for 1200s depending on where you bought them.

pennaMan• 4 years ago

Yep. This is the only buyers guide you need. If you're serious about dj turntables, just get the Technics. Nothing else comes close.

junon2• 4 years ago

These are all the correct answers. Amazing summary - Technic is indeed the only way to go for turntables.

Lio4• 4 years ago

Oh I have one more tip. Most of the Ortofon OM moving magnet cartridges, including the Concorde models, are exactly the same with the only difference being the styli that you pair them with.

That means you can switch from a spherical DJ to an expensive elliptical stylus depending on what you're doing without rewiring the headshell or keeping a second set of cartridges/headshells.

e.g. if you want to sample, record or just listen then use the elliptical set for better sound quality and lower wear.

The spherical styli have a smaller contact patch with the groove but track better when scratching or cueing.

kabes• 4 years ago

This comparison is from 2016. In the meantime Technics started making sl1200mk7 and (way more expensive) sl1200gr / g models.

letier3• 4 years ago

The MK7s are supposedly (e.g. the bottom of the player - didn't verify myself) built from slightly cheaper materials than the MK2. On the other hand they're new and they have a very solid build. Also they have proper cabling and ports on the player, which some older 1200s were lacking. I got two of them and really like them.

tomduncalf2• 4 years ago

Anecdotally, my local DJ equipment/repair store said the same - apparently the build quality of the mk7 isn’t as good as the older models. Unsure how true that is, but similar to many in this thread I have a pair of 1200mk2s which must be 30+ years old (I got them second hand for a steal) still going strong

par• 4 years ago

i mean, i love vinyl and spent a lot of time on the wheels of steel back in the day. But who isnt using a digital controller these days?

drewbeck2• 4 years ago

Addicts. Like myself

DJing with vinyl is fun as hell, gets me away from my screens, let’s me find music in a really satisfying and interesting way AND takes me to shops where i talk to people and learn things from them. The digging is maybe the best quality — walk into a place with a limited set of music, guide your search based on categories, album art, personnel listed in the sleeve etc. Digital provides almost none of that; digital “digging” tends to get boring and overwhelming, both.

Old man stuff, probably, but I do think there will always be some ppl tuned to wax. As soon as you want something you can’t find digitally you have to anyway, and from there it’s a slippery slope.

ehnto3• 4 years ago

Tonnes of great tracks never made it to digital that's for sure. Especially for the heavily DJ'd genres like house, DnB, hip hop, trance and all that. The industry was hundreds of different small labels churning out wax. many of which likely didn't survive long enough to port their back-catalogue to digital.

schrijver• 4 years ago

It’s expensive and impractical, but in a way that also helps to keep it aspirational–still very common in the electronic music scene, go to any of the festivals or clubs in Europe and they’ll have the technics next to the CDJ’s.

Controller - laptop setups are common for house parties, and for bars and events that keep the same dj all night, but less common in clubs where the CDj’s with USB sticks make it easy to switch over. A CDj needs a DJ mixer, to which you can also hook up a record player, so mixing both is not too hard.

Personally I find vinyl a bit daft for new music since it’s all made on computers anyway! For older music it makes a lot of sense though, much of it never made it to digital.

secretsatan3• 4 years ago

I like to use Serato with my decks, I just prefer it to a pure digital controller, feels more physical/mechanical?

aliqot• 4 years ago

A good producer of vinyl decks right now if you're not going the Technics route is UTurn, for the amount you spend and what you get.

dotBen2• 4 years ago

Tl;dr - you should have bought 1210 or 1200's, mkII mkIII or mkV, 20 years ago :)

ewwhite• 4 years ago

Basically. I'm holding onto my 1999 1200's forever.

dotBen2• 4 years ago

Same, and I don't even play vinyl anymore

secretsatan3• 4 years ago

Yeah, mine still work perfectly and I don't see why they wouldn't last me another twenty years.

scrame• 4 years ago

you can pry my tech 12s from my cold dead hands.

I've had them for more than 20 years, I've dragged them through subways and left them on their side, stored them in poor conditions, dropped them down flights of stairs, shipped them internationally and back.

worst thing that happened? tonearm bearing went out of whack, 40 bucks to fix.

vestax pdx3000? plastic case and bad feet. Gemini? Get anything else.

Features? Features on a turntable is just something that will break. like the light on a tec 12.

Temporary_31337• 4 years ago

What would you recommend for an 11 year old kid interested in this? I’m thinking a mixer like numark where you still have scratch pads but not using vinyls might be good enough to see if he’s interested enough?

junon2• 4 years ago

Interested in DJing? Or vinyl? Starting with vinyl is expensive, even if you just get Serato or something.

I recommend a small DJ controller. It has everything included. You don't need all the fancy features to learn the basics. As long as he eventually learns to avoid the sync button, he'll be able to transfer the skills to most digital setups with ease.

Vinyl is different, and there's really no emulating it. If he can mix without syncing or visual cues (such as the transient indicator on most digital setup, where you can match the peaks of the track) and do it entirely by ear, that gets him most of the way to vinyl mixing.

The other half of vinyl mixing is actually the vinyl aspect. Drifting the tracks is different than you'd do it on CDJs, and it's different if you're on a belt driven turntable (which you shouldn't use for DJing anyway) or direct drive. That needs a bit of practice regardless of actual mixing skill.

But the core concepts are the same. As long as it has the faders, the low/mid/high knobs and gain, he can learn most of what he needs.

I started on a single Stanton CDJ, a cheap Behringer mixer, and Virtual DJ on the other "deck" that I pirated. I'd mix a track in, mix out the previous one, then transfer the track to the other deck and mix again. All of the actual adjustments were solely on the CDJ. It taught me enough to really warrant a real second deck later on.

I've gone on to play clubs in several countries, if that matters. Learning the basics can be done on even the most budget of setups (in fact, you might even be better off).

Hope that helps!

chiefalchemist2• 4 years ago

Absolutely.

And it's important to add...learning to mix is actually the easy part. As someone who has gigged internationally you understand that song selection, reading the room, and working the crowd are the hard part. That 6th Sense is the real skill.

iwillmemberthis• 4 years ago

I would recommend Native Instruments Traktor.

The S2 or S4 are both great controllers at entry level price. They aren't standalone, so you will also need a Laptop.

Numark mixers are OK, however the cheaper entry level mixers are basically midi controllers and do not include a headphone output for queing songs.

Vinyl is great, but also quite expensive and hard to learn. Best to learn on a digital system first.

kuramitropolis2• 4 years ago

That's not a mixer, that's a controller for software. Make sure it's not a crappy one and that the whole setup works reliably so you don't inadvertently ruin it for the kid. These are generally only good for mixing sets, not really for turntablism.

emptyfile• 4 years ago

What you're looking for is a beginner DJ controller, it has a mixer and sound card built into it in one small package.

As the other poster said, I bought myself a Native Instuments S2 and couldn't be happier for the price, minimalist but with a great build quality and you get the Traktor Pro 3 software included in the price.

TonyTrapp• 4 years ago

And avoid this turntable mechanism in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXV8tXrPOR4 - okay, it isn't even direct drive, so not suitable for DJs anyway, but that might be something an aspiring DJ that has never handled a turntable before might not know. Just steer clear of this no matter what you are going to do with it.

kuramitropolis2• 4 years ago

The Vestax's MIDI controlled pitch looks pretty sick. What's the closest one can get to it in software these days?

glotzerhotze• 4 years ago

Two 1200 Mk2 and a mixer - all you‘ll ever need to enjoy a good mix. Got my two babies an overhaul a few months ago - they still run like the first day 20+ years ago.

secretsatan3• 4 years ago

Like many others here, going to also vouch for SL1210s, 20 plus years, flawless.

You can still go digital too with a DVS system like Serato

ehnto3• 4 years ago

(Shoutout to any of my DJForums regulars from way back, I miss ya'll)

Given all the very good and correct advice throughout this article and this comment section, remember:

* The internet loves perfect

* You don't need perfect

* Imperfect is better than nothing, use what you can get

* You can always get another set of decks/mixer/etc later on

In other words, be pragmatic, buy smart but don't fall for the hype. I wish we could all have Technics 1200's too, but we can't. You'll have endless fun learning to mix on a budget pair of Stanton belt drives, and you'll probably eventually learn why people hate on belt drives, but you'll probably take a while to progress far enough in the hobby for that to actually matter.

bionsystem• 4 years ago

I bought a pair of Numark TT 200 (the low end for DJing), both 2nd hand, a set for traktor also 2nd hand, and a numark pro smx that was new but during a shop liquidation. Total was below 1000€ and I had many months of fun. Unfortunately there is not so much room for me to play in my condo now and the walls don't have great isolation so they are stored but last time I checked they work pretty much like new. Especially the SMX is incredible and will probably last my entire life.

ehnto3• 4 years ago

I bought a Traktor Kontrol S2 and play with headphones in my current house for similar reasons. It's great because it doesn't take up much space, and it lets me scratch that itch every now and then. It just means I can't touch my record collection so I don't have my whole library at hand.

DJ Turntables: Buying Guide by Vekked (2016)

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