Hey, my mom's husband deejays weddings and school dances and crap like that for a living. He is thinking about buying a computer and my mom and him are driving me up the wall with questions about computers, specifically laptops. I am getting tired of questions like "how do the gigabytes on this one look" and "what is this memory?" Anyways, what he is going to do is convert all of his CDs into mp3s and store them on the harddrive of the computer and then run it through his amp and big soundsystem. What type of specs do you guys think would be good for a computer primarily used just to play music? Any specific ideas of computers on the market right now that would be okay? Obviously the computer would need a big hard drive to store all of the music and a decent amount of RAM...
My friend is a dj and I've tried to talk him into doing that. I think there is actually dj software out there that helps with this. Still, he shouldn't give up the CD player altogether. You never know when you'll need it. But it would be a LOT easier with a computer to do searches, automatic crossfades, etc. He needs to have a BIG hard drive (60 GB at the VERY minimum) and I would recommend installing a second hard drive or having an external hard drive to bring along for storage. Processor speed shouldn't be too much of an issue since he'll only be running probably one piece of software. RAM probably won't be much of an issue either for the same reason, but it's always good to have as much of that as possible.
Yeah he would need a big hard drive. Why not consider buying a decent laptop with a ZIP drive, then he can store his songs on ZIPs, and save his drive for other work. If his thing is not wanting to lug around CaseLogics, then he can just has to worry about carrying around a few discs. I'm sure you can fit a few hundred songs on a disc. That seems better than throwing MP3s on a harddrive and possibly having it crash. However, I would recommend backups if he goes to disc.
He is still planning to keep his CDs and CD player in the van he uses to haul his equipment, just not unloading it unless the computer went down. Right now he is looking at a 2.8 GHz Celeron laptop with 256 megs of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive and then adding an external hard drive.
An external drive is probably his best bet. You can get them for around $1 per GB now. Just get a big one - maybe 300GB - since it is just for storage.
He'll definitely need more than 60 gigs. Also, don't let him buy mp3 software. He can use free software such as Exact Audio Encoder (EAC) or CDex that work great. He should also make mp3's with at least a 192kbps bit rate to avoid a noticable loss in audio quality. Anything less with allow for a compressed sound with a "wishy-washy" drum sound.
Oh, and he needs to understand ID3 tagging of mp3 files since this would be crucial for him. It's how his playback software will be able to sort by artist, album, song, etc. Both EAC and CDex allow ID3 tagging before the ripping process, but he may want to check out ID3 editing software such as TheGodfather (free) or Tag & Rename (not free).
Dan: For DJ'ing wedding and things like that, you really think the encoding will make that much difference? I've DJ'ed weddings where they gave me CD's to play that had been taken from old cassette copies of songs recorded from records with pops on it and all. The average wedding-goer or party participant probably wouldn't know the difference in sound between a CD, an MP3 or even a WAV file. As a musician and recording engineer, I can definitely hear it, but I'm listening for it. As for ID tagging, if you don't mind the MP3 process, you can go with iTunes and if quality is an issue, you can use their new Lossless Encoder that imports at a MUCH higher quality but also a much higher file size - about 1/2 the original file size. Plus, iTunes can perform crossfades, etc. and allow you to set up popular playlists for repeat usage.
I would be able to tell the difference between a CD, mp3, or wav. But I'm a music person. The thing is, Jeff, isn't it reasonable to expect that SOME customer will notice, even if it's a minority? It seems like if you're doing weddings or other special occasions you want to be at your best, even if the customer doesn't or can't appreciate the extra mile you're going. It's better to exceed their expectations than to fall short. Maybe it's just me.
DH, 90% of the stuff DJ's use at weddings and parties come from MP3's. Most of them don't burn disc to disc, which is what you have to do unless you want to bring EVERY CD with you. You can carry songs from 20 different artists on one disc or you can lug 20 CD's. Now, with iTunes, most of their stuff is downloaded. Frankly, from what I understand, a whole lot of DJ's employ the use of Kazaa and other file sharing services. It's just faster, cheaper and easier to get songs from a place like iTunes than it is to search for every CD someone needs in the record store or have to order it from Amazon. Then there is the issue of people giving you discs to play. I mean, I've had to play karaoke versions of songs because people wanted that version. When you are running it through a PA system in a room full of people talking, dancing, etc, you'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference. And, even if someone did notice (my friend has done 40+ gigs a year for the past 4 years and never had a single person say anything), what are you supposed to do? From a practicality standpoint, there is just no way to use original, lossless CD's.
I guess that's fair. I didn't consider the social aspect of the situation, where you have people talking over each other. I guess I was imagining the couple's first dance, where everyone is quiet and watching, and suddenly a poor quality drum kicks in... it could potentially tarnish the moment if you have an ear for that sort of thing. But I guess most people aren't going to mind a slightly worse copy of Wang Chung or KC and the Sunshine Band.
I just bought a Emachines M6805 laptop for college. I've had it for 4+ weeks and it's great. It has everything that you need (wireless ethernet, DVD/CD-RW, very fast (my brother is a computer geek, and basicly told me it was fast by using fun computer terms.) All in all, if u want to DJ it doesn't really matter what you get. Probably your best bet is something small and light weight that can hold a lot of songs. The Emachines M6805 is kinda big, but it was made to be a desktop replacement (hence a wide-screen screen.)
You'd be surprised at the absolutely horrible sounding stuff they ask to have played for first dance songs, etc. I've gotten stuff that sounds like a live recording of a garage band or a horrible drum machine behind a karaoke song. Seriously. People don't know quality sound at all. In fact, most of the songs they want to hear the most sound crappy anyway because they were recorded with poor production. I mean, think of the Chicken Dance, The Twist, YMCA and on and on. Some of those sound positively horrible, but they don't care about the sound. They just want to hear the song.
Jeff is spot on. I've done a few weddings and parties. Sound quality isn't the big concern. You probably didn't balance the speakers with seperate equalizers either. One program you can use is pc dj. http://www.pcdj.com/ You can adjust the pitch, set master tempos, crossfade, etc. This product looks sweet : http://www.123dj.com/audio/mp3s/pcdjfx.html I'd sure like to see others. I'm making a gradual change in what I do at dances, too. Tempo is very, very important to me, though, in dance competitions. Looping and stuff is fun, but not essential. I have to have beat counters and hard tempo fixes.
I will get the name of the product tomorrow, but there is a program you can use that interfaces with turntables that allows you to mix mp3's and wma's with the turntables. You pick the two songs on the laptop, assign them to each turntable, then when you play these specially encoded records, it plays the files. It is amazing and alot of my DJ friends are now using that instead of bringing all their records and CDs to a gig. They only have to bring the laptop, mixer, and 2 turntables. Alot less luggage to take to the club. edit: Final Scratch is the product: http://www.finalscratch.com/ Awesome product. Check it out.
Why not just get a couple of iPods (I think the new ones will be like 300 GB) and run those into a mixing board with one CD player as a backup? I have thought about doing that and iPods are MADE to be moved around and jostled a bit where your average computer (and even some external hard drives) can be pretty sensitive to that kind of thing.
generally the speakers used at these events make the music sound like an am radio broadcast anyway... an ipod is a good idea but having a laptop as well as a cd/tape deck player (for music supplied by guests or backup mp3 cd) on hand for requests and for an emergency would be good too.
Native Instruments Traktor DJ Studio 2.5 program for computer based DJs. I saw a demo at a DJ/Stage equipment convention in Orlando and was really impressed with all the features and capabilities. Its both Mac and PC friendly. I don't know if this site is the cheapest or best place to buy but they have a good write up. I think the program should run you $200 or so. Traktor DJ Studio 2.5
