Club Kids Go Cyber


© Shannon Makowski
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MP3 is the hottest new thing on the club scene. Creative dj's and product developer's are harpooning this new music format.

In Europe, dj's are using laptops instead of turntables to bring techno and acid jazz to the masses. On April 30, 1999, Wired News (http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/s... featured a story on Richard Eden, a British dj who ditched his boxes of vinyl for an Internet connection. In Louise Knapp's "Two Pentiums and a Microphone", Eden said that using different media, whether it's a minidisk, CD, or vinyl, is too timing consuming. Tracks need to be found on a CD or qued-up on an album, but with MP3, the selection is instantaneous. The quality is unrivaled. Vinyl records can skip but MP3 delivers a clean, crisp sound.

That sound however, is not always the easiest to find. Most techno music is underground and not made commercially available. DJ's often know of only one music store in their area that carries the independent labels that come out of such cities as Detroit, L.A., London, and Amsterdam. MP3 bridges the expanse between continents to bring the best of Euro and US mixing together. Added to this, there is no longer the high cost of purchasing imports or waiting for special orders to come in. Dj's around the globe have access to the freshest music out there. They are then able to add their own spin to it.

Not without it's drawbacks, MP3 is very fragile and is risky when you're live at a club. Servers go down, systems crash... a host of things can go wrong, that's why dj's come prepared with CD's and minidisks to use in case of an emergency. Eden said that his system crashed early one night but the transition from the Internet to the CD player was practically flawless. In fact, once up and running again online, few could tell the difference. Club-goers are amazed when they find out that the dj up in the booth isn't flipping through stacks of vinyl. Instead, he's clicking and scrolling through selections. To add another dimension, large screen television sets and monitors are sometimes used in the club to broadcast what the dj sees on his laptop.

Aside from the instability that sometimes accompanies MP3, dj's will most likely prefer the new media. Using a laptop affords quick selection of tracks and the option of using other sound samples. What MP3 can't offer alone is the ability to "scratch" and mix chunks of music. That's where a few guys over in Amsterdam come on the scene.

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages

1.   May 6, 1999 4:36 PM
Can't keep up with all this new technology! Thanks for bringing this information to the web. I want to welcome you to the suite and say thank you for keeping us up-to-date on technology. Looks like ...

-- posted by jerrib





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