i had been djing only on vinyl up until the last year. i started mixing on cd decks as well because of many reasons. i was at first opposed to the idea mostly out of sentimental reasons. records are a very tactile way of experiencing music and it is hard to give that up. also many people claim that vinyl sounds better. from my experience working in many clubs over the years the format choice of the future will definitely be cds. records are very quickly dying out. cds sound cleaner than records and their benefits far outweigh any loss of warmth in sound. first off the amount of weight you have to carry around to venues is dramatically reduced. second no more worrying about needle skips or rumble. cds get scratched as vinyl does, but it is much easier to keep backup copies of cds than vinyl. also even if records don't get scratched they still wear out over time. the newer dj cd players such as the pioneer cdj-1000 mk3 have a very tactile feel and intuitive interface. you can scratch on them, cue just like a record, save cue points and make loops on the fly. so the next time you hear someone scoffing at a dj playing cds remember that almost all of the worlds biggest djs play on cds and for good reason.

a newer development that has also really affected the music i play is the emergence of dj music download websites. having a record store with tons of amazing titles that you can buy per song is revolutionary to my music buying. while there is definitely something to be said for digging through crates of records and finding that one piece of gold that no one else has. these sites are so easy to use and find great music it really makes physically going to record stores a thing of the past. no more paying $30+ for a 2 disc lp that i'm only going to use 2 tracks off of is amazing. this means i can spend about a third of the money and get the same amount of music i was getting before. visit my links page for more.

my dj equipment is slowly improving. i have my treasured technics 1200 m3ds my mixer is a 2 channel behringer and i just bought 2 pioneer cdj 200s. my setup is very functional for now, but i could really use a new mixer. my eventual goal is to upgrade to a rane empath rotary mixer.