DJ PRIME: Press

Press
DJs no longer need to haul CDs around: Computers hold thousands of songs
Posted by the Ocean County Observer on 02/26/06

By ADAM TALIERCIO
Staff Writer
DJ Prime is all over the place: The Sawmill in Seaside Park every week, Florida this March and Houston last week for the NBA All-Star Game. He plays out five nights a week and, during the summer, is all over the Jersey Shore in different clubs, including Jenks in Point Pleasant Beach and The Quarter Deck in Ship Bottom.
It's a good thing he doesn't have to carry all those records around anymore.

Prime originally started out 11 years ago, using turntables and records, eventually carrying about 50 milk crates full of records to each one of his gigs. Now, all his music — a total of 9,000 songs — fits within his Macintosh laptop, and it's more than he normally would have taken with him to a gig. When you play out five nights a week and travel throughout the country, it probably helps to have a couple hundred pounds less worth of stuff to carry around.

New technology has also allowed for disk jockeys to treat digital music as they would vinyl records: complete with scratches, speed changes and other alterations that can be done with turntables. Prime uses the program Serato, which makes use of a record-shaped device, playable on a turntable, that reads MP3s off of a computer.

"Everything you can do on vinyl, you can do on this program," he said. "If you looked at it, you'd say I was using turntables. It looks exactly the same. There's just a little box that you plug into and transfer all the music on your computer onto this record."

This technology is brand-new, released within the last year or so, and is a little bit costly, Prime said. Some DJs make use of a CD player, which allows them to control speed but not scratch, alter, delay or do any of the things a DJ working with turntables would be able to.

There is something of a difference between digital and analog sound, but Prime said that most average listeners wouldn't notice it. Vinyl has a bit more bass to it, but a frequently played record will end up with crackling sounds that DJs may love, but club patrons may not.

When playing out, a DJ needs to be able to read his crowd and determine what type of song, not to mention which specific song, to play next. In that kind of situation, having your entire library of songs readily available no doubt comes in handy. Prime's collection has songs dating back to the 1950s, and he may go from playing a new hip-hop song to Little Richard if it seems like the crowd might get into it.

"I've been told I'm very good at reading a crowd," he said. "I always play music to keep people going, and I'm pretty abstract and obscure with some of the stuff I play. If people can have fun listening to something at a wedding, why not at a club?"

Whereas with a collection of CDs or records, finding a specific song — particularly one you haven't played in some time — takes a lot of searching, Prime said. Having your library of music on a computer makes it easy to find what you're looking for.

"I'm completely on the fly on everything, every night," he said. "A couple years ago, you basically worked off CDs. I have a CD book that held 200 CDs in each book, with at least 15 songs on each CD, and I had three books. For me to play a song I haven't played in three or four months, to find it is a pain.

"With a computer, you can just do a search. Type, say, "Nelly,' and (all his songs) come up. And I also have tons of folders for genres. It's just convenient, where everything is."

Another benefit of recent technology has been the ability to play self-produced material more quickly. The ability to create such pieces has not been changed that much by technology, he added; it's still a tricky process that also involves getting a hold of instrumental versions of some songs and a capella vocals from others. Of course, something like that requires what no technology can simply provide: connections to record labels. But once you've got that, you can be playing your creations in clubs the day you make them.

"I can put a song together, say take the AC/DC "You Shook Me All Night Long' beat, and put a hip-hop vocal over it," he said. "I can create that in the studio, and then later on that day, be able to play it out live. In order to do that on vinyl, you'd have to wait three weeks to a month for the vinyl press. You can really be creative; as creative as you can be, that's as creative as you can play out live."

DJ Prime also offers some of his mixes on his Web site, www.djprime.com.

MP3s, of course, have changed the entire music industry. In the case of DJs, new music (sent from record labels to well-known DJs, in the hopes of getting their new material played in clubs around the country) gets sent quickly through e-mail. The result is that DJs can be playing music three to four months before it makes it to store shelves.

And, again, it's no longer necessary to lug boxes of records or CDs around, though Prime said the experience is one that all DJs should have.

"It's like you graduate," he said. "The DJ should always have to have carried their crates, their speakers and set up their system. If you didn't, you're not going to have the grass-roots understanding of how it works. You shouldn't be able to graduate to something like this. It's like anything else: If you've never played drums before, you've got to start from the beginning. You're not going to break out a 20-piece drum set."

As for the future of the technology he uses during gigs, Prime said he would like to see it become more secure and more stable, and to not have to worry about crashes during performances.

"I had it crash a couple weeks ago. It just stops," he said. "But luckily, I always have a CD player ready, and I'll have maybe a two- or three-second delay."

Some DJs are a little wary of new technology, for fear of such crashes, he said, but added that the benefits make up for the potential risks.

"That's a chance you have to take to step up your game and have it be more convenient. When I'm really scratching and getting into it, it increases the capability of what I do, and how much money I make. It takes me above and beyond."

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