Analog media has become a thing of the past. Cassette players are slowly disappearing from the electronics sections of department stores. CD and MP3 players are in, cassette players are out. It’s almost impossible to see real turntables being displayed other than in music or DJ equipment stores, and the good ones are not cheap. This significant and fast change in the way we store our media today creates for us a new challenge, the preservation and transfer of our old media content to new digital mediums. I say preservation because we don’t want to lose it, and transfer because we still want to enjoy it. So how do we do it?

First, stay away from inexpensive equipment being sold at stores marketed as media conversion tools to transfer your cassette tapes or records to CDs. Generally, these products don’t perform any editing or noise reduction to improve the sound of your media. They also are not high quality products as far as sound reproduction. If you have decided to transfer your old media you might as well do it right and be satisfied with the results since this is something you will most likely only do once.

The first step would be to have an excellent player to produce the best sound possible. You can find a studio quality cassette player for about $200.00 and a decent turntable for about $400.00. You will also need a USB audio interface like the American Audio Versaport unit Guitar Center carries for about $120.00. You will also need a good audio editing program so that you can capture the sound, perform any necessary editing and burn the results onto a CD. Audacity is a free one you can get from www.download.com.

This is pretty much all you need as far as equipment and software, but as you can see, it will cost you about $700.00. This does not include quality blank CDs (not all CDs are created equal) and all the time you will need to setup and learn how to use all of this on your own.

Your other alternative depending on how many records or cassettes you actually want to transfer is to utilize a professional service like www.mediacure.net to do this for you. Sure, you might save some money by doing it on your own assuming you have hundreds of tapes or records, but that does not take into account the learning curve or how time consuming this process can be. This service offers several packages and options including transferring all of your media to MP3 files if all you want to do is load it into your MP3 player or computer to then burn on your own. The choice is yours.



By: Peter R Garcia

How to be a scratch DJ? A question that is on the lips of many wanna be DJ’s. I’ve been Dj’ing
now for about eight years in total. I have enjoyed ever minute of it! I’ll be honest and say
that there we’re times when I felt like banging my head off the wall trying to learn new
techniques and skills as a DJ. I learned how to DJ through self teaching! Not the best way to
go about developing your skills, but I got there in the end.

One of my favourite skills I have developed as a DJ is knowing how to scratch records over
beats. I know from talking to other DJ’s that this is a skill DJ’s like to get involved with.
The reason being is because scratching over records is very much a live addition to a Dj
performance and can convey a real personal experience with the crowd.

So the question remains, How to be a scratch DJ? How does one go about this? Well… I’m
going to give you 3 tips you can take with you. Follow them through and you will be on the
right road to dj scratching success!

Tip 1 – Get the right Turntable equipment

This is really an essential tip! Its very important if you are serious about becoming a
scratch DJ. I Personally use two technics 1210’s turntables and a scratch mixer. The technics
are an industry standard and have been in that position for decades. I’ve heard good things
about Vestax also. But Technics are the way forward when using turntables. They are the best
direct drive turnable on the market today. Whatever you do… do not buy any sort of belt
driven turntables. These types of turntables are NOT industry standard and will frustrate you!

Tip 2 – Use the correct type of slipmats

As part of the correct equipment you need to use, it is important to use the correct slipmats
so that you will find it easy to manipulate your records whilst scratching. Go to a
specialist record shop and ask for their opinion on hip-hop mats.

Tip 3 – Set your needles up correctly

Lastly, make sure that you have your needles setup correctly! Always check to see if there is
any dust that has stuck to the needle and make sure to clean it off before you start playing
the record. Positioning the record correctly is important too. There are a lot of people that
swear by angling the needle in by roughly 10 degrees so it cuts into the records groove at an
angle. The reason for this is because the record has less of a chance of slipping when you
are involved with your scratching.

SO there you have it… I hope these tips have helped you out on how to be a scratch DJ. I’m
sure if you use them, you will become more successful with your scratching efforts…



By: Shane Burn