With all the chatter over how many digital tracks were downloaded in a given month, or how much revenue was gained via digital channels this quarter, it is often easy to miss the less-public impact digital music has had on the industry.
Take, for example, how digital music is transforming today's DJ -- perhaps the oldest and most influential tastemaker of the music industry. One would think the vinyl-obsessed DJ crowd would resist replacing their coveted crates with digital files. Yet digital music has not only caught on, it has become an entrenched part of the craft.
"Everybody's in the digital realm now," says Marlon Williams, more popularly known as DJ Marley Marl. Williams is a hip-hop artist and producer who hosts a weekly rap show on the WWPR New York radio station, runs the Internet radio site futureflavasonline.com and maintains a busy club schedule.
"Once you download your MP3, you can just go straight to your laptop with it and DJ that night," he says. "In fact... you can be at the club, download while you're DJ'ing and keep ahead of the pack with the newest stuff."
But DJs like Marl are not just downloading music like consumers. They're taking advantage of products and services specifically designed to pair the DJ with digital music.
Digital scratch
Simply downloading digital files to a laptop would be of little use to a DJ without the ability to manipulate those files like vinyl records on a turntable. That is where products like Serato Scratch Live and the Denon DN-S3500 come in.
Scratch Live, which began shipping in April 2004, almost single-handedly opened the digital floodgates to the DJ community by providing the ability to play MP3 files through a special vinyl 'record'. This record plays host to any digital file streamed through it, thus allowing DJs to mix, cut, scratch and rewind the file by physically manipulating the vinyl.
To say that digital will replace vinyl among DJs would be an overstatement. Vinyl remains the heart and soul of DJs, the badge that sets them apart. But for DJs travelling to shows hundreds miles away, the prospect of replacing heavy cases of records with a hard drive made digital an easy sell.
"Who wants to pay $150 to get three crates of records out to Milwaukee when you could go with a laptop?" Marl asks.
With DJs now armed with the means to utilise digital music files, multiple services have emerged to help DJs acquire them.
DJs are established tastemakers. Record labels often test new releases with DJs who can influence how tracks are received on the street through mix tapes and club dates. As a result, DJs need to get new music before the general public. Downloading from iTunes is not enough.
New wave in pools
Even the venerable record pool -- clubs that DJs join to access the newest music -- has gone digital. Labels send promotional copies to the pool, often before servicing radio. The pool then distributes it to its members and acts as a feedback conduit to the label.
While many pools remain, there is a shift to online distribution. The advantages to DJs and record labels are simply too substantial to ignore -- unlimited inventory, cheap distribution and better feedback and communication between DJ and label/artist.
The largest digital pool, Digiwaxx Media, maintains a database of 12,000 DJs worldwide, including Marl. All have access to the same music, which they can preview before downloading as an unprotected MP3 or use the included label contact information to request physical copies.
But as useful as these digital advancements have become, are they making the role of a DJ too easy? There is a certain art to finding the right record and mixing it at a club. As technology trumps technique, anybody can become a DJ, which some traditionalists fear dilutes the influence DJs have on the industry.
Marl is not worried. He says digital, like CDs before it, simply offers better tools to convey his taste to an audience. All the technology in the world, he says, cannot replace talent.
"If you're wack, you're wack," he says.
Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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