The Technics Problem

I can’t remember if I’ve discussed this on my site already or not, but I wanted to revisit it. I am one of those DJs that feels that Technics turntables are overrated and not a necessity for a vinyl DJ. A lot of DJs when asked what turntable should you buy, will tell someone to get Technics and nothing else. I strongly disagree with that sentiment, and I feel that those DJs who say that are just parroting outdated information. When Grand Master Flash was “inventing” modern DJing along with some other DJs that were around at the time, the only turntable on the market that could keep up with the scratching, back-cueing, and other tricks they were doing was the Technics deck that was out at that time. Hence the reason why if you asked Grand Master Flash back then what turntable was the best, he would say a Technics. Well other companies have since made better decks that far exceed the feature set of say a Technics 1200 mk2 or mk5. The super OEM turntables have more features like start/stop speed adjustment, USB output, among other different features. They also tout a stronger torque than those classic Technics decks do. A stronger torque is a lot better for scratch DJs who need the record to get up to speed as quickly as possible once they let it go. The reason I’m revisiting this is because I had a private DJ lesson with world champion dj, DJ Vekked yesterday and I asked him why does he uses Reloop 8000 mk2s instead of Technics and he stated to me that it was because of their stronger torque as well as the features it had for Serato DJ Pro. Him saying that to me just solidified his intellect level in the fact that he’s not a sucker for brand names. He’s not going to follow the crowd just because there are a ton of t-shirts, pins, keychains, and other paraphernalia with Technics scrawled on them. He understands that there are better decks out there than the Technics deck and he has the common sense to purchase one of those decks for his personal djing use. For that reason I’m going to have him be my “mentor” when it comes to my journey toward becoming a great scratch DJ and turntablist. I would trust his opinion more than an old school DJ who continues to claim that Technics is the best turntable when the flat fact is that it simply IS NOT. I personally use two Audio Technica 1240XP decks, which are super OEM decks with similar make up to the Reloop 8000s. When I bought them I didn’t have that much knowledge about DJ turntables and so forth, but I’m glad I had the common sense to recognize a great DJ turntable when I saw one. I hope future DJs don’t fall for the hype and realize this themselves when they decide to spend their hard earned money on something to spin their vinyl on. Til next time…