ack, crappy deal, thats pretty much all i do! lol 

Well to be completely honest, I still fail very much to understand how Ableton works. I have played a bit with it, but I just don't get it. I would love to be able to buy Ableton, a trigger finger, and some other controller to make a good set up. Perhaps then I would be able to understand it.

ah!!! Now I feel all bad inside. Yay you, boo me.

I think most are talking about answer B, course, I've heard A also.

OK,serious talk.....

-if you're not scratching or doing other "vinyl tricks" there's no real need to spin vinyl.  people like the feel of vinyl.   get over it and learn to use a CD player.    it'll make you a better DJ in the long run.  every big DJ i saw at movement last year used CDs.  DJs like lil louie vega...and that dude is a BIG DJ. (not on an obsure DnB label) heheheh

-if you want to use vinyl & blow cash on dubplates (which are a LOT less expensive nowadays), go ahead.  waste your cash so you can look cool while blending 2 tracks together & never doing so much as a backspin...

-setting up abelton & pre-preparing the tracks has to be a pain in the butt.  just from a convenience factor i think CD players will be around for a long time. if you know how to beatmatch, it's easy to burn a few discs & go to town.

-laptops are expensive. CDRs are not.

-all of this being said, i *think* what will happen is not abelton, but either:
1. the new pioneer-like CD players that you can plug a thumb drive into, load in your songs, and play them on the player like a CD.

OR

2. a compy with a nice interface that you do the same thing with.






..and yet the guy likes top 40 djs like rick dees... 

hehe..i don't know how many times i have to say it: 95% of the world's DJs don't play exactly what they want to.  even the edm ones. even THEY play the hits that they may not like very much.

yeah... the cost of a laptop, software and midi controllers is about the same as buying one or 2 of the current Pioneer decks new. (lappie = $1k (assuming PC rather than Mac, Software = $300-500, Controller = $150-300 Total = ~$1,800)

BTW, here's one reason why macs are at a disadvantage in the live pa/digital dj relm: USB ports. Current mac book pros only have 2. The one closest to the power plug is the one with the most stable power. The "power level" drastically drops off by the time it gets to the other port. This means that if you have an external audio card, you have to put it on the first port. you midi controllers then have to be controlled via a USB hub which further divides your power and will cause your controllers to lock or at the very least become unresponsive at times. This happened to me during my live PA. I fortunately was able to power one of my controllers off batteries for a later show and I still at least had a working mouse I could use. I also managed to crash ableton a few times on the mac while prepping for the show.

Just buy a PC for live shows.

Oh no, now Dave has entered the PC-MAC debate too.  Beatmatching isn't going anywhere, sure there are lots of people who think they are going to automate there DJ career, but the best use the technology to make there sets outstanding combining new and old.  If you can't beatmatch you haven't learned to DJ.  I personally don't like watching people who don't do some type of beatmatching, or programing live.   I don't want to watch someone all night who looks like they are just checking there email on stage.    I like the idea of some showmanship in some form.  Serato is really big in some areas, and I think the idea of using coded CD's or vinyl is the future.  Some reasons why people aren't pressing vinyl is because the pool has shrunk, not as many people are supporting the industry, although its picking up again.  I love vinyl but I like the new technology route quite a bit, I haven't bought any vinyl now in about 5 years, but there are still labels out there that get massive requests for vinyl and are pressing it up.  Downloads are on the rise still!