We’re on a bit of a retro trip this year. Running the godfather of DJ gear sites for 10 whole years will do that. And during my trip to Vestax I was thrown back a full 15 years to 1998 — a time before controllers, before DVS and before CDJ-1000s. This was a period when turntables were still king, CDs were taking off and MIDI was still very much in the realm of the studio.
Sound Division was a UK retailer who around 1998 put out something like 4 issues of the Sound Division DJ magazine. I’ve got one other to scan in, and will be posting as much of this kind of thing as I can lay my hands on. I’m not just looking for retailer material — manufacturer brochures are of particular interest too. I don’t need the originals, although building a library of such things would be nice for posterity. If you have anything that you think our readers would love to see, then please send scans to me — contact@djworx.com. Or if you have printed material to send my way, drop me a line and I’ll send you my land address.
Anyway, have a look through this brochure, and either reminisce about simpler times, or marvel at how the hell we old fossils even managed to lock beats together with such archaic gear. Much more of this to come, because I feel it’s important to show where we’ve come from to understand and appreciate where we are now. I used to come round here when it was all just fields… ;)
Sound Division DJ Magazine scans
What were we listening to in 1998?
According to DJ magazines Top tunes of 98
Those magazines, especially the ads, were like porn to me.
Haha wow the Pioneer RXM9 looked cool!
98 was the year I got my first set of turntables, belt drive gemini’s, didn’t take long before my new hobby took over and I upgraded to some Vestax PDX A2’s and a PMC 17a mixer. A good year indeed!
wow..some of those Vestax mixers have been around a loooooooooooooong time!
i rocked many a crowd with those cdj500s. Aside from the touch-sensitive platter, they still work the same as all the later models.
thank you for this
Great trip down memory lane there, it worries me that I must be getting old that this kit is now considered “old school”… oh dear, Fetch me my pipe and slippers.
Anyway, if you want to go back further than 1998, how about 1980? An old Roger Squires catalogue from way back when, with lots of juicy pictures. Have a look here – http://www.karillon.com/rogersquires.html, if you go down to the bottom of the page there’s a link to download the whole catalogue as a zip file. I did. It was good.
My security s/w is saying there’s something dodgy lurking on that site, so beware if you’re not running antivirus/malware.
I was going to mention Roger Squires too. I bought a liquid wheel projector, strobe, fuzz light and bubble machine from RS as some of my first real DJ kit (i.e. not made myself). I’ve got some old Disco International mags here too.
I still see some of that equip in my local dj store. Nice seeing the retro gear compared to today’s gear is kinda refreshing.
two things:
1. Nice to see they were still doing that “call for prices” trick back in the day. Man did I hate that being the gear whore I am.
2. I love those Vestax T mixers. That’s such a badass design :D
i was 8 when that DJ World was released :x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEHilk3YM_o Nothing beats Roland mixers….
My friend, Ian, had that mixer.
Sooo cool. I have loads of old PSSL mags from back then. It’s fun to go back and look at how far gear has progressed since then.
Now I remember why I didn’t have a sampler back then – they cost more than my car!
This was not too long after Vestax released the PMC-50a, I had a Vestax PMC-17a and the the Gemini mixers were garbage. For me, the mixer of choice during this time was the Intimidation Blue!
I was just given an Intimidation Blue this week. Needs a little TLC, but otherwise it’ll look cool in the archive.
Aw, no fair! I always wanted one of those!
One day i’d love to restore one and fit an innofader, it was such a cool mixer back in the day…
Just so you know, there’s a bunch of brand new ones on eBay for just £130. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New-Intimidation-Blue-High-Quality-Kill-Switch-Vintage-DJ-Mixer-/200851912082?pt=UK_Sound_Vision_Mixers&hash=item2ec3b4f592
So tempted…
By that time I was using a super Outline Pro 405. It ruled them all!
to me DJing is all about turntables and mixers, the mixer have improved somewhat but i could still rock a crowd on a GLI mixer and a pair of Tech1200s today..in the end the whole digital revolution means absolutely nothing to me..the only thing that we have now is ppl becoming lazy and bitching about other software..no progression..no funk in todays DJ scene. records, turntables, speakers, mixers forever..Dr Dre operates in surgery.
Fantastic!! Thanks Mark for this special Easter Egg!
I had a pair of those little CDJ-500S’s …..lovely little machines!
“Gemini Turntables: Just wait til you get your fingers on these! Next best to the SL’s” LOL, I always laughed at the outlandish claims some of those companies made.
I can honestly say the Gemini PT 2000 that that slogan belongs to isn’t to far from the truth. Dont get me wrong I am a SL1210 man, but have my PT2000’s as back up’s still to this day and not to many diffarances imho. Gemini Stuff wasn’t to bad back then, they have just let themselves down in recent years.
I spent HOURS of my life checking out those adverts and putting together my dream setup. Ended up with an all Citronic rig ¬—¬
It was good solid British-built kit back in those days… if the bomb drops, the only things to survive will be cockroaches and old Citronic mixers.
I think if u have at least 2 items from any of the adds u should when a prize lol.
Back in the old days, I rarely thought about new gear. Over a period of ten years, I think I upgraded my mixer once. But otherwise, I just stuck to my tried and true turntable setup.
Since digital took over, it’s much different. You really don’t wanna stick to a controller, audio interface, or software for more than a few years.
When my friends and I reminisce about looking at DJ gear we can buy we always bring up Upstairs Records and Music Factory in New York. I think those were the two stores that would advertise in The Source back in the day. They always had tons of records I’d highlight as planning to buy. I remember that DJ Rectangle had his own section of breaks and Nervous Records had their own section, too. That was also before Rane came out with the first TTM series which I discovered on the piklz board then read the review on that page that Doc Rice used to run.
I learned how to mix using the citronic cdm 7.2. What a beast of a mixer!
“Great for Dance, featuring ind chan gain control + 2 band EQ, H/phone + punch buttons + mic” haha
Those punch buttons were good fun at the time :)
Oh the irony! I just threw my old CDJ-300s away to the trash can. Don’t think they are usable at this point.
It’s funny to think that Pioneer hadn’t yet made a major splash in the dj world at that point. Vestax were the undisputed kings of the turntablist world as well.
If you have a load of these, consider giving Jason Scott at Textfiles.com a shout. He’ll likely take em and preserve them online forever.
i think i got a pair of vestax magazines from 2000 or so,if think it could be useful ill try to scan and post it soon
Intimidation Apex bitches!