M44-7's

A few questions for you, eder.

1) Are you going to use Scratch Live exclusively? Or do you plan to use vinyl and Scratch Live together?

2) Do you scratch or are you a mix DJ?

thanks for the quick responses so far. I use SSL pretty much exclusively...i have a crate of normal vinyl that i use occasionally, but nothing like SSL.....i mainly spin high school parties and dances but i scratch often during my sets and scratch a lot fooling around @ home...i started off a scratch dj and then i realized all the money is in mixing, so i'm a bit of both, lol.

store.yahoo.com

print that out and take it to guitar center or something and get them to pricematch (i hate the wait when ordering online, most local shops will pricematch)

i like my whitelabels

Hm, we should have a compiled FAQ list... the same question get asked again and again.

for ssl almost exclusively whitelabels would be overkill.
44-7s will work great, i've got iron maiden blaring on m44-7s right now, sounds just fine to me.
Josh

I loved my M44-7's for years now but have found that they are not the best for SSL in the places I work. The stylus is soooo soft on these needles that they seem to be more sensitive to background noise and vibration... I may be wrong... but due to the fact that SSL needs it's threshold to be calibrated so that background noise/intereference doesn't confuse the program I have stopped using M44-7's when working in loud clubs with huge sub woofers. The folks here in NYC at Turntable Lab agreed with the fact that the Shure's are not your best option in really loud clubs... even with regular vinyl.

I recently bought some Ortofon Elektros and mounted them on my technics headshells and have been very pleased. The metal they use on the Orto's is much less pliable which I think allows me to keep my threshold somewhere in the middle insteads of all the way to the right which was what I ALWAYS had to have set with the Shure's.

At home, the M44's worked great but in the clubs, the Orto's are the move at least in my experience.

Isn't is best to always set the threshold to the far right when playing in load clubs? It would minimize the noise/feedback from the PA.

Yep. But it will also make SSL not to react on slower vinyl movements.

oh shit, i have just bought a pair of 44-7... :(

Don't get me wrong... I've been using M44-7's since the release of SSL and for the most part they are great. A club I work at doesn't allow Shure's ( output/frequency issues ) on their system ... weird, I know... so I had to change anyway. I don't know where or why the trend of subs under the dj booth started but it's f-ing retarted .

Whats that?

sub-woofers... a lot of new clubs I work at design the dj booth so that it's raised up and put the subwoofers below the decks. Looks cool but works bad.

Subwoofers making your stomach shake :-)

NB: the Ortofon Elektro's are *not* meant for scratching, if that's your thang (its not mine...), as the cantilever is more rigid than in the other Ortofon "Disco" carts - its meant more for techno/trance/house/drum n' bass etc.

hth

Paul

I've heard people say that they're not the best for scratching as well but I know and have seen some dj's that use elektro's for scratching and they are incredible turntablists so whatever works I guess. All I know is from my personal experience the Shure's didn't work that well with SSL in SOME clubs for reasons perhaps having to do with the soft needles. I might be wrong but all I know is since I got the Ortofon CC Elektros I've been free of needle headaches.

check this site for a good description:

turntablelab.com

what about an Ortofon Elektro with Scratch needle mounted on it?

Interesting G-man...I've never used M447's in the club (not even with vinyl), only Concordes.

Good to know, I'll keep that in mind if I ever have problems at future gigs with subs near to the booth.

BTW have Ortofon fixed the connector problem on the Concordes yet? The flat connectors they use on my Concorde DJs aren't very reliable, whenever I move my decks, I have to fiddle around with the headshells to get them to connect properly :-(

Paul

Edit;

I got the Ortofon OM Elektro's .. not the CC's. So, I have them mounted on Technics headshells to avoid any connector problems.

I prefer the shure M44-7 and the Ortofon OM series cartridges.

Subs under the DJ booth is about the least clever thing I've ever heard of.

Shaun are you SHURE?
yuk yuk

i might check those mmmmm44444s out

they put hoagies under the dj booth here in philly. *l (im sorry)

Word.

The club I work at has (relatively small) subs either side of the 1,5 foot high podium, on which the DJ booth stands. And the podium is hollow, made of wood... As long as you're spinning good 12"s, it's fine, but put on an (old, worn) album where you need to turn up the gain, and you're in feedback hell.

With SL of course, real feedback is not possible, but when the rumble from the subs hits the turntables hard enough, it can screw up the tracking, and then you're REALLY in trouble.

those freefloat things are supposed to work to elimimate some of that, but i've never been in a loud environment or ever used them.
putting subs under the booth is just plain silly, needles for all intents and purposes are a modified microphone, they pick up vibration and noise.
so yea, whatever sound genious decided to start doing that also needs to figure out a way to eliminate feedback.
Josh

i can count the number of decent club/bar setups ive seen on one hand. Why is it always done so wrong when it only takes a bit of thought to do it properly?

it's pretty scary, but one of the best set-ups (sound & lighting) i've ever seen is at the under 21 club i work at sometimes. the worst part is, these kids have never been to any other bars (or clubs), so they don't appreciate how good they've got it.

too bad no one that works there consistantly uses turntables or knows how to work a dmx system

its seems beyond most clubs to have stable turntables and a decent monitor, i often fantasise about owning a club and building the ultimate dj booth.

Fluid in philly is a nice place to dj.

house parties in philly with young drunk meatheads yelling at you to play hip hop or they will kick you ass is not a nice place to dj.
(i have tons of hip hop but not for aggro-requesto jocks) :P

LOL :P

I know exactly what you mean. In my experience the only places that seem to do it right are big name clubs with big name rwsident jocks, or places where the DJ had a big say in the club's interior design & sound systems.

I just broke down and bought a pair of Shure M44-7's based on the the advice of the moderators here. These were considerably more expensive than the needles I've been using (Numark CC-1s and CX-1s). I am about to mount them on the Numark HS1 headshells that came with my tables.

How long should expect these needes to last me?

That depends on numerous factors... weight on the styli, how rough you handle the records, whether or not you scratch, etc.

mine have had heavy use over the last year and are still fine although i will replace them shortly. correctly calibrated they last very well.

i'm just looking for a rough estimate, give me a best and worst case scenario. i am a new turntablst and am learning scratching. for the most part, i only use ssl and i clean my records with gruv glide every so often. just wondering if i could expect them to last a year or 6 months or what.

what is "them"?

"them" is referring to my new m44-7 needles, which by the way are like butter. i only had time to mount one (it was a much more tedious process than i thought to disconnect the old wires and mount it on the headshell). it feels much better than the old (crappy) needle. unfortunately, i am still getting what looks like dust in my calibration circles, assuming this is the vinyl now.

those m44-7s were a BITCH for me to mount, didnt have near that much trouble mounting my om ortofons.
but yea, it was worth it.
Josh

yeh you gotta keep everything clean--it helps a lot--especially the ssl record which seems to attract lots of dust because it's always on.

yeah i bought new mixer for a party at a friends house which seems to solve other issues i was having (explained in another thread).
It worked great for three hours of super hot sweaty party.

only problems were dust induced warbles. Which are embarrasin;)

Its recommended to change your needles every 300-500 playing hours, especially with the higher tracking force required in DJ environments, because (as I'm sure you know) he stylus takes the brunt of the physical load as it rides and traverses the record grooves. For a cleaning tutorial go here www.djforums.com (I am sure there is better stylus cleaning kit then the one suggested BTW lol ;))

last night a dj saved my life...

remembering most of the things i've picked up from other djs in this forum, i went to do a set at a club last night. didn't bother to bring much since they had nicer equipment than i'm used to using anyway. bad idea. they had numark ttx tables with ortofon concord carts. turns out they hadn't been used in months because all their resident djs use the cd decks. i couldn't get the damn things to calibrate to save my life. one i got to work by licking the connector (i know its bad, but it wasn't my set-up and they didn't have cdjs for me to use w/ssl). the other table i put on the old numark cc1 that i had with me because i replaced it with a m44-7 at home last week. wouldn't say it worked flawlessly, but after using the 3 needles mentioned (ortofon, shure, numark) i would have to agree that the m44-7 was the best for ssl.

so with cdjs you dont have to do all this calibration,threshold and stuff?

It is recommended that you do.

I have a pair of M44-7 and the Ortofon DJ's mounted on Technic head shells. Both sound great, but the Ortofons are really great when you have worn vinyl that has tendency to skip.
Depending on my situation I use either pair accordingly.

Eder I would recommend going with M44-7s since you primarily use SSL and the first chance you get buy a pair of Ortofon OM DJ's (blue). It is always a great idea to have a back pair of needles.

One time in band camp.... :-) When I first started spinning I had a pair of Stanton al500s and during this party out in the boonies one of stylus broke. I had no back up. The only thing that saved my ass was that I had a sampler in my mixer and I would take a sample of the current track, mix it in, and then blend in the next cut before the sample started slowing down.
:-)
Those were the days....

[quoteOne time in band camp.... :-) When I first started spinning I had a pair of Stanton al500s and during this party out in the boonies one of stylus broke. I had no back up. The only thing that saved my ass was that I had a sampler in my mixer and I would take a sample of the current track, mix it in, and then blend in the next cut before the sample started slowing down.
Well now, thanks to SSL, you can keep on mixing with only ONE turntable... That's what I call progress!

yep, you still have to, but it's a lot easier. You'll find that you can set the threshold lower as there will be a lot less noise in the signal path coming from a cd deck. Also, calibrating is easier as you'll be able to get perfect circles due to there being no record/stylus wear etc.

On a similar note, how often do people change their CARTRIDGES? (not styli but actual carts)

I've had my concorde carts for about 4-5 years now and am on my third set of nightclub S styli

Things still sound great (when playing normal vinyl) and I don't really have that many problems with tracking on ssl so I'm not sure when I should try a new set. I'll probably keep with the orts, but as the m44-7s have a higher output they'd probably be better with ssl as they'd work better at the same threshold level than the orts.

I love the simple design of the concordes though. No setup and any fool can get it right

s
:)

Thanks for the input fellas.

are the M447's recommended for recording vinyl to digital as well? I am hoping to buy one set of needles to record with and play out with.

Stuart,
In the past I've changed my carts every couple of years. I had less expensive carts and they didn't hold up to well. Now that I have the Ort DJ's and the M44-7s I can't imagine needing to change anything but the styli. At this point...any changes would be because I just want a new pair.
I did have a pair of Concords and they both got shorts in them so I eventually ended up getting the OM DJs. My thinking was that they are much easier to repair.

Diva,
Of course there are always much better Carts to go with for recording but the M447's are fine for recording...especially if you are sending your signal through a descent mixer and your recording unit is good.