club news

Pioneer's UK division has announced that it is ceasing production of their industry standard CDJ1000 turntable model, to persuade clubs and DJs to switch to their new 900s and 2000 model digital players.

"It is with mixed feelings that today we announce to the channel the discontinuation of the CDJ 1000MK3," said Pioneer chief Martin Dockree said in a widely circulated statement, "Thanks to the hard work of our then newly appointed direct retailers, installers and established distribution, as well as the DJ's who instantly recognised it as the first real practical DJ CD player, it very quickly became an industry standard fixture in the DJ booth," he added.

The sudden demise of the nowadays virtually ubiquitous CD decks matched the predictions of acid house legend Sasha who chatting to Skrufff in 2008 was eerily prescient.

"CDs may become obsolete, maybe their days are numbered but not in the immediate future anyway," said Sasha, "With every advance of technology something else gets left behind," he noted, "Who knows what machine they're working on at Pioneer right now?"

Shitkatapult chief Markus Haas (aka T Raumschmiere) said he was similarly resigned to the death of CDs soon after, telling Skrufff (also in 2008) 'I think in five years there will be no more CD sales, they'll still be some limited vinyl editions but the typical CD is becoming obsolete.'

"When I play I still play only vinyl, no CDs at all," he added, "Of course, in more and more places the DJs before and after me use CDs or laptops. whatever. When I come with my vinyl they always need to move the turntables next to the mixer as nowadays there's usually room left there for a laptop or CD players."

Pioneer's new players allow DJs to transport all of their music on memory sticks, representing as radical a shift as when CDs largely replaced vinyl in the middle of the last decade.

Though relatively late to embrace CD mixing US house legend Kenny Dope Gonzalez spoke enthusiastically about abandoning vinyl in 2006, comparing records to long obsolete formats such as 8 track and audio tape cassettes.

"I remember coming to London years ago with twelve boxes of records between Louis (Vega) and I. The overweight was ridiculous," the Master At Work told Skrufff in 2006.

"You would waste a lot of money bringing records to Europe only to find out that two boxes didn't turn up, because they were either lost, never turned up or were even stolen," he recalled.

"If you are booked to play somewhere and you don't have your tools, it's messed up. Therefore I was forced to play CDs. I would have never thought even in a million years that one day I would be mixing CDs, whereas now if I can't carry them on the plane, I won't bring them," he added.

In related news, Sony Music in London announced that they're switching their entire promotional activities to digital, in a move that reflects how the vast majority of dance and independent labels already operate.

"Digital promo is set to become an industry standard as other major and independent music companies also make the switch," Sony CEO Ged Doherty explained this week, "Physical stock is expensive, difficult to store and environmentally unfriendly." (Music Week: http://tinyurl.com/y8gdj22

Jonty Skrufff (http://skrufff.com): Follow Jonty on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jontyskrufff