When you buy a turntable from any Amoeba store now through November 15, you'll get $25 worth of USED vinyl - for FREE - to jumpstart your collection! 


To help determine which turntable is right for you, here are some questions to ask yourself before you purchase and some handy factoids that might help with that decision.

To DJ or Not to DJ
If you want to DJ with your turntable, you need a Direct Drive turntable. This means that you can scratch, mix, cue up your records, and do everything else DJs do without ruining your record player or the stylus.

If you don't plan on using your turntable for DJing, Belt Drive Turntable will work perfectly well for you.


How Are You Going to Hook Up Your Turntable?
Do you have a component system already? Do you have a receiver? If so, does it have a "phono" input selection? If your receiver doesn't have a phono input (and a lot of them don't these days), you will need a pre-amp.

If you have powered speakers (speakers that have their own power source), you can connect your turntable directly to the speakers if you want (and skip the receiver altogether). 


What the Heck is a Pre-Amp Anyway and Why Should I Care?
The pre-amp boosts the sound of the cartridge on your turntable up to the "line" level of an iPod, CD player or cassette deck. A lot of turntables come with built-in pre-amps these days and if that's the case, you don't need to worry about it. But if your turntable or receiver doesn't have a built-in pre-amp, you'll need to get one (you can get a decent one for around $30 at Radio Shack). Then your turntable will connect into the pre-amp which will then connect to your receiver (or your speakers if you have powered speakers).

DJ, broadcaster, club promoter, concert producer, journalist, publicist, magazine publisher, music producer, record label owner, webmaster, and iPhone app designer are just a few of the titles that have applied to Dave Paul over the years. But the San Francisco born and bred Paul is probably best known for both his respected Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, that began 20 years ago (hence the Bomb 20 Year Anniversary party tomorrow night at Madrone Bar in San Francisco) and his pioneering Bomb Hip-Hop record label that came a few years later, and would be instrumental in helping propel the global turntablist movement thanks to his influential Return of the DJ series.

I first met Dave back in the late 80's when he was at KCSF out of City College of San Francisco  doing a weekly hip-hop radio show called Beat Box Fridays (he'd already been DJing for a good five years at that point) and was immediately impressed with what an ambitious, hard-working, self-driven, and focused individual he was - but never in an overbearing or unpleasant way. Dave is just a genuinely nice guy: someone you want to be around and someone who is always upfront and always passionate about his work. He is also never one to rest on his laurels. 

Since I've known him he has been a hustler; up at the crack of dawn working hard on whatever project he has going on at the time. Key to his success is that he doesn't wait for things to have to be done - he projects ahead and initiates change in the present: like how one day he developed an iPhone app for Bomb Hip-Hop. And as times change (especially in the ever fickle music industry) Dave always seems prepared; constantly evolving and expanding his skill base.

Ever since DJ Swamp first arrived on the music scene in 1996, when the unique long-haired turntablist with an affinity for setting his turntables on fire in his performances took the national DJ battle title of USA DMC Champion (his first year in the contest!), he has remained both an ever-engaging figure and a most prolific artist. Over the past dozen-plus years, the Cleveland-born/West Coast-based turntable artist/producer/vocalist has been mad busy consistently performing live (both solo and with others; many first got introduced to him as Beck's DJ) and recording a slew of solo projects, including his excellent Never Ending Drum & Bass Loops album series and many other DJ skratch tools vinyl releases (all self-released on his own Decadent Records label). DJ Swamp has also collaborated with or made cameos for a long list of other artists including the likes of his old touring mate Beck,  Kool Keith, RL Burnside, Devo, StickY fingaz, Kid Rock, Crystal Method, BT, Hanson, Richard Humpty Vission, The Bloodhound Gang, Morcheeba, Ill Kid, The Dandy Worhals, and Faithless.

Most recently, the DJ has been especially prolific cranking out music videos and, having released the new album Vinyl Disciple earlier this year, a new series of videos to accompany this rock-tinged, hip-hop/electro/breakbeat driven skratch album. Just last Friday, he unleashed the above video for the new album's song "Invasion of the B-Girls," which comes hot on the heels of numerous other music videos he made this year, including "Rock Rollin," the new album's title track, and "Pyro," which were all completed in the past few months. Today (Wednesday, August 17th) he is shooting yet another music video! This one is for "Feast of Flesh," also off the new Vinyl Disciple album.

If the late great hip-hop producer & famed crate digger J Dilla were alive today he would have been the first in line at Amoeba Hollywood (or first online at the Amoeba.Com store) to scoop up the endless extremely rare vinyl gems that make up the absolutely amazing, treasure trove of "library music" recently acquired by Amoeba. This very rare specialized record collection is of interest to producers, DJs, and avid crate-diggers eternally looking for that never before discovered, perfect beat or sound to sample or manipulate in the mix.

Quietly unveiled a little on June 17th both online and in the Hollywood Amoeba store (in the main room "sampler" aisle + a full bin's worth in the back jazz room) word has not yet really gotten out on this unprecedented collection that will make any true crate digger salivate for days. So there's still time to unearth lots of golden finds among the close to 2000 different vinyl records from this collection that is so rare that Google searches will only lead to data on about a quarter of these rarities that found their way to Amoeba Music care of a Canadian distributor / collector who had been sitting on this rare collection for three decades.
 
Amoeblogger Mr. Chadwick recently described this "music library" collection as; "These LPs contain music produced and owned by production music companies, who licensed the music to film, television, radio, record producers, and other composers. The music was produced with the most accurate attention to a generic style or context, so that it would fit with any precise musical needs of the user." Extremely limited in their respective vinyl pressings the companies who made these sound library collections include the likes of Colorsound, Hibou, Spectrum, Intersound, Telemusic, and Intl. SFX, and boast rare titles like Commercial Music Bed Series by Interwestern Production Music Corp.