There is one thing you can do with vinyls only: scratching. Yes, you can use timecode vinyls with some DJ software, but it's error prone and you experience latency issues.
CDs / tapes can't be scratched at all unless you load them in some form of RAM - and existing CD scratchers have a far smaller "disk" size and often next to zero resistance. It's just not the same.
> Yes, you can use timecode vinyls with some DJ software, but it's error prone and you experience latency issues.
This may have been true in 2008, but not now. I don't follow DMC closely, but as far as I remember, a lot of winning routines now actually use timecodes.
Mh, I was burned by the first wave of timecode stuff, it was 2009 iirc... nice to see that technology has advanced :)
But still, it (in my opinion) looks less professional if you work with a laptop instead of appearing with a suitcase of disks. Appearing with vinyls makes the audience believe that you as a DJ prepared for the event and selected music for them, a laptop feels like "meh I could do that shit when you give me ten beers and a line of coke"...
Audience listens to music. Carwfully prepared turntable routine is more important, and a lot of laptop tricks aren't reproducable on bare turntables anyway.
CDs / tapes can't be scratched at all unless you load them in some form of RAM - and existing CD scratchers have a far smaller "disk" size and often next to zero resistance. It's just not the same.