Best Dj Turntable Needles and Dj Tips
So if you have a turntable or if you’re planning on buying a turntable, this could be very interesting for you. Some turntables, ship with needles, and had shelves, some don’t.
But in any case, you want to make sure that you get a good steady needle.
WHAT TYPE OF TURNTABLE NEEDLE YOU SHOULD BUY?
- Stanton 500
- Stanton 890 SA
- Stanton 520SK Craze
- Ortofon Concorde Pro S
- Ortofon Q-Bert S-120
- DJ Q-Bert Ortofon Concorde Cartridge
- Shure m44-7
- Ortofon Concorde DJ S
You want good audio quality and you want that needle to be able to stay on your vinyl. And if you’re using real vinyl, this is important because you don’t want the record to skip the needle to skip.
And of course, if you’re using DVS like Serato or Tractor, you can play in relative mode. So even if the needle skips the song, we’ll keep on playing.
But still, you want to make sure you have a steady, stable needle that delivers good audio quality. And in this case, with control vinyl, a good signal to your audio interface.
A good needle is always important. Now there are a lot of needles out there. I’m not going to say that it has one best needles.
I’m just gonna show you some of the needles that I used to work with and some of the needles that I’m using right now.
And of course, it also depends on your needs and personal preference. I’m a turntable scratch deejay, so I really needed that steady, stable needle because if you were scratching and juggling and it was too late, it would just fly all over the vinyl and it would ruin your routine.
STANTON 500
This is the classic, the Stanton 500 needle. This used to be on all the turntables, I believe Technics turntable actually shipped with these needles and they had good audio quality.
But the only thing is if you wanted to do real turntablism, they were not really that steady. There were a little bit too late. So even if you had the tone, and arm settings, everything was set heavy, so it would put the most pressure on the vinyl. It was still not enough.
So with more deejays would do is they would start putting coins on top of the head shelf to make it heavier to stay on the vinyl. And that worked. But it would cause more wear and tear on when your needles. Now after that, I used another needle by Stanton.
STANTON 890 SA
This is the Stanton 890 SA it was a little bit bigger, a little bit heavier, and a little bit more suitable for scratching. And I use that for quite a while because it definitely performed pretty well.
Needles evolved and more needles started to come that were really specifically made for scratching, turntablism, and again, sticking with Stanton. Stanton ruled for a long time.
STANTON 520SK CRAZE
Stanton 520SK. But it’s the signature craze, DJ craze needle. And you can imagine that if a company does a collaboration with a turntable, then the product is made for turntablism.
And in this case, these work really well for scratching and beat juggling. So use that for quite a while as well.
ORTOFON CONCORDE PRO S
After that, I have to say that for a long time I switched to Ortofon, we used to call these bananas because of their curved shape, and these Ortofon needles because they were really steady.
The Ortofon Concord was used also in a lot of clubs. They were really steady, they were really sticky on the vinyl, and they had a lot of grips if you can call it that. The only problem, again, with the turntable was that we didn’t just play the records.
We would be back spending, and queuing while moving back and forth. And because the needle has so much grip, it would just eat through the vinyl.
So they were steady, but they would cause a lot of damage to the vinyl.
Now that changed over the years and these more modern Ortofon models performed really well.
ORTOFON Q-BERT S-120
This is Ortofon concord Q-Bert. So you can imagine this is made for scratching and works really well. And one that I use most of the time now is the Ortofon Q-Bert S-120 model, and that’s their collaboration with Serrano. These were designed specifically for use with Serrano.
DJ Q-BERT ORTOFON CONCORDE CARTRIDGE
Do we really perform better than, for instance, that Ortofon Qbert needle?
In my opinion no. You can check out the websites to see all the technical info.
I’ve done a real side-by-side comparison to see if one performed better than the other. The q-Bert were just my favorites. So I use this Ortofon Q-Bert for the last couple of years.
SHURE M44-7
I have to show you a different model. This is probably my most used needle and this is considered by a lot of these to be the best turntablism scratch needle.
That’s the Shure M447. Real steady performs great has good audio quality quite loud and in my opinion definitely maybe next to that Ortofon S-120. The Shure M447 and Ortofon S-120 are my favorite needles and the best needles for turntablism and just scratching.
ORTOFON CONCORDE DJS
And I have to mention one more turntable needle and it is the Ortofon DJ S.
This one had the same type of needle as those Ortofon bananas, but they made it so that it would stay on a normal hatch shell, because the only problem with the Ortofon bananas, the build quality on the little handle was not that good.
And a lot of times this would break you would have no good way to lift your needle off the record. So that’s a quick little history lesson when it comes to mind needle use. If you’re not familiar with the term hard shell, a needle.
Just in case you don’t know, the hard shell is the part that you screw onto the tonearm of the turntable. The needle is the part in front with that little point that actually touches the vinyl.
So like I said, no best needle just showed you my favorite needles and you have something to look at where you go and buy a needle. I hope this info helps you out.
