Where online do you buy your vinyl?

February 14, 2006 10:52 AM

DJs - where online do you buy your vinyl? I've had great experiences buying from Juno in the UK, but I'm looking for alternatives. Google turns up a bunch of stuff but if you have any personal recommendations or experience buying from other sites (especially North American ones) please share. I spin mostly club/deep/progressive house.
posted by BorgLove to media & arts (14 comments total)

For your style, Release Records and Plastic Fantastic for upfront stuff. Occasionally Satellite for the rest. Of course, there's Hard To Find and Vinyl DJ for out-of-print stuff.

I haven't bought that much vinyl lately, though. The price is getting to be a bit much. Mostly mp3s these days, which you can buy from most of the above, along with Beatport and Stompy.
posted by Oops at 11:12 AM on February 14, 2006

I've had problems with Satellite records, and I can't recommend them.

What I can recommend is DanceRecords.com

They've got a great interface and excellent UI. They ship fast, and you can sign up for new releases. My favorite thing to do is go to a specific Genre, then sort it by release date, and then it will play samples from every record in order. I just play that while I'm working, it gives me a really good feel for the types of new records coming out right now.
posted by djdrue at 11:30 AM on February 14, 2006

Don't have online buying experience I'm afraid, but to check stuff out I use nuloop a lot - they have little samples of all their - as they say in France - vinyls....
posted by forallmankind at 11:33 AM on February 14, 2006

Can I recommend you don't use Hard-To-Find.

For a start, they're expensive. Ridiculously so.

[alledgedly] Also, they have an extremely devil-may-care attitude to copyright and the like. The reason the have so much out-of-print stuff in stock, is that they press their own white label bootlegs - often putting a number of different tracks by different artists on the same vinyl in order to save (themselves) money. I ordered an old Green Velvet track a few years back, and received a very poor quality bootleg with other artists tracks on the other side.[/alledgedly]

Juno are the best.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 12:33 PM on February 14, 2006

Check out Boomkat. I buy from them all the time, vinyl always comes in great shape.
posted by lovejones at 1:16 PM on February 14, 2006

Planet X has always been good to me. I don't recommend Satellite Records at all. Terrible customer service.
posted by discokitty at 1:41 PM on February 14, 2006

I'm a trance/progressive dj and my favorite favorite favorite store is:

Chemical Records

They get tons of upfront releases, have excellent turnaround time and good customer service. Out of all the online stores that I've purchased from, they are the only ones I have never had a problem with.

Also, I recommend Beatport and DJ Download for digital downloads.
posted by empath at 1:52 PM on February 14, 2006

Some more US shops:
Vital Vinyl
planetxusa: used to have a minimum order amount, maybe still do
Submerge: detroit techno/house
Wax Addict: Chicago storefront w/ online sales, site down right now??
Evolving Records: never bought from them, but know folks who do
611 Records: Philly techno, house, progressive.

I might also plug a forum on discogs that I'm helping moderate to keep track of record shops by city around the globe. It's about a month old, so we're hoping it keeps on growing...
posted by p3t3 at 1:53 PM on February 14, 2006

Oh, and ditto on not shopping at Satellite. I stopped shopping there years ago, and from what I have heard, they haven't improved a bit.
posted by empath at 1:54 PM on February 14, 2006

Also -- Don't sleep on Tower Records. Most of them have a vinyl section and you can pick up some really good tracks there from time to time, especially the Ultra Records releases. I picked up a half dozen singles the last time I dropped by there.
posted by empath at 1:56 PM on February 14, 2006

Great suggestions. Lots of new places to check out! Thanks, everyone.
posted by BorgLove at 2:02 PM on February 14, 2006

one that hasn't been mentioned is forced exposure, and i also have had good luck with bent crayon. both north american.
posted by dytiq at 2:17 PM on February 14, 2006

As a junglist my main sources are different, but I've had good experiences with the above-mentioned Chemical Records and especially Planet X (for many years now).
posted by First Post at 3:41 PM on February 14, 2006

I echo the recommendation for Release. Those guys are fucking fantastic, at least in the physical store.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:13 PM on February 14, 2006