A disc jockey (abbreviated DJ, D.J. or deejay) is a person who plays recorded music for an audience, either a radio audience if the mix is broadcast or the audience in a venue such as a bar or nightclub. In venues such as a club event or rave, this is an audience of dancers. Originally, "disc" (uncommonly spelled "disque" in French or commonly "disk" in American English) referred to phonograph records, not the later compact discs.
Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter which medium is used (e.g. vinyl, CDs, MP3 players). The title "DJ" is also commonly used by DJs in front of their real names or adopted pseudonyms as a title to denote their profession and the music they play (e.g. DJ HYPE) who is a close friend of mine and is still currently the number 1 Drum and bass DJ in the UK. He also has a weekly show on Kiss FM.
DJ HYPE So where did it all start then? 59 years ago, a German 18 year old named Klaus Quirini accidentally stumbled across an idea that would change the lives of many to come after him. Whilst working as a journalist, he decided one night to visit a night club where the owner asked Qurini if he thought he could do a better job at playing the music. Quirini promptly said he could and took over the job.
He began his performance with the words, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ll flood the local now,” and he played a song about ships. The audience loved it and applauded frenetically to everything he put on. At the end of the night, the owner approached him and offered him 800 Deutschmarks per month, a lot of money in those days so soon after the war. About a year after, others like Quirini started popping up around Aachen and so the DJ was born.
In the 1960s, as nightclubs began to become common around the US and Europe, more specialised DJ equipment started to appear on the market. Arguably one of the most important club DJ techniques was beat matching. A DJ beat matches by either speeding up or slowing the song as they are about to bring the next song into the mix, so as to keep the tempo/beat the same.
Beat matching was made popular by a DJ called Francis Grasso at New Yorks Sanctuary night club.
In 1974 Techniques Turntables starting arriving in the night clubs, and this new piece of technology totally changed the way DJs operated. It had a direct drive motor, slips matts allowing DJs to be more creative and new styles of DJing started to emerge, including more precise beat matching, slip queuing and scratching.
These techniques are called turntablism. Techniques 1200 Originally released as a Hi-Fidelity consumer record player, since its release in 1974, they have remained the most trusted, reliable and standard DJ kit even till this day, and still remain highly sought after.
Drum Machine Rosie 1st DJ mixer 1965 In 1980, the Linn LM-1 (as seen above) was produced. Only 500 were made and cost $5000 each. Amongst the first people to own one was the group Human League, and it was also used by Prince to record Purple rain. Following the release of drum machines in 1980, House music began its rise sometime in the early 80s and became popular in Chicago in 1984.
In the late 80s, House Music started to dominate the charts and by the 90s, House and Acid house music was having a big effect all over night clubs Europe. More fusions of house music then started to appear, examples being deep house, progressive house, techno, and trance.
In 2007 a new technology known as controllerism began to appear. This involves digitally remixing, cueing exactly the same as turntables, but using DJ Software like Ableton, Traktor, and Serato. I am a big Serato fan and this is the software I currently use when I am playing out at gigs, clubs, parties and other events.
Digital, or eDJ as some like to call it, has made DJing so much easier now. DJs need to only carry minimal equipment, and all of their music library can be easily carried on a USB key, so there is no longer any need to carry heavy Vinyl DJ boxes around all of the venues.
Below is a Digital DJ set similar to what I use now.
Today, anyone can start down the road to becoming a DJ by just buying a simple controller and a laptop computer running Digital DJ software like Mix Vibes, Traktor, Serato (my Favorite) or Virtual DJ which is still free.
With the advent of the IPad, DJs can now remix tracks on the fly, building new tracks using digital software like Reason, Cubase and others that can be downloaded for free like Fruity Loops.
Technology has now totally revolutionised the way DJs operate today, and many now have their studios at home saving expensive studio hire time.
Keep Steeming.
