Can someone explain DJing to me? And "remixes," too

Cafe Society
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I have a few questions:
Why is it that a DJ, will have dozens of records on the stage with him, but will walk on the stage with one in his hand (I just watched Awesome I F**king Shot That) as if it’s his only record and he has to make sure it doesn’t get lost. You’d think this would be an easy way for it to get lost or broken. Is there something sepcial about that record?

Second, I’ll sometimes see pieces of tape on the records, I always assumed that had something to do with lining it up, but does that mean that the record has the same thing over and over and over on it, each time starting at the same point?

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I don’t understand why all this isn’t done by computer, where you could get millisecond accuracy for synchronizing beats and tonal perfection for matching pitches.

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[QUOTE=Liberal]
I don’t understand why all this isn’t done by computer, where you could get millisecond accuracy for synchronizing beats and tonal perfection for matching pitches.
[/QUOTE]

The same reason that you could create the next Aerosmith song by computer as well, using software to create exact rhythms and melodies that you want without physically touching an instrument. It’s an artform.

There are DJs who do the only thing by computer. I met a guy last weekend in South Beach who flies to Mexico for one weekend a month to DJ on a oceanfront lounge. Instead of hauling a crate of 200 records, he has them all ripped to his laptop. He then has a controller that his turntables hook into, which in turn hooks into his computer. He places blank vinyl discs on the turntables, then can cue what “song” he digitally wants to assign to each turntable, and then he can mix/blend/etc just like the actual record is on there.

There are also programs that pretty much do it for you too, you assign a song to a virtual turntable on your screen, and one on the other, and then the computer does the whole mixe for you, but then you are staring at an LCD screen the whole time instead of playing to the crowd. The other thing is that it’s just FUN to create a mix when you are physically manipulating the instruments, just like playing a song live, instead of just clicking on a mouse.

Joey–usually records with small pieces of tape on them are “battle” records, they have only samples or drum loops. Let’s say there is a record with a couple hundred various spoken samples on them. The DJ finds 10 that he might want to loop into a mix, or scratch with, if he is a scratch DJ. He will usually put small pieces of tape(often like the old little numbers that came in blank VHS tapes) at the exact spots on the records where those 10 samples happen to be. He doesn’t have time to search for them when he decides it’s time to put them into the mix.

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[QUOTE=Joey P]
I have a few questions:
Why is it that a DJ, will have dozens of records on the stage with him, but will walk on the stage with one in his hand (I just watched Awesome I F**king Shot That) as if it’s his only record and he has to make sure it doesn’t get lost. You’d think this would be an easy way for it to get lost or broken. Is there something sepcial about that record?

Second, I’ll sometimes see pieces of tape on the records, I always assumed that had something to do with lining it up, but does that mean that the record has the same thing over and over and over on it, each time starting at the same point?
[/QUOTE]

On your first question, I’ve never seen that, but I can hazard a couple of guesses. Either it’s the record he absolutely wants to open his mix with, and maybe the outgoing DJ is playing a different style, and that particular record will make a good transition, or, what I would be most inclined to believe, is that is was a white label promo copy that he didn’t want anyone else to see before he put it on. Usually when a producer makes a new track, they will do a test press of 10, or 50, or 200 records, and send those out to DJs, looking for feedback. It will often say on a liner note that any DJ caught giving out the song, ripping it to MP3, putting it into a downloadable mix, etc, will be taken off the promo list. I just bought a breaks/electro collection from a DJ in south FL who was a resident at one of the biggest clubs there for years, and he put all the promos in there. When it says 1 of 50, that means that in the entire world, only 50 clubs are sent a copy of this song to play until it hits mainstream release. This way, certain clubs can be known for having “better” music than other. IF the track is ridiculously hot, and the DJ knows that, often they will do anything to hide the info on the promo so no other DJs who happen to be watching can figure out who or what the track is.

A DJ is known by basically his skill and his catalogue, so songs that are hot that they can put into a mix that no one else can become very valuable to them.

I was at a afterhours party here with 4 of the bigger house DJs in town a few weeks ago, and one of them (who is about to release his first CD) was about to load his CDs in (they were using Pioneer CD turntables), and a girl asked him,“why don’t you let the other guys use your music, you always have the best music” and his reply was,“because I always have the best music”

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[QUOTE=Chronos]
We’re not talking about the guys you hire for a wedding reception here, are we? That’s what I usually think of as a “DJ”, but this art form you’re talking about doesn’t seem to have more than a vague superficial resemblance to that.
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Actually the DJ that did my wedding was probably the best I have ever seen for that purpose. We picked the music and there was no chicken dance or any of that. What made him good was that he did some mixing also at appropriate points that sounded great, cool, and sometimes funny.

He also served as a great MC which I think is another skill good DJs need to have. A bad DJ will just mumble to everyone to get out on the dance floor every once in a while. A good one can control the crowd just through music and showmanship.

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[QUOTE=Capa84]
On your first question, I’ve never seen that,
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It was the Beastie Boys, at a concert. He was walking though the tunnels from the dressing room to the stage with a record in his hand.

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[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Actually the DJ that did my wedding was probably the best I have ever seen for that purpose. We picked the music and there was no chicken dance or any of that. What made him good was that he did some mixing also at appropriate points that sounded great, cool, and sometimes funny.

He also served as a great MC which I think is another skill good DJs need to have. A bad DJ will just mumble to everyone to get out on the dance floor every once in a while. A good one can control the crowd just through music and showmanship.
[/QUOTE]

Well, for a wedding DJ mic-work replaces beatmatching in terms of the most difficult part of the job (for a lot of people, anyway).

I’ve also DJ’d for years, and I figured I’d chime in with some of my experience.

Hip-Hop is much more difficultto beatmatch than techno, IMHO. Most hip-hop records/CDs don’t have any extra beats, which leaves very little room for error when you’re trying to mix two songs together. In addition it always seemed to me that it was a lot more noticeable when I was slightly off on my timing because of the broken up beats they use (as compared to techno’s dum-dum-dum-dum style).

A bad DJ at a club is noticeable to everyone; the difference between a mediocre and a great DJ is really hard to notice unless you are yourself a DJ or know what they’re supposed to be doing*. A great DJ will create an atmosphere with his music choices (called a “set”) and will keep a vibe going that will effectively make him the pied piper of the dancefloor, whereas a mediocre DJ is just up there playing music and is forced to rely on the inherent quality of the music for dancers to be having a good time.

As a DJ, everyone assumes I always had tons of wild, crazy sex in the booth; this was never the case. To be honest, having girls in the booth was extremely distracting and as much as I hated to do it I usually asked them to come back at the end of the night, or leave me with their number. When I was DJing I’d have to focus on reading the vibe on the floor in order to make a decision as to what song I should play next, and having a girl grabbing my crotch was waaaay too distracting.

While beatmatching is a big part of DJing, having technical skill does not make a good DJ. DJing is about 75% playing the right song at the right time (i.e. reading the crowd), and 25% technical skill.

Lastly, after having DJ’d hip-hop, various kinds of techno, and retro-dance nights, I found that the retro nights were by far and away the most fun and resulted in the best crowd response. Maybe I just have a knack for retro, though… TMMV :slight_smile: