Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The following information was gathered from many websites. I gathered it and put it all together
here to shed light on what dj¶s are, to lightly touch on the history, and the equipment they use.
Great for noobs or veterans. This info also includes terminology DJ¶s use other than the
original words (i.e. ± Records = wax). Also, following each article of information are general
recommendations on ³quality´ equipment, etc. Remember the phrase, ³You get what you pay
for.´« especially with DJ equipment. If anyone finds errors or feels any information need be
changed, please send me a PM with your recommendations and I will review it.
(disc jockey)? -
A DJ is a person who selects and plays prerecorded music for an audience, either on radio,
online content in the form of podcasts or web-based radio shows (see websites), or at a club.
There are several types of DJs: radio DJs play music that is broadcast on AM, FM, shortwave
or digital radio stations; club DJs select and play/mix music in a club, disco, a rave, or even a
stadium; and mobile disc jockeys travel with mobile sound systems and play from an extensive
collection of pre-recorded music. (Including but not limited to: weddings, private parties, etc)
$ is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using turntables and a DJ
mixer. The term was created in 1994 by DJ Supreme to describe the difference between a DJ
who just plays records, and one who actually performs, by touching and moving the records to
manipulate sound. The word was never meant to be the actual title of the art form. It was
regularly stated as an example, while explaining the need for a new word to describe a newly
emerging and totally unique instrumental art form. The intention was for the original creators of
the art form to brainstorm and decide on a title. While the idea of the need for a new word
spread, some DJs just began to use the example word "turntablist" before the originators had a
chance to proclaim an actual title.
DJ Babu has defined a turntablist as "One who has the ability to improvise on a phonograph
turntable. One who uses the turntable in the spirit of a musical instrument;" while the
Battlesounds documentary film suggests a definition of:"A musician, a disc jockey who in a
live/spontaneous situation can manipulate or restructure an existing phonograph recording (in
combination with an audio mixer) to produce or express a new composition that is
unrecognizable from its original ingredients."
Turntablist DJs use turntable techniques like beat mixing/matching, scratching, and beat
juggling. Turntablism is generally focused more on turntable technique and less on mixing.
Some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as legitimate musicians capable of
interacting and improvising with other performers.
All of which rose from the phonograph, or gramophone, which was the most common device
for playing recorded sound from the 1870s through the 1980s. (Google it)
%
$
&"$ In a belt drive turntable the motor is located under and to the side of the platter
and is connected to the platter by an elastometric belt.
The design of the belt drive turntable allows the use of a less expensive motor than the direct-
drive turntable.
# The elastometric belt absorbs motor vibrations which would otherwise be picked up by
the stylus. Problems with belt instability and deterioration in the past have largely been solved
by use of modern elastic polymers.
$# Over time the drive belt can wear or lose elasticity, and begin to slip, causing variations
in the platter speed. In addition, belt drive turntables have much lower torque; the belt can also
slip off the motor and/or platter spindle, and are thus not suitable for turntablism. DJs who
scratch or mix generally prefer to use direct-drive turntable.
&': In a direct drive turntable the motor is located directly under the center of the
platter and is connected to the platter directly. The first commercially available direct-drive
turntable, the model SP-10, was introduced by the Technics division of Matsushita in 1969.
$# The sole disadvantage to direct drive turntables over belt-drive turntables is vibration
from the motor.
# Shock-absorbing (less dense) material, placed between the motor and platter, has been
used to cut back on vibrations. Since the motor is directly connected to the platter, the torque is
usually much higher than in the belt drive models (stronger motor). Higher torque means the
platter speed is less susceptible to outside forces (stylus, hand). Higher torque also means the
platter will accelerate to its proper speed faster so less distortion is heard when the record
begins to play.
Each turntable brand has a different turntable model with different specifications. (Technics,
Numark, Vestax, Gemini, etc.) Research before you buy and look at specifications of whatever
TT you¶re interested in. Technics have been around for a long time and are trusted by DJ¶s
across the world. Numark¶s however picked up Tech¶s patent and added on with their TTx1
model, however they haven¶t been around as long therefore, haven¶t ³proven´ themselves to
some DJ¶s. In the end, it¶s up to what you¶re comfortable with. Let nobody tell you otherwise.
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07-07-07, 01:38 AM #l
# (board) -
Coffey A DJ mixer is a type of audio mixing console used by DJ. The key features that
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differentiate a DJ mixer from other types of audio mixers are the ability to redirect
(cue) a non-playing source to headphones and the presence of a crossfader, which
allows for an easier transition between two sources.
A typical modern DJ mixer generally has between two and six stereo channels for
connecting and mixing audio sources. Each channel usually has a phono input with
RIAA* equalization for turntables and one or two line level inputs for sources such
as CD players. Controls for individual channels are arranged in vertical columns
(channel strips), starting with a switch or a knob selecting between the inputs.
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$$is a signal produced at a very low level by a magnetic phono cartridge
which must be amplified and equalized. Phonograph recordings are made with high
frequencies boosted. This reduces background noise, including clicks or pops, and
also conserves the amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing
the size of the larger low-frequency undulations. During playback the high
frequencies are rescaled to their original level. This is accomplished in the amplifier
with a "PHONO" input that incorporates standardized RIAA equalization circuitry.
$$is a term used to denote the strength of an audio signal used to transmit
analog sound information between audio components such as CD and DVD
players, TVs, audio amplifiers, and mixing consoles.
The strength of the various signals does not necessarily correlate with the output
voltage of a device; it also depends on the source's output impedance, or the
amount of current available to drive different loads.
*c*)!# (cans)-
Headphones let the DJ listen to any channel in the headphones independently of
what is playing on the speakers, allowing the DJ to beatmatch the records by ear;
this became the defining feature of DJ mixers.
+$$ $$
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# c#&
A slipmat is a circular piece of slippery cloth or synthetic materials used by disk
jockeys instead of the traditional rubber mat.
Unlike the rubber mat which is made to keep hold the record firmly in sync with the
rotating platter, slipmats are designed to slip on the platter, allowing the DJ to
manipulate a record on a turntable while the platter continues to rotate underneath.
This is useful for holding a record still for slip-cueing, making minute adjustments
during beatmatching and mixing and pulling the record back and forth for scratching.
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07-07-07, 01:39 AM #ö
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0 (popular digital formats)
ö MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular
audio encoding format. It uses a lossy compression algorithm that is designed to
greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording (unlike
.wav¶s), yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio
to most listeners. It was invented by a team of European engineers at Philips,
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Location: Orlando Fraunhofer Society, who worked in the framework of the EUREKA 147 DAB digital
Posts: 2,520 radio research program, and it became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.
Track: Too Many To List MP3 is an audio-specific format. The compression takes off certain sounds that
cannot be heard by the listener, i.e. outside the normal human hearing range. It
provides a representation of pulse-code modulation±encoded audio in much less
space than straightforward methods, by using psychoacoustic models to discard
components less audible to human hearing, and recording the remaining
information in an efficient manner.
0 (or WAVE), short for Waveform audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio
file format standard for storing audio on PCs. It is a variant of the RIFF bitstream
format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus also close to the IFF and the
AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. It is the main
format used on Windows systems for raw audio.
Though a WAV file can hold compressed audio, the most common WAV format
contains uncompressed audio in the pulse-code modulation (PCM) format. PCM
audio is the standard audio file format for CDs at 44,100 samples per second, 16
bits per sample. Since PCM uses an uncompressed, lossless storage method,
which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts
may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited
and manipulated with relative ease using software.
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1#2 $# (digital)
Digital DJ systems / programs allow manipulation and playback of digital audio files
(mp3, wav, aiff, ogg) using traditional vinyl turntables or CD players via special
timecode vinyl records or CDs. It seeks to cross the divide between the versatility of
digital audio and the tactile control of vinyl turntablism.
Concept: Special vinyl records (or cd¶s) pressed with a digital timecode are played
on normal turntables. The timecode signal is interpreted by a computer, connected
to the turntables through an interface (soundcard or some sort usually.) The signal
represents where the stylus is on the record, in which direction it is traveling, and at
what speed. This information is interpreted by the computer and used to play back a
digital audio file which has been 'mapped' to the turntable.
In practical terms, this means that any audio file can be manipulated as though it
were pressed on vinyl. This has a great many advantages for DJs, not least that a
laptop computer can often hold tens of thousands of audio files, whilst a record box
has a decidedly smaller capacity and is much heavier.
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07-07-07, 01:41 AM #ù
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%%'3/4
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07-07-07, 01:42 AM #
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,
a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content,
technique, or the like. In all art forms, genres are vague categories with no fixed
boundaries. Genres are formed by sets of conventions, and many works cross into
multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. The scope
of the word "genre" is usually confined to art and culture, particularly literature. In
genre studies the concept of genre is not compared to originality. Rather, all works
Join Date: Oct 2006 are recognized as either reflecting on or participating in the conventions of genre.
Location: Orlando Following this definition, think of the many MANY combinations that are possible
Posts: 2,520 within EDM / Electronic music.
Track: Too Many To List Bellow are many genres of EDM in no specific order.
($$) A number of compilations with "Chill Out" in their titles were released in
the mid-1990s and beyond, helping to establish the genre as being very closely
related to downtempo and trip hop but also incorporating, especially in the early
2000s, slower varieties of house music, nu-jazz, psybient, and lounge music. The
genre also includes some forms of trance music, ambient music, and IDM, and it
has entirely subsumed the older genre Balearic Beat, although that term is still used
interchangeably with chill out. Chill out (sometimes called "soft techno") is generally
tonal, relaxing (or at least not as "intense" as other music from the styles it draws
from), and generally does not incorporate music that emphasizes "hard," "deep," or
particularly hypnotic rhythms, although when used to describe the music played in
chillout rooms at raves, it can also encompass extremely psychedelic experimental
sounds of great variety.
5" 2
$ Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to d&b, DnB, dnb,
drum n bass and drum & bass) is a type of electronic dance music also known as
jungle. Emerging in the early 1990s, the genre is characterized by fast tempo
broken beat drums (generally between 160±180 beats per minute) with heavy, often
intricate basslines. Today, drum and bass is still considered an underground
musical style, but its currents of influence run throughout popular music and culture.
Drum and bass began as an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore
and rave scene of the late 1980s, and over the first decade of its existence there
have been many permutations in its style, incorporating elements from ragga,
dancehall, electro, funk, hip hop, house, jazz, heavy metal, reggae, rock, techno
and trance.
5, The genre typically uses dark, minor key sounds, but the major
distinguishing elements of dubstep are an almost omnipresent subbass, use of
samples, the fact it is largely instrumental, and a characteristic propulsive, sparse
rhythm. Dubstep rhythms are usually syncopated, and often shuffled or
incorporating triplets. The tempo is nearly always in the range of 138-142bpm.
Dubstep rhythms typically do not follow a four-to-the-floor pattern similar to many
other styles of electronic dance music, but instead tend to miss out beats and repeat
sets of two bars rather than single bars. Often, the rhythm will follow a pattern which
when played alone will appear to be playing at half the tempo of the track, but the
double-time feel is achieved by other elements, usually the bassline (a prime
example being Skream's Rottan, which features a very sparse rhythm, comprised
almost entirely of kick drum, snare drum, and very occasional hi-hat, with a distinctly
half time feel implying a 69bpm tempo; the track is propelled by a constant subbass
following a four to the floor 138bpm pattern)
* House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by
dance club DJs in the midwestern United States city of Chicago in the early to mid-
1980s. House music is strongly influenced by elements of the late 1970s soul- and
funk-infused dance music style of disco. House music takes disco's use of a
prominent bass drum on every beat and developed a new style by mixing in a heavy
electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop
samples, and reverb (or delay)-enhanced vocals.
$'*Electro house (also known as dirty house, electrotech, and often
shortened to electro) is a subgenre of house music that rose to become one of the
most prominent genres of electronic dance music in 2004-06. Stylistically, it
combines the four to the floor beats commonly found in House music with
harmonically rich analogue basslines, abrasive high-pitched leads and the
occasional piano or string riff. The tempo of electro house ranges approximately
from 125 to 135 bpm.
$'
' A style of music which allows easy focus on rhythmic elements that
seem to be made of the most necessary sounds in order to create momentum that
flows with long tonal passages. Every element of sound in electronica is usually
very clear, and therefore works in this genre are usually very well crafted with great
attention to detail.
*
' The tempo within Hard Dance usually ranges from 135 BPM (Techno)
to 180 BPM (Freeform Hardcore). Hard Dance is an umbrella term that refers to the
grouping of modern electronic dance music genres including Hard House, Nu-NRG,
Hard-NRG, Hard Trance, Hardstyle, Jumpstyle & Freeform Hardcore. UK Hardcore
& UK Techno is often included in this capacity. the style of music is one where the
lines between some of the above mentioned genres are so blurred that it becomes
near impossible to attribute it to one genre. A common example would be a Hard
House / Hard Trance cross-over.
*&* Typically, hip hop music consists of rhythmic lyrics making use of
techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by
an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat", performed by a DJ, created by
a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. Historically, this beat has often been
created using a sample of the percussion break of another song: usually funk and
soul recordings have been utilized. However, in recent years, it has become more
common for the beat to be built up from individual drum samples. In addition to the
beat, other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a
track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer.
$'
A minimalist sub-genre of Techno music, is characterized by a
stripped-down, glitchy sound, simple 4/4 beats (usually around 120-135 BPM),
repetition of short loops, and subtle changes. Related styles include Detroit techno,
ambient techno, microhouse and tech house.
Minimal techno features consonant harmony, but most tracks lack functional chord
progression, sometimes to the point of seeming atonal. Melodies, when present, are
usually short loops of one or two bars, and emphasis is put on creating layers of
unique sounds. Musical development is achieved mostly by adding or removing
instruments (sounds) on eight-bar phrase boundaries and adjusting sound effects.
Music created under this genre can range from melodic beautiful harmonies with a
prominent bass line, to glitchy, unstructured, disjointed sounds which are unified to
create an organized new track.
* Consists of the 4-to-4 beat of house music with deeper, dub-
influenced basslines and a more melancholic, emotional edge. Often, it featured
elements from many different genres mixed together. Song of Life, for instance, has
a trip-hop like down-pitched breakbeat and a high-energy Roland TB-303 riff at
various stages.
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&
' Psychedelic trance generally has a fast tempo, in the range 135 to 150
Coffey BPM. The emphasis in psychedelic trance is placed strongly on purely synthesized
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timbres for programming and lead melodies. This form of electronic music
developed from Goa trance in the early 1990s when it first began hitting the
mainstream.
'A style of electronic music that developed in the 1990s. Trance music is
generally characterized by a tempo of between 130 and 150 bpm, featuring
repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and down
throughout a track, often crescendoing or featuring a breakdown. Sometimes vocals
are also utilized. The style is arguably derived from a combination of largely
electronic music such as ambient music, techno, and house. 'Trance' received its
name from the repetitious morphing beats, and the throbbing melodies which would
presumably put the listener into a trance-like state.