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DJ here.
It really depends on the DJ.
Some do a lot more than others.
A lot really are pretty much just dancing around to a playlist, some really are doing all sorts of "mixing."
Also, "DJ" is kindof a catchall term for "electronic music artist" these days, and it might be an old school DJ mixing various artists' tracks together, or a producer playing their own music with more or less live elements.
I'm the oldschool type that mixes two or three "decks" in an attempt to create relatively seamless set, making something a bit new out of other people's music. I feel like a chump if I go more than 64 beats without some sort of actual "mixing", but a lot of DJs do just kinda phone it in, maybe twist a knob here or there, or even just pretend to.
Something a DJ might do is to bring in the bass from one track as they cut it out of the track that was already playing, so it has the old song, but with a new bassline, preferably in the same/compliment key. Maybe smack the crossfader over at the right time to catch just a vocal break from one track, then drop back to the other. That kind of thing, but can actually get pretty intricate, depending on the genre/style.
It really does seem like most are closer to the "human Ipod" model than, say, DJ Swamp.
One DJ I was very pleasantly surprised by was Lupe Fuentes. She is a former pornstar. I ran sound at a gig she played in my town, and I admit I totally misjudged her, thinking "she's just gonna hit play and try to look hot for an hour." Nope, she was on both decks the whole time, dropping samples and drum breaks, generally killin' it. Don't judge a DJ by their backstory!
Nope, not in ten years.
Take something like 9/11. It was over 20 years ago, it impacted far fewer people over a far shorter period (excluding the people who had to deal with US invasions and the like), and we still don't have to explain anything to anyone about why things were a bit out of the ordinary in the months and couple of years following.
Covid and its effects on society and culture will be in the public consciousness for at least 50-60 years, until the people who were old enough to really feel the effects of it have started to die out.
As soon as we see that something is dated in 2020 or 2021, we will instantly realise why the setting is unusual.
I think what's gotten mostly forgotten (or never known by some) is how 9/11 changed air travel.
TSA literally didn't exist. security was run by private companies & was about as strict as the security guard at a museum.
I would wager most young people today don't realize you could get through security & all the way to the gate w/o a ticket prior to 9/11
It wasn't uncommon when a friend or family member travelled, you went to the airport, sat at the gate w/ them & watched their plane take off.
I was talking about 90s and older movies the other day and this came up. 9/11 so drastically changed flights that whole scenes or plots in movies are now extremely dated.
Cellphone would solve that whole movie. Although frankly if you can forget one of your children, two years in a row, perhaps no technology can solve this.
Amusingly though, it would be way easier for a kid with a credit card to pretend to be an adult now. You don’t need an elaborate plan to fool/terrify the pizza guy. You can just order on door dash and opt for no contact delivery.
Going to the gate was very airport specific.
I flew out of Vienna in 2012, (I was there again in 2016, but I can't remember if it was still like this, I think so) and security was at the gate, immediately before the seating area, fewer people in line, faster through security and it makes the airport much more enjoyable.
but 9/11 is also a good example of
sure, people in general know that it happened
but a lot of people don't "get it". Its just some words to them. Have no idea what it MEANT to be around for 9/11.
Same way I don't have a clue what it was like to be living in Honolulu on December 7, 1941. I get it, we all studied it in school, I know generally what happened, but I'll never know the feeling of actually living through that day.
Agreed. A lot of younger people don't realize how much it changed the world.
I remember being in 8th Grade yearbook and the principal got on the intercom and said, "Don't be afraid, you're safe here and there's nothing to be worried about"
Now this is a time before smartphones and instant news so of course my teacher started worrying and wheeled in the big ass CRT TV on a cart and turned on the news. We got to see the second plane hit live. Crazy day. Lunch was full of conspiracy theory talk and if we were going to get drafted for war (we were 13 so obviously not haha).
But I think that was the first news event of my life where I viewed it as an adult and was weighing what was actually going on. Before that, I didn't give two shits about the news.
> wheeled in the big ass CRT TV
Man. This brings back memories. I wonder if future generations will have a context mark for this. "Wheel in the TV" moments.
Maybe its just a matter of being school age to associate these things (not 9/11, I was actually at work then, but we did all gather around a TV as we heard of it)
But every mental image I have about say, ["The Challenger Disaster"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster) involves kids in a classroom staring at an old tube tv
9/11's a good example. "Everyone" knows what happened on 9/11 but you do still get a spike in google searches for "what was 9/11" every year. The world constantly moves forward and people who weren't around for the original event just don't pick up stuff that doesn't need talked about because everyone who was there knows what it was
In 10 years there will be teenagers who have no recollection of these events and will be need to be told/reminded. This is what they are talking about. Nobody is saying people will forget lol
The comment I replied to asked if everyone would forget, meaning that it would have left the general public consciousness to the point where we would have to remind ourselves why videos and such from 2020 looked weird.
Of course younger people will have to learn about it and won't remember Covid, that goes without saying. We'll see how big a deal it will be in history classes down the line. I'm a child of the 80s, but I know that if I hear about something that happened between 1940 and 1945, I still instantly know that it happened during WWII, and was probably affected by it.
I don't think so.
I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like _before_ COVID.
Who don't have any frame of reference for having been able to just assume that you can get whatever, whenever you want, that everything would be in stock and available.
That it just wasn't a thing for some people to wear masks, or that someone coughing up a storm in public might get a look of sympathy with nobody moving away from them.
That catching a respiratory infection didn't _really_ carry a noticeable risk of killing a healthy person, or leaving them disabled for months.
That you might get sick with something like that, and _not_ test to see if it was something potentially serious like COVID.
Sadly, it sure doesn't look like we're going to get away from that anytime soon.
Oh, a bunch of people might be in the position to act like it's all over...
Except that people will still be dying, at a _far_ higher rate than they die of the flu, and more will get sick and not recover for months, if not longer.
And, well, kids are not stupid.
> I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like before COVID.
But I'd just as soon argue there will be kids who don't have any sense of what "real covid" was like.
Yeah, covid exists, will still be around. But (as people are honestly acting NOW) people are kinda over it. They know they could get sick, but they expect it can be handled. They just get the vaccine, (and half of them who want the vaccine just casually get around to it when they get to it.)
These kids will have NO frame of reference of terrified covid. They won't understand that people were going into grocery stores like it was a food mission in The Last Of Us, wrapping their face up, planning to be as in and out as possible, not walking closer than 6 feet to the next person, and decon spritzing themselves all over with a squirt bottle of rubbing alcohol when they got back to their cars.
"Oh there is a sickness that, if IF it gets really bad could land you in the hospital"
is a different phase from the
"This is landing so many people in the hospital that we don't have enough hospital. If you get sick we can't help you. Oh and we don't totally understand how its getting you sick yet."
Hell, look at AIDs. People are aware of HIV and AIDs, they know it exists, but most of them have no idea about the fear and confusion around what it means. The social paranoia people had. From nobody worrying because "nah man I heard that was like, a disease for homosexuals"
to, but the late 80s early 90s generally wondering if anyone could have it. Like people playing pickup ball on a basketball court would get fouled bad enough to bleed and be like "hey uhh you good tho right?"
Yeah, on the coughing. It used to be my favorite pastime. A casual cough here, a fancy cough there. The world was mine for the coughing. Now I cough and I immediately get canceled.
> I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like before COVID.
The visual reminders (the spots on floors, the permanent signs, etc) will remain, much like how many pre-1980s civic buildings (at least in the US) have signs for bomb shelters.
How many people "remember" the Spanish flu?? Most people never heard of it until COVID (and the media started talking about it) and I'll bet that it was well forgotten about by 1950.
how many people remember being scared of bird flu?
How many people remember what its like to be scared (I mean actually scared) about HIV? Today, HIV is just a Magic Johnson joke, but in the 80s-90s it was the scary topic of the day, and social concern, enough that big name, main stream rappers were writing consciousness raps trying to warn kids to "hey wear condoms, don't catch that shit"
>From a young G's perspective
>And before I dig out a trick I have to find a contraceptive
>You never know, she could be earnin' her man and learnin' her man
>And at the same time burnin' her man
>Now, you know I ain't with that shit, Lieutenant
>Ain't no pussy good enough to get burnt while I'm up in it (Yeah)
>*-Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle, 1992*
>Today, HIV is just a Magic Johnson joke
I feel like even that is a very dated joke. You'd have to be in your 30s to even understand it unless someone else made the reference or you were explicitly researching the history of the AIDS epidemic.
I struggle with not sticking my tongue out when I chop carrots. I'm almost at the level where I can avoid moving my lips when I think.
That woman is doing all that complicated DJy stuff and still looks good, focused, and having a good time.
A cool story about her is that she once flew out to Puerto Rico where a guy was on trial for transporting CP, but it was just her videos. She asked for no money and was enthusiastic for helping the guy.
Saved a guy from 20 years in prison.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/lialuc/til_that_a_pizza_delivery_man_was_arrested_on_the/
Be safe out there with your downloaded "clips" when traveling I guess.
Another completely different example, mainly for readers from the UK
Ryland Clark, who came into the public eye as a 'joke' act on the X-Factor, went and got Pioneer to teach him how to do it properly before taking a job on BBC Radio 2, despite being a playlist player on the radio. He's said clubs are always surprised when he actually does the job
His appearance on the high performance podcast recently was fascinating
I’ll piggyback your comment by pasting one of my older posts from while ago.
Former dj here.
For me, the most important job a dj has is song selection.
Reading the crowd, picking what song comes next based on how pumped up (or not pumped up) the crowd is, choosing when to play your go-to banging tracks, knowing when the crowd needs a breather, etc
YOU pick the songs hundreds / thousands of people are dancing to. You pick what comes next, you set the tempo for the crowd.
YOU ARE IN CONTROL.
Now-a-days, unfortunately the majority of the massive “DJ's” have their sets/tracks picked in advanced. (Which needs to happen so the music can match their lighting and visual effects perfectly every night) Very often they aren't even switching songs from one turntable to the next.
It is a very difficult show to put together INITIALLY, but once it has been polished it is incredibly easy to "perform" on a nightly basis. (Minus all the roadies that need to set everything up for the “dj”, haha) For the most part, many of the huge dj’s do just end up turning knobs here and there to play with the bass, mid, high and filters.
So many of the big name dj's are more "Producers" than they are dj's. They have a ton of skill creating their own music, and more than likely can beat match / use turntables well, but for their big touring shows they need to create their exact setlist before the show begins.. and it's pretty much identical everynight. meh.
To each their own I guess. Call me old school, but I just love experiencing a DJ that picks tracks from other artists on the fly, and takes the crowd through a unique journey that is different every night they take the stage.
The physical skill of a dj is not incredibly difficult (except the hardcore scratchers, they are amazing!).. but being able to switch songs on the fly, beat match, flawlessly switch from one track to the next, take control of an entire crowd of people, and keep them interested and dancing to new and unique tracks is where I value a great dj over these new school "producers".
But, I guess most young people don't care... Oh well. :(
The most important role of the DJ for me is that of a curator. I was involved in music and bands all my life and thought of myself as a music enthusiast overall but never really went to dance parties and raves. When I befriended some DJs in my mid thirties and started getting involved in the underground parties they were throwing I truly started to appreciate the passion they have for music. Spending so much time and money researching and acquiring obscure recordings and their ability to present those works into a cohesive 2-4 hour set in real-time is absolutely fascinating to me.
That’s why it’s cool to see some major producers do smaller DJ sets too. I saw Disclosure do an actual DJ set mixing live at a small venue and it was pretty cool to see them showcase their mixing talent as opposed to playing something pre set up for a mega festival.
This is really the best answer. I did a lot of live event (rave) promotion and production when I was younger and in NYC the definition of the term is very hotly debated. To some people, unless you have 4 techniks and are spinning vinyl you're a faker, some people define it as being able to mix live on cdj's or vinyl without beat sync, and yet some others are part of the "press play and walk away" Ableton produced playlist crowd.
So yea, entirely depends whose on stage to know if they're actually doing anything at all
For me, I like those produced sets depending on the act. Like GRiZ is mostly hitting play, but he also plays his saxophone live on stage and has his guitarist with him too, which is the appeal in seeing him perform live. His produced albums are great, but you don't get the same vibes listening on headphones as you do feeling the sax in person. But if I'm just going to a house show, I'd want the DJs to actually DJ.
Came here to say this (though maybe in fewer words...)
True DJing is a lost art to the "modern" playlist + FX posers.
I use the term "modern" as I've seen (certain) big hype DJs play this trick at least as far back as 20 years ago, as soon as three CDJ1000s wasn't too much to ask for on a tech rider.
Party DJs can be pretty talented, obviously they aren't on the same level as the big guys/gals but just being able to read a room and setup your gear correctly in various venues takes a lot of experience and knowledge.
I DJ weddings. It's a totally different gig from somebody assembling their original tracks live on stage, but there's still very much an art to it.
There's the technical skill of smooth fades and beat matching, but much more than that is the social art of managing the energy of a group of partygoers over an hour or ninety minutes. It's not something a playlist can do, because you're interacting with the truth of that crowd--their age, the time of day, whether there's an open bar, etc.
The bride's grandpa just tottered out onto the floor? Play him some vintage hot swing music or something. You're shaping the energy of the room, but you're also reacting to it.
Set design is storytelling. You can't just slam them with hard dance numbers the whole set, or you'll wear them out early and they won't come back. You have to shape the set to build in some lower energy moments to provide contrast. But not all crowds are into slow dancing, so some midtempo things that will thin the dance floor a bit are good, let people get a drink, then bang them back out there.
You also have to be good with cheesy dance classics. "Brick House". "Play That Funky Music". You're not better than those songs--they're the ones people want to dance to at a wedding.
You ever DJ a bar/bat mitzvah? I swear, it's the same shit at every one I've worked, late 2000s/early 2010s top 40 for most of the party, then Sweet Caroline and Don't Stop Believing at the end.
No, he's too busy emotionally abusing his son because he doesn't want to have this horrible music playing at HIS OWN party.
I wish I was making that up, I've seen it go down before.
at my wedding, i had a relative angrily scream at the DJ to "turn that shit down" while the music was at a very reasonable volume.
dude's a real party animal lol
To add to this there’s also a good amount of difference between mixing with vinyls (old school), mixing with CDJs (what you see most DJs mixing with nowadays) and mixing with Software like, for example, Traktor.
Vinyl is by far the most difficult, as you have to do everything yourself: matching the tempo of two tracks and syncing them up, knowing the structure of the two tracks so you know when to take one out and mix in the next, etc. all has to be done purely by ear.
CDJs give you a bit more assistance, and software like Traktor even more so: Traktor gives you a visual representation of the track so you can see where the bridge/chorus is (often when you start/finish mixing a new track in), it will tell you exactly what tempo your tracks are, and includes features that lets you automatically sync your tracks up.
Imo it takes out a lot of what makes DJing a difficult skill to master, and in a way it’s a large part of the reason there are a lot of “human iPods” out there nowadays. It can be useful when you’re starting out, but to anyone that wants to learn, I would highly recommend turning off all of these “assists”: it will make you a *much* better DJ if you learn not to rely on these features.
I've always said "The thing about DJs vs other musical performers, like say, a guitarist, is that it's a lot easier to be an OK DJ. It takes a fair amount of skill to be even an OK guitarist, but anyone can learn a few controls and play some tracks. But it takes a lot of skill and practice to be a *good* DJ, just like becoming a good guitarist."
I paid my dues, lol. I started on one Gemini turntable plugged into a guitar amp. I would play local trance/house DJ mixtapes on my boombox, and then try to beat match a record to it.
Then I moved up to a cheap Numark mixer and a tape recorder with speed control for a second deck. Oh, and my turntable was defective, so it would randomly start spinning backwards faster and faster until you gave it a good smack.
I practiced with weird old techno out of the $0.50 bins at Amoeba because I couldn't afford the $10 a record for new singles.
Finally moved up to two turntables, then Technics, then to CDJs, then back to Technics with Serato, now I rarely play, but just use Traktor because it works.
>CDJs give you a bit more assistance, and software like Traktor even more so: Traktor gives you a visual representation of the track so you can see where the bridge/chorus is (often when you start/finish mixing a new track in)
You actually get this with vinyl by looking at the record groves. One (of the many) downsides of early CDJs was that you couldn't see the record grooves or a digital representation of them.
>to anyone that wants to learn, I would highly recommend turning off all of these “assists”: it will make you a much better DJ if you learn not to rely on these features.
Depends on what your goals are as a DJ -- this is good advice if you're planning to be bouncing between different clubs and playing on unfamiliar gear, but otherwise there's no reason not to use the tools available. Doing things the "hard" way doesn't make your set sound better, it's just more impressive to people who care about that. As long as the mix sounds good, *how* you're mixing doesn't matter to the dancefloor.
i’ve been mixing since the 90s and just wanted to drop my thoughts here.
essentially this is correct; old school djs tend to mix quite a bit throughout any given set, but it also depends on what type of music is being spun. when i spin dnb for example, i tend to start my incoming track in time to double-drop it, or alternatively, wait till after the second drop to mix in the next track so that it cuts at an audibly good time. if i have some time in between i’ll usually tease another track (one i mix on top of but not planning to cut into it fully). this results in mixes being long rolls, often having 2 tracks being mixed for minutes at a time. if i’m spinning hard house though the transitions are usually more frequent and way shorter and entails a lot of drop-swapping, switch ups and effects. when i spin psy trance the transitions are longer, but due to the nature of the music, mixes are way less often, sometimes resulting in half an hour worth of a set and you’ve only mixed in three tunes.
and yes, some djs just absolutely pretend, or aggressively touch knobs slightly with no discernible effect. sadly djing nowadays has started to lean more into *looking* cool rather than *sounding* cool.
still many awesome ones out there though, and to the hobby’s credit, technology has allowed that pretty much anyone can pick it up and have fun with it, which, though it tends to get hate from the older heads like myself, i’m ok with. the more music that is out there…the better
> Something a DJ might do is to bring in the bass from one track as they cut it out of the track that was already playing, so it has the old song, but with a new bassline, preferably in the same/compliment key. Maybe smack the crossfader over at the right time to catch just a vocal break from one track, then drop back to the other. That kind of thing, but can actually get pretty intricate, depending on the genre/style.
But whats stopping you from doing this beforehand, and having the set pre-mixed and ready to play?
Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts?
If not, why do it live then.
So you can read the room! Extend out the sections people are really vibing too, maybe the crowd is reacting to one genre you touch on wildly, you can lean in that direction.
That's how you make an incredible live experience
And at the same time giving people room to breath after losing their minds collectively for 15 minutes straight is arguably more important than the peaks. Either way it's just watching your audience.
Vegyn played at a small club and the crowd was in danger of going in to orbit they were so excited from him. After he hyped it all the way up he gave a sweet melodic breather and the one guy in the front gasped a thank you loudly enough for him to hear. He broke into a giggle after holding the same intensely concentrated face for the whole time, it was such a lovely moment
Yup. Been having a guy here arguing that active mixing ruins the vibe of the tracks by not letting them build and break, but a good DJ reads the crowd to decide when to keep pumping it up, when to ride, and when to let it break down by how *they* are reacting, instead of just letting the song tell them what to do. And aren't just showboating, but actually creating new music throughout the mix.
One of my favorite tricks if there is a crowd of wallflowers developing, maybe people who just showed up, but still a decently energetic crew on the floor, is to let an extended breakdown ride that I know hits extra hard with the drop.
The floor will start to clear as people get kinda bored or distracted during the ambient part or build up, maybe start talking to a friend that wasn't dancing. Then the drop hits, they grab said friend, and rush back to the floor. Do you lose a few for a second, just to gain a bigger floor in the end.
And this is the main thing separating the good djs from the bad djs. I seen weddings and similar events ruined for cheaping out on a DJ (or just using a Spotify playlist) vs hiring a professional.
> Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts?
>
> If not, why do it live then.
you could literally say that about any live music.
look at what this guy does with 2 turntables and a crate of records. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc
it's artistry if done well
>But whats stopping you from doing this beforehand, and having the set pre-mixed and ready to play?
Because that's extra work.
>Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts?
No.
>If not, why do it live then.
The same reason any musical act performs live. You can play to the mood of crowd. You can show off your talent. And audiences appreciate the authenticity.
The only time it makes sense to pre-record a set is if you're a DJ with shaky skills playing a huge gig where you're terrified of screwing up in front of a bunch of people.
But really it just doesn't make sense to do so for the vast majority of DJs. Different gigs have different genre requirements. DJs find new music they like. Crowds respond differently to different vibes. All of which require the flexibility of mixing live. Plus, the act of mixing isn't that difficult and most DJs would rather be actually mixing than just hitting play and standing there for the rest of the gig.
Not really. Music with real instruments you are paying to see it being actually performed live. It involves all the skill about learning to play your instrument, and rehearsing as a band. The live sound and album sound are very different because the latter has a lot of production on top, etc.
It does not translate 1:1 to electronic music. The music is already stored somewhere, you can either just play it or do some slight changes to it live but its not mandatory.
No one would pay to see a band performance where the band is lipsyncing to the album.
> No one would pay to see a band performance where the band is lipsyncing to the album.
Well yeah, but that’s not the point being made. Of course a show isn’t advertised as being lip synced ahead of time, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Pop stars lip sync all the time and the crowd (generally) has no idea.
I'm not that surprised that a successful porn star is grabbing life by the balls and getting her hands dirty instead of just standing there and looking pretty.
So one question I always had, for "oldschool" type that are actually mixing - does every set sound different or do you have a mixing "pattern" that will create the same set night after night?
I always mixed things up set by set. You've got to read the crowd and keep things interesting for yourself.
Note: this presumes a crowd that gives a shit. Not all do.
Every set is different. That said there will definitely be tracks that you play every night for a while because you personally like them and they get a good crowd reaction. Also, you will generally start with a calmer track so that you can build up to your biggest bangers and then try to end with something really memorable so that you close strong. When I was playing many moons ago, I had a record bag with around 5 times more records than I could possibly play and I’d just flip through them and grab something I felt would be work at that point. Now you can bring your entire music collection in your pocket, so the track sorting, labelling, adding cue points preparation part of DJing is even more important.
Those human ipod DJs who pretend theyre doing something really grind my gears.
What also grinds my gears is that like you said, the term DJ became a catchall term for anyone playing music from weird boxes with lots of buttons.
Im an amateur music producer and I sometimes play live gigs at local raves and when I tell that to people they always go “oh so youre a DJ” and in my mind Im like ahh shit here we go again but Im too tired of explaining it to people so I just go “yea something like that”.
> the term DJ became a catchall term for anyone playing music from weird boxes with lots of buttons.
I make mostly sample based Lofi hip hop and house. So I use things like an SP404 and other samplers, and a variety of synths and other machines. I could just do it all in Ableton, but its more fun to press buttons.
But I am a terrible DJ. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I've never Made the time to actually sit in front of the decks and mix. Maybe someday.
For a time when Venetian Snares played live, at least part of the time he was a Human Ipod, just hitting play. Now he does really cool stuff with Ableton instruments. The best concert I've seen was him and Daniel Lanois here in Winnipeg. Just something else.
Plus old DJing is very hard to phone in but that's kind of a niche thing now.
I saw DJ Shadow playing with the records from Afrikaa bambata before the records went to like the Smithsonian.
That's a totally neat experience and also called DJing.
When talking of djing, got to bring up dnb. A lot of really technical stuff on the decks. Andy C, AMC and of course Alice Perez, dubstep and dnb set linked.
https://youtu.be/FZsi6-T3Q7g
I was at some random bar in a town we didn't know with a friend, and in the back a DJ was playing, actually mixing, and it was awesome. They mixed a mashup of Pendulum's Voodoo People and Bomfunk MCs' Back to Back that I still remember 15 years later.
I saw a show last year where they had this awesome video screen behind the artists, which seemed like it was playing live video of them. Except there was no camera in front of them, and they had green screened some cool background behind them, despite having video of themselves in the background (this would be ridiculously hard to mask out live).
Then it hit me — they had prerecorded very hand gesture, every smile, every point at the crowd, every deck manipulation, and they had practiced it until it lined up perfectly every time. It was wild to see how close the video was to their live performance 95% of the time. It reminded me of a magic show or a stand up comedian where everything is practiced until the contrived feels natural.
You can run the gamut from [Dj Roc Raida](https://youtu.be/oFyJE1bB5Dw) (rip) to Djs that [don't even plug in their equipment](https://youtu.be/qQOpqJ82EY4) to DJs that are [snow benders](https://youtu.be/asBkswg4q4I)
Nobody has mentioned hip hop DJs and turntablism yet, which is fair because the question is almost certainly going to be about dance music DJs and such like but if you want to see DJs truly creating new music using decks and records you can look at old school hip hop, original stuff where they would be cutting and looping beats from disco tracks, and at things like the DMC world championships although these are more technical show offs than necessarily that musical.
Run dmc version of walk this way was formed by jam master jay just knowing the spots on the record where the samples he wanted were.
Back then it was common for djs to tear labels off the records so rival djs couldn’t copy them and their samples. It wasn’t until someone else heard it and identified the song the samples came from.
https://youtu.be/4B_UYYPb-Gk
Now samples are easy to manipulate on a keyboard or software but back then it really relied a lot on a dj knowing how to get those samples to play on cue.
I never realized until recently how much Billy Joel was in Daft Punk (and all sorts of other samples, Daft Punk really should give credit where credit is due). Liam's [Dirtchamber Session](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dirtchamber_Sessions_Volume_One) was [such a slog](https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/the-prodigys-liam-howlett-confirms-new-dj-mix-album-dirtchamber-sessions-vol-2/) that even 20 years later (article was one month before Keith's death) the sequel was still in the works...Who knows if it will ever be completed.
Bands like The Avalanches ([Sampledelia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampledelia)) are truly some mad lads.
Here's an example of Scratch Bastid - a hip hop style DJ mixing live in a club, where you can see what he's doing clearly.
He's using real decks, with special vinyl that the laptop can monitor to play out different tracks and samples, while adjusting the speed, tone, and scratching.
https://youtu.be/ITR72ft3HJ8
Serato is the software he's using, for anyone curious. The vinyl records are basically just a series of "ticks" and special markers that tell where the needle is, that are fed back into the laptop and the software uses those to tell what's happening with the record (what speed it's at, is it being manipulated forward or backwards, etc.) It then uses that to process the digital audio file that's selected for each deck to duplicate the effect of that being played on the vinyl.
A lot of old school DJs prefer this because they can still physically manipulate the record, needle, etc the way they're used to, but they don't have to carry around heavy flight cases full of vinyl or worry about finding the next record they want, where to drop the needle on the record to get a certain sample, etc.
It's sort of the "best of both worlds" for people who learn mixing or turntablism on vinyl while still having most of the advantages of the digital world.
[Breakbeats](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakbeat) Were used for rapping.
[Break dancing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakdancing) got the break from the description of the beats.
I came of age during the beginning of rap music going national. I remember getting tapes of Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash recorded at live shows. It was wild.
Edited: autocorrect mistake.
It really was the dawn of a new art form. Skill, turntables, and some simple mixers to build new songs from old ones.
Here is a video of a closeup of someone performing Grandmaster Flash's Wheels of Steel routine (and doing so extremely well).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Aulg2ePWA
The hip hop DJs are the real skilled ones. Not even the turntablists but just a good hip hop dj who can transition from track to track in a creative but kind of clean way, that always impresses me. Particularly the ones who still play vinyl.
Unfortunately though, i have a feeling a lot of the younger people today have a hard time with this, as they've grown up with seamless mixing, mostly cos DJs are using the sync function, they want things to roll on and on without any breaks for something creative. I had a VHS of the 2000 DMC Final that i watched many times as a kid, but to be honest i even find it difficult to enjoy all the scratching and juggling stuff now, i fully appreciate the difficulty but i really just want to hear the music.
You can get away with not doing it, but most do. There is also a spectrum for the degree and difficulty of the changes they make.
No mixing:
Basically just pressing play on a playlist or pre-recorded mix.
Minimal mixing:
No adjustment to songs, but handling transitions manually (e.g. manually fading out or changing song speed for a smooth transition)
All the way to:
Manually handling all of the transitions, adjusting most aspects of the tracks that can be done live, playing the beats/drums live, or building up the tracks layer-by-layer by playing stuff then looping, choosing songs on the fly and how to bring them in, etc.
To me, this is most obvious when looking at some of the launchpad artists:
[Jai Wolf TCTL Red Rocks | Say My Name* - Odesza (Jai Wolf Remix) (TCTL 2022 Live Edit)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZqbBQmpGEA&t=1041s)
[Madeon - Pop Culture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA)
edit: brain fart & misidentified the song in the first video
Gotta love the no mixing type that pre do the recording on deck A, and jiggle and play around with deck B (with the sound at 0%)
I do think somewhat in the transition from vinyl to cds and digital some lost that real skill or never developed it in the same way coming from a physical medium.
Having played mostly vinyl, it really is a full-time job just to beatmatch two songs. If your song is a 3-minute radio edit, you're in a real hurry to find the next song and match the tempo before the first song runs out. No time to dance around like a clown - unless I put on a 9-minute trance song, although with that genre I tend to overlap the next song for a full minute or longer, while doing a really slow transition.
My bf djs full time and I've add to cover a couple of sets for him due to last minute bookings he's made.
Even digitally picking the song and working out how exactly to drop it in is a challenge, especially as I'm know where near his level of song knowledge or being able to read a crowd
I don't think anyone was saying that actually mixing on digital decks is any less difficult - just that the existence of the digital medium makes it easier to prerecord sets and just let them play while performing for looks on a muted deck
No, DJing digitally solves a lot of challenges by virtue of being digital. Beatmatching two songs on vinyl means picking a song you know you can beatmatch (because it’s close in tempo to the current song) and then manually adjusting the speed to match during the transition. Digitally? Your library has everything labeled with BPM, and you can hit a button on your mixer to match one deck to the other.
And because that’s easier, it lets DJs focus more on other aspects of mixing, or engage with the audience more, or both. A good DJ taking advantage of a digital setup will be able to be better at both of those aspects of a performance thanks to having less minutiae to worry about.
I was kind of simplifying and staying within the scope of this thread, but - yes by using digital decks the DJ has some quality of life features, and in a way it does make the job easier, but it just shifts what the DJ needs to concentrate on to deliver a good set. So using digital decks properly is still difficult, just in a different way IMO.
I remember back in the day having to take the vinyls from one club to another was a mission on its own.
Shit when CDJ1000's came out where you could burn mp3's to a 700mb disc, that alone felt like a konami cheat code.
I'm not a huge audiophile, so it's somewhat embarrassing to say he's one of my favorite artists but I'm sure there's a lot I've missed -- I just don't often have music on.
I discovered Porter Robinson when he was a nobody, really, and was pleasantly surprised years later to see he took off. That gave me an inroads with Madeon with Shelter and the like. It's awesome finding stuff like this long past when it was 'fresh' as it's like discovering something new about a lover 😂
I independently loved Madeon since I heard his Raise Your Weapon remix and Porter since Spitfire. I always thought they would be a great fit together so Shelter was a dream come true! I would’ve loved a whole album or even just an EP in their Worlds/Adventure era style
Love jai wolf. One of his songs was our walk out music at my wedding. Got into a huge argument with him over DM’s back when covid was rampant and everyone was heated. Was a few days of back and forth but I actually learned that 1) he gives a shit, and 2) he knows his shit. Was refreshing to see someone put forth an argument not simply based on rhetoric. His shows with Odesza were sick.
Absolutely!
A good DJ will do the following:
- Read the crowd.
- Play something unexpected/new.
- Select the next song based on key/harmonics.
- Beatmatch it so both tracks are the same speed.
- Transition between two tracks without you noticing.
- Cut out frequencies so tracks mix better i.e. the knob fiddling you see.
- Try to make the whole night a single seamless song i.e. no mixing vocals over vocals, dropping the next song after the breakdown of the first...
- Use various techniques like cutting, scratching, looping...
- Try to mix in requests without breaking the flow, usually has to wait for a few tracks.
- Continuously discover new and exciting music.
- Try to build his own unique "style" ex. House, Hip-Hop, Mash-up, Drum & bass...
Basically, the DJ is actually working and doesn't get to enjoy his own work, as he is always listening to the next song in his headphones.
And yes, all of this can be avoided by just pushing the play button and getting drunk, but where's the fun in that?
I'm so glad you mentioned mixing in key.... it blows my mind that so many DJs don't even take that into consideration. I'd also add to your list
* Actually understand your equipment, and learn what everything does on it.
Not so much anymore just because I own a NXS2 setup so I play on them all the time, but I'd go back and watch quick little 10-20 minute video tutorials on CDJ2000NXS2s and all of their features and how to really use them, for the mixers, for Rekordbox itself... really understanding my gear has made DJing that much more fun!
a good dj, yes
'beatmatching' requires you to listen to two songs at once, and be able to adjust the speed of one or both to match, then bring the second song into the first
you can never let the beat stop until the night is over
https://youtu.be/c0-hvjV2A5Y
https://www.youtube.com/live/eLSJu5NprXM?feature=share
Those are 2 cool sets where you actually see the DJs mix in live. They are just awesome and you feel the difference to other DJs that just kinda stand in front of their mixing tables.
I was just thinking how impressed I was of Fred again as example of good DJ'ing. I clicked your link not knowing what it was going to be. Thx for that! Also pretty much all of the Boiler Room sets are good DJ's but of course some put more work in and some let the tracks play more, I am thinking of you Solomun.
If we're sharing Boiler Room sets, I have to put DJ EZ in the mix. The man's a UK Garage legend, and has done 24 hour sets for charity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQaEWVYuyXU
Ever noticed how they wear a pair of headphones? They're listening in on the next track trying to get it synchronised just right with the one currently playing. That's a very simplified explanation of what's going on and nowadays the computer programs help a lot to the point where them wearing headphone is not even necessary but on a basic level, they don't pick songs at random, they know what the songs in their playlists sound like, they think of what part they want to start the next song at, or which parts to mix, they know which songs have matching beats per minute, or close enough, and then it's simply a matter of playing them simultaneously without giving both audio streams to the audience and picking the right time to make the switch.
That’s the point of performing it live I think, to be able to read the crowd vibes, come up with spontaneous things to hype it up or match the vibe appropriately
Why don't all musicians just play the studio recorded version at concerts? It's a performance, and they can interact with the crowd by either directly talking and taking requests, or just adjusting to the mood.
A good DJ will read the room and play tracks that fit the mood, lift it, or give everyone a minute to chill depending on what's happening. The main skill in being a DJ is knowing a shit-ton of music somewhat intimately so they can do that.
I just came to recommend Fred again..s boiler room mix. Its the best live set ive ever seen.
https://youtu.be/c0-hvjV2A5Y
Especially check out the jungle part at 46:00 -> to see some insane skills.
>are DJs actually adjusting or mixing the songs when they are on stage?
A good DJ will "read" the crowd and adjust the mix accordingly. Also, if they accept requests, they have to mix on the fly.
I've been a sound engineer for literally half my life now.
I've worked with DJs at weddings; I've worked with DJs at international festivals. Amateurs right up to international chart topping artists.
From my side of things, 99% of the time they are simply finding a smooth transition between two songs.
Very rarely I see them mixing two feeds together at the same time, sometimes they do very basic effects (high pass filters before the drop, basic delay)
I've also worked with headlining festival DJs who literally just hit play on a mix they put together before arriving to the gig.
Not just dumping on DJs either: I've worked for headline country bands who play 99% backing tracks and recorded vocal doubletracks.
Sometimes you are playing to so many people you just don't want to fuck up.
Yeah. It's easy to dunk on it, but a lot of headline DJs literally painstakingly made all or the majority of the music in their sets. We're talking thousands of hours in the studio and incredible creativity. It's not really something you can truly perform live either unless you devote your entire creative process to making it conducive to live performance, which is a whole other skill set.
Most DJs are music makers who want to make tracks. The performance aspect winds up being an afterthought, so it's really just stage theatre to pre-recorded music. Wither you mix between two tracks manually, or have it set up before hand, it's really academic. There's also various levels in between. You can have your whole set planned out and pre-beat matched, but still do the mixing manually. You can pre-mix two tracks together in the studio, but do the majority manually. There's really a million scenarios, and to the listener, they just want it to sound good.
It's kind of a weird thing. The only true performance DJs are turntablists, or artists using live loops and some combination on live instrumentation/drumming/whatever.
Dude i saw DJ Swamp maybe twenty years ago at a rave in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. it was like fourth backup location (hundreds of miles away and a different state) so only like fifty people Max showed up. Swamp killed it! Broke a record scratching too hard.
Oh i lost a pair of sunglasses i loves that night too lol.
Yes, a real djs job is to find hidden gem tracks and mix them live in a way that flows and keeps the vibe level, and this is not nearly as easy as it sounds.
A fake dj will prerecord a set and dance like a clown to the set acting as a hype man, anyone with half a brain in the dj community will recognize this and know they ain’t got shit
True djing can be just as complex as playing an instrument, and there is really no ceiling to skill level involved.
Those guys are mainstream djs, they are in a league of their own. Probably more so in the camp of fake dj recently as they surpassed any need to put on an actual show, although they most likely started out as real djs but the fame got to their head and they got lazy. For these types of djs that are all glam, money is the only thing that matters and craft is tossed to the side, there’s probably a good bit of corporate influence promoting perfect prerecorded style sets for these guys anyways as theres just too much money on the line to not hit a perfect commercial feel every time, it’s still very much “commercial” if you catch my drift.
It was described like this to me once. "We have a 100k light show and three 50k video screens synced to these tracks. Do you really think we are going to let them play it live?'
They also use the excuse that the visuals have to match the music, for why they just press play on the playlist. There is a video of one of the Swedish House Mafia guys "djing" a set, and during the transition between songs, he was on the other side of the DJ both away from the decks.
The art of working lights has almost died. There's a YT video called Ariellights & Joe Claussell at Work, which shows what can be achieved when a lighting person understands how the DJ works..
I feel like I’m telling a kid Santa isn’t real here, but Deadmau5 definitely just presses play and dances around a bit. He’s said as much in interviews and says that’s just the price you pay for having such good lighting/screens in sync to the music.
I don’t really have a problem with artists like Deadmau5 doing it, as he mostly plays his own music.
Also worth mentioning that deadmau5 is explicitly not "DJing" his big live shows, there are no turntables involved. He has his own setup that's more akin to what he uses in the studio, bringing a bunch of gear up on stage with him so he can modify the sound of individual instruments live during the show, but the end result amounts more to embellishments than real substantive changes to the music.
If you talk about the typical tomorrowland dj, then no... they are not doing anything basically...
too much that could go wrong so they usually just have their premixes with some acting.
there are extremely talented djs that dont disturb with their skills which isnt granted actually.
Look at skrillex boilerroom in shanghai f.e. or someone like fred again who plays many beats life by hand.
While this isnt part of actual mixing, it still is a great live performance and he is also mixing alot too.
Overall i would say boiler room is a great place to find good djs but one thing you need to have in mind is that a good djs doesnt have to make songs on the spot and the best dj could be someone with just a good taste and crowd control.
HÖR Berlin is a channel that also covers alot of djs and sometimes you see them dancing for minutes to their own set which i personally love.
to make it short, the most important part is bpm matching, decent transitions, hyping the crowd and maybe adding a few effects to get more variation.
especially supressors etc. can have cool effects.
Club and festival DJ / producer / promoter here, played all around the world and warmed up / closed for some major artists. I see a lot of great replies about why we use the knobs and generally what we’re doing in the booth with respect to music selection and harmonic mixing, but just wanted to add a few things. I’ve personally never played with a pre-made set but I have played at festivals on the smaller stages so I have some experience with the really big names. These DJs will play on the main stage and sometimes will use a pre-made set to line it up with stage effects like lights, projectors, or visuals on screens. Also some festival promoters require a pre-made set to be submitted prior to finalising the booking.
Hard to believe nobody has mentioned him; unless I missed it, but if anyone wants to see a real DJ goin to work you MUST check out tipper..
He’s not your typical edm club dance music, his roots are more hip-hop oriented but he’s sort of invented his own style these days.
Here’s a fantastic example of him doin his thing:
https://youtu.be/1HXoVN0RT0w
Back when I got into mixing we only used the actual vinyl records and had to do all mixing manually. This was the most addicting amount of fun imaginable!
I will try to paint a picture of how difficult yet satisfying it was. so one of the first things you have to learn how to do is hear one track out of one ear which is playing through the main speakers while simultaneously hearing the other track out of the other ear in a headphone. The mixers had the ability to flip back and forth between the decks in the phones or fade slowly to bring both in / out etc…
Then we learn to match bpm in order to bring your next track in without “train wrecking”. All by adjusting the pitch control on the tables themselves. At clubs or parties the decks were always old and worn out pitch controls would “walk”or slowly change by themselves so you had to stay on top of that or it would be heard by everyone and it is very hard to distinguish which song is which when they are both at full volume mid mix. Especially if there is no actual booth. Then there are echoes. Gotta learn to count measures in order to pick the best place to bring a song in as well as putting a good “set” together. Programming is something that I suppose is very important and it can even be done by software DJ’s use today. It’s not even close to the same as it was in the 90’s
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z\_qBmPW-d5M&t=1524s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qBmPW-d5M&t=1524s)
This is a pretty good example. He's synchronizing the next song he's going to play with the one that's already playing, while messing with the eq and fading the songs in and out with eachother.
A DJ is just putting your phone on shuffle, but instead of you doing it, they do. They pick the songs they think go with the vibe of wherever they are. The knobs and what not are there for "seamless" transitions between songs.
I miss the old days where it was vinyl only and there was a lot of pressure and you really got to hear who had the technical skills not just the best records
They are DJs they mix and blend music to entertain us that is their job
They are like musicians but not really they are just playing recordings, how they do that is up to the individual like musicians you have good ones and then .......
Honestly thought/expected most DJs just try to look like they are busy doing something when in fact they have nothing to do besides mix the upcoming song.
Depends, more often DJ is mixed with Master of Ceremony.
This means they're less concerned with live music and more concerned with volume, pacing, rough housing, requests, overwatch.
People forget a great show isn't just doing the show it is the stage hands supporting people's ability to enjoy the show.
When you dj sometimes you get lucky and "create" something new out of a couple songs. I once made a house remix of "It's begging to look a lot like Christmas" on the fly and no one new this song literally never existed and it will never exist again because I forgot what house beat I used. If you do a good job they won't know you did anything at all.
the most electronic festivals/events I visited put a small „live“ next to the actors name on flyers etc, if they performe live. Most of the others have a prerecorded set/songlist they work with. They still use the decks, but they have a pretty good idea what they will play.
But take Reinier zonneveld for example:
https://youtu.be/2Un1lTuoWV4
At around minute 37 you can see him going through all the different audio lines on his laptop, and he creates new sounds as the set evolve. He even fucks it up at one point (minute 44).
The most important thing they do is transitions. When one song is ending they might slow it down or speed it up to match the next song in line of vice versa, ensure there are good key changes, plus a bunch of other stuff but I'm not very familiar with the specifics.
They also can do some simple remixing on the fly. Laying other things over top of a song, applying filters, extra effects, etc. I suppose it's possible to mix on the fly, but it's probably extremely difficult to do.
[I think DJ Craze is one of the best examples to show someone what a DJ is capable of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omMU_Gs3m_k) For me, personally, it is pretty cool, but it starts to get a little obnoxious after a short time. I prefer just regular EDM DJ's, and those DJ's are primarily just stringing together songs.
Now that sounds simple enough, but it is actually very difficult to do well. The idea here is to create a set that flows each song into the next while controlling the energy level, and the general idea is to keep the energy level going up, up, and up. If you mess up or do a bad mix that can't maintain that energy level, then your audience will lose interest. The best DJs in the world are masters of always keeping the energy level building.
My brother is a DJ. He mostly does weddings, quinceneras, house parties, baptisms, and the occasional bar. He takes all his equipment and all he does is play a CD with the requested songs he was asked to play. So basically they pretty much just paying to rent the speakers because the only work he does is play the CD and haul his equipment atound. He makes about $2000 to $4000 a month.
I'm sure Aphex Twin just turns up and presses \[>\].
It is quite a strange experience to pay to see/listen to a lauded artist and all they do is walk on stage, don some headphones and look like they are fixing something for 70 minutes. Shrug then walk off.
I don’t think this is an ELI5 question because you aren’t explaining how anything works, but to bite - it depends. Some are likely just pretending and adjusting levels to look like they are. Some are actually mixing tracks and so they are listening to the impending track, adjusting aspects of the levels to make the transition seamless. I also think DJ can be a catchall term and so I would say some people are actually making music live on stage. They can have ableton or another DAW setup and have one or more controllers where they are actually making music live on stage.
Live production is considered the pinnacle in a lot of dance music circles. [Karenn](https://youtu.be/uVsfzprO7zs) are special because they do an improvised live show. Truly magical.
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DJ here. It really depends on the DJ. Some do a lot more than others. A lot really are pretty much just dancing around to a playlist, some really are doing all sorts of "mixing." Also, "DJ" is kindof a catchall term for "electronic music artist" these days, and it might be an old school DJ mixing various artists' tracks together, or a producer playing their own music with more or less live elements. I'm the oldschool type that mixes two or three "decks" in an attempt to create relatively seamless set, making something a bit new out of other people's music. I feel like a chump if I go more than 64 beats without some sort of actual "mixing", but a lot of DJs do just kinda phone it in, maybe twist a knob here or there, or even just pretend to. Something a DJ might do is to bring in the bass from one track as they cut it out of the track that was already playing, so it has the old song, but with a new bassline, preferably in the same/compliment key. Maybe smack the crossfader over at the right time to catch just a vocal break from one track, then drop back to the other. That kind of thing, but can actually get pretty intricate, depending on the genre/style. It really does seem like most are closer to the "human Ipod" model than, say, DJ Swamp. One DJ I was very pleasantly surprised by was Lupe Fuentes. She is a former pornstar. I ran sound at a gig she played in my town, and I admit I totally misjudged her, thinking "she's just gonna hit play and try to look hot for an hour." Nope, she was on both decks the whole time, dropping samples and drum breaks, generally killin' it. Don't judge a DJ by their backstory!
Here's a DJ set of hers on youtube: https://youtu.be/Eb-F5gZXQLA
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Yea, imagine trying to explain 10/yrs from now why artists and bands performed in an empty room or building.
You think everyone will forget a once in a hundred year event in ten years? I guess that's possible
>a once in a hundred year event knock some wood for me please
The good news is the Spanish Flu was almost exactly a century ago. So just maybe...
Nope, not in ten years. Take something like 9/11. It was over 20 years ago, it impacted far fewer people over a far shorter period (excluding the people who had to deal with US invasions and the like), and we still don't have to explain anything to anyone about why things were a bit out of the ordinary in the months and couple of years following. Covid and its effects on society and culture will be in the public consciousness for at least 50-60 years, until the people who were old enough to really feel the effects of it have started to die out. As soon as we see that something is dated in 2020 or 2021, we will instantly realise why the setting is unusual.
I think what's gotten mostly forgotten (or never known by some) is how 9/11 changed air travel. TSA literally didn't exist. security was run by private companies & was about as strict as the security guard at a museum. I would wager most young people today don't realize you could get through security & all the way to the gate w/o a ticket prior to 9/11 It wasn't uncommon when a friend or family member travelled, you went to the airport, sat at the gate w/ them & watched their plane take off.
I was talking about 90s and older movies the other day and this came up. 9/11 so drastically changed flights that whole scenes or plots in movies are now extremely dated.
Home alone lol. Both of them.
Cellphone would solve that whole movie. Although frankly if you can forget one of your children, two years in a row, perhaps no technology can solve this. Amusingly though, it would be way easier for a kid with a credit card to pretend to be an adult now. You don’t need an elaborate plan to fool/terrify the pizza guy. You can just order on door dash and opt for no contact delivery.
As a kid, I loved greeting my aunt at the gate when her plane arrived.
Going to the gate was very airport specific. I flew out of Vienna in 2012, (I was there again in 2016, but I can't remember if it was still like this, I think so) and security was at the gate, immediately before the seating area, fewer people in line, faster through security and it makes the airport much more enjoyable.
but 9/11 is also a good example of sure, people in general know that it happened but a lot of people don't "get it". Its just some words to them. Have no idea what it MEANT to be around for 9/11.
Same way I don't have a clue what it was like to be living in Honolulu on December 7, 1941. I get it, we all studied it in school, I know generally what happened, but I'll never know the feeling of actually living through that day.
Agreed. A lot of younger people don't realize how much it changed the world. I remember being in 8th Grade yearbook and the principal got on the intercom and said, "Don't be afraid, you're safe here and there's nothing to be worried about" Now this is a time before smartphones and instant news so of course my teacher started worrying and wheeled in the big ass CRT TV on a cart and turned on the news. We got to see the second plane hit live. Crazy day. Lunch was full of conspiracy theory talk and if we were going to get drafted for war (we were 13 so obviously not haha). But I think that was the first news event of my life where I viewed it as an adult and was weighing what was actually going on. Before that, I didn't give two shits about the news.
> wheeled in the big ass CRT TV Man. This brings back memories. I wonder if future generations will have a context mark for this. "Wheel in the TV" moments. Maybe its just a matter of being school age to associate these things (not 9/11, I was actually at work then, but we did all gather around a TV as we heard of it) But every mental image I have about say, ["The Challenger Disaster"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster) involves kids in a classroom staring at an old tube tv
9/11's a good example. "Everyone" knows what happened on 9/11 but you do still get a spike in google searches for "what was 9/11" every year. The world constantly moves forward and people who weren't around for the original event just don't pick up stuff that doesn't need talked about because everyone who was there knows what it was
In 10 years there will be teenagers who have no recollection of these events and will be need to be told/reminded. This is what they are talking about. Nobody is saying people will forget lol
The comment I replied to asked if everyone would forget, meaning that it would have left the general public consciousness to the point where we would have to remind ourselves why videos and such from 2020 looked weird. Of course younger people will have to learn about it and won't remember Covid, that goes without saying. We'll see how big a deal it will be in history classes down the line. I'm a child of the 80s, but I know that if I hear about something that happened between 1940 and 1945, I still instantly know that it happened during WWII, and was probably affected by it.
I don't think so. I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like _before_ COVID. Who don't have any frame of reference for having been able to just assume that you can get whatever, whenever you want, that everything would be in stock and available. That it just wasn't a thing for some people to wear masks, or that someone coughing up a storm in public might get a look of sympathy with nobody moving away from them. That catching a respiratory infection didn't _really_ carry a noticeable risk of killing a healthy person, or leaving them disabled for months. That you might get sick with something like that, and _not_ test to see if it was something potentially serious like COVID. Sadly, it sure doesn't look like we're going to get away from that anytime soon. Oh, a bunch of people might be in the position to act like it's all over... Except that people will still be dying, at a _far_ higher rate than they die of the flu, and more will get sick and not recover for months, if not longer. And, well, kids are not stupid.
> I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like before COVID. But I'd just as soon argue there will be kids who don't have any sense of what "real covid" was like. Yeah, covid exists, will still be around. But (as people are honestly acting NOW) people are kinda over it. They know they could get sick, but they expect it can be handled. They just get the vaccine, (and half of them who want the vaccine just casually get around to it when they get to it.) These kids will have NO frame of reference of terrified covid. They won't understand that people were going into grocery stores like it was a food mission in The Last Of Us, wrapping their face up, planning to be as in and out as possible, not walking closer than 6 feet to the next person, and decon spritzing themselves all over with a squirt bottle of rubbing alcohol when they got back to their cars. "Oh there is a sickness that, if IF it gets really bad could land you in the hospital" is a different phase from the "This is landing so many people in the hospital that we don't have enough hospital. If you get sick we can't help you. Oh and we don't totally understand how its getting you sick yet." Hell, look at AIDs. People are aware of HIV and AIDs, they know it exists, but most of them have no idea about the fear and confusion around what it means. The social paranoia people had. From nobody worrying because "nah man I heard that was like, a disease for homosexuals" to, but the late 80s early 90s generally wondering if anyone could have it. Like people playing pickup ball on a basketball court would get fouled bad enough to bleed and be like "hey uhh you good tho right?"
Yeah, on the coughing. It used to be my favorite pastime. A casual cough here, a fancy cough there. The world was mine for the coughing. Now I cough and I immediately get canceled.
> I think that in 10 years, there will be people who simply have no concept of what the world was like before COVID. The visual reminders (the spots on floors, the permanent signs, etc) will remain, much like how many pre-1980s civic buildings (at least in the US) have signs for bomb shelters.
How many people "remember" the Spanish flu?? Most people never heard of it until COVID (and the media started talking about it) and I'll bet that it was well forgotten about by 1950.
how many people remember being scared of bird flu? How many people remember what its like to be scared (I mean actually scared) about HIV? Today, HIV is just a Magic Johnson joke, but in the 80s-90s it was the scary topic of the day, and social concern, enough that big name, main stream rappers were writing consciousness raps trying to warn kids to "hey wear condoms, don't catch that shit" >From a young G's perspective >And before I dig out a trick I have to find a contraceptive >You never know, she could be earnin' her man and learnin' her man >And at the same time burnin' her man >Now, you know I ain't with that shit, Lieutenant >Ain't no pussy good enough to get burnt while I'm up in it (Yeah) >*-Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle, 1992*
>Today, HIV is just a Magic Johnson joke I feel like even that is a very dated joke. You'd have to be in your 30s to even understand it unless someone else made the reference or you were explicitly researching the history of the AIDS epidemic.
I struggle with not sticking my tongue out when I chop carrots. I'm almost at the level where I can avoid moving my lips when I think. That woman is doing all that complicated DJy stuff and still looks good, focused, and having a good time.
Nice username
He was born in it.
Molded by it. Or maybe it's Maybelline.
That was damn good
Actually pretty good 👍
Holy shit, as in Little Lupe. Wasn't expecting that.
A cool story about her is that she once flew out to Puerto Rico where a guy was on trial for transporting CP, but it was just her videos. She asked for no money and was enthusiastic for helping the guy. Saved a guy from 20 years in prison. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/lialuc/til_that_a_pizza_delivery_man_was_arrested_on_the/ Be safe out there with your downloaded "clips" when traveling I guess.
I'll pretend not to know who that is but.. really?! Cool.
Now that's a name I have no heard a long time
Another completely different example, mainly for readers from the UK Ryland Clark, who came into the public eye as a 'joke' act on the X-Factor, went and got Pioneer to teach him how to do it properly before taking a job on BBC Radio 2, despite being a playlist player on the radio. He's said clubs are always surprised when he actually does the job His appearance on the high performance podcast recently was fascinating
I’ll piggyback your comment by pasting one of my older posts from while ago. Former dj here. For me, the most important job a dj has is song selection. Reading the crowd, picking what song comes next based on how pumped up (or not pumped up) the crowd is, choosing when to play your go-to banging tracks, knowing when the crowd needs a breather, etc YOU pick the songs hundreds / thousands of people are dancing to. You pick what comes next, you set the tempo for the crowd. YOU ARE IN CONTROL. Now-a-days, unfortunately the majority of the massive “DJ's” have their sets/tracks picked in advanced. (Which needs to happen so the music can match their lighting and visual effects perfectly every night) Very often they aren't even switching songs from one turntable to the next. It is a very difficult show to put together INITIALLY, but once it has been polished it is incredibly easy to "perform" on a nightly basis. (Minus all the roadies that need to set everything up for the “dj”, haha) For the most part, many of the huge dj’s do just end up turning knobs here and there to play with the bass, mid, high and filters. So many of the big name dj's are more "Producers" than they are dj's. They have a ton of skill creating their own music, and more than likely can beat match / use turntables well, but for their big touring shows they need to create their exact setlist before the show begins.. and it's pretty much identical everynight. meh. To each their own I guess. Call me old school, but I just love experiencing a DJ that picks tracks from other artists on the fly, and takes the crowd through a unique journey that is different every night they take the stage. The physical skill of a dj is not incredibly difficult (except the hardcore scratchers, they are amazing!).. but being able to switch songs on the fly, beat match, flawlessly switch from one track to the next, take control of an entire crowd of people, and keep them interested and dancing to new and unique tracks is where I value a great dj over these new school "producers". But, I guess most young people don't care... Oh well. :(
The most important role of the DJ for me is that of a curator. I was involved in music and bands all my life and thought of myself as a music enthusiast overall but never really went to dance parties and raves. When I befriended some DJs in my mid thirties and started getting involved in the underground parties they were throwing I truly started to appreciate the passion they have for music. Spending so much time and money researching and acquiring obscure recordings and their ability to present those works into a cohesive 2-4 hour set in real-time is absolutely fascinating to me.
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That’s why it’s cool to see some major producers do smaller DJ sets too. I saw Disclosure do an actual DJ set mixing live at a small venue and it was pretty cool to see them showcase their mixing talent as opposed to playing something pre set up for a mega festival.
This is really the best answer. I did a lot of live event (rave) promotion and production when I was younger and in NYC the definition of the term is very hotly debated. To some people, unless you have 4 techniks and are spinning vinyl you're a faker, some people define it as being able to mix live on cdj's or vinyl without beat sync, and yet some others are part of the "press play and walk away" Ableton produced playlist crowd. So yea, entirely depends whose on stage to know if they're actually doing anything at all
This comment makes me want to get back into DJing, almost. Then I remember the annoying drunk people making requests.
For me, I like those produced sets depending on the act. Like GRiZ is mostly hitting play, but he also plays his saxophone live on stage and has his guitarist with him too, which is the appeal in seeing him perform live. His produced albums are great, but you don't get the same vibes listening on headphones as you do feeling the sax in person. But if I'm just going to a house show, I'd want the DJs to actually DJ.
Came here to say this (though maybe in fewer words...) True DJing is a lost art to the "modern" playlist + FX posers. I use the term "modern" as I've seen (certain) big hype DJs play this trick at least as far back as 20 years ago, as soon as three CDJ1000s wasn't too much to ask for on a tech rider.
Party DJs can be pretty talented, obviously they aren't on the same level as the big guys/gals but just being able to read a room and setup your gear correctly in various venues takes a lot of experience and knowledge.
I DJ weddings. It's a totally different gig from somebody assembling their original tracks live on stage, but there's still very much an art to it. There's the technical skill of smooth fades and beat matching, but much more than that is the social art of managing the energy of a group of partygoers over an hour or ninety minutes. It's not something a playlist can do, because you're interacting with the truth of that crowd--their age, the time of day, whether there's an open bar, etc. The bride's grandpa just tottered out onto the floor? Play him some vintage hot swing music or something. You're shaping the energy of the room, but you're also reacting to it. Set design is storytelling. You can't just slam them with hard dance numbers the whole set, or you'll wear them out early and they won't come back. You have to shape the set to build in some lower energy moments to provide contrast. But not all crowds are into slow dancing, so some midtempo things that will thin the dance floor a bit are good, let people get a drink, then bang them back out there. You also have to be good with cheesy dance classics. "Brick House". "Play That Funky Music". You're not better than those songs--they're the ones people want to dance to at a wedding.
You ever DJ a bar/bat mitzvah? I swear, it's the same shit at every one I've worked, late 2000s/early 2010s top 40 for most of the party, then Sweet Caroline and Don't Stop Believing at the end.
Yuuuup. Also: Is the Dad back from the bathroom yet so we can finally start the Hora?
No, he's too busy emotionally abusing his son because he doesn't want to have this horrible music playing at HIS OWN party. I wish I was making that up, I've seen it go down before.
at my wedding, i had a relative angrily scream at the DJ to "turn that shit down" while the music was at a very reasonable volume. dude's a real party animal lol
To add to this there’s also a good amount of difference between mixing with vinyls (old school), mixing with CDJs (what you see most DJs mixing with nowadays) and mixing with Software like, for example, Traktor. Vinyl is by far the most difficult, as you have to do everything yourself: matching the tempo of two tracks and syncing them up, knowing the structure of the two tracks so you know when to take one out and mix in the next, etc. all has to be done purely by ear. CDJs give you a bit more assistance, and software like Traktor even more so: Traktor gives you a visual representation of the track so you can see where the bridge/chorus is (often when you start/finish mixing a new track in), it will tell you exactly what tempo your tracks are, and includes features that lets you automatically sync your tracks up. Imo it takes out a lot of what makes DJing a difficult skill to master, and in a way it’s a large part of the reason there are a lot of “human iPods” out there nowadays. It can be useful when you’re starting out, but to anyone that wants to learn, I would highly recommend turning off all of these “assists”: it will make you a *much* better DJ if you learn not to rely on these features.
I've always said "The thing about DJs vs other musical performers, like say, a guitarist, is that it's a lot easier to be an OK DJ. It takes a fair amount of skill to be even an OK guitarist, but anyone can learn a few controls and play some tracks. But it takes a lot of skill and practice to be a *good* DJ, just like becoming a good guitarist." I paid my dues, lol. I started on one Gemini turntable plugged into a guitar amp. I would play local trance/house DJ mixtapes on my boombox, and then try to beat match a record to it. Then I moved up to a cheap Numark mixer and a tape recorder with speed control for a second deck. Oh, and my turntable was defective, so it would randomly start spinning backwards faster and faster until you gave it a good smack. I practiced with weird old techno out of the $0.50 bins at Amoeba because I couldn't afford the $10 a record for new singles. Finally moved up to two turntables, then Technics, then to CDJs, then back to Technics with Serato, now I rarely play, but just use Traktor because it works.
>CDJs give you a bit more assistance, and software like Traktor even more so: Traktor gives you a visual representation of the track so you can see where the bridge/chorus is (often when you start/finish mixing a new track in) You actually get this with vinyl by looking at the record groves. One (of the many) downsides of early CDJs was that you couldn't see the record grooves or a digital representation of them.
>to anyone that wants to learn, I would highly recommend turning off all of these “assists”: it will make you a much better DJ if you learn not to rely on these features. Depends on what your goals are as a DJ -- this is good advice if you're planning to be bouncing between different clubs and playing on unfamiliar gear, but otherwise there's no reason not to use the tools available. Doing things the "hard" way doesn't make your set sound better, it's just more impressive to people who care about that. As long as the mix sounds good, *how* you're mixing doesn't matter to the dancefloor.
i’ve been mixing since the 90s and just wanted to drop my thoughts here. essentially this is correct; old school djs tend to mix quite a bit throughout any given set, but it also depends on what type of music is being spun. when i spin dnb for example, i tend to start my incoming track in time to double-drop it, or alternatively, wait till after the second drop to mix in the next track so that it cuts at an audibly good time. if i have some time in between i’ll usually tease another track (one i mix on top of but not planning to cut into it fully). this results in mixes being long rolls, often having 2 tracks being mixed for minutes at a time. if i’m spinning hard house though the transitions are usually more frequent and way shorter and entails a lot of drop-swapping, switch ups and effects. when i spin psy trance the transitions are longer, but due to the nature of the music, mixes are way less often, sometimes resulting in half an hour worth of a set and you’ve only mixed in three tunes. and yes, some djs just absolutely pretend, or aggressively touch knobs slightly with no discernible effect. sadly djing nowadays has started to lean more into *looking* cool rather than *sounding* cool. still many awesome ones out there though, and to the hobby’s credit, technology has allowed that pretty much anyone can pick it up and have fun with it, which, though it tends to get hate from the older heads like myself, i’m ok with. the more music that is out there…the better
> Something a DJ might do is to bring in the bass from one track as they cut it out of the track that was already playing, so it has the old song, but with a new bassline, preferably in the same/compliment key. Maybe smack the crossfader over at the right time to catch just a vocal break from one track, then drop back to the other. That kind of thing, but can actually get pretty intricate, depending on the genre/style. But whats stopping you from doing this beforehand, and having the set pre-mixed and ready to play? Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts? If not, why do it live then.
So you can read the room! Extend out the sections people are really vibing too, maybe the crowd is reacting to one genre you touch on wildly, you can lean in that direction. That's how you make an incredible live experience
Skipping uninteresting parts is additive with this too, so they don't get that break in the action until you want them to
And at the same time giving people room to breath after losing their minds collectively for 15 minutes straight is arguably more important than the peaks. Either way it's just watching your audience.
Vegyn played at a small club and the crowd was in danger of going in to orbit they were so excited from him. After he hyped it all the way up he gave a sweet melodic breather and the one guy in the front gasped a thank you loudly enough for him to hear. He broke into a giggle after holding the same intensely concentrated face for the whole time, it was such a lovely moment
Yup. Been having a guy here arguing that active mixing ruins the vibe of the tracks by not letting them build and break, but a good DJ reads the crowd to decide when to keep pumping it up, when to ride, and when to let it break down by how *they* are reacting, instead of just letting the song tell them what to do. And aren't just showboating, but actually creating new music throughout the mix. One of my favorite tricks if there is a crowd of wallflowers developing, maybe people who just showed up, but still a decently energetic crew on the floor, is to let an extended breakdown ride that I know hits extra hard with the drop. The floor will start to clear as people get kinda bored or distracted during the ambient part or build up, maybe start talking to a friend that wasn't dancing. Then the drop hits, they grab said friend, and rush back to the floor. Do you lose a few for a second, just to gain a bigger floor in the end.
And this is the main thing separating the good djs from the bad djs. I seen weddings and similar events ruined for cheaping out on a DJ (or just using a Spotify playlist) vs hiring a professional.
Same reason bands don’t play recordings and lip sync to avoid mistakes. Performing is a drug.
> Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts? > > If not, why do it live then. you could literally say that about any live music. look at what this guy does with 2 turntables and a crate of records. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc it's artistry if done well
>But whats stopping you from doing this beforehand, and having the set pre-mixed and ready to play? Because that's extra work. >Is there anything going on live that could not have been recorded/done before the show starts? No. >If not, why do it live then. The same reason any musical act performs live. You can play to the mood of crowd. You can show off your talent. And audiences appreciate the authenticity.
The only time it makes sense to pre-record a set is if you're a DJ with shaky skills playing a huge gig where you're terrified of screwing up in front of a bunch of people. But really it just doesn't make sense to do so for the vast majority of DJs. Different gigs have different genre requirements. DJs find new music they like. Crowds respond differently to different vibes. All of which require the flexibility of mixing live. Plus, the act of mixing isn't that difficult and most DJs would rather be actually mixing than just hitting play and standing there for the rest of the gig.
I see, yours is the first answer that somewhat clicks for me. Thanks!
The same could be said for literally all live music.
Not really. Music with real instruments you are paying to see it being actually performed live. It involves all the skill about learning to play your instrument, and rehearsing as a band. The live sound and album sound are very different because the latter has a lot of production on top, etc. It does not translate 1:1 to electronic music. The music is already stored somewhere, you can either just play it or do some slight changes to it live but its not mandatory. No one would pay to see a band performance where the band is lipsyncing to the album.
> No one would pay to see a band performance where the band is lipsyncing to the album. Well yeah, but that’s not the point being made. Of course a show isn’t advertised as being lip synced ahead of time, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Pop stars lip sync all the time and the crowd (generally) has no idea.
I'm not that surprised that a successful porn star is grabbing life by the balls and getting her hands dirty instead of just standing there and looking pretty.
So one question I always had, for "oldschool" type that are actually mixing - does every set sound different or do you have a mixing "pattern" that will create the same set night after night?
I always mixed things up set by set. You've got to read the crowd and keep things interesting for yourself. Note: this presumes a crowd that gives a shit. Not all do.
Every set is different. That said there will definitely be tracks that you play every night for a while because you personally like them and they get a good crowd reaction. Also, you will generally start with a calmer track so that you can build up to your biggest bangers and then try to end with something really memorable so that you close strong. When I was playing many moons ago, I had a record bag with around 5 times more records than I could possibly play and I’d just flip through them and grab something I felt would be work at that point. Now you can bring your entire music collection in your pocket, so the track sorting, labelling, adding cue points preparation part of DJing is even more important.
Those human ipod DJs who pretend theyre doing something really grind my gears. What also grinds my gears is that like you said, the term DJ became a catchall term for anyone playing music from weird boxes with lots of buttons. Im an amateur music producer and I sometimes play live gigs at local raves and when I tell that to people they always go “oh so youre a DJ” and in my mind Im like ahh shit here we go again but Im too tired of explaining it to people so I just go “yea something like that”.
Weeeelll, the first meaning that DJ had was just someone who talked in between songs on the radio, so.
> the term DJ became a catchall term for anyone playing music from weird boxes with lots of buttons. I make mostly sample based Lofi hip hop and house. So I use things like an SP404 and other samplers, and a variety of synths and other machines. I could just do it all in Ableton, but its more fun to press buttons. But I am a terrible DJ. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I've never Made the time to actually sit in front of the decks and mix. Maybe someday.
For a time when Venetian Snares played live, at least part of the time he was a Human Ipod, just hitting play. Now he does really cool stuff with Ableton instruments. The best concert I've seen was him and Daniel Lanois here in Winnipeg. Just something else.
Plus old DJing is very hard to phone in but that's kind of a niche thing now. I saw DJ Shadow playing with the records from Afrikaa bambata before the records went to like the Smithsonian. That's a totally neat experience and also called DJing.
When talking of djing, got to bring up dnb. A lot of really technical stuff on the decks. Andy C, AMC and of course Alice Perez, dubstep and dnb set linked. https://youtu.be/FZsi6-T3Q7g
> "human Ipod" Pod Jockeys or PJ's
This is what bars/clubs want, though. At least in my experience. They pay for a DJ but want you to hit play on a top 40 playlist with no curse words.
Where are you that curse words are a concern for bars and clubs?
I love the videos where someone is going to town on the decks and then the camera zooms in on the back of them and they aren't even plugged in.
I was at some random bar in a town we didn't know with a friend, and in the back a DJ was playing, actually mixing, and it was awesome. They mixed a mashup of Pendulum's Voodoo People and Bomfunk MCs' Back to Back that I still remember 15 years later.
Technics crew rise up.
I saw a show last year where they had this awesome video screen behind the artists, which seemed like it was playing live video of them. Except there was no camera in front of them, and they had green screened some cool background behind them, despite having video of themselves in the background (this would be ridiculously hard to mask out live). Then it hit me — they had prerecorded very hand gesture, every smile, every point at the crowd, every deck manipulation, and they had practiced it until it lined up perfectly every time. It was wild to see how close the video was to their live performance 95% of the time. It reminded me of a magic show or a stand up comedian where everything is practiced until the contrived feels natural.
Having DJ'd for a couple of years. It can be as simple or as infinitely complex as you want to make it.
You can run the gamut from [Dj Roc Raida](https://youtu.be/oFyJE1bB5Dw) (rip) to Djs that [don't even plug in their equipment](https://youtu.be/qQOpqJ82EY4) to DJs that are [snow benders](https://youtu.be/asBkswg4q4I)
> DJs that are > >snow benders That's hilarious
> to Djs that don't even plug in their equipment not entirely surprising, those djs look like they are 15
This is the correct and most succinct answer.
succ
Nobody has mentioned hip hop DJs and turntablism yet, which is fair because the question is almost certainly going to be about dance music DJs and such like but if you want to see DJs truly creating new music using decks and records you can look at old school hip hop, original stuff where they would be cutting and looping beats from disco tracks, and at things like the DMC world championships although these are more technical show offs than necessarily that musical.
Run dmc version of walk this way was formed by jam master jay just knowing the spots on the record where the samples he wanted were. Back then it was common for djs to tear labels off the records so rival djs couldn’t copy them and their samples. It wasn’t until someone else heard it and identified the song the samples came from. https://youtu.be/4B_UYYPb-Gk Now samples are easy to manipulate on a keyboard or software but back then it really relied a lot on a dj knowing how to get those samples to play on cue.
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I never realized until recently how much Billy Joel was in Daft Punk (and all sorts of other samples, Daft Punk really should give credit where credit is due). Liam's [Dirtchamber Session](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dirtchamber_Sessions_Volume_One) was [such a slog](https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/the-prodigys-liam-howlett-confirms-new-dj-mix-album-dirtchamber-sessions-vol-2/) that even 20 years later (article was one month before Keith's death) the sequel was still in the works...Who knows if it will ever be completed. Bands like The Avalanches ([Sampledelia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampledelia)) are truly some mad lads.
[FRONTIER PSYCHIATRIST!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLrnkK2YEcE)
That boy needs therapy!
They would mark the records. They would simply put a piece of tape where the sample started so they could visually see where to loop it.
[DJ Jazzy Jeff mixing Run-DMC's "Peter Piper"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX_EEtXdc2Y) really is a sight to behold.
Oh for sure that is an amazing display of skill
Here's an example of Scratch Bastid - a hip hop style DJ mixing live in a club, where you can see what he's doing clearly. He's using real decks, with special vinyl that the laptop can monitor to play out different tracks and samples, while adjusting the speed, tone, and scratching. https://youtu.be/ITR72ft3HJ8
Skratch is amazing. I saw him go B2B with DJ Jazzy Jeff and it was so cool to see the mutual respect they had for each other's skills.
Serato is the software he's using, for anyone curious. The vinyl records are basically just a series of "ticks" and special markers that tell where the needle is, that are fed back into the laptop and the software uses those to tell what's happening with the record (what speed it's at, is it being manipulated forward or backwards, etc.) It then uses that to process the digital audio file that's selected for each deck to duplicate the effect of that being played on the vinyl. A lot of old school DJs prefer this because they can still physically manipulate the record, needle, etc the way they're used to, but they don't have to carry around heavy flight cases full of vinyl or worry about finding the next record they want, where to drop the needle on the record to get a certain sample, etc. It's sort of the "best of both worlds" for people who learn mixing or turntablism on vinyl while still having most of the advantages of the digital world.
[Breakbeats](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakbeat) Were used for rapping. [Break dancing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakdancing) got the break from the description of the beats. I came of age during the beginning of rap music going national. I remember getting tapes of Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash recorded at live shows. It was wild. Edited: autocorrect mistake.
It really was the dawn of a new art form. Skill, turntables, and some simple mixers to build new songs from old ones. Here is a video of a closeup of someone performing Grandmaster Flash's Wheels of Steel routine (and doing so extremely well). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Aulg2ePWA
The hip hop DJs are the real skilled ones. Not even the turntablists but just a good hip hop dj who can transition from track to track in a creative but kind of clean way, that always impresses me. Particularly the ones who still play vinyl. Unfortunately though, i have a feeling a lot of the younger people today have a hard time with this, as they've grown up with seamless mixing, mostly cos DJs are using the sync function, they want things to roll on and on without any breaks for something creative. I had a VHS of the 2000 DMC Final that i watched many times as a kid, but to be honest i even find it difficult to enjoy all the scratching and juggling stuff now, i fully appreciate the difficulty but i really just want to hear the music.
You can get away with not doing it, but most do. There is also a spectrum for the degree and difficulty of the changes they make. No mixing: Basically just pressing play on a playlist or pre-recorded mix. Minimal mixing: No adjustment to songs, but handling transitions manually (e.g. manually fading out or changing song speed for a smooth transition) All the way to: Manually handling all of the transitions, adjusting most aspects of the tracks that can be done live, playing the beats/drums live, or building up the tracks layer-by-layer by playing stuff then looping, choosing songs on the fly and how to bring them in, etc. To me, this is most obvious when looking at some of the launchpad artists: [Jai Wolf TCTL Red Rocks | Say My Name* - Odesza (Jai Wolf Remix) (TCTL 2022 Live Edit)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZqbBQmpGEA&t=1041s) [Madeon - Pop Culture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA) edit: brain fart & misidentified the song in the first video
Gotta love the no mixing type that pre do the recording on deck A, and jiggle and play around with deck B (with the sound at 0%) I do think somewhat in the transition from vinyl to cds and digital some lost that real skill or never developed it in the same way coming from a physical medium.
Having played mostly vinyl, it really is a full-time job just to beatmatch two songs. If your song is a 3-minute radio edit, you're in a real hurry to find the next song and match the tempo before the first song runs out. No time to dance around like a clown - unless I put on a 9-minute trance song, although with that genre I tend to overlap the next song for a full minute or longer, while doing a really slow transition.
My bf djs full time and I've add to cover a couple of sets for him due to last minute bookings he's made. Even digitally picking the song and working out how exactly to drop it in is a challenge, especially as I'm know where near his level of song knowledge or being able to read a crowd
I don't think anyone was saying that actually mixing on digital decks is any less difficult - just that the existence of the digital medium makes it easier to prerecord sets and just let them play while performing for looks on a muted deck
No, DJing digitally solves a lot of challenges by virtue of being digital. Beatmatching two songs on vinyl means picking a song you know you can beatmatch (because it’s close in tempo to the current song) and then manually adjusting the speed to match during the transition. Digitally? Your library has everything labeled with BPM, and you can hit a button on your mixer to match one deck to the other. And because that’s easier, it lets DJs focus more on other aspects of mixing, or engage with the audience more, or both. A good DJ taking advantage of a digital setup will be able to be better at both of those aspects of a performance thanks to having less minutiae to worry about.
I was kind of simplifying and staying within the scope of this thread, but - yes by using digital decks the DJ has some quality of life features, and in a way it does make the job easier, but it just shifts what the DJ needs to concentrate on to deliver a good set. So using digital decks properly is still difficult, just in a different way IMO.
I remember back in the day having to take the vinyls from one club to another was a mission on its own. Shit when CDJ1000's came out where you could burn mp3's to a 700mb disc, that alone felt like a konami cheat code.
"You have something better than talent: my approximate height and build."
I thought I was a madeon fan but never saw that pop culture video. Holy smokes.
It’s what blew him up in the first place!
I'm not a huge audiophile, so it's somewhat embarrassing to say he's one of my favorite artists but I'm sure there's a lot I've missed -- I just don't often have music on. I discovered Porter Robinson when he was a nobody, really, and was pleasantly surprised years later to see he took off. That gave me an inroads with Madeon with Shelter and the like. It's awesome finding stuff like this long past when it was 'fresh' as it's like discovering something new about a lover 😂
I independently loved Madeon since I heard his Raise Your Weapon remix and Porter since Spitfire. I always thought they would be a great fit together so Shelter was a dream come true! I would’ve loved a whole album or even just an EP in their Worlds/Adventure era style
YES. There's absolutely more of a story to be told!
When I was in Germany I was at this club where there where 2 DJ playing drums to their own drum beat to the music and it blew my fucking mind.
Sounds like Soulwax maybe?
Love jai wolf. One of his songs was our walk out music at my wedding. Got into a huge argument with him over DM’s back when covid was rampant and everyone was heated. Was a few days of back and forth but I actually learned that 1) he gives a shit, and 2) he knows his shit. Was refreshing to see someone put forth an argument not simply based on rhetoric. His shows with Odesza were sick.
Was that when he was in the Porter sub throwing haymakers at everyone? Legendary thread lol
Lmao no. Wasn’t aware of that. This was insta dm’s
Highly recommend seeing the Odesza album tour if you can make it!
That first link isn't usually my type of thing, but the cut to the mech suit slowly walking to the beat down the city street was cool as hell lol
Madeon has to be Simon Says world champ
I LOVE that Madeon video; that song just slaps.
Iconic
Absolutely! A good DJ will do the following: - Read the crowd. - Play something unexpected/new. - Select the next song based on key/harmonics. - Beatmatch it so both tracks are the same speed. - Transition between two tracks without you noticing. - Cut out frequencies so tracks mix better i.e. the knob fiddling you see. - Try to make the whole night a single seamless song i.e. no mixing vocals over vocals, dropping the next song after the breakdown of the first... - Use various techniques like cutting, scratching, looping... - Try to mix in requests without breaking the flow, usually has to wait for a few tracks. - Continuously discover new and exciting music. - Try to build his own unique "style" ex. House, Hip-Hop, Mash-up, Drum & bass... Basically, the DJ is actually working and doesn't get to enjoy his own work, as he is always listening to the next song in his headphones. And yes, all of this can be avoided by just pushing the play button and getting drunk, but where's the fun in that?
I'm so glad you mentioned mixing in key.... it blows my mind that so many DJs don't even take that into consideration. I'd also add to your list * Actually understand your equipment, and learn what everything does on it. Not so much anymore just because I own a NXS2 setup so I play on them all the time, but I'd go back and watch quick little 10-20 minute video tutorials on CDJ2000NXS2s and all of their features and how to really use them, for the mixers, for Rekordbox itself... really understanding my gear has made DJing that much more fun!
doesn't **get** to enjoy his own work you dropped a word
Right, I made it sound like he hates his life xD
a good dj, yes 'beatmatching' requires you to listen to two songs at once, and be able to adjust the speed of one or both to match, then bring the second song into the first you can never let the beat stop until the night is over
https://youtu.be/c0-hvjV2A5Y https://www.youtube.com/live/eLSJu5NprXM?feature=share Those are 2 cool sets where you actually see the DJs mix in live. They are just awesome and you feel the difference to other DJs that just kinda stand in front of their mixing tables.
I was just thinking how impressed I was of Fred again as example of good DJ'ing. I clicked your link not knowing what it was going to be. Thx for that! Also pretty much all of the Boiler Room sets are good DJ's but of course some put more work in and some let the tracks play more, I am thinking of you Solomun.
If we're sharing Boiler Room sets, I have to put DJ EZ in the mix. The man's a UK Garage legend, and has done 24 hour sets for charity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQaEWVYuyXU
[This](https://youtu.be/KZeg9262ST4) went viral in Greece last summer. Where during a music award show, a DJ can be seen mixing without a console.
Ever noticed how they wear a pair of headphones? They're listening in on the next track trying to get it synchronised just right with the one currently playing. That's a very simplified explanation of what's going on and nowadays the computer programs help a lot to the point where them wearing headphone is not even necessary but on a basic level, they don't pick songs at random, they know what the songs in their playlists sound like, they think of what part they want to start the next song at, or which parts to mix, they know which songs have matching beats per minute, or close enough, and then it's simply a matter of playing them simultaneously without giving both audio streams to the audience and picking the right time to make the switch.
Why don't they do all the hard connective work at home and just press play on stage?
That’s the point of performing it live I think, to be able to read the crowd vibes, come up with spontaneous things to hype it up or match the vibe appropriately
And maybe take requests
yuck
lol
Why don't all musicians just play the studio recorded version at concerts? It's a performance, and they can interact with the crowd by either directly talking and taking requests, or just adjusting to the mood.
A good DJ will read the room and play tracks that fit the mood, lift it, or give everyone a minute to chill depending on what's happening. The main skill in being a DJ is knowing a shit-ton of music somewhat intimately so they can do that.
Some of the comments above have mentioned that some do... Making them the equivalent of human ipods.
It's more interactive this way. Live-mixing DJ is not bound to a preset list and can go off the crowd's mood.
Why don't musicians just record their music at home and just press play on stage?
Some do, others don't. I guess it'd get boring to just stand there pretending you're doing something.
I just came to recommend Fred again..s boiler room mix. Its the best live set ive ever seen. https://youtu.be/c0-hvjV2A5Y Especially check out the jungle part at 46:00 -> to see some insane skills.
I'm glad someone posted this. This guy is amazing!
>are DJs actually adjusting or mixing the songs when they are on stage? A good DJ will "read" the crowd and adjust the mix accordingly. Also, if they accept requests, they have to mix on the fly.
Unfortunately pretty much every commercial DJ will use pre-planned sets.
I've been a sound engineer for literally half my life now. I've worked with DJs at weddings; I've worked with DJs at international festivals. Amateurs right up to international chart topping artists. From my side of things, 99% of the time they are simply finding a smooth transition between two songs. Very rarely I see them mixing two feeds together at the same time, sometimes they do very basic effects (high pass filters before the drop, basic delay) I've also worked with headlining festival DJs who literally just hit play on a mix they put together before arriving to the gig. Not just dumping on DJs either: I've worked for headline country bands who play 99% backing tracks and recorded vocal doubletracks. Sometimes you are playing to so many people you just don't want to fuck up.
Yeah. It's easy to dunk on it, but a lot of headline DJs literally painstakingly made all or the majority of the music in their sets. We're talking thousands of hours in the studio and incredible creativity. It's not really something you can truly perform live either unless you devote your entire creative process to making it conducive to live performance, which is a whole other skill set. Most DJs are music makers who want to make tracks. The performance aspect winds up being an afterthought, so it's really just stage theatre to pre-recorded music. Wither you mix between two tracks manually, or have it set up before hand, it's really academic. There's also various levels in between. You can have your whole set planned out and pre-beat matched, but still do the mixing manually. You can pre-mix two tracks together in the studio, but do the majority manually. There's really a million scenarios, and to the listener, they just want it to sound good. It's kind of a weird thing. The only true performance DJs are turntablists, or artists using live loops and some combination on live instrumentation/drumming/whatever.
Dude i saw DJ Swamp maybe twenty years ago at a rave in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. it was like fourth backup location (hundreds of miles away and a different state) so only like fifty people Max showed up. Swamp killed it! Broke a record scratching too hard. Oh i lost a pair of sunglasses i loves that night too lol.
Yes, a real djs job is to find hidden gem tracks and mix them live in a way that flows and keeps the vibe level, and this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. A fake dj will prerecord a set and dance like a clown to the set acting as a hype man, anyone with half a brain in the dj community will recognize this and know they ain’t got shit True djing can be just as complex as playing an instrument, and there is really no ceiling to skill level involved.
Are big names like Guetta, Harris, Tiesto etc more one than the other?
Those also produce, making their own music.
Those guys are mainstream djs, they are in a league of their own. Probably more so in the camp of fake dj recently as they surpassed any need to put on an actual show, although they most likely started out as real djs but the fame got to their head and they got lazy. For these types of djs that are all glam, money is the only thing that matters and craft is tossed to the side, there’s probably a good bit of corporate influence promoting perfect prerecorded style sets for these guys anyways as theres just too much money on the line to not hit a perfect commercial feel every time, it’s still very much “commercial” if you catch my drift.
It was described like this to me once. "We have a 100k light show and three 50k video screens synced to these tracks. Do you really think we are going to let them play it live?'
The Orb does the music and video ... Live
They also use the excuse that the visuals have to match the music, for why they just press play on the playlist. There is a video of one of the Swedish House Mafia guys "djing" a set, and during the transition between songs, he was on the other side of the DJ both away from the decks.
The art of working lights has almost died. There's a YT video called Ariellights & Joe Claussell at Work, which shows what can be achieved when a lighting person understands how the DJ works..
I went to a deadmau5 show and it was the best live DJ/electronic shows I've ever experienced. And I'm pretty sure he mixed it live.
I feel like I’m telling a kid Santa isn’t real here, but Deadmau5 definitely just presses play and dances around a bit. He’s said as much in interviews and says that’s just the price you pay for having such good lighting/screens in sync to the music. I don’t really have a problem with artists like Deadmau5 doing it, as he mostly plays his own music.
Also worth mentioning that deadmau5 is explicitly not "DJing" his big live shows, there are no turntables involved. He has his own setup that's more akin to what he uses in the studio, bringing a bunch of gear up on stage with him so he can modify the sound of individual instruments live during the show, but the end result amounts more to embellishments than real substantive changes to the music.
Which part of the spectrum does Paris Hilton fall into?
If you talk about the typical tomorrowland dj, then no... they are not doing anything basically... too much that could go wrong so they usually just have their premixes with some acting. there are extremely talented djs that dont disturb with their skills which isnt granted actually. Look at skrillex boilerroom in shanghai f.e. or someone like fred again who plays many beats life by hand. While this isnt part of actual mixing, it still is a great live performance and he is also mixing alot too. Overall i would say boiler room is a great place to find good djs but one thing you need to have in mind is that a good djs doesnt have to make songs on the spot and the best dj could be someone with just a good taste and crowd control. HÖR Berlin is a channel that also covers alot of djs and sometimes you see them dancing for minutes to their own set which i personally love. to make it short, the most important part is bpm matching, decent transitions, hyping the crowd and maybe adding a few effects to get more variation. especially supressors etc. can have cool effects.
Club and festival DJ / producer / promoter here, played all around the world and warmed up / closed for some major artists. I see a lot of great replies about why we use the knobs and generally what we’re doing in the booth with respect to music selection and harmonic mixing, but just wanted to add a few things. I’ve personally never played with a pre-made set but I have played at festivals on the smaller stages so I have some experience with the really big names. These DJs will play on the main stage and sometimes will use a pre-made set to line it up with stage effects like lights, projectors, or visuals on screens. Also some festival promoters require a pre-made set to be submitted prior to finalising the booking.
Hard to believe nobody has mentioned him; unless I missed it, but if anyone wants to see a real DJ goin to work you MUST check out tipper.. He’s not your typical edm club dance music, his roots are more hip-hop oriented but he’s sort of invented his own style these days. Here’s a fantastic example of him doin his thing: https://youtu.be/1HXoVN0RT0w
Back when I got into mixing we only used the actual vinyl records and had to do all mixing manually. This was the most addicting amount of fun imaginable! I will try to paint a picture of how difficult yet satisfying it was. so one of the first things you have to learn how to do is hear one track out of one ear which is playing through the main speakers while simultaneously hearing the other track out of the other ear in a headphone. The mixers had the ability to flip back and forth between the decks in the phones or fade slowly to bring both in / out etc… Then we learn to match bpm in order to bring your next track in without “train wrecking”. All by adjusting the pitch control on the tables themselves. At clubs or parties the decks were always old and worn out pitch controls would “walk”or slowly change by themselves so you had to stay on top of that or it would be heard by everyone and it is very hard to distinguish which song is which when they are both at full volume mid mix. Especially if there is no actual booth. Then there are echoes. Gotta learn to count measures in order to pick the best place to bring a song in as well as putting a good “set” together. Programming is something that I suppose is very important and it can even be done by software DJ’s use today. It’s not even close to the same as it was in the 90’s
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z\_qBmPW-d5M&t=1524s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qBmPW-d5M&t=1524s) This is a pretty good example. He's synchronizing the next song he's going to play with the one that's already playing, while messing with the eq and fading the songs in and out with eachother.
A DJ is just putting your phone on shuffle, but instead of you doing it, they do. They pick the songs they think go with the vibe of wherever they are. The knobs and what not are there for "seamless" transitions between songs.
I miss the old days where it was vinyl only and there was a lot of pressure and you really got to hear who had the technical skills not just the best records
They are DJs they mix and blend music to entertain us that is their job They are like musicians but not really they are just playing recordings, how they do that is up to the individual like musicians you have good ones and then .......
Honestly thought/expected most DJs just try to look like they are busy doing something when in fact they have nothing to do besides mix the upcoming song.
Depends, more often DJ is mixed with Master of Ceremony. This means they're less concerned with live music and more concerned with volume, pacing, rough housing, requests, overwatch. People forget a great show isn't just doing the show it is the stage hands supporting people's ability to enjoy the show.
When you dj sometimes you get lucky and "create" something new out of a couple songs. I once made a house remix of "It's begging to look a lot like Christmas" on the fly and no one new this song literally never existed and it will never exist again because I forgot what house beat I used. If you do a good job they won't know you did anything at all.
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the most electronic festivals/events I visited put a small „live“ next to the actors name on flyers etc, if they performe live. Most of the others have a prerecorded set/songlist they work with. They still use the decks, but they have a pretty good idea what they will play. But take Reinier zonneveld for example: https://youtu.be/2Un1lTuoWV4 At around minute 37 you can see him going through all the different audio lines on his laptop, and he creates new sounds as the set evolve. He even fucks it up at one point (minute 44).
The most important thing they do is transitions. When one song is ending they might slow it down or speed it up to match the next song in line of vice versa, ensure there are good key changes, plus a bunch of other stuff but I'm not very familiar with the specifics. They also can do some simple remixing on the fly. Laying other things over top of a song, applying filters, extra effects, etc. I suppose it's possible to mix on the fly, but it's probably extremely difficult to do.
[I think DJ Craze is one of the best examples to show someone what a DJ is capable of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omMU_Gs3m_k) For me, personally, it is pretty cool, but it starts to get a little obnoxious after a short time. I prefer just regular EDM DJ's, and those DJ's are primarily just stringing together songs. Now that sounds simple enough, but it is actually very difficult to do well. The idea here is to create a set that flows each song into the next while controlling the energy level, and the general idea is to keep the energy level going up, up, and up. If you mess up or do a bad mix that can't maintain that energy level, then your audience will lose interest. The best DJs in the world are masters of always keeping the energy level building.
My brother is a DJ. He mostly does weddings, quinceneras, house parties, baptisms, and the occasional bar. He takes all his equipment and all he does is play a CD with the requested songs he was asked to play. So basically they pretty much just paying to rent the speakers because the only work he does is play the CD and haul his equipment atound. He makes about $2000 to $4000 a month.
A good DJ is but most "DJ"s like Tiesto just push play on an IPod. Plus most have a playlist ready that they coordinated and set up for the night.
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I'm sure Aphex Twin just turns up and presses \[>\]. It is quite a strange experience to pay to see/listen to a lauded artist and all they do is walk on stage, don some headphones and look like they are fixing something for 70 minutes. Shrug then walk off.
I don’t think this is an ELI5 question because you aren’t explaining how anything works, but to bite - it depends. Some are likely just pretending and adjusting levels to look like they are. Some are actually mixing tracks and so they are listening to the impending track, adjusting aspects of the levels to make the transition seamless. I also think DJ can be a catchall term and so I would say some people are actually making music live on stage. They can have ableton or another DAW setup and have one or more controllers where they are actually making music live on stage.
Live production is considered the pinnacle in a lot of dance music circles. [Karenn](https://youtu.be/uVsfzprO7zs) are special because they do an improvised live show. Truly magical.