Club Djs example essay topic

Ollie 1 The Basics on How to Scratch as a DJ? In today's modern world the DJ has become a musician; the turntable, his instrument. It took fifteen years for this amazing resolution. DJ's have actually been around for years; mixing and scratching however, it did not come along until the late 70's or early 80's ("Disc Jockey 1"). A lot of people were doing this.

But the main front line man was and still is Granmasterflash. Granmasterflash, one of hip-hop's founding fathers and the creator of the Quick Mix. He was the first person to change the arrangements of songs by using duplicate copies of records and manually editing / repeating the climatic part by rubbing the record back and forth ("Grandmaster Flash"). But now the DJ has changed. The kinds of DJ's are different, the equipment is different, and the scratching is different. A DJ (disc jockey) takes many forms.

The three most common forms are Mobile DJs, Radio DJs, and Club DJs. Mobile DJs generally work parties and special events (i.e. : weddings, birthdays, etc.) on site ("DJ. net Homepage"). This sort of work usually entails Ollie 2 entertaining a wide variety of tastes and age groups, as well as a bit of MC " ing. Radio DJs are the least common. Their task is to make sure there is never any dead air time by filling it with either their words or music. Again, there is a certain appeal that needs to be worked on and being a Mr. Personality is important.

The third kind, Club DJs can be found, but are not nearly as prominent at mobile DJs. They have a very specific age group and are expected to play the latest and greatest all the time. This sort of DJing often requires the most technical know-how on mixing since style and uniqueness are critical to establish a name for oneself and the club itself. DJs can make anything from 0 to $50,000 a night. It all depends on how good the DJ gets. In the club scene, when he starts off, find that the DJ will probably only going to get work if he works for free As he gets better, he might start getting in around $50 a night.

Once the DJ actually reasonably established in your own town, things can jump up to around $400 a night, then as he gets bigger and better, the sky's the limit for how much you can request ("Get Rich as a DJ"). All three shares the common goal of providing an entertainment for a wide variety of people through various means, mostly however, through music. A DJ's job is to combine all the elements necessary for his performance into one fluid package that can be easily swallowed by all of his or her listeners. For some DJs this includes talk and games, while for others it means spinning the latest and greatest to the hippest people in town. The equipment that is needed to start out to be a DJ is two turntables. DJ's will also need a scratch mixer.

The DJ will need some cartridges / needles. He will also need a good pair of headphones. DJ's would definitely have to vinyl or records ("DJ Equipment"). Ollie 3 There are two types of turntables. There are belt drive turntable and a direct drive turntable.

Belt driven decks work by a big rubber band linking round a motor, then round the underside of the deck plate. The motor makes the band rotate, which in turn makes the plate turn. On direct drive decks, however, the motor is placed in the center of the deck, which turns the center spindle of the deck 'directly' instead of a rubber band linking the motor. Right now the best turntable on the market is the Technics SL-1200 Direct Drive Turntable. The SL-1200 Turntable has a pitch lock button. The pitch lock button has the ability to change the tempo of a song without changing the pitch.

This lets drastically speed up songs with vocals without a "chipmunk" effect. The SL-1200 also has quartz pitch blend control. The pitch blend control is the effect of the temporary changing of pitch to get beats in phase. Club DJs typically use their fingers to speed up or slow down the record by pushing / pulling the record by the label. Some twist the spindle in the center to change the pitch momentarily. Once the DJ stops bending the pitch, the decks will automatically snap back to the current pitch control settings.

This is necessary since its possible for two songs to be playing at the exact same tempo yet have their beats out of phase. By bending the pitch momentarily, the beats come into phase, and the DJ doesn't have to worry about readjusting the pitch control ("Turntable"). The purpose of the mixer is to change the sound that the DJ can hear from one turntables output to the other ones without having a break in sound. Typically, this means that deck one is in channel one and deck two is in channel two. To change from one channel to another, a cross fader is normally included on the mixer, which, as it is moved it, moves the sound from one deck to the Ollie 4 other. A cross fader is a slider control, which moves from one input channel to another in a very smooth fashion.

The volume on each channel is inversely proportional to each other, so if the x-fader is completely on the left side, he will only hear the input for that channel. The Numark Pro SM-3 is best mixer he can buy. The mixer has 3 line phone output. This means the DJ can hook up three turntables to this mixer.

The mixer also has bass, middle, and treble controls on each channel. This type of mixer would cost about $649 ("Numark Mixers"). The next thing the DJ would have to get would be the cartridges and needles. These are what transfer the vibrations caused by the grooves in the record to sound. The needle itself sits inside the groove of the record, and as the record passes through it, it vibrates. The cartridge holds the needle, which is then screwed onto the head shell, which is locked onto the tone arm and all of which translate the vibrations to an electrical signal which is turned into the music that he can hear ("Equipment 2") There are many different kinds of needles and cartridges out there, but the best is the Shure M 44-7 and it run about $74 for two.

The Shure M 44-7 is the needle choice for champion DJ's worldwide ("Numark Mixers"). A good DJ will need a good pair of headphones. The headphones are used for curing. Cueing is using the headphones to find the spot the DJ wants to start the next song. But it is important to get a pair of headphones that are lightweight because after wearing them a while the DJ's head will hurt. The best headphones to buy are the Sony M DRV 700 dj and they are about $110 ("Gemini sound products with sound ideas").

Ollie 5 The most important thing the DJ has to have is records. There are two types of records. There are the twelve-inch records. Theses records can contain a whole album. The seven-inch records are singles. The singles records contain four or five tracks of the same song.

An example would be a regular version, radio version, instrumental, and just a vocal of just that one song. Now the hardest part to being a DJ is the scratching or mixing of songs. There are basic types of scratching; the baby scratch, the scribble scratch, and the tear. But there are a few things the DJ needs to know before he starts to scratch. The first thing the DJ is going to need is a set of good, slippy slip mats. Then make sure the needle is clean, relatively new and positioned correctly.

The other problem that he will have to overcome before really mixing it up and becoming a pro at scratching is the hand technique. Check the vinyl to make sure there are no holes in the records. A wide hole is going to have a lot of perpendicular movement going on when he tries to scratch, pulling the needle out of the groove ("Scratching"). After this the DJ is ready to scratch.

The baby scratch is probably the easiest scratch there is. It has an easy pattern to remember, and it provides a great starting point for the beginner. It is just a forward movement followed immediately by a backward movement. It is important that the placement within the bar of tune is correct.

It is the convention to do the full forward and backward cycle in the matter of one beat. Just think of it as starting the record, as though Ollie 6 the DJ is going to drop in the tune in a mix, but then after half a beat, pull it back. The speed that the DJ does is both of these actions with it can affect the sound produced, as does choosing whether to go backwards or forwards first. This involves no cross-fader action, apart from dropping it in, then taking it back out again ("Scratching") The scribble scratch is all but identical to the baby scratch, except that there are far more scratches. The technique is to tense the forearm and wrist and then 'stab' back and forth. The other way of doing it though is just to use the fingers to move the record back and forth through the needle.

It is basically the same; all it is trying to do is improve the speed that the DJ can scratch at. Obviously, through doing this, he would want to make the amount of vinyl passing under the needle as small as possible. Then just find the beat or samples that he is scratching through, and keep it on that try not too spill too far before or after the sample ("Scratching") The tear involves a bit more skill than the scratches covered so far. Essentially the movement is the same as a baby scratch but is now split into three. The forward stroke stays the same, but the backwards's split into two; the first half being fast and the second being half the pace. Try to practice just the backward stroke first, so that he can get used to changing the tempo ("Scratching") DJing requires a lot of practicing.

But once the future DJ gets the basics down. He can mature into a pro DJ. But it will take a lot of time, money, energy, and patience. If the DJ sticks with it, he could become next great pro DJ. The sky is the limit.