History of DJs

The first DJ in history

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It was Ron Diggins, a British radio engineer who in 1947 built the famous Diggola, considered the first "mixing console" in the history of music. This home-built portable table included two turntables, lights, microphones, an amplifier, and a dozen speakers. And it was made on a coffin wood base.

On his 90th birthday, the first disc jockey confessed that, when he started touring cities and towns with his invention, he received hundreds of criticisms from musicians who did not see with good eyes that he mixed his songs without their consent. Diggins retired in 1995 after DJing at 20,000 parties.

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The Big Bang DJ (Overview)

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In the 60s and 70s, with the expansion of nightclubs throughout Europe and the US, the creation of a specific technology for this figure of music began, such as the 'CMA-10-2DL mixer', being the first mixer of history. It is also the time of the birth of 'hip-hop' and 'disco' music.

In the 80s, the first big names came to us, considered cult DJs, such as Larry Levan who played at the 'Paradise Garage' in New York, or Frankie Knuckles, who with his mixes of 'disco' and 'synth pop' spawned house music at Chicago's Warehouse Club. At the same time, in Detroit, 'techno' was born.

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Those were years of great repercussion for DJs, who saw the birth of their first specific magazine for professionals in the sector, the 'DJ Times' in 1988 and held for the first time an exclusive event for DJs of electronic dance music, the' Winter Music Conference 'at 85 in Florida.

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There are several types of DJs: radio players reproduce music that is broadcast in their programs, a club player selects and plays music in different places, such as bars, clubs or discos. Hip hop DJs often use multiple turntables, and their music is often the basis for an MC to sing along to. In addition, this type of DJ performs multiple effects, known as turntablism. In Jamaican music, the DJ (deejay) does not play records, but unlike the meaning of the term in the previous contexts, he is in charge of singing practicing what is known as toasting. The individual who plays the records in the UK is usually part of a roaming sound system, and is known as a selector.

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Equipment and Techniques

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A DJ's equipment usually includes one of the following items:

• Sound recorded in the DJ's preferred format (vinyl record, compact disc, digital files, etc.).

• A combination of two devices that allow sound to be reproduced and consecutively alternated between one and the other, so that a continuous stream of music is created without skipping (record players, CD players, mobile devices, specialized software to play MP3, etc. ).

• A sound emitter and amplifier system.

• A dedicated DJ mixer, which usually has between two and four channels and a crossfader that allows you to move from one song to the next smoothly, although it can also be through a direct cut.

• Headphones, used to listen to one of the records when the other is playing, and thus decide the exact point from which it does not sound at which it will start playing (cue or input), usually synchronized with the one that is already playing.

• Optionally, a microphone, which allows the DJ to introduce the songs, give explanations to the audience or simply animate the audience.

To this basic equipment you can optionally add other elements that allow you to manipulate and improve the sound:

• Sound effects processors (equalizer, delay, reverb, pitch, chorus, flanger, etc.).

• Software to manipulate files, when they are digital.

• Music video mixing software.

• Samplers.

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There are many techniques used by DJs to improve the mix of records and thus merge the music that is playing at one moment and the next. These techniques mainly include punching in, equalizing, and mixing audio from two or more different sources. The complexity and frequency of the special techniques used in mixing are highly dependent on the environment in which the DJ works. While rare for radio DJs, there is a lot to be found for club DJs, who need to mix smoothly and smoothly between records.

Club DJ techniques, many of them originating in the typical hip hop turntablism culture, include beatmatching, phrasing, and slip-cueing. Professional DJs also use harmonic mixing to be able to mix songs that are compatible in terms of musical scale. Turntablism consists of the art of practicing cutting, beat juggling, scratching, needle drop, phase shifting, back spinning, and other techniques, all in order to achieve transitions between records in the most creative way possible. In addition to the above, turntablism is also considered as a way of using the turntable as a musical instrument by itself.

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1960s and 1970s

By the mid-1960s, nightclubs and discos continued to grow in Europe and the United States. DJ-specific technology began to appear, such as Rudy Bozak's classic CMA-10-2DL mixer. In 1969, American DJ Francis Grasso popularized beatmatching at the Sanctuary club in New York. Beatmatching is the technique for creating seamless transitions between records by matching the tempo of the records being synced. Grasso also developed the technique of slip-cueing , whereby a record is held still while the record player continues to rotate underneath, releasing the record at the desired moment to create a sudden transition to the previous record.

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In 1968 the decline of most dance clubs and discos began. Most were either closed or turned into clubs with live bands. It was then that block parties or parties in neighboring communities began to take place, following the example of the Jamaican sound systems.

In 1973, DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican DJ considered the "godfather of hip hop culture", was already playing at block parties in the New York borough of the Bronx. It was then that he developed the technique of mixing two equal records back and forth in order to extend the rhythmic instrumental section, or break. Turntablism, the art of using turntables not only to play music but also to manipulate sound and create original music, was beginning to develop.

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In 1974, Technics released the first SL-1200 turntable. Since then it has been the benchmark for DJs.

By the mid-1970s, a mix of soul and funk with pop known as disco took off and became very popular in the United States and Europe, sparking a disco revival. Unlike the clubs of the 1960s, which included live groups, in 1975 the discotheques began to reinforce the image of the DJ, who regained validity with his work of playing music.

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1980's

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In the early 1980s, New York disco DJ Larry Levan , known for his eclectic sets, was a cult DJ, and the club he performed at, the Paradise Garage , the prototype of a modern dance club. . It is at this time that house music emerges in Chicago . The name comes from a nightclub in the city called The Warehouse, where resident DJ Frankie Knuckles mixed disco music with European synth pop. House music is characterized by taking elements from the album but being completely electronically created using synthesizers and having very marked 4/4 rhythmic patterns. At the same time, techno emerges in Detroit. In 1985, the Winter Music Conference was held for the first time in Florida , an event exclusively for electronic dance music disc jockeys.

In 1985, TRAX Dance Music Guide was released in the United States. It was the first national magazine for disyoqueis. In 1986, the rap / rock song " Walk This Way ", composed by Run DMC and Aerosmith , became the first hip hop song to achieve the top 10 category of the Billboard Hot 100 awards. In 1988, DJ Times magazine was published for the first time. It was the first magazine specifically for professional DJs. Starting in the mid-1980s, the wedding and banquet business began a radical transformation process with the introduction of music played by DJs, which replaced traditional live bands.

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In this decade the term VJ (Videojay) was heard for the first time when on August 1, 1981 the new music program on television (MTV) introduced the term with which it called its presenters, since then the term became popular making reference to people who present or mix videos.

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1990's

In the early 1990s, the rave movement emerged around the acid house scene. Raves greatly changed dance music, the image of DJs and the nature of organizing these types of events. Without being their objective, the idea of ​​the superstar DJ or superstar DJ began to develop from the rave-dance scene, who established marks around their own names and their particular sound. Some of these celebrated DJ superstars travel the world being able to enter other musical genres and other activities.

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The 1990s also saw major technological changes. The compact disc surpassed the vinyl disc in popularity, with the digital format increasingly being used for DJing on digital devices called DJ compact discs. These became a reference within the market, to the point of becoming standards within the industry. However, vinyl is still being produced in small quantities, specifically for DJs, who are still using this format in the 21st century.

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2000s-present

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The mid-2000s evolved towards the use of digital files, which introduced a major transformation within the world of DJs. Also the entry into the market of the well-known DJ Controllers, which are Hardwares that manipulate music in digital format from a computer, has changed the parameters that the DJ needed to mix. Some DJs are more versatile and adapt to the type of turntables at the event.

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Some of the Brands most used by DJs are:

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