Disc Jockeying Research

Disc Jockeying – Background Research

What is a Disc Jockey?
A person who selects and plays sound recordings. There are several different types of DJ’s, which depend on a number of factors such as: selected music genre, intended audience, the performance setting, the preferred medium and the development of sound manipulation.

Equipment used:
1. Sound recordings in a preferred medium (Vinyls, CD’s, mp3’s)
2. A minimum of two devices for playback of sound recordings for alternating back and forth for continuous playback
3. A sound system for amplification of the recordings
Other: Mixer (to mix the sound of the playback devices), a microphone, headphones, samplers, drum machines, effects processors, computerised performance systems.

Techniques:
Cueing
Equalisation
Audio mixing
Turntable DJ specific
Slip cueing, phrasing, cutting, beat juggling, scratching, beatmatching, needle drops phrase shifting + more for transitions and overdubs.

SCRATCHING
- A technique originated by Grand Wizard Theodore, an early hip-hop DJ from New York.
- Almost all scratches are produced by moving a vinyl record back and forth with your hand while it is playing on a turntable.
- Ideally scratching does not damage the record because the needle stays within the groove and does not move horizontally across the record’s surface.
- Basic equipment: two turntables, a mixer with a cross fader.
- Crossfader is used in conjunction with the scratching hand to cut in and out of the scratched record.

Sounds and Techniques
Baby Scratch – Simplest scratch form, basis for all other scratch forms. Performed with the scratching hand only (no crossfader used). The scratching hand slowly moves the record back and forth (moving slowly important, otherwise it becomes a scribble scratch).

Release – sometimes called “cutting” or “sampling”, a simple scratch made by releasing the record from the beginning of a particular sound. Fader open at the beginning of the release, then closed while the record is pulled back to the beginning of the sound.

Tear Scratch – performed without the crossfader – simple forward-back-back or forward-forward-back motion, breaking the sound into triplets,

Scribble Scratch – performed without the crossfader – tensing the forearm muscle of the scratch handle and rapidly jiggling the record back and forth in minute movements.

Chirp Scratch – Involves fading sound in and out with the crossfader hand while the scratching hand performs a baby scratch

Transform Scratch – Starts with crossfader closed, involves moving the record with the scratching hand while periodically “tapping” the crossfader open and immediately closing it again.

Flare Scratch – Begins with crossfader open, involves moving the record while closing the fader one or more times to cut the sound out

Crab Scratch – moving the record while quickly tapping the crossfader open with each finger of the cross fader hand. – for fast flare scratches.

Orbit Scratch – any scratch (commonly the flare) done forward and immediately backwards along the record’s surface.

Tweak Scratch – performed with the turntable motor off. Record platter set in motion manually.