What Do DJs Even DO?

0:00 What do DJs actually do?

0:02 It's a question that's plagued the internet for the last year,

0:05 even bringing some people to tears.

0:07 What do DJs actually do?

0:09 Because I don't think they're remixing the song on the spot.

0:11 I think they make it ahead of time.

0:12 So what dials are they pressing?

0:14 But as the amount of DJs out there is seemingly on the rise,

0:17 it's a fair question to ask.

0:19 Are they just pressing buttons?

0:21 Is it as simple as having the aux during a party or is there more to it?

0:25 You're kind of like the spearhead of a certain sound.

0:28 I feel it's your responsibility to educate, educate the crowd,

0:32 kind of like a radio DJ, like a taste maker.

0:35 I'm gonna dig into the history of DJ culture and talk to DJs to figure out

0:39 what the role of the DJ is

0:40 and what they're actually doing when they're on stage.

0:50 Before we answer the question of what DJs do,

0:53 let's rewind a bit and first figure out what a DJ is.

0:56 The term DJ stands for disc jockey and various sources say it

1:00 was coined in 1935 by Walter Winchell to describe radio announcer Martin Block.

1:05 Disc refers to the records that Block played,

1:07 and Jockey refers to someone who controls a machine.

1:10 Martin Block hosted a radio show called Make Believe Ballroom,

1:14 where he used records to create the illusion that you

1:17 were listening to a band play in a ballroom.

1:19 It was an idea he copied from a Canadian broadcaster named Al Jarvis,

1:23 but Block's version, which aired between the Lindbergh baby

1:26 kidnapping news bulletins became a bigger success.

1:29 Block and Jarvis weren't the first people

1:31 to play recorded music for other people though.

1:34 People have been playing recorded music

1:35 since the phonograph was invented in 1877,

1:38 and people have shared recorded music over the radio since 1906.

1:43 As technology has progressed,

1:44 what a DJ is and what they do has continued to evolve.

1:48 Nowadays, disc jockeys don't need to be playing on discs at all,

1:51 and the term is broadly used to describe

1:53 anyone who plays recorded music for other people.

1:56 There are still radio DJs who play music over the radio,

1:58 but there are also club and festival DJs,

2:01 turntableists, wedding or event DJs and bedroom DJs,

2:05 a mixture of professionals and hobbyists all using the term DJ.

2:09 So that's what a DJ is, but what do DJs actually do?

2:13 If you look at the comment section of videos of DJs performing,

2:16 you'll find comments of people saying DJs are fake twisting knobs,

2:20 or fake pressing buttons.

2:22 So are DJs faking it or is there more to it than their looks?

2:25 I sat down with one of my favorite DJs,

2:28 Jarreau Vandal, to find out more about what DJs actually do.

2:32 When I play a set, you know I always

2:34 try to like kind of tell a story about myself,

2:37 but then also make it known that I paid attention

2:41 to what kind of music or genres are popular here,

2:45 or what's an underground genre that I

2:47 think deserves more attention in that specific country.

2:51 DJs aren't playing live music when they're performing.

2:54 Instead, they're playing pre-recorded music,

2:56 oftentimes manipulating the music by adjusting things like pitch,

3:00 speed and other effects.

3:01 What most DJs do can be broken down into three steps.

3:05 Song selection, beat matching, and transitioning.

3:08 First is song selection.

3:10 This is kind of like having the aux cord and picking

3:12 the music for a house party or a car ride,

3:14 except when you're hired to entertain the room,

3:17 you're probably gonna put more thought into it.

3:19 Carl Cox calls reading the room an art form.

3:21 In an interview, he said, I always kind of DJ to the people that are not moving.

3:26 If everyone starts having a good time, my job has already been done.

3:29 Okay, so part of the job is picking songs to play,

3:32 but why are they touching so many buttons and what do those buttons actually do?

3:36 That's where beatmatching comes in, a technique to keep people

3:39 from leaving the dance floor at the end of each song.

3:42 Here's our producer Jojo, who is also a DJ,

3:45 demonstrating how to beat match two tracks.

3:47 When beat matching, DJs use two turntables

3:50 to play two different songs at the same speed.

3:52 Then they gradually adjust the timing of one record,

3:55 so its beats play in sync with the other.

3:57 This technique was popularized by a New York

4:00 City DJ named Francis Grosso during the late 1960s.

4:03 Grosso used his ears to hear when tracks were perfectly in sync.

4:07 As technology has evolved with new turntables and digital audio,

4:10 beat matching can be done with the press

4:12 of a single infamous button, the sync button.

4:15 The last part is the transition where the DJ blends one track into the other,

4:20 eventually replacing the current song with a new one.

4:23 If you're creative, there are endless ways to transition one song into another,

4:27 but there are a few popular transitions that most DJs use.

4:30 They can transition from one track to another using the cross fader,

4:33 which slowly brings the volume up of the new

4:36 song as you move the cross fader toward it

4:38 and simultaneously lowers the volume of the old song

4:40 as you move the cross fader away from it.

4:45 They can use the equalizer knobs to get

4:47 a more fine tune transition between the songs.

4:49 The equalizer knobs allow DJs to adjust

4:51 the volumes of specific frequencies like the low end, the mids, and the highs.

4:57 This helps add control for a more seamless mix.

5:01 They can use effects like reverb or echo

5:03 to help emphasize a transition or mask it.

5:07 Or DJs can simply quickly cut one track

5:10 into the other by quickly swiping the cross fader,

5:13 or starting one song as they hit stop on the other.

5:18 Sometimes when you see a DJ twisting knobs and it doesn't change the sound,

5:22 that's because they're working on the incoming

5:24 song they're about to transition to.

5:26 That's always something to do.

5:27 Like, okay, I just mixed in the song, okay, now I gotta get the next song ready.

5:31 I gotta find it like the cues, so the starting points,

5:35 like what starting point is gonna be good for this song that's playing?

5:39 DJs are not doing nothing.

5:41 Throughout the 20th century as music technology has evolved,

5:44 DJs have continued to innovate the way that they play music for people.

5:48 The dual record player was invented in 1927 and allowed DJs playing

5:52 records to start a new song as soon as the old song finished.

5:55 During the 1950s, sound system culture took over Kingston, Jamaica,

6:00 where massive homemade speaker stacks played records for people on the street.

6:03 Informal battles took place where rival sound systems competed for supremacy.

6:08 This helped elevate the DJs playing on those systems to celebrity status.

6:12 In the Bronx during the 1970s,

6:15 Kool Herc pioneered a technique by playing the same

6:18 record on two separate turntables and cutting them together.

6:21 This allowed him to extend certain parts of a song

6:23 by cutting back and forth making a live remix.

6:26 This went beyond just playing recorded music for others.

6:29 By manipulating the sounds,

6:31 Herc was effectively able to create new music on the spot.

6:35 Other DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizzard Theodore

6:39 helped extend turntablism further by perfecting techniques like scratching,

6:43 looping, and cutting.

6:45 Artists like Daft Punk, Justice and Fred Again have worked live

6:49 instrumentation and synthesizers into their DJ sets.

6:51 Blurring the line between artist performance

6:53 and selecting music and modern DJ software has allowed DJs to use AI to isolate

6:59 specific sounds and tracks to create live remixes.

7:02 This has enabled DJs like Nick Chio to play the vocals

7:05 of Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us over Abba's Dancing Queen live.

7:14 But if the role of the DJ is to play music for people

7:16 to dance to, then why do people watch the DJ at all?

7:19 At clubs and festivals around the world,

7:22 you'll see crowds of people facing the DJ,

7:24 watching them like they would a band perform at a live concert.

7:27 But it didn't always used to be this way.

7:29 Historically, the dance floor was a place for people to dance with others,

7:32 and sometimes the DJ couldn't even be seen like at the Hacienda,

7:36 where the booth was above the club in the balcony.

7:38 But during the 1990s, DJs started to become superstars,

7:42 even headlining main stages at music festivals.

7:45 And when you're playing to a crowd of over 90,000 at Glastonbury,

7:49 it might seem weird for the crowd to face away from the stage.

7:53 This discussion around whether or not people should face

7:55 the DJ has been a hot conversation in the dance world.

7:58 A viral post from the dance publication, happy Tuesday,

8:01 stated why you should stop facing the DJ booth.

8:04 And it started a lot of conversations around the topic.

8:07 They argued that not facing the DJ booth creates better

8:10 dance floor energy and puts more focus on the music.

8:13 In an interview with Boiler Room,

8:15 the Iconic House DJ Honey Dijon explained when I was growing up,

8:19 you couldn't see the DJ.

8:20 The music was a star and not the DJ,

8:22 and so people actually danced with each other instead of side by side.

8:25 It's possible that this new trend of facing the DJ

8:28 has added to the confusion about what DJs actually do.

8:31 When everyone is facing the DJ like at a concert,

8:34 it may add to the expectation that you're watching someone

8:36 do more than pick the music for you to dance to.

8:39 Of course, there are times when facing the DJ is warranted,

8:42 like when a young 15-year-old A Track won the DMC

8:46 World DJ Championship in 1997 with his turntables wizardry.

8:56 So what do DJs actually do?

8:59 Well, a lot of things, depending on the type of DJ they are.

9:02 They could be playing the bride and groom's favorite tracks at a wedding,

9:05 playing a festival main stage with original music,

9:08 or facing off against their rival in a scratching battle.

9:12 Before you go, we want your feedback.

9:14 Every year, PBS Digital Studio sends out an audience survey,

9:17 which we use to understand what you like on YouTube

9:20 and what you wanna see us make more of.

9:22 You also get to vote on new show ideas,

9:24 so it would be great if Sound Field fans were well represented in the polls.

9:29 There's a link in the description below, and thanks in advance.