The history of DJing

The Timeline and History
DJ Equipment


10/1/2010
CCTS
Team CCTS

 
The history and timeline of DJing

Djing is a thing that makes music just that much more fun to listen to. Djing doesn’t interest everyone but that doesn’t apply to me. Everybody has their favorite songs but what If you can remix it and add things to your favorite songs, that’s just amazing.
Now invented the first turntable? This is actually a question that has to answers. Leon Scott created something call the phonograph, which is the beginning of the turntable legacy. That’s not all though, it took the invention of the phonograph cylinder by Thomas Edison to bring it all together. This invention allowed people to record and play back sound. In 1906, Reginald Fessenden played the first record over the air. As modern people know of Djing being played in the club, it wasn’t always viewed like that. Surprisingly in Jamaica, parties began to be thrown on large sound systems. This was the true modern party scene. At this point in history of Djing, many of the main skills and techniques still haven’t been found, such as beat matching and scratching. In 1965 the first stereophonic disco system debuts at the 1964-1965 world’s fairs in New York. Then a guy named David Mancuso started to throw after-hours parties in his loft in New York. That later became known as “The Loft”. Then David met another guy named Alex Rosner and together they set a new standard for clubs everywhere. After a while Alex Rosner designed the first Djing mixer for a club called Haven.

In 1974 Grandmaster Flash develops “Quick Mix Theory” for cutting and mixing records. This was very exciting for the people because you could make the music your own. After about a year Grand Wizzard Theodore invents scratching. This is something that I personally love to do with my turntables. Scratching is something that just makes music amazing and super fun to listen to. Scratching was really just rocking the record back and forth to create a scratching sound. In 1977 the mixers were introduced to the world. A DJ mixer is a type of audio mixing console that allows DJs to have the ability to redirect a non-playing source to headphones. This allows for an easier transition between two sources. Also in 1977 the GLI PMX 7000 Mixer was the first affordable DJ mixer, it later became known as the “poor man’s Bozak”. Mixers were a big part of Djing. A mixer usually consists between two and six stereo channels. They also have equalizers; this is used to fade parts of tracks in and out. Some DJ mixers come with a crossfader curve controls which is mainly for speed scratching. Now let’s get to the good stuff, turntables. In 1978 the SL-1200 Mark2 took the Djing world by storm. This allowed people to DJ on 12” vinyls. A few years later in 1981 the invention of the beat maker was introduced to the world. This allowed DJs to set a beat on a timing scale and make another beat over it and DJ along with it.
After all of this in 1982 the first MIDI controller appered in the DJ scene. The MIDI (Musical Instructment Digital Interface) is a controller that enables electronic musical intruments such as keyboard controllers, computers, and other elctronic equipment to communicate, control, and synthesizers with each other. The MIDI controller alllows everything that’s hooked up to it exchange system data.through 1984 to 1999 their werent really any new inventions for the Djing community. Their were just upgrades and new products of the same company and model. Year 2001 is when every thing changed, the world was introduced to the very first digital vinyl turntable. This was the best thing that hit the Djing community. This allowed DJs to use regular CDs instead of using 12” vinyls. The new turntable also had a touch sensitive platter that accurately emulated a vinyl turntable. The DJ community started to get newer and more andvanced mixers and MIDI controllers. They started to come with more features and able to be connected to more things. Then the computer turntables came to life. You were able to use your computer as a turntable and your mouse was the vinyl pad. In 2004, the best of both worlds came to this world. You were now able to purchase a turntable that allowed you to mix with vinyls or a CD. So wheather you like using vinyl or cd or maybe you like both, you can have it. 2004 also introduced the first DVD/CD turntable. I don’t really why you would use a DVD for Djing but there must be a reason for this invention. Last but not least, the year 2009 had the Rane SL 3 Interface. This was a Serato Scratch Live is introduced with 3 phono/line inputs, 3 outputs and 24-bit processing board. This is what DJs have been introduced to.