History of mixing??

benjybars

village elder.
As in beat-matching, playing two records at the same time, at the right speeds etc...

when did this start? which DJs/Genres?

i was reading that the rise of riddims produced using drum machines in dancehall meant that selectors started using two decks as it was easier to beat-match, whereas before they just used one deck.

which DJs have the best reputation for mixing?

what's the best mix you've all heard?

i remember blackdown writing about seeing Oneman mix Stonecold all the way through Mala's Changes and being blown away. His mixes are pretty much constantly amazing to be fair...

so yeah, not really sure what my question is really... just write something about mixing!
 

credit crunch

_________
I tink Jimmy Savile (of all people) was using 2 turntables in the 50's, so that the music was continuous........... 'tho I heard he couldn't mix fer shit;)
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Kool Herc wunnit?

well, as I understand it, that depends on what kind of mixing you mean. if you're talking extending breakbeats, scratching and all the b-boy stuff then it's obv. the hip hop pioneers like Herc and Grandmaster Flash and so on to the whole turntablism as genre thing.

the first DJs to really beat-match, though, were the disco guys (I recall reading that Walter Gibbons was especially proficient), responding to a demand for a smooth, continuous mix that people could dance to for long periods of time. that demand also facilitated the birth of the 12" single and the rise to prominence of the remix via dudes like Tom Moulton, Gibbons, Larry Levan and so on. A little later on Ron Hardy was also famous for his mixing and his edits.

also, I don't really know too much about the reggae angle, aside from the pieces of soundsystem culture that filtered down to ardkore/jungle/etc., so selectors could have been matching beats in JA well before the New York disco crowd, though I kinda doubt it.
 

benjybars

village elder.
By popular accounts, the first DJ to do this on a wider scale is Francis Grosso- he was playing clubs in New York before the advent of disco then through it; Sanctuary and so forth. Started out playing old Motown and that.

http://ped111251.tripod.com/francis.htm


yeah just found this on wikipedia..

History

Beatmatching was invented by Francis Grasso in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Initially he was counting the tempo with a metronome and looking for records with the same tempo. Later a mixer was built for him by Alex Rosner which let him listen to any channel in the headphones independently of what was playing on the speakers; this became the defining feature of DJ mixers. That and turntables with pitch control enabled him to mix tracks with different tempo by changing the pitch of the cued (redirected to headphones) track to match its tempo with the track being played by ear. Essentially, the technique he originated hasn't changed since.

These days beatmatching is considered central to DJing, and features making it possible are a requirement for DJ-oriented players. In 1978, the Technics SL-1200MK2 turntable was released, whose comfortable and precise sliding pitch control and high torque direct drive motor made beatmatching easier and it became the standard among DJs. With the advent of the compact disc, DJ-oriented Compact Disc players with pitch control and other features enabling beatmatching (and sometimes scratching), dubbed CDJs, were introduced by various companies. More recently, software with similar capabilities has been developed to allow manipulation of digital audio files stored on computers using turntables with special vinyl records (e.g. Final Scratch, Serato Scratch Live) or computer interface (e.g. Traktor DJ Studio, Mixxx, Virtual Dj). Other software including algorithmic beatmatching is Ableton Live, which allows for realtime music manipulation and deconstruction, or Mixmeister, a DJ Mixset creation tool. Freeware software such as Rapid Evolution can detect the beats per minute and determine the percent BPM difference between songs.

The change from pure hardware to software is on the rise, and big DJs are introducing new equipment to their kits such as the laptop, and dropping the difficulty of carrying hundreds of CDs with them. The creation of the iPod allowed DJs to have an alternative tool for DJIng. Limitations with iPod DJing equipment has meant that only second generation equipment such as the IDJ2 or the Cortex Dmix-300 have the pitch control that alters tempo and allows for beatmatching on the iPod. However, recent additions to the Pioneer CDJ family, such as the CDJ-400, allow iPods and other digital storage devices (such as external hard drives and USB memory sticks) to be connected to the CDJ device via USB. This allows the DJ to make use of the beatmatching capabilities of the CDJ unit whilst playing digital music files from the iPod or other storage device.



someone should come to a rave today with just a bag of records and metronome.. show these guys some REAL old skool!
 

zhao

there are no accidents
wonder how the japanese were able to monopolize the dj equipment market with their brands becoming ubiquitous industry standard.

edit: i guess the same way that SONY became international standard... but just funny that they went after this market at all... was there a big hiphop/disco/dj scene in japan in 1978? i mean at the time the market for this must have been relatively tiny in the US -- guess they had the foresight that it will become big.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
yeah just found this on wikipedia..

History

Beatmatching was invented by Francis Grasso in the late 1960s and early 1970s.


but this is maybe wrong as Polystyle Desu was probably doing it a couple of years before.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Na' me man !

But re: The Japanese , possibly for those makers it was still 'Stereo' or 'Studio equipment' early on before hiphop ;
plush headphones, heavy weight turntables for '70's audiophiles, gearheads etc.
People had all those ' J brands' up in their place ...

Mixing. Can say twas a crowd thrill to hear Afrika B get down on to it at the Ol' Mudd Club though ...
He'd been uptown for seasons , but downtown hadn't really gotten the full effect - yet.

At after x mas dinner party the other night, Taka was talking about one the Dj's exclusive 'Loft' party that does still go on downtown;
was surprised it still went on.

Keep it mixed ...
 
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benjybars

village elder.
and what about 3 or 4 deck mixing - who pioneered that??

who would u say are the most talented DJs for mixing within each genre?
 

straight

wings cru
i think jeff mills was doing 3 decks and drum machine mixing from the mid 80s. went to check that out and found out mike banks played bass for parliament?!
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
and what about 3 or 4 deck mixing - who pioneered that??
Seems to me that once you've got two deck mixing then you know everything you need to know for the three (or four or more) deck version - as long as you have enough inputs on the mixer and enough cues and a way of controlling the output from the mixer (a volume for each channel would be enough I suppose as long as you can play them all at the same time). Unless I'm missing something - I have to admit I've never tried to mix with three decks.
It seems to me that when you can overlap two records you make a big step up in terms of being able to keep the music flowing (if that's what you like) but when you add more decks after that you are just adding in more sounds at once, you aren't making such a big advance.
 
It's amazing that anyone came up with the idea of beatmatching, then practicing enough to prove it actually can be done. I would have given up after 5 minutes. Francis Grasso claimed to be able to mix the first time he tried it. He could be lying though
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
wow, I didn't know any of that bit about Francis Grasso, pretty fascinating stuff, I stand corrected as far as the actual originator of beatmatching. I stick with what I said as far as the big disco DJs being the first ones to popularize the technique, though.
 

petergunn

plywood violin
"betcha can't make me skip..."

read all this and more here:

lastnightadjsave-bk.jpg


great great book that covers this entire thread from Francis Grasso to David Macuso (the Loft dube, Polystu, and yeah he still does have parties, they just end at midnight) Bambattaa to Walter Gibbons, Larry Levan and more....

also the Tecnics 1200 MK II is the black european model, there was mxing beforehand, i swear the reg tecnics 1200 was around b4 that... i invite all curious to listen to my friend's dad mix in NYC circ 1974:

http://axischemicals.com/disco.mp3
 

nochexxx

harco pronting
wow, I didn't know any of that bit about Francis Grasso, pretty fascinating stuff, I stand corrected as far as the actual originator of beatmatching. I stick with what I said as far as the big disco DJs being the first ones to popularize the technique, though.


grasso along with many of the other discos guys are my heroes. in fact there's must see footage of grasso talking about mixing in the maestro ( a documentary about studio 54)

correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure mancuso instigated the idea of separating audio frequencies and arranging cabinets in the correct way. tweeters pumping the highs at ear level and subs on the floor providing bass weight, which is pretty much staple of any club nowadays.
 
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