Creation
The crab scratch was invented by DJ Qbert while in Japan. Qbert then took the idea back to San Francisco and after showing the scratch to DJ Disk, he created a move that used 3 or 4 fingers: the crab. Later in 1995, while the DMC USA finals were being held in San Francisco, a group of DJs and judges which included The Beat Junkies, The X-Men (now called the X-ecutioners), and the rest of ISP among others got together for what would later be known as the "Famous Warehouse Session" at Yoga Frog's old mobile DJ warehouse. It was at this session that Qbert publicized the new scratch.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.
DJ Disk is a San Francisco Bay Area turntablist of Panamanian, Colombian, and Nicaraguan descent. Born Luis Quintanilla on October 7, 1970, in San Francisco, Disk began scratching and mixing vinyl at a young age. In 1992 he joined his long-time friend DJ Qbert among the Rock Steady Crew DJs, later changing the group's name to the Invisibl Skratch Piklz.
Disco Mix Club (DMC) is primarily a remix label under BPI licence, which is not intended for the mass market but rather exclusively for professional DJs and enthusiasts. The DMC sells every month megamixes and remixes produced by other DJs, and publishes the weekly magazine, Update. The monthly Mixmag was published by the DMC in the beginning, but it was bought in January 1997 by the British media group EMAP, and then taken in December 2005 by Development Hell.
While the name "crab" seems self-explanatory since it makes your hand look like a crab when you curl all of your fingers to perform it, according to Qbert the name originated elsewhere. Apparently, he and Mixmaster Mike had just returned from Beirut, Lebanon around the same time that he invented it where they were served crepes one night after a show. He said that when the people over there pronounced crepes, it sounded more like "cccccreb" and since he thought it was funny, he used it to name the "cccccreb" scratch which everyone now pronounces as the crab.
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. No recent population census has been conducted, but 2007 estimates ranged from slightly more than 1 million to 2.2 million as part of Greater Beirut. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, Beirut is the country's largest and main seaport.
Lebanon, officially known as the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus is west across the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland facilitated its rich history and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity. At just 10,452 km2, it is the smallest recognized sovereign state on the mainland Asian continent.
Beatmatching or pitch cue is a disc jockey technique of pitch shifting or timestretching an upcoming track to match its tempo to that of the currently playing track, and to adjust them such that the beats are synchronised — e.g. the kicks and snares in two house records hit at the same time when both records are played simultaneously. Beatmatching is a component of beatmixing which employs beatmatching combined with equalization, attention to phrasing and track selection in an attempt to make a single mix that flows together and has a good structure.
A disc jockey, often abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays existing recorded music for a live audience. Most common types of DJs include radio DJ, club DJ who performs at a nightclub or music festival and turntablist who uses record players, usually turntables, to manipulate sounds on phonograph records. Originally, the disc in disc jockey referred to gramophone records, but now DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to describe someone who mixes recorded music from any source, including cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ or laptop. The title DJ is commonly used by DJs in front of their real names or adopted pseudonyms or stage names. In recent years it has become common for DJs to be featured as the credited artist on tracks they produced despite having a guest vocalist that performs the entire song: like for example Uptown Funk.
House music is a genre of electronic dance music created by club DJs and music producers in Chicago in the early 1980s. Early house music was generally characterized by repetitive 4/4 beats, rhythms provided by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals, and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, which preceded and influenced it, as both were DJ and record producer-created dance music, house was more electronic and minimalistic. The mechanical, repetitive rhythm of house was one of its main components. Many house compositions were instrumental, with no vocals; some had singing throughout the song with lyrics; and some had singing but no actual words.
Tapping is a guitar playing technique where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being tapped onto the fretboard, with either hand, as opposed to the standard technique of fretting with one hand and picking with the other.
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system for live events and/or broadcasting equipment so that a wider audience can hear the turntablist's music. Turntablists manipulate records on a turntable by moving the record with their hand to cue the stylus to exact points on a record, and by touching or moving the platter or record to stop, slow down, speed up or, spin the record backwards, or moving the turntable platter back and forth, all while using a DJ mixer's crossfader control and the mixer's gain and equalization controls to adjust the sound and level of each turntable. Turntablists typically use two or more turntables and headphones to cue up desired start points on different records.
Richard Quitevis known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is a Filipino American turntablist and composer.
Scratch is a 2001 documentary film, directed and edited by Doug Pray. The film explores the world of the hip-hop DJ from the birth of hip-hop when pioneering DJs began extending breaks on records, to the invention of scratching and beat juggling, to the more recent explosion of turntablism. Throughout the documentary, many artists explain how they were introduced to hip-hop while providing stories of their personal experiences.
The Invisibl Skratch Piklz are a group of turntablists.
In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase or decrease in the level of an audio signal. The term can also be used for film cinematography or theatre lighting in much the same way.
Michael Schwartz, better known by his stage name Mix Master Mike, is an American turntablist best known for his work with the Beastie Boys.
A DJ mixer is a type of audio mixing console used by Disc jockeys (DJs) to control and manipulate multiple audio signals. Some DJs use the mixer to make seamless transitions from one song to another when they are playing records at a dance club. Hip hop DJs and turntablists use the DJ mixer to play record players like a musical instrument and create new sounds. DJs in the disco, house music, electronic dance music and other dance-oriented genres use the mixer to make smooth transitions between different sound recordings as they are playing. The sources are typically record turntables, compact cassettes, CDJs, or DJ software on a laptop. DJ mixers allow the DJ to use headphones to preview the next song before playing it to the audience. Most low- to mid-priced DJ mixers can only accommodate two turntables or CD players, but some mixers can accommodate up to four turntables or CD players. DJs and turntablists in hip hop music and nu metal use DJ mixers to create beats, loops and "scratching" sound effects.
The Vestax Corporation was a Japanese musical instrument, turntable and audio equipment firm founded by Hidesato Shiino in 1977. The company started by designing and manufacturing electronic guitars. In the 1980s, Vestax produced multitracks recorders and later move to making DJ mixers, professional turntables, compact disc players and signal processors. Debt troubles lead to the company's bankruptcy at the end of 2014.
A CDJ is a specialized digital music player for DJing. Originally designed to play music from compact discs, many CDJs can play digital music files stored on USB flash drives or SD cards. In typical use, at least two CDJs are plugged into a DJ mixer. CDJs have jog wheels and pitch faders that allow manipulation of the digital music file similar to a vinyl record on a DJ turntable. Many have additional features such as loops and beat analysis that are not present on turntables. Additionally, some can function as DJ controllers to control the playback of digital files in DJ software running on a laptop instead of playing the files on the CDJ.
A DVJ is a DJ who composes and/or performs live using an audio-visual music player instead of an audio-only setup consisting of CD turntable players or vinyl-record turntables. This is not to be confused with a VJ, a host of a music video TV channel, or a visual-only performer separate from the DJ in a live environment.
DJ Hero is a music video game, developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision as a rhythm game spin-off of the Guitar Hero franchise. It was released on October 27, 2009 in North America and on October 29, 2009 in Europe. The game is based on turntablism, the act of creating a new musical work from one or more previously recorded songs using record players and sound effect generators, and features 94 remixes of two different songs from a selection of over 100 different songs across numerous genres.
Controllerism is the art and practice of using musical software controllers, e.g. MIDI, Open Sound Control (OSC), joystick, etc., to build upon, mix, scratch, remix, effect, modify, or otherwise create music, usually by a Digital DJ or Live PA performer, often called a "controllerist". Controllerism is also a nod to traditional musicianship and instrumental-ism paired with modern computer sequencing software such as Ableton Live and Native Instruments Traktor. However a working knowledge of scales and chords is not necessarily required as the performers typically focus their efforts more on sequencing events, software effect and instrument manipulations using buttons, knobs, faders, keys, foot switches and pedals than on instrumental notes played in real time.
With recent developments in music technology, particularly in software instruments, a USB MIDI controller enables musicians almost unlimited possibilities to control a wide variety of sound types.
Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik is a mixtape by DJ Q-bert. It was released in 1994, one year before he invented the "crab scratch." The samples on this album come from bands, cartoons, comic books, video games, and movies. The mix also contains many classic examples of hip hop break (music) with heavy scratching over top.
Joseph Saddler, better known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash is an American hip hop recording artist and DJ. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, scratching and mixing. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop act to be honored.
