A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
Lee "Scratch" Perry was a Jamaican record producer, composer and singer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development of dub music with his early adoption of remixing and studio effects to create new instrumental or vocal versions of existing reggae tracks. He worked with and produced for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Junior Murvin, The Congos, Max Romeo, Adrian Sherwood, Beastie Boys, Ari Up, The Clash, The Orb, and many others.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
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 and/or broadcasting equipment so that a wider audience can hear the turntablist's music. Turntablists atypically 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.
Unkle is a British musical outfit founded in 1992 by James Lavelle. Originally categorised as trip hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and have employed a variety of guest artists and producers.
Jeffrey Allen Townes, known professionally as DJ Jazzy Jeff, is an American disc jockey (DJ) and music producer. He was a member of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince with Will Smith. He is credited, along with DJs Spinbad and Cash Money, with making the transformer scratch famous.
DirectShow, codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology. Based on the Microsoft Windows Component Object Model (COM) framework, DirectShow provides a common interface for media across various programming languages, and is an extensible, filter-based framework that can render or record media files on demand at the request of the user or developer. The DirectShow development tools and documentation were originally distributed as part of the DirectX SDK. Currently, they are distributed as part of the Windows SDK.
Killa Kela is a British beatboxer and rapper from West Sussex. He is widely considered to have been the first beatboxer from the UK.
George Spivey, known professionally as DJ Scratch, is an American hip hop DJ and producer from Brooklyn, New York.
Michael Schwartz, better known by his stage name Mix Master Mike, is an American turntablist best known for his work with 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 so-called scratching sound effects.
Rob Swift, is an American hip hop DJ and turntablist. He was an original member of the turntablist group The X-Ecutioners until 2004. He has also released numerous solo albums and collaborated with various artists, including Mike Patton, Patton's project Peeping Tom, Dan the Automator and Handsome Boy Modeling School, Lords of Acid, Portugal. The Man, and Herbie Hancock.
Alain Macklovitch, known by his stage name A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ, record producer, and record executive. He came to prominence in the late 2000s as an international club DJ and remix artist, known for incorporating highly technical turntable skills and scratching into his genre-spanning work. He is also president of the record label Fool's Gold, which was founded in 2007, and is credited for developing the careers of artists such as Kid Cudi, Danny Brown, and Flosstradamus. Among other collaborative projects, he is part of the DJ duo Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for their song "Barbra Streisand".
Scratch is a high-level block-based visual programming language and website aimed primarily at children as an educational tool for programming, with a target audience of ages 8 to 16. Users on the site, called Scratchers, can create projects on the website using a block-like interface. Projects can be exported to standalone HTML5, Android apps, Bundle (macOS) and EXE files using external tools. The service is developed by the MIT Media Lab, has been translated into 70+ languages, and is used in most parts of the world. Scratch is taught and used in after-school centers, schools, and colleges, as well as other public knowledge institutions. As of 15 February, 2023, community statistics on the language's official website show more than 123 million projects shared by over 103 million users, over 804 million total projects ever created, and more than 95 million monthly website visits.
EOTO was an electronic band consisting of Michael Travis and Jason Hann. On July 22, 2021 the band announced via social media that they would no longer be performing, due to irreconcilable creative differences. The post indicated that the decision did not impact The String Cheese Incident, which they both play in.
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.
Joseph Saddler, popularly known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is an American DJ and rapper. 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. In 2019 he won the Polar Music Prize. On May 21, 2022, he acquired an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Buffalo State College.
DJ Hero 2 is a rhythm video game and a sequel to DJ Hero, a spinoff of the Guitar Hero series. DJ Hero 2 uses a special turntable-controller, the same as introduced in DJ Hero, to simulate turntablism, the act of creating a new musical work from one or more previously recorded songs using record players and sound effect generators. The game is developed by FreeStyleGames and is published by Activision, and was released worldwide in October 2010.
Scratch My Back is the eighth studio album by English musician Peter Gabriel, his first in eight years. It was released in February 2010. The album, recorded at Air Lyndhurst and Real World Studios during 2009, consists of cover versions of twelve songs by various artists, using only orchestra and voice. It is produced by Gabriel with Bob Ezrin.
And I'll Scratch Yours is a compilation album developed by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. Initially slated for release in 2010, the album was released on 24 September 2013. The original concept was that And I'll Scratch Yours would serve as a companion piece to Gabriel's 2010 covers album Scratch My Back. The idea was to give the artists whose songs Gabriel covered on Scratch My Back a medium to reciprocate – And I'll Scratch Yours would feature those artists covering Gabriel's songs. However, three artists declined to record covers of Gabriel's material. Therefore, three new artists contributed covers to the album instead.
