What do DJs like Tiesto, Van Buuren, etc actually do on stage ?

Emp_Fab

I quite like a bit of trance now and again, and I'm sure some of you remember my old 'DJ Worship' rant thread, but I was just watching some Tiesto and wondered what it is that they actually do up there at these huge festival gigs ?

The implication seems to be that they are creating the music live (which of course they aren't).  I wonder how many of the audience believe that the DJ is creating it ?  But.... what are they actually doing ?  I'm presuming they are not playing recordings of music they have written and played themselves, but that of other artists (that go uncredited it appears), and the DJ is just creating a mashup of other people's material, live.

But - it makes no sense to do it all live - it would make far more sense to do all the mixing beforehand and create a final track to just play at the venue.  If this is the case, aside from pressing 'Play', what exactly are the DJs doing up there, besides dancing ?  Is the routine with the headphones and constant dial twiddling just a facade ?

Bellycaster

I don't get it either, obviously they have technical skills and I appreciate some of the finished products eg: Fatboy Slim - Rockefeller Skank etc. I don't know if people go just to listen to the "genre" of music or whether the DJ actually adds his own "magic" to it.

My vision of it might be all Pete Tong though.

carlos

Bad DJs - bring a mix to the venue and just mix the levels onstage, slow it down, speed it up, pause it, etc

Good DJs - bring a big bag of VYNIL to the venue taking into account the type of night it will be, the crowd, the soundsystem, etc. Onstage they will pick the records on the fly depending what the mood is, who's on the dancefloor, the energy level, how crowded it is and so on. Everything is mixed on the fly so the beat never drops.

Source: was friends for 6+ years with some top DJs in Lisbon and used to go out with them.

fretmeister

Dj 1: You want to see the new film at the cinema?

DJ 2: Depends. Who is the projectionist?

holnrew

I think they must feed off the crowd a bit, knowing when to "drop the beat" as they say.

Emp_Fab

So no ideas as to what they do then ?

not_the_dj

Emp_Fab said:

So no ideas as to what they do then ?

Lead the crowd and give them a focal point. The atmosphere is better that way rather than having an iPod on shuffle hooked up to a PA.

Emp_Fab

Oh I get that....  the focal point aspect is a given - I was just referring to what they actually do with the equipment in front of them.  i.e.  is all the button pressing and mixer tweaking etc just fakery.

capo4th

Not a lot

littlegreenman

capo4th

Yes as I suspected DJ Dave is a bellend

ICBM

I genuinely don't know, but I don't care either. I like the music mostly, and since it's clearly not all played live, why worry about how much of it might be or might not? Even if all the DJ does is press play and lark about, for some reason I find it less annoying than bands who pretend to play entirely live but actually rely on programmed stuff and/or off-stage musicians.

Gassage

Don't mock. The crowd go wild when Aviiiiiiciiiiii puts his hand in the air in a symbolic fashion.

chrispy108

http://wundergroundmusic.com/djs-now-deliberately-making-mistakes-to-prove-they-are-real-djs/

stickyfiddle

I have no idea on any of this really, but my god you know when it's wrong. I was in a bar recently and they had a DJ who looked the part but wasn't syncing beats, so while everything was at the right bpm it all sounded horrendous. An iPod on shuffle would've genuinely been better.

viz

Some do more than others, but in either case the vast majority is done offstage, beforehand, creating / mixing the music. Onstage they choose songs to manage and lift the crowd, control levels, get the crowd going with judicious comments. They are great entertainers when they do it well.

carlos

Emp_Fab said:

So no ideas as to what they do then ?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Emp_Fab

georgenadaintl said:

Emp_Fab said:

So no ideas as to what they do then ?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Did you even read what I asked ?

ToneControl

I assume some DJs use Ableton, which means they can change arrangements and length of tracks constantly during a performance. To be fair, you could learn to do this in 30 minutes, so it's just adding more detail to the DJ's tools for trying to manage a dancefloor
The world does need DJs, but the worship they get seems bizarre to me, unless they actually create tracks themselves

carlos

Emp_Fab;363726" said:

georgenadaintl said:



Emp_Fab said:

So no ideas as to what they do then ?





Did you even read what I wrote?





Did you even read what I asked ?

I replied to it. What a DJ does is the same whether festival or club. Source: my aforementioned friends.

EricTheWeary

I watched that series about celebs learning instruments. One of them was a female club dj IIRC and she seemed to spend her day working on the running order of tracks and then playing the vinyl in the club. The difference between that and what my brother was doing with his mobile disco playing weddings 30 years ago seemed pretty tiny.