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

hungrymark

Emp_Fab said:

Everyone's guessing.  I just wondered if anyone actually knew what the majority of big venue DJs, like Guetta, Van Buuren, Tiesto etc are doing when they are tweaking knobs and dancing about.  The temptation must be massive to just play a pre-mixed set and just pretend you're mixing live.  After all, the chances of getting caught are bordering on nil and the advantages are huge.

From the answers so far, nobody really knows, and nobody knows much about the ownership of the actual music being played.

Oh well !

No they're not - people have told you, you just can't be arsed to read it/don't believe it. Don't expect any help in future if that's your attitude.

failed_astronaut

I don't have a lot of value to add to this, and it looks like @karlosSantos is our resident expert and talker-of-sense on the subject, but I had an experience of a classically awful DJ this weekend. The gig we were playing had a DJ to fill in the gaps between the bands and this old fud sat with his back to the dancefloor running two laptops, one for Spotify and one for iTunes! Best moment of the night was at the very end when everything was finished and the last thing anyone heard was the windows shutdown theme!

holnrew

If I was one of those DJs, I'd probably have a lady under the mixing desk.

thecolourbox

I think in fairness its just not quite understanding the "unknown", ive been like this for years with bassists. Like a non guitarists listening to guitars, they just hear "guitar", i see a bassist playing and doing all the weird looking shapes with their hands and it just sounds like a bass to me regardless of how they're playing it. That is a negative reflection on me though not on bassists!