1 Deck DJing

[Nick Cope]

Was at the new-look Salmon & Compass last night - bit of a launch party. Place really does look very different and the ground floor bar is much bigger. It's more of a modern, cosmopolitan (even hoxton-ish?) feel to it now, which though loses a little of it's rough and ready charm, makes up in other ways...

Anyway, I was DJing there last night, using a very makeshift soundsystem (new one goes in today, complete with A&H mixer!) and everything was giving out - ended up with just one deck.

Funnily enough, I really enjoyed DJing with one deck: you can only realistically use dinked 45s, as you have to be quick with the changeover - no time to fuck around queuing anything with more than one track on it, or even taking the middle out and back in again.

What I liked about it was the attention it gave to the track as, well, a track: it's beginning and end. Plus it had also better be a good one - I guess you can't play 'filler' 45s using this method. Just seemed to place more attention on the track itself and demand more thought as which 45 to put on next.

Of course, I know the history of this one-deck method etc. Just never done it myself. There's a lot to be said for this method! There should be more one-deck nights...!


Just a morning sermon I thought I'd share with ye.

[bongolia]

can anyone do the fast reggae style one-hand changeover? (not sure i'd want to though, i imagine it's how a lot of reggae stuff gets trashed...)

i.e. hold the next record upside down between thumb and first finger of left hand, lift the arm with the right hand, pick up previous record between third and fourth fingers of left hand, and rotate hand to slap down the new 45 and replace arm

other one of course is just putting the next 45 on top of the previous one...

[sermad]

I dj'd on one deck when the needle on the other crapped out. I had a great laugh too. Luckily they had the same pioneer mixer like the salmon had so I just used the echo effects to segue the tracks together. Worked nice.

Also stuck on a few 10 minute wonders to give myself some 'bar time'.

[sermad]

re the reggae changeover. Yeah picking up the tonearm and record can be a tad tricky after a few jars. It tends to whizzz out onto the dancefloor if you are not careful!

[Nick Cope]

can anyone do the fast reggae style one-hand changeover? (not sure i'd want to though, i imagine it's how a lot of reggae stuff gets trashed...)

i.e. hold the next record upside down between thumb and first finger of left hand, lift the arm with the right hand, pick up previous record between third and fourth fingers of left hand, and rotate hand to slap down the new 45 and replace arm

other one of course is just putting the next 45 on top of the previous one...

Whuuut?

Can you provide illustrations please?

[Rich Hero]

Whuuut?

Can you provide illustrations please?

Go see see Jah Shaka. Then marvel as he also lifts up the deck with one hand, while the record is playing, to adjust the padding underneath it with the other 'cos his soundsystem is creating feedback.

[son of stan]

Whuuut?

Can you provide illustrations please?

I'm sure I've seen film of this technique in action (possibly that Soul Jazz Studio 1 doc. or summat). I thought it was a two man operation for some reason..

[bongolia]

I'm sure I've seen film of this technique in action (possibly that Soul Jazz Studio 1 doc. or summat). I thought it was a two man operation for some reason..

damn, still haven't watched that! admittedly for the first year i owned it i didn't have a dvd player, but still...

i don't think i explained it well.

basically the right hand just lifts the arm (ideally of the nice 50s Garrard deck!) and puts it down on the next record, while the left picks up the outgoing record between the 3rd (or 4th if you count thumb as 1) and little finger, and puts down the new record (held between 1st finger and thumb) by rotating the wrist.

come on mi selector!

[The Divine One]

I guess you can't play 'filler' 45s using this method.

Nick, playing "filler" 45s is a bad habit you should get out of IMMEDIATELY...

[vibra]

I've got a DMC World Finals video from 2002, where Greece's entry, DJ Stoulee, decides to 'raise his game' by choosing to use only 1 turntable. Now, if the man was able to demonstrate total mastery of said 1210, perhaps he'd have been up there with the best of them, but as I'm sure you can imagine, the results were a bit unfortunate when displayed beside Kentaro and Skully etc. What on earth was he thinking?

[Nick Cope]

Nick, playing "filler" 45s is a bad habit you should get out of IMMEDIATELY...

I didn't say I play filler 45s. I said the one-deck method should prevent the playing of filler 45s! And if someone doesn't realised they're playing a filler 45, then they're a shit DJ!

[mulder]

scarey first post...

From the other side of the decks, it was my mate's birthday one year, back when Blowpop in Bristol was at the Blue Mountain. We were trashed as you'd expect, especially him, and he'd decided it was time to kill the beers for a bit and just drink coke.

We hardly ever ventured downstairs at Blowpop for some reason, the lure of the funk and hip hop upstairs was just too much to resist, and the upstairs room was smaller with the decks and DJ's open to attack from any nutters in the crowd (like us).

Anyway, we were jumping up and down to something, and he goes and chucks the sticky brown contents of his glass all over the mixer! The left deck channel conked out, making quite a strange electrical noise, so they were reduced to one deck until they worked out there was a 3rd channel on the mixer which they could plug the deck into.

From a punters point of view, this actually improved the set, and we didn't get beaten up, so the fun continued...

[Rich Hero]

...and we didn't get beaten up, so the fun continued...

Calling Mr Stapleton...

Welcome Mulder, this reminds me of a certain guest at Colin's Edinburgh shindig, Headspin, a few years back. Well into the night, with a packed dancefloor, the mixer started acting very temperamental. The soundman, and anyone else at hand, was buttonholed to see if they could fix it but noone had a clue, so the DJ soldiered on. We later deduced that said DJ had spilt his bottle of beer into the mixer (and there were witnesses, I believe?). Neither was it a cheap mixer but one of those all singing, all dancing models with a sampler, effects, a Teasmaid, etc. And it was the guest's own...

[john stapleton]

Calling Mr Stapleton...

I despair, I really do...

[mulder]

Hello John, we've met a couple of times in the past you might remember. I used to do stuff for Urban Takeover (still trying to, but I've been a bit unwell lately).