Scratching

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A DJ scratching a record

Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a

crossfader on a DJ mixer
may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.

While scratching is most associated with

hip hop culture, scratching is one of the measures of a DJ's skills. DJs compete in scratching competitions at the DMC World DJ Championships and IDA (International DJ Association), formerly known as ITF (International Turntablist Federation). At scratching competitions, DJs can use only scratch-oriented gear (turntables, DJ mixer, digital vinyl systems or vinyl records only). In recorded hip hop songs, scratched "hooks" often use portions of other songs. Other music genres such as jazz, pop, and rock have also incorporated scratching.[citation needed
]

History

Precursors

A rudimentary form of turntable manipulation that is related to scratching was developed in the late 1940s by radio music program hosts,

audio console operators. It was known as back-cueing, and was used to find the very beginning of the start of a song (i.e., the cue point) on a vinyl record groove.[1]
This was done to permit the operator to back the disc up (rotate the record or the turntable platter itself counter-clockwise) in order to permit the turntable to be switched on, and come up to full speed without ruining the first few bars of music with the "wow" of incorrect, unnaturally slow-speed playing. This permitted the announcer to time their remarks, and start the turntable in time for when they wanted the music on the record to begin.

Back cueing was a basic skill that all radio production staff needed to learn, and the dynamics of it were unique to the brand of professional turntable in use at a given radio station. The older, larger and heavier turntables needed a 180-degree backward rotation to allow for run up to full speed; some of the newer 1950s models used aluminum platters and cloth-backed rubber mats which required a third of a rotational turn or less to achieve full speed when the song began. All this was done in order to present a music show on air with the least amount of silence ("dead air") between music, the announcer's patter and recorded advertising commercials. The rationale was that any "dead air" on a radio station was likely to prompt a listener to switch stations, so announcers and program directors instructed DJs and announcers to provide a continuous, seamless stream of sound–from music to an announcer to a pre-recorded commercial, to a "jingle" (radio station theme song), and then immediately back to more music.

Back-cueing was a key function in delivering this seamless stream of music. Radio personnel demanded robust equipment and manufacturers developed special tonearms, styli, cartridges and lightweight turntables to meet these demands.

Turntablism

In the mid-1970s in the South Bronx, a young teen DJ named "Grand Wizzard Theodore" (right) invented the "DJ scratch" technique. Other DJs, like Grandmaster Flash, took the technique to higher levels.

Modern scratching techniques were made possible by the invention of direct-drive turntables, which led to the emergence of turntablism. Early belt-drive turntables were unsuitable for scratching since they had a slow start-up time, and they were prone to wear and tear and breakage,[2] as the belt would break from backspinning or scratching.[3] The first direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic),[4] based in Osaka, Japan.[2] It eliminated belts, and instead employed a motor to directly drive a platter on which a vinyl record rests.[5] In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10,[5] the first direct-drive turntable on the market,[6] and the first in their influential Technics series of turntables.[5]

In the 1970s, hip hop musicians and club DJs began to use this specialized turntable equipment to move the record back and forth, creating percussive sounds and effects–"scratching"–to entertain their dance floor audiences. Whereas the 1940s–1960s radio DJs had used back-cueing while listening to the sounds through their headphones, without the audience hearing, with scratching, the DJ intentionally lets the audience hear the sounds that are being created by manipulating the record on the turntable, by directing the output from the turntable to a sound reinforcement system so that the audience can hear the sounds. Scratching was developed by early hip hop DJs from New York City such as Grand Wizzard Theodore, who described scratching as, "nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it [the recorded sound] out to the crowd."[7] He developed the technique when experimenting with the Technics SL-1200, a direct-drive turntable released by Matsushita in 1972 when he found that the motor would continue to spin at the correct RPM even if the DJ wiggled the record back and forth on the platter. Afrika Bambaataa made a similar discovery with the SL-1200 in the 1970s. The Technics SL-1200 went on to become the most widely used turntable for the next several decades.[8]

Jamaican-born DJ

DJing, where the breaks of funk songs—being the most danceable part, often featuring percussion—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties.[9] He was influenced by Jamaican dub music,[10] and developed his turntable techniques using the Technics SL-1100, released in 1971, due to its strong motor, durability, and fidelity.[5]

Although previous artists such as writer and poet

reel-to-reel tape deck (typically 1/4 inch magnetic audiotape) are gently rotated back and forth while the playback head is live and amplified, to isolate a specific spot on the tape where an editing "cut" is to be made. Today, both scratching and scrubbing can be done on digital audio workstations
(DAWs) which are equipped for these techniques.

gramophone records and turntables as musical instruments to create sound collages. He developed his turntable sounds independently of hip hop DJs. Although he is little-known to mainstream audiences, Marclay has been described as "the most influential turntable figure outside hip hop"[11] and the "unwitting inventor of turntablism."[12]

In 1981

1984 Grammy Awards, and in the documentary film Scratch, the performance is cited by many 1980s-era DJs as their first exposure to scratching. The Street Sounds Electro compilation series which started in 1983 is also notable for early examples of scratching. Also, a notable piece was "For A Few Dollars More" by Bill Laswell-Michael Beinhorn band Material, released on 12" single in Japan and containing scratch performed by Grand Mixer DXT
, another pioneer of scratching.

Basic techniques

Vinyl recordings

Most scratches are produced by rotating a

direct drive turntable rapidly back and forth with the hand with the stylus ("needle") in the record's groove. This produces the distinctive sound that has come to be one of the most recognizable features of hip hop music.[13] Over time with excessive scratching, the stylus will cause what is referred to as "cue burn", or "record burn".[citation needed
]

The basic equipment setup for scratching includes two turntables and a

mixer that has a crossfader and cue buttons to allow the DJ to cue up new music in their headphones without the audience hearing.[citation needed] When scratching, this crossfader is utilized in conjunction with the scratching hand that is manipulating the record platter. The hand manipulating the crossfader is used to cut in and out of the record's sound.[citation needed
]

Digital vinyl systems

Using a

digital vinyl system
(DVS) consists of playing vinyl discs on turntables whose contents are a timecode signal instead of a real music record.

  1. The turntables' audio outputs are connected to the audio inputs of a computer audio interface.
  2. The audio interface digitizes the timecode signal from the turntables and transfers it to the computer's DJ software.
  3. The DJ software uses this data (e.g., about how fast the platter is spinning) to determine the playback status, speed, scratch sound of the hardware turntables, etc., and it duplicates these effects on the digital audio files or computer tracks the DJ is using.
  4. By manipulating the turntables' platters, speed controls, and other elements, the DJ thus controls how the computer plays back digitized audio and can therefore produce "scratching" and other
    digital audio files
    or computer tracks.

There is not a single standard of DVS, so each form of DJ software has its own settings. Some DJ software such as

Serato Scratch Live
supports only the audio interface sold with their software, requiring multiple interfaces for one computer to run multiple programs.

Some digital vinyl systems software include:

Non-vinyl scratching

While some turntablists consider the only true scratching media to be the vinyl disc, there are other ways to scratch, such as:

Sounds

Sounds that are frequently scratched include but are not limited to drum beats,

Fab 5 Freddy
.

There are many scratching techniques, which differ in how the movements of the record are combined with opening and closing the crossfader (or another fader or switch, such as a

DJ QBert
on his Do It Yourself Scratching DVD.

Basic techniques

Scratch combinations

More complex combinations can be generated by grouping elementary crossfader motions (such as the open, close, and tap) into three and four-move sequences.[17] Closing and tapping motions can be followed by opens and taps, and opens can be followed by closes only.

Three move sequences switch position at beginning and end
open-close-tap closed-closed
tap-open-close closed-closed
close-tap-open open-open
open-close-open closed-open
close-open-close open-closed
close-tap-tap open-closed
tap-tap-tap closed-closed
tap-tap-open closed-open
four move sequences switch position at beginning and end
close-open-close-open open-open
close-open-close-tap open-closed
close-tap-open-close open-closed
close-tap-tap-tap open-closed
close-tap-tap-open open-open
open-close-open-close closed-closed
open-close-tap-tap closed-closed
open-close-tap-open closed-open
tap-tap-tap-tap closed-closed
tap-tap-tap-open closed-open
tap-tap-open-close closed-closed
tap-open-close-open closed-open
tap-open-close-tap closed-closed

Note that some sequences of motions ultimately change the direction of the switch, whereas others end in a position such that they can be repeated immediately without having to reset the position of the switch. Sequences that change the direction of the switch can be dovetailed with sequences that change it in the opposite directions to produce repeating patterns, or can be used to transition between open and closed crossfader techniques, such as chirps/flares and transforms, respectively.[18] These crossfader sequences are frequently combined with orbits and tears to produce combination scratches, such as the aquaman scratch, which goes "close-tap-open".[19]

Subculture

While scratching is becoming more and more popular in pop music, particularly with the crossover success of pop-hip hop tracks in the 2010s, sophisticated scratching and other expert turntablism techniques are still predominantly an underground style developed by the

Shortkut and later Mix Master Mike. In July 2000, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts held Skratchcon2000, the first DJ Skratch forum that provided "the education and development of skratch music literacy". In 2001, Thud Rumble became an independent company that works with DJ artists to produce and distribute scratch records.[citation needed
]

In 2004,

MC
at events, and perform club sets.

Use outside hip hop

Scratching has been incorporated into a number of other musical genres, including

classical music performances. For recording use, samplers
are often used instead of physically scratching a vinyl record.

DJ Product©1969, formerly of the

Maverick Records, as being another one of the first rock bands to utilize scratching in their music.[20]

Guitarist

crossfader
.

Since the 1990s, scratching has been used in a variety of popular music genres such as nu metal, exemplified by Linkin Park, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit. It has also been used by artists in pop music (e.g. Nelly Furtado) and alternative rock (e.g. Incubus). Scratching is also popular in various electronic music styles, such as techno.

See also

Sources

References

  1. .
  2. ^ a b Brian Coleman, The Technics 1200 — Hammer Of The Gods, Medium
  3. Hal Leonard Corporation
    , 2003
  4. ^ Billboard, May 21, 1977, page 140
  5. ^ a b c d Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld, The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, page 515, Oxford University Press
  6. ^ "History of the Record Player Part II: The Rise and Fall". Reverb.com. October 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  7. ^ Toop, 1991.
  8. ^ Six Machines That Changed The Music World, Wired, May 2002
  9. ^ https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p312125/biography
  10. ^ Nicholas Collins, Margaret Schedel, Scott Wilson (2013), Electronic Music: Cambridge Introductions to Music, page 105, Cambridge University Press
  11. ^ "Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen". Archived from the original on 2010-01-01.
  12. ^ allmusic ((( More Encores: Christian Marclay Plays With the Records Of... > Overview )))
  13. ^ McNamee, David (11 January 2010). "Hey, what's that sound: Turntablism". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
  14. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: esponda (14 March 2008). "DJ Ruthless Ramsey Scratch Tape Decks" – via YouTube.
  15. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Federico Nardella (19 September 2016). "TJ Scratchavite - Matthew's Cellar" – via YouTube.
  16. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Yussuf von Deck (14 May 2012). "World Hip Hop Classic - Mr. Tape 1991" – via YouTube.
  17. ^ Hansen, Kjetil Falkenberg. "S-Notation (2011)" (PDF).
  18. ^ "Course 5 – Scratch Combos". School of Scratch. Retrieved 2024-02-25.
  19. ^ "DJ Dirty Digits | Aquaman Scratch | Watch And Learn - Scratch DJ Academy". DJ Dirty Digits | Aquaman Scratch | Watch And Learn - Scratch DJ Academy. Retrieved 2024-02-25.
  20. ^ a b "Graphic Nature: DJ Product @1969 [(hed)PE – Self Titled] | BEATDUST". www.beatdust.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-13.