Scratching
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a
While scratching is most associated with
History
Precursors
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A rudimentary form of turntable manipulation that is related to scratching was developed in the late 1940s by radio music program hosts,
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
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
Although previous artists such as writer and poet
In 1981
Basic techniques
Vinyl recordings
Most scratches are produced by rotating a
The basic equipment setup for scratching includes two turntables and a
Digital vinyl systems
Using a
- The turntables' audio outputs are connected to the audio inputs of a computer audio interface.
- The audio interface digitizes the timecode signal from the turntables and transfers it to the computer's DJ software.
- 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.
- 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 filesor 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
Some digital vinyl systems software include:
- Traktor Scratch Pro
- Cross DVS
- VirtualDJ Pro
- Serato Scratch Live
- M-Audio Torq
- Deckadance
- Xwax
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:
- Specialized DJ-jog wheels, allowing the DJ to manipulate a CD as if it were a vinyl record, have become widely available in the 2000s.
- A .
- DJs have also used magnetic tape, such as cassette or reel to reel to both mix and scratch. Tape DJing is rare, but Ruthless Ramsey[14] in the US, TJ Scratchavite[15] in Italy and Mr Tape[16]in Latvia use exclusively tape formats to perform.
Sounds
Sounds that are frequently scratched include but are not limited to drum beats,
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
Basic techniques
- Faderless scratches
- Baby scratch - The simplest scratch form, it is performed with the scratching hand only, moving the record back and forth in continuous movements while the crossfader is in the open position.
- Scribble scratch - The scribble scratch is by rapidly pushing the record back and forth. The crossfader is not used.
- Drag scratch - Equivalent to the baby and scribble scratch, but done more slowly. The crossfader is not used.
- Tweak scratch - Performed while the turntable's motor is not running. The record platter is set in motion manually, then "tweaked" faster and slower to create a scratch. This scratch form is best performed with long, sustained sounds.
- Hydrophonic scratch - A baby scratch with a "tear scratch" sound produced by the thumb running in the opposite direction as the fingers used to scratch. This rubbing of the thumb adds a vibrating effect or reverberation to forward movements on the turntable.
- Tear scratch- Tear scratches are scratches where the record is moved in a staggered fashion, dividing the forward and backward movement into two or more movements. This allows creating sounds similar to "flare scratches" without the use of the crossfader and it allows for more complex rhythmic patterns. The term can also refer to a simpler, slower version of the chirp.
- Orbit scratch- Describes any scratch, most commonly flares, that is repeated during the forward and backward movement of the record. "Orbit" is also used as a shorthand for two-click flares.
- Baby scratch - The simplest scratch form, it is performed with the scratching hand only, moving the record back and forth in continuous movements while the crossfader is in the open position.
- Transformer scratch- with the crossfader closed, the record is moved with the scratching hand while periodically "tapping" the crossfader open and immediately closing it again.
- Forward and backward scratch - The forward scratch, also referred to as scrubbing, is a baby scratch where the crossfader is closed during the backwards movement of the record. If the record is let go instead of being pushed forward it is also called "release scratch" or "drop". Cutting out the forward part of the record movement instead of the backward part gives a "backward scratch"
- attackcreated by cutting in the crossfader on the backward movement.
- Flare scratch - Begins with the crossfader open, and then the record is moved while briefly closing the fader one or more times to cut the sound out. This produces a staggering sound which can make a single "flare" sound like a very fast series of "chirps" or "tears." The number of times the fader is closed ("clicks") during the record's movement is usually used as a prefix to distinguish the variations. The flare allows a DJ to scratch continuously with less hand fatigue than would result from the transformer. The flare can be combined with the crabfor an extremely rapid continuous series of scratches.
- Euro scratch - A variation of the "flare scratch" in which two faders are used simultaneously with one hand to cut the sound much faster. It can also be performed by using only the up fader and the phono line switch to cut the sound.
- Crab scratch - Consists of moving the record while quickly tapping the crossfader open or closed with each finger of the crossfader hand. In this way, DJs are able to perform transforms or flares much faster than they could by manipulating the crossfader with the whole hand.
- Twiddle scratch - A crab scratch using only the index and middle fingers.
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
In 2004,
Use outside hip hop
Scratching has been incorporated into a number of other musical genres, including
DJ Product©1969, formerly of the
Guitarist
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
- List of turntablists
- Tape-bow violin
- Vinyl emulation software
Sources
- Allmusic's Grand Wizard Theodore biography (also at Artist Direct)
- ISBN 1-85242-243-2.
References
- ISBN 9781135477806.
- ^ a b Brian Coleman, The Technics 1200 — Hammer Of The Gods, Medium
- Hal Leonard Corporation, 2003
- ^ Billboard, May 21, 1977, page 140
- ^ a b c d Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld, The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, page 515, Oxford University Press
- ^ "History of the Record Player Part II: The Rise and Fall". Reverb.com. October 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
- ^ Toop, 1991.
- ^ Six Machines That Changed The Music World, Wired, May 2002
- ^ https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p312125/biography
- ^ Nicholas Collins, Margaret Schedel, Scott Wilson (2013), Electronic Music: Cambridge Introductions to Music, page 105, Cambridge University Press
- ^ "Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen". Archived from the original on 2010-01-01.
- ^ allmusic ((( More Encores: Christian Marclay Plays With the Records Of... > Overview )))
- ^ McNamee, David (11 January 2010). "Hey, what's that sound: Turntablism". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: esponda (14 March 2008). "DJ Ruthless Ramsey Scratch Tape Decks" – via YouTube.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Federico Nardella (19 September 2016). "TJ Scratchavite - Matthew's Cellar" – via YouTube.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Yussuf von Deck (14 May 2012). "World Hip Hop Classic - Mr. Tape 1991" – via YouTube.
- ^ Hansen, Kjetil Falkenberg. "S-Notation (2011)" (PDF).
- ^ "Course 5 – Scratch Combos". School of Scratch. Retrieved 2024-02-25.
- ^ "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.
- ^ a b "Graphic Nature: DJ Product @1969 [(hed)PE – Self Titled] | BEATDUST". www.beatdust.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-13.