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Midi Controllers: The death of scratching, a gateway drug, or neither?


Vekked

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It's just online! But not here or DJforums or any other scratch related website. But other than that it's in rude health.

 

There's a quite a community on Youtube as I just said but you're trolling so decided to gloss over that. Not even mentioned QSU... If that were free even more people would be on there. Now stfu.

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Oh and @Jon, I know you've left the thread but the fact that those massive rappers chose scratch DJs as their DJs can be more down to the fact that they want the best DJ, and the "best DJ" title has always been synonymous with the DMC champ. I doubt many people who went to see those shows went because they love scratching.

 

Same with any instrument though mate. You'll have a small percentage of people who go to see bands play to geek out at the drummer or guitarist, but the majority will be there for the songs as a whole or the vocalist, as that's who everyone can relate to.

 

For pure scratch shows, it's very much like going to see a jazz soloist play- it becomes a niche thing. Not everyone who likes rock music wants to go to see Steve Vai play a solo show nahh mean?

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It's just online! But not here or DJforums or any other scratch related website. But other than that it's in rude health.

 

There's a quite a community on Youtube as I just said but you're trolling so decided to gloss over that. Not even mentioned QSU... If that were free even more people would be on there. Now stfu.

 

Even if there are large communities online you can't compare that to ten years ago. What you can compare is attendance at scratch events and sales of the tools required to do scratching and both of those have gone down. At the same time general live music attendance figures have gone up.

 

 

Oh and @Jon, I know you've left the thread but the fact that those massive rappers chose scratch DJs as their DJs can be more down to the fact that they want the best DJ, and the "best DJ" title has always been synonymous with the DMC champ. I doubt many people who went to see those shows went because they love scratching.

 

Same with any instrument though mate. You'll have a small percentage of people who go to see bands play to geek out at the drummer or guitarist, but the majority will be there for the songs as a whole or the vocalist, as that's who everyone can relate to.

 

For pure scratch shows, it's very much like going to see a jazz soloist play- it becomes a niche thing. Not everyone who likes rock music wants to go to see Steve Vai play a solo show nahh mean?

 

I don't understand what point you're trying to make. You saying that there will indeed be a small core of people going who want to see a scratch DJ, which is what I'm also saying. Scratching is a minor-interest hobby.

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Haha true. I think my point up to that last post is that there is still room for a scratch heavy group that appeals to a large audience even if it's not in tune with current music trends. There comes a stage where instead of waiting for one of your favourite DJs to be featured on a track by an artist you like, you go out and make it happen for yourself and make the music you want to hear. If it's good music and presented well it will find an audience.

 

I think what I should have said re: kanye etc is that the fact that they have still sourced scratch djs proves that it is still valued :) both atrak and craze were chosen years after their battle peaks.

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So dopp has essentially molded his argument from "samplers killed scratching" to "scratching is a minor-interest hobby". I dunno why we let him wind us up. Who's worse of, us who are into a "minor-interest hobby" or him, who is probably the most prolific poster on a scratch forum and doesn't even scratch!

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I didn't mod my argument d00b. I spent a large part of this thread arguing that scratching is much less popular than it used to be, without really touching on why because I was having a hard time convincing people that that was the case.

 

My original point extended to other technology than samplers.

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My point is that I largely agree that scratching has declined in popularity even though in instances scratching has reached really high points in recent years too BUT there is room for a big resurgence if people try new things.

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re. the decline of scratch tools as an indicator for popularity

 

1) Scratch record are not needed any more, most people have DVS. So lack of scratch records can't be used as an indicator.

 

2) Panasonic's business model around techinics wasn't that great in the end - they built turntables that never broke or became obselete. Thats not a good money spinner and im sure they're future growth as a company and comparative growth against others looks better on paper now that they're boshing out similar products as their peers, with a limited life span.. therefore i don;t think this can be used as an indicator for scratching popularity.

 

3) 2 Channel scratch mixers are pretty popular and new models are still coming out, specifically with scratching in mind. Innofaders etc. have been built to service scratchers specifically. Manufactures responded clearly that scratchi market was still relevent to them enough by putting em in their gear.

 

4) Hardware manufactures continue to use scratch DJ's to push product e.g. There's bigger celebrity DJ names in mainstream culture that could demo gear, yet vestax choose DJ Rasp, a relative unknown to do a skill set to demo they're gear. This is DESPITE the fact that celeb endorsements can clearly push a crappy product.

re. attendence at events ...

 

Scratch DJ's are anti social , the fact that they don;t go to gigs , put out music etc doesn;t surprise anyone on this board, it's always been true so i don;t think these can be an indicator of popularity.

 

Now my general moan ......It's always been an insular community that quite frankly took a route of rejecting commercialisation to remain true to the art, an act that might be looked back on as cutting off your nose to spite your face. People cant getinto something they've never experienced ..even more so today, people can;t enjoy something without being told its ok to enjoy it or what it is they should enjoy about it due to the role of media in our lives. I've said it before and i'll say it again, turntablism should have been raped by the media like rap, graff and skating, but scratch dj's at the time didn;t want this and hid as much as possible to make it inaccessible It's only recently theres been public "debate" on the future of turntablism - there is no scene if nopn one talks to each other.. hence why i think Vekked is seeing scratching as being more popular , when it's proably just becoming more networked and so the "voice" of popularity seems louder than before.

 

I welcome controllers, just like other i started with a "cheap" setup and slowly upgraded as i went along. So yeah .. prolific gateway drug is better than no gateway to the illict hardcore turntablism crack ;-)

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hence why i think Vekked is seeing scratching as being more popular , when it's proably just becoming more networked and so the "voice" of popularity seems louder than before.

Pretty much agree w/ everything you said but fwiw I don't think/didn't say scratching is becoming more popular, just that there's still interest in it as shown by the views crappy midi controller scratching videos get... clearly there's nuff people searching "vci scratching", "controller scratching", etc, because they're interested in it.
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Don't get me wrong tho, I ain't about to start scratching on a midi controller any time soon LOL.

 

Mini SC3900 review while I'm on the controller tip.

 

I got a pair of SC3900s to try this week, and they're by far the best controller I've tried for scratching, but even being the absolute best they're still pretty flawed. Like if I wanna just scratch ahh they actually work quite nice... they sound decent, they're accurate, and they feel pretty good (they could be lighter tbh, they're 9in record but there's a bit of tension on them so they feel like an average to slightly heavy 12 inch... my Serato records + d-styles mats are lighter). But braking/starting the platter, platter off stuff, and cue points all fuck with the sample's position. Like basically anything except for scratching makes the sample move away from where it would be on the record, so you can basically forget about doing any sort of routine/composition with them. Like for some reason you can't really cue sounds properly while the record is stopped like to line them up with your stickers like DVS... when the record's stopped and you hit cue it plays a bit of the sample so your sticker ends up being in the middle of the sample instead of the start... pretty annoying.

 

Back to the feel, they have a torque adjust but it basically does nothing... the thing is the record is mounted to this spindle thingy that's kind of limiting how quick it can spin, so even if you put the torque on lowest it doesn't really feel much lighter because it isn't the platter that's causing the pull. Likewise I don't think if you put a better slipmat on it that it would make a difference because it's almost like it's not the actual record friction slowing anything down, it's the spindle mount itself that needs to be made looser.

 

Scratching while sitting on your bed is kinda cool too.

 

If they improved some of this weird stuff and made it even more turntable-like, I feel like they have potential to be a game changer. I feel like they're sort of like what Final Scratch was to Serato... great idea but the execution still needs some work.

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My point is that I largely agree that scratching has declined in popularity even though in instances scratching has reached really high points in recent years too BUT there is room for a big resurgence if people try new things.

 

but alot of scratchers dont try new things imo.

 

and when i say that i mean the majority of people who actually make up the scene, ie the amateurs on youtube. not the obvious bigger names that we all know.

 

EDIT: this has nothing to do with the OP tho, more of a tangent. just to cover my back about this point. when i say amateurs on youtube, im not talking about anyone from DV, SSS or tbh most scratch dj's i personally know. everyone here is very good at developing style, BUT if you trawl thru the countless videos of cutting on youtube most of them make you turn off after about 10 seconds.

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LOL I didn't deny that it's basically just EDM tho, but it has a decent amount of scratching. Despite being the biggest scratch nerd, I'm not as big of a fan boy of C2C as most. Muh fukkaz tricked people into thinking that not scratching was the new scratching.

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I feel it's important to split scratch as a technique from scratch as a culture. Controllers are judged by how well the platter and crossfader perform, and a growing number of DJs use them to play out, because it's more convenient. But if the same DJ were to turn up to a Hip Hop event, they'd lose a lot of credibility.

 

I agree entirely that controllers are the gateway drug to scratching, but perhaps not the culture of the scratch DJ itself. For that, you must have the passion for vinyl, digging and falling in love with the history of the scene. For a lot of DJs however, they just want to have the best possible scratch experience rather than become that guy who cruises charity shops with a Handy Trax every weekend.

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