Scratch Beat Tempos - It's time we all sat down and had a serious talk about this

[DJ Rock Well]

This is something I've been thinking of posting for a while now, even more so since the DV and IDA scratch battles have been going on and the thread on here asking what tempo people favour for a scratch track collab.

 

 

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that in the hands of the right scratcher, a beat of any tempo could be the perfect speed to scratch to. But I didn't always think like that...

 

I got into scratching at a time when it was generally done over hip hop or electro, so most of the time something in the region of 85-110 bpm for the hip hop or 120-135 bpm for the electro. Even then, I only felt it was DJs who had a long history of cutting to electro that really had a full repertoire of styles for this speed.

 

Then as the 2000s rolled on, more people got into cutting different types of dance music, particulary dubstep... or at least music/beats with 70ish bpm kicks and a lot of double time elements, that DJs would cut double-time to (assuming you're counting the BPM as 70). When I first heard people cutting double time over 70-80 bpm beats, most of what I heard was a lot of straight two click flares and I mistakenly thought that the tempo was providing some limitations. But of course as time went on, many new styles came out to make up what a lot of people refer to as "new school scratching" and it was obvious that as complete a scratch language existed at this tempo as any other. In fact this style has gone so far that I often come across people for whom this kind of scratching over beats of this tempo is their first scratch language. So much so, that I've even heard some people express that this is the optimum cutting speed that allows the most variety of scratches, something that doesn't sit right with me.

 

Indeed, I was very surprised when I checked out the IDA USA & Canada official scratches beats for the battle and found that 14 beats were between 75 and 90 bpm, 2 were at 130 bpm and 1 was 140 bpm. So that's a scratch comp for a whole continent where scratching between 91 and 129 bpm isn't even an option?!?! Do they really know something I don't, or are they just stuck in the rut of a current scratch fashion?

 

For a while, I even considered that around 110 bpm was a bit of an awkward speed because it was a bit fast to do some double-time moves but made them too plodding at the on-beat tempo. Any last trace of this thought was completely erased after watching IQ's Round 3 entry to the DV battle though.

 

 

 

Anyway... I want to know what people's preferred scratch tempos are, why you prefer them or how you came to prefer them. Plus, any theories or observations anyone has on how tempo affects cutting, both for yourself or just in general. Feel free to be as nerdy as you like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

I like beats that are in the middle range when it comes to BPM, purely because of my own limited skills. The faster a beat gets, the more limited my cutting becomes until I reach the point where I can only cut at half time, which obviously will happen with any DJ once a certain BPM is reached, but for me it happens at a relatively low BPM.

 

I don't mind cutting over slow beats, but then a lot of DJs end up double-timing their cuts over beats that are slow, which then leaves me in the same situation as with fast beats.

 

What has always hindered me is fader speed when scratching hamster. If I switch to regular, I can do the fader movements required for fast transforming over a fast beat, for example, but obviously that is no help to me as I've never practiced scratching with the fader regular and it feels really weird, like trying to write with my left hand. I've tried studying the cuts of DJs that cut hamster who have no trouble with fast beats to see how they position their fader hand and how they hold/control the fader, but I've never had any luck with trying to mimic that.

 

Mind you, I haven't practiced scratching for years. Not since the days of me and Dub-Se7en going to Grae's scratch loft and that must be 6 or 7 years ago now. I don't love it like I used to.

[DJ Rock Well]

I see why you say that skill limitations keep you straying too far from your preferred tempo range, but do you think your preferred tempo is a result of that speed making the most amount of scratches easier to execute or because that was the sort of tempo you learnt to scratch on?

 

Also, do you have any preferred tempos when listening to others scratch? Assuming that the DJ cutting is of a high level and comfortable with the beat.

[Steve]

I think the speed thing is related purely to my limitations. I used to try and push myself to go faster and faster when I practiced regularly, but I hit a brick wall that I just couldn't get past.

 

My preferred range when listening to others is medium to fast.

[Dopez]

My favorite scratch tempo is around 95 or so but I can bust some cuts over 110 - 120 electro.

[Guest petesasqwax]

I tend to prefer listening to cuts over slower tempo beats as I feel that people can get more expressive over them in general. Obviously there are exceptions to this. Personally, when it comes to my own cuts I tend to produce between 70 and 95 bpms so that's my comfort zone but in the past few months i've been doing a lot more cutting over beats up to 120bpm as I'm trying to erase my pre-/mis- conceptions about what tempos I can scratch best over

[Guest Symatic]

i definitely prefer the 70bpm area but i will happily cut over anything. i like to vary it up and cut over different bpms. definitely 110-130 is the most difficult for me, as its a very slow half time, or very fast double time. but i learned on 90-120 bpm beats and moved to 70 when i noticed how well suited it was. i think it was some loefa or coki/mala type beats that grabbed my attention, cos they left so much space to cut, and they were tough sounds, and had dope hip hop samples played at the wrong speed - whats not to like?

having ultra pitch definitely affected that as well, cos most scratch records before that were configured to 90 ish bpm sentences. i really liked how people like ned hoddings would flow over slow beats with a slowed down sample, and could slide in between timings a bit more.

[ericuk]

I think the vibe of the beat is more important than the tempo. I cut over anything if I feel the beat. Cutting with sy over his slow beats was dope at sss but then cutting up to some 105bpm is just as fun

[Guest rasteri]

There's more to it than just the tempo - triplet patterns work on some beats but not others.

[DJ Rock Well]

Yeah, I totally appreciate that the groove of a beat is just important as tempo. Wether or not I'm feeling the groove of a certain beat is pretty much everything to me.

 

I just wanted to find out people's opinions on tempo as I keep seeing indicators around at the moment that for some, around 70-90 bpm is the serious scratch tempo range. Like I said in the original post, the IDA battle didn't even offer any beats in the 91-129 bpm range for their scratch battle, which to me wreaks of following current fashions.

 

Thanks a lot to those who have replied to this thread, really appreciate it. Just to be clear, I didn't start this thread just to get a conversation going, I want to know people's opinions so I can inform my own output. Basically, I tend to make beats from samples which can often dictate the approx tempo of a beat. I want to know if I come up with something at 120 bpm, for instance, am I wasting my time trying to make a decent scratch beat from it?

 

Anyone else out there care to share their thoughts on this? Chile? Jon? Blak Randy? Backtrack? Motek? Kut Class? Doob? Phil? Diggla? Broke? Gizmo? Chris? Savwar? Ryan? Jimmy? (LOL), Vekked? (Even bigger LOL), Ed Kut? (biggest LOL of them all), all the people who scratch on here who's names I can't remember off the top of my head right now?

[ericuk]

stop begging replies. attention whore

 

next you'll be asking whether boys or girls can cheer the loudest

 

if you make a good beat, people will jizz on it regardless of the tempo

 

x

[DJ Rock Well]

Well Eric, I do apologise for bothering you with scratch related matters on a turntablist forum...

 

I knew when I started this thread, it would never reach the lofty heights of an "ericuk spots a fat chick eating out the bins at one of his mobile disco gigs" thread, or a "ericuk discovers some horrific discharge dripping from the end of his knob and decides to consult DV rather than a medical practitioner" thread. But i thought I'd give it a go anyway.

 

This would never happen on TTW I tell you, never!

 

Also, attention whore? I wasn't the one who attended an intimate turntable encounter rocking a skin tight white top and glass cutter nipples. Poor Phil got very confused with his face buried deep in a kebab with only your nipples for company.

 

#whyelsedidheleaveearlywitharedfaceandwettrousers

[ericuk]

Nipples aside, I have a serious request.

 

Maybe a beat that starts slow and then doubles up. 65/130 kinda vibe or fast to slow. 8 bars of each maybe.

 

X

[kut_class]

I would say my comfort zone is definitely 70 - 83 bpm . Like you i started off on hip hop around the 90 - 95sih range and i used to cane chirps flares all over that, but i found going at such a fast speed really hides all the imperfections in your cuts - it feels like you can be more sloppy at that speed an get away with it. When it came to "new school" cuts i had to go back to basics and started off on a slower speed. I kinda find 70 ish is the perfect speed where half time, regular and double time all come together where you can hear all the cuts cleanly. Going double time at faster speeds can sometimes sound more like a technical challenge than a musical decision.

[d00ban]

I like to scratch over every tempo. I find it affects the scratches I do and therefore my flow a lot so it's nice to change it up as much as possible to keep my style as fresh as possible.

[Mike-L]

I know that everyone knows this, but In terms of speed, 32nd notes at one tempo equate to triplets at a higher tempo.

 

The relationship is roughly 1.33 X the original tempo.

To go the other way the relationship is approximately 0.75 X the original tempo. (So if you know you can do triplets at one tempo and want to work out the slower temp you should expect to perform 32nd notes)

 

32nds @ 70 = 16th triplets @ 93.33

32nds @ 90 = 16th triplets @120

32nds @100 = 16th triplets @133

32nds @110 = 16th triplets @146

 

Of course, the need to place accents in different places to flow smoothly is the important difference, and that needs to be practiced.

[Guest petesasqwax]

I do find that I do totally different style cuts at 70bpm to what I would do at 120bpm. there's an element to which that's a conscious thing, but also I just find it more natural to do more expansive, creative cuts at slower tempos (bursts of fast alongside more frequently slower slurs and drags etc.) where's fast tempos bring out the need to do relentlessly fast combos and really push myself a bit more on that side of things.

[djdiggla]

I grew up listening (and eventually scratching to) mostly golden era so 85-95 is my safe zone. Much faster or slower makes it hard for me to keep up.

[Guest petesasqwax]

Yeah, I would agree with Diggla, but also when I started cutting the standard thing to do was to put a Dirtstyle break on one turntable and cut with another Dirtstyle record on the other, so that started out as pretty much UB&B funk drum loops, but before long ended up being fast electro/slowed down electro too, which broadened my spectrum of tempos, I guess.

Total side note - I remember when Baby Diaper Skidmark Breaks came out and all anyone cut over for about 6months was the N64 Goldeneye break...