https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1687730068/sliderkut-scratching-mixing-tool-by-champion-dj
Many years ago in the heyday of the skratchlounge forum, I postulated the idea that small jog wheels weren’t the best vehicle for clean scratching, and looked for an alternative. It’s clear that rather than trying to achieve smooth motion with a tight rotational movement, linear motion is a much better solution, and proposed a conveyor belt device, one that would allow for spin backs and to mimic the basics of vinyl play but in a more compact linear controller format.
Like most ideas I’ve come up with, it progressed no further than a single forum post now archived somewhere on a drive. But it makes me so happy to see someone else with the same basic idea actually do something with it. And Fong Fong has finally taken his SliderKut idea seen online last year, honed it, and put it on Kickstarter to help make it a reality.
This video gives a more complete idea of the potential. One thing I’m not too clear on is the use of timecode. In the top video, the SliderKut isn’t acting like a turntable — it’s a slider of a fixed length and isn’t playing audio constantly i.e. the wheel display in Serato isn’t rotating. In this respect, it appears to be very much like the ScrubBoard, but obviously much slicker.
Now if this could operate like a touch sensitive static jog wheel via HID, with a start/stop button and taking control of playback when touched, then this has potential to be a real alternative to jog wheels. Perhaps not at 400mm long, but something smaller with all the controls at one side. Imagine the slider as a waveform controller and it makes more sense. I can even picture a mobile phone powered controller running from an app and incorporating a fader.
Either way, it’s great to see left field thinking happening, and equally having crowdfunding platforms to potentially make them into a reality. Good luck Fong Fong!
I’d like to see this alongside a fretless fader :)
We tried using plastic dry slide bearings in the new prototype but they were not smooth enough so we now use expensive linear track ball bearings and they are amazing. the goal is touch sensitive pad for stop, start, couple of cue pads with a separate pitch and fader all connected.NOT a turntable replacement , more an alternative :)
[quote]Now if this could operate like a touch sensitive static jog wheel via HID, with a start/stop button and taking control of playback when touched, then this has potential to be a real alternative to jog wheels. Perhaps not at 400mm long, but something smaller with all the controls at one side. Imagine the slider as a waveform controller and it makes more sense. I can even picture a mobile phone powered controller running from an app and incorporating a fader.[/quote]
Well it could be perfect doable with xy pad like those at nanopad or similar. Even you could draw a cut curve in the x axis to have pseudo samurai fx but regular users will see it as tricky like other many tries for innovation.
I appreciate the sliderkut idea and being from a respected turntablist makes it more susceptible for success but sadly I’m not sure about community enrollment.
As Panasonic said for their new turntables “Djs are a difficult market”.
My best wishes for the kickstarter anyways!
I don’t think that the majority of people would like scratch control via a touch pad though. That means dragging your fingertips across a surface, which in turn is effected by friction and latency. The sliderkut is a physical control, and most likely feels more like vinyl than a touch pad does.
It’s tough to explain. But imagine if someone brought out a static non-moving jog wheel, with a real vinyl top, and offered realistic vinyl control but you had to drag your fingers across the static vinyl. Now imagine that another one came out with a spinning platter, but the emulation was good, but not quite there. I’m fairly confident that the spinning one would do better in the marketplace.
Yeah I read at dv the scrub board approach which make this more interesting since there is no extra codification as you point but again it pukes audio timecode so the regular “lag” for these systems isn’t avoided neither… different lag and feeling but I don’t know if it will worth the price for targeted market (not myself).
I supose which will could make this a “true” replacement (even I know it’s not designed as is) should be fitting one of this in the mechanism…
http://www.landscape.fm/hctt/
This one makes me drool but again out of my budget for gadgets. :P
Dubby Labby I love your input on all things scratching. I am new to this so my question is about the lag you mention with DVS. Should I practice scratching with real vinyl instead of DVS?
I appreciate your words mate but I’m not the best for advice anybody anymore since I’m getting old and tired about ttblism. The regular opinion on die hard scratchers is go for analog audio since there is no conversion of any kind avoiding audio lag of digitalized systems. Said that, buy what you can afford and try before expend so much money on something maybe is not your cup of tea. For start learning scratch you only need a good turntable (direct drive superOEM) and decent crossfader (behringer nox101, djtech dif1s…) or even a numark pt01 scratch could be useful (but maybe not the best experience without background)… and some battle weapons (superseal, dstyles…).
Upgrade from this to dvs should be trivial if you have a computer (Apple the best but again buy what you can and consider any option before buy something you will not get profit/revenue) and asio audio interface (ufo222 in example) starting from mixxx and going to the dvs of your choice later. You can keep scratching analog audio over looper material or buy a second turntable and start mixing and juggling with platter control.
My best advice could be… if you want to learn scratching then study ttm notation and search for teacher who use it. Also try to keep yourself musical over bizarrism since AaaaaHhhh scratch sound is a drug.
Lots of families broken due to superseal record, believe me.
Thank you for the reply.
I started with a vci400ege a few years ago and finally got some used 1200s. I mostly use traktor now but I’m always thinking of ways to connect the different gear that I have. I think my final set-up will be Z2 mixer with Maschine Studio as deck 1 and a 1200 and/or D2 as deck 2. Then I will just work with sampling and resampling inside of Maschine.
Super smart idea. And seems like you have plenty of room to grow the concept. I imagine a step up from this having an FSR on the “hand pad” so you could detect both touch and continuous pressure. Also kudos to a fellow SketchUp fan.
Is this a midi controller that map into serato or is it converting slider movement to time code and then into Serato.
I like the look of this …I might looking this..
That video made me laugh my ass off!! Very cool idea ….& video!
so this + portable fader + laptop could be a viable travelling cutting option? love it! Could all be thrown in a backpack
no, i’m gonna be honest with you here, nothing that is not moving via a motor, will ever truly be worth the time, and expense. that “movement” “forward pull” is integral to scratching.
in the same way scratching on a controller sucks, scratching on this will suck. it’s novel, yes, but novelty wears off fast.
you’d be MUCH better served, and for FAR less expense by a vtt-101 and djplayer on an iPhone; which works phenomenally and cost $100(then the phone)
sincerely,
efhutton(google it)
Steve B
Imfromthafutur
Filespnr
“the black sheep of the skraqtchworx family”