43 Comments

1. Are these just pre-recorded scratch phrases? Not a scratch emulator or synthesiser? If it is just a glorified loop-library with effects (as I suspect) then I don’t think anyone who knows what an Autobahn is will be too worried!

   • From the PR above:

     Scratch Machines extensive library was built entirely from performances of professional scratch artist DJ Quartz, carefully recorded and mastered to perfection.

     • Thought as much – that’ll teach me for skimming the PR and going straight to the opinion piece at the bottom! Thanks Mark. I can see the use to producers however, either to put in “place holder” cuts until they can get someone in to do it “properly”, or just to add a little flavour to tracks that aren’t meant to be straight up turntablism / hip hop jams.

       • Placeholder cuts – that’s the perfect use for it, especially if this can also be used for style – cuts like these right here.

     • “Professional scratch artist” lollllllll
       Never heard of DJ Quartz, ever. #foh

       • I know of a DJ Quartz who is well known in certain circles, but it’s not him.

2. Be still my beating heart, for we are witnessing the birth of the real-plugin that will be seen in a thousand scratch videos on Youtube!!! Greets from Perez

3. I got excited, then realised it was a glorified sample library.

4. It would be really cool if someone made something like this without all the effects, and synced the motion of the record and crossfader on-screen to the scratches being performed. A program like that would be a great learning tool, especially if the user had the ability to adjust the tempo to see what the proper fader and record movements look like at different speeds.

   I’m a beginner-level scratcher (I’ve learned all the basic scratches, but I need work to master them, and my fader hand is still pretty slow) who is also a visual learner, and I know I’d be happy to shell out $40 for a learning tool like that.

   • http://youtu.be/S8izg3jHIfI

     If someone wants to learn true scratching with software then help the people of scratchML…

     If someone wants to “draw” scratches nowadays, search for “stagecraft” software. Scratch track plugin records automation and could be automated too.

     These tools are near “scratching” and useful to learn/teach. ;)

5. Am I missing something, or is this just a sample pack with a front end?

   • I think that’s a fairly accurate description.

6. Am I the only one horrified that they’ve got the deck round the wrong way for scratching?

7. I hope this software is made illegal for DJs to use.

8. Looks like a Tommy Boy record

9. This is pure fuckery!!!

10. …wtf, that’s awesome.

11. WOW. ….After real djs put in the work , is this the thanks we get. I wasn’t taught, I praticed my ass off and still do to this very day. Everyone is unique in how they scratch because everyone’s hands are different. There’s still a million scratches that I myself and many other djs will not be able to imulate and millions won’t be able to imulate me either. So this recorded machine is strictly for the lazy. #PRACTICE! Until you become into your own. This type of sh_t is pure disrespectful!
    DJ KING JAMES ( NYC )

12. Seriously, the dudes who got paid to record scratches for this library must get caught and have their equipment confiscated as a counter measure.

13. Looks pretty sweet. I think I’ll enter the DMCs with this. Watch out, Q-Bert, I’m coming for your spot!!

    • Somebody definitely should enter the online DMC with this.

      • Who you gonna call?

        • Ghostbusters

14. Where’s the fun in this? Get a real turntable + scratch mixer + super seal = good times.

15. Again I do understand the lack of love for this, but I keep coming back to one thing — people are saying it’s OK to sample and sequence instrument sounds, but not OK to sample and sequence scratches? I’m really struggling to see the difference. Why is a musician’s skill any different to a DJ’s in this context?

    • I think you’re missing the mark. Sampling scratches is okay, faking skills is not. Sampling is fine, taking the easy route is not. You have to flip up some samples these days or do something to advance the art to gain respect. Somebody who’s talented could flip this up and do something that might get respect. Highly unlikely that anybody who’s talented would mess with it though. Products like this are not aimed at making the dopest music. They’re aimed at people who want to take the easy route to rehash old ground. That right there makes the product unattractive to most who would really do something cool with it. MPCs and SPs were not marketed to the hip hop community as “Can’t play the drums? Don’t want to learn? Buy this!” By-passing the need to learn an instrument was never the goal of the dope samplers. They’re trying to make something unique out of something old, to flip something old on it’s head. Samplers don’t want a live drummer or musician because that goes against the intent of what they’re trying to do.
      I know we’ve had this debate for years now but when a product is aimed at making something hard, really easy, then unless you do something extraordinary with that product all it’s really doing is helping people be lazy. Lazy people don’t tend to advance music, They tend to leach of the true creators and innovators.

      • Don’t forget that before sampling it was all about the drumachines and instead of sampling DJs used to cut whole sections in a track, a great example is Schoolly D with DJ Code Money, Code Money used to mix and scratch long parts on drummachine beats, no sampling.

        Sampling isnt necessary a good thing for hiphop, remember that, its like back in the days ppl used to complain about DAT replacing the DJ, same can be said about MPC and SP12s replacing the DJ. The DJ was the live sampler way back.

        • I would say sampling is the whole foundation of it but I think I’m defining sampling more broadly than you. To me, doubles of Impeach the President is still sampling, it’s just live sampling on turnatbles instead of using an MPC, SP, etc. In my mind, that’s the whole core of hip hop music. It was that looping of the music that created the unique sound. The early hip hop records, like Sugar Hill, Enjoy, etc. weren’t even really a representation of how Hip Hop sounded in the clubs. They were almost an anomoly. That was pretty much funk and disco music with an MC. The drum machines didn’t come around until later and even then you were still hearing a lot of samples. I know there’s no “right” answer, but in my mind sampling drove the whole aesthetic. Even with fully live bands, like the Roots, the sound is based off the aesthetic created by sampling. I think I get where you’re coming from though.

          • The early Sugar Hill/Enjoy records were live bands who played for the rapper covering mostly R&B funk songs, back then nobody was thinking about DJs scratching on releases till Grand Master Flash released Adventures on the Wheels back in 81.

            I don’t think DJs sampled but backspinned, backspinning has errors and skips etc..sampling is the perfect loop.

            Nobody sampled loops till 86 is when Ultra Magnetic MCs debuted, Matley marl started sampling kicks and snares back in 85, he had 1,5 secs maxinum time to do that and a 4 track recorder, on top of that MC Shan layed the vocals.

            Anyway the hiphop era id 81-84, after that the rap era started (imo)

            • What I was getting at is that “doubles” “backspins” whathaveyou are still “samples,” its just a different technique than using a “digital sampler”. By “sampling” I just mean using somebody else’s recording, regardless of the device you use to sample (record player, tape loop, sampler, computer).
              If you listen to the guys who were in NYC as all this was devolping they say that the hip hop they were hearing in clubs did not resemble those Sugar Hill and Enjoy records. If it weren’t for copyright concerns you would have been seeing tape loops of songs like “Good Times” and “Machine” by Kraftwerk instead of the bands recreating those loops live. All that early club hip hop was based off live looping of records (i.e. sampling using 2 turntables). Its that whole concept of taking somebody else’s work and flipping it up. My point was that hip hop was founded in that concept.
              The drum machine era is kind of interesting because dudes strayed away from the concept of sampling the whole backing track of your beat. You still had “one shot” samples overlayed on the drum machines though. Using other people’s records was still really big even with drum machine tracks.
              The first sampled loop I can think of “Rock Hard” by the Beastie Boys in 1985 (Def Jam 02 I think). They used a tape loop and looped up AC/DC’s Back in Black. I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head but there had to be tape loops used in hip hop before that. It just seems like the obvious extension of what DJs were already doing with turntables in the clubs.
              Anyway, my point in getting at all of this is that hip hop has been using other people’s music to make new music since day 1 and that practice of “sampling” or whatever you want to call it was not because people didn’t feel like learning to play instruments. A lot of these dudes were musicians and could play traditional instruments but chose to use other people’s pre-recorded sounds instead, to get that aesthetic. This scratch program, on the other hand, comes off like people not wanting to learn how to scratch so they use this instead. So, while it’s the same rough concept as a producer sampling drums, the reasons behind it aren’t the same.

      • Thank you JB. There’s the reasoned debate I was looking for.

        This:

        Samplers don’t want a live drummer or musician because that goes against the intent of what they’re trying to do.

        So by the same measure, why do they need a live scratch DJ when a sample bank exists? This is the point I’m trying to make — in this environment, a drummer, pianist, guitarist, singer, or scratch DJ are all the same. Their creative work is sampled and sequenced, from single notes to entire solos or multiple bars. In this case, a real DJ created a whole library of scratches that can be used. It’s not a synthetic simulator as such — everything was recorded live.

        Trust me, I do get why DJs don’t like this, and if it feels wrong, then perhaps something is. I think more than anything, I’m defending the principle rather than the practice. For me, if it’s OK to creatively sample and sequence other skilled musicians, then scratches fall into that fair game category as well. After all – we’ve been doing it for decades, and now it’s happening to us.

        Again, I’m still wearing my devil’s advocate hat a little, if only because I’m still to be convinced one way or another. I think this is an important subject, one that is probably far more important than the original story itself. We should absolutely keep kicking this around with intelligent reasoned comment.

        • Typically, the DJ and MC are the areas where samplers DO want live musicians. Weird, but true. I’m not saying sampling vocals and scratches isn’t fair game. It is, and it happens, but usually a producer is looking for the MC and the DJ to fill the live aspect of the track that the other samples and loops can’t fill. That’s why, when you see scratches get sampled, it’s usually on the hook, where a loop or simple cut is workable. I can’t think of any scratch solos that have been sampled.
          So, that could be where this program comes in. There are still two problems from my perspective. (1) Sampling musicians, in general, don’t want spoon fed sample sources. (2) I suspect this program can’t deliver the goods when it comes to scratch solos. The demo is decent, but I’d be interested to put it to the test. To sound good, scratching has to match the track. Not just in tone, but in tempo and swing. The swing is the tough thing. A 3-click flare over one beat won’t work the same over another. Very subtle differences in swing make a big audible difference as far as sound. To do it right, it would seem like you’d need to piece together every little nuance and it would take way longer than just having a DJ do it live. Getting a good result would seem to take an impractical amount of work.
          Personally, I think it’s (1) above that doesn’t “feel” right. The whole foundation of hip hop, scratching, etc. comes out of repurposing equipment, music, etc that’s made for something else and skills. With so many musicians drawn to that, products like this are looked down upon because they’re shortcuts and they’re spoon feeding. Maybe that’s not a good reason and maybe it is, but its the world we live in. When you write “fresh” accross the top of the mixer, that kind of shows you’re pandering and that you’re pobably not all that down. It comes accross as a corporation trying to make money by promising newbs an easy way to get around learning true skills.

    • Rob Swift is a good example of someone who samples his own scratches for the chorus and repeats them 3 or 4 times in a track.

      Also Dr. Dre did that back in the days.

      I also remember Eric B & Rakim Know the Ledge and earlier stuff.

      Come to think of it even De La Soul sampled scratches on the Saturday track.

      And oh that Biggie track with the Chuck D scratches or was it some P-Diddy release

      and so on….

      • Junior Mafia

    • These are the kind of things that could take away potential work. Imagine being the cashier, auto-worker, or a parcel delivery person who got laid-off because the company decided it was more cost effective to let a machine do the job. With albums on a shoe-string budgets an executive producer would rather spending $39 and use the rest for studio time, then let a pro DJ pocket a few hundreds to a couple thousands.

16. Aside from sampling not (always) meant to be instrument playing – no one is pretending they played the piece they sampled. Its because cultural aesthetics developed which state fake scratching is some – be. So for some people outside the culture, they have no problem with it. Its fake – to us. But this is part of a larger development where machines already have been used for dumb labor will in the near future be aproximating works of art.

17. The topic is really simple…
    Turntable is a analog sample player which in the skilled hands becomes an instrument (like mpc or ipad with intua bm2)

    The problem comes when turntablist call themselves “musicians” but they didn’t have true control of its instrument. Let me explain (this generalization) a bit.
    Become a musician in first step means “perform music with your instrument”. In the second step means “with other musicician” (and drop a beat isn’t the same, uh?) so when the other musicians expect some control from you and your instrument (aka somekind of repeteability or even better somekind of NOTATION, almost to get some master rule to keep music “playing” more than an infinite bizarre aaahhhhhh scratch) then you could argue about “producers” cheating with recorded scratches.

    Until turntablist take seriously this “part of the art” about themselves, anyone who expend some time understanding how to use a pluging to make music will be “understood by people” (respect for their music) even if turntablist (and aficionados) know this is not exactly the same scratching than playing scratches.

    Until turntablist don’t understand how important is using something like ttm to “record, share and learn” the INSTRUMENT (turntable+crossfader) and start teaching others about these cultural language… People will never undertand completely what’s wrong about “faking” it.

    At last, samplers didn’t killed the drummers, synths didn’t killed piano players and “tools for scratching” aren’t going to kill turntablism. Wrong purism has done more damage than “wanabees”.
    What about let children learn with controllers and smartphones in example? These are their usual and a incredible tool to embrace music composition… Anyone of us should think a bit about these “legacy”.

    Jm2c (with some sadness in my heart) about the less relevant moment of the last years about “turntables and artform” history…

    • I cant agree with this. I like the line “jazz musicians enjoy themselers far more than anyone listening to them”(24 hour party people) I think what hes saying is that music, to be enjoyed, by the listener, needs form and structure. Yet, there are exceptions to every rule, and scratching actually sounds cool being done in “freestyle”(same as rapping) It was born out of “not doing” what was intended with records. I think there are an equal number of technically skilled scratchers that dont have funk or soul, as there are non or less tecnically able that are indeed “groovy” freestyle scratching, in ways, is better than formulaic scratching, in the same way freestyle rapping is “truer” than a ‘bars-chorus-bars’ rap song.

      • Maybe I wasn’t explain me right or maybe I’m not getting the point but… I’m not arguing about create a static rule or “get stucked” with the patterns. Freestyling in Jazz becomes after controlling the basics (scales, rythm and musicality) then you could broke these “rules” but knowing the limits give the musician the choice to play with others (whose know the same shared principles about instrument and musicality) to keep things in music realm.
        The point about “structure” the process of learning is for sharing (and compete why not? with/against partners, if not we found the usual situation where only have freestyling and the perfect excuse to keep the artist lazy about “fit in place (and form)” due to self indulgence. So many times:
        A: let’s try this.
        B: (tries but no success) …
        B: check A! I could make this instead of those (which probably is triple click flare blabla incredible technique but not the demand from A)

        A jazz player could go bizarre if he/she wants to but he/she could fit in place by demand. That’s the point.

        No control, no true musician then the producer get a vst to “fit in place” and lazy djs argue the end of tablism. As I noted in my first comment I’m doing a generalization not against any individual but like towards a lazy actitude from so much. In my opinion caused by no true method with proper notation.

        When you goal the method then you could drop it and continue flowing… (Like water, my friend)
        ;)

        • I don’t like lazy either. To me, structure is lazy if the person is expressing someone else instead of their own self. The hardest work is to “honestly express one’s self”

          “A jazz player could go bizarre if he/she wants to but he/she could fit in place by demand. That’s the point.” – yep, now that’s what scratching is all about. The ability to choose between precise “systemize” sounds/movements OR nonsensical ones that a computer couldn’t understand.

          • To express oneself honestly you have three phases.

            Formless nature without knowledge.
            Stuck to nucleous of knowledge.
            Drop the form and patterns to recover primigenious nature with adquired knowledge but without the limitations of “that or this” style.

            I’m talking about the second to go on third. Most djs never arrive to second because they remand in the first doing approarches but never taking the nucleos of knowledge seriously.

            Obviously my proposal is one of the paths to achieve these goal, not the only one gospel truth.

            Computers are tools like wooden dummies. The best training is sparring of course but analytics could give a measurable data about techique maneuvers. It is not about being free of perform… It is about freedom outside the fear of learning a “method” which could being useful as a boat to cross a river that you left when the river is crossed…

            Did these words “feel” something to you, my friend? ;)

            Glad to find others who could understand the deep debate we have here. <3

            • Well said.
              I think you’ve expressed well, what should be the thought process for being entertaining with scratching. I’ll add one more saying “familiarity breeds contempt” personally, I would like to try these scratches with a touchstrip.

              • Thanks to you for being constructive and great interlocutor.

                :)