The Peter Piper routine on tape — the Scrubboard strikes again

One way to test your turntablist mettle is to copy a known routine. So Jeremy Bell has decided to attempt the classic Peter Piper set on his Scrubboard.

Clearly there are serious issues on our collective minds right now. So to deliver a much-needed diversion, I give you the latest instalment from the mad scientist of scratch Jeremy Bell and his ongoing adventures with his Scrubboard tape scratching concept. 

You’ll recall (here, here, here, here, and here) the utterly bonkers/brilliant idea, essentially moving a cassette player head over pre-recorded tape to create a scratch sound. Well Jeremy has as ever taken the idea one step further to its 5th iteration, and using a new rig and 1 one inch studio tape, he is proud to present his not too shabby homage to DJ Jazzy Jeff’s all time classic Peter Piper routine. Does this make him Jazzy Jeremy?

Just a thought — what if the tape had a timecode on it? Could it run with DVS software? I suppose calibrating would be an issue unless it was on a loop. Would it then be DTS rather than DVS?

As ever, bloody good work Jeremy. Keep on developing as we need this kind of left field thinking.

Mark Settle
Mark Settle

The old Editor of DJWORX - you can now find Mark at WORXLAB

Articles: 1228

7 Comments

    • It appears that the difficult part is coordinating the direction of the tape, with the scratching. You could use a foot pedal, with a reverse switch, to get an idea of how difficult timing might.
      I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. He’s ahead of all of the rest of us in the grand “what’s next ” search

  1. The Dj Fong scrub thing had timecode tape on it AFAIK…
    BTW you can implement this thing into a turntable and keep the artform as usual, not rocket science involved on it… just some tinkering and common sense but I understand Jeremy loves its own form-factor of course.

    Creating some new/old way to make recordable analog vinyl could be a thing?
    The technology involved will cost peanuts nowadays and it will be more analog (less latency) than digital systems since there will be zero ADC… just like a regular turntable.

  2. LOL @ the pens and the rubber bands.

    Timecode on tape did used to be a thing before digital recording. Stripe one channel of your multitrack with SMPTE code to keep the sequencer in time with the tape.

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