TUTORIAL–Basics Scratching–

Scratching – The Basics

On this page you will find a basic guide to scratching. I’ve identified some of the many scratches and given a brief description. As a hardhouse dj i know very little about scratching so i dont think im in any position to write an advanced tutorial :upside: but if anyone on the board who knows a lot about scratching feels they would like to then please go ahead. It would be beneficial to a lot of people.

Scratching has evolved into its own art; now loosely known as ?turntablism.? This is where DJs combine scratching, beats from multiple songs, and samples into a creation that sounds entirely like a new song. It?s kind of cool if the DJ is really good at it, and it can sound very bad if you’re not good at it!
This takes a lot of practice, because it?s pure physical contact between your hands and a record. Your fingers and wrists need to be quick and well coordinated. You?ll need to have the record in one hand, the headset between your head and shoulder, and the fader or volume control in the other hand, and you?ll need to be able to control everything naturally and instantaneously.

Preparing to Scratch

When preparing to scratch , the turntable platter has to be very easy to slip. Most well worn slip mats will do the trick. If not, you can trim down a piece of thick paper or wax paper underneath your slipmat to help it slip better. Your tonearm will probably have to be weighted down slightly more than with traditional beatmixing. I would adjust the tonearm weight on my Technics to about 3 something. There are all kinds of specialty scratching cartridges and styluses on the market today. I just used the old Stanton 680 EL and it worked fine. Know that you will go through records and needles much more quickly when scratching.
The key to scratching is getting comfortable handling the records, and learning how to do so without making the needle jump out of the groove. Some people grab the record by the side, some put their whole hands directly in the middle of the grooves, and yet others use the clean middle part of the record without grooves. It?s all up to you ? whatever makes you comfortable. A lot of the technique will depend on how tall you are and where the turntable is in reference to your height. In many clubs, you won?t have the option to raise or lower the turntables, so you?ll have to work around it with your personal technique.

Scratching Techniques

Basically, all you?re doing is finding a spot on the record where you can physically move the record back and forth over that sound to the beat of either that song or a song playing on another source. You?ll find the point, then grab the record, and move it back and forth over that spot. The record will make different types of noises depending on the length of your movement over that spot, and the speed at which you?re moving the record.
The other element of scratching is the volume control. You can enhance your scratching effects by raising and lowering the volume of the scratch. Depending on what you?re doing, you may want to air only the forwards motion, or both the back and forth motion. The volume would be quickly reduced on the backwards motion then quickly raised again on the forward motion. Most DJs use the fader control for scratching rather than the individual volume controls.

Types of Scratches

Baby Scratch
The Baby scratch is probably the easiest scratch there is. It’s just a forwards movement followed immediately by a backwards movement. It is important that the placement within the bar of tune is correct. It’s the convention to do the full forward and backward cycle in the matter of one beat. Just think of it as starting the record, as though you are going to drop in the tune in a mix, but then after half a beat, pull it back. The speed that you do both of these actions with can affect the sound produced, as does choosing whether to go backwards or forwards first. This involves no cross-fader action, apart from dropping it in, then taking it back out again.

Scribble Scratch
The Scribble scratch is all but identical to the baby scratch, except that there are far more scratches. The technique is to tense the forearm and wrist and then "stab" back and forth. I put that in inverts coz I can’t think of a better way to describe it, the one I read says it’s like having a bad case of the shakes. The other way of doing it though (if they are limber enough) is just to use your fingers to move the record back and forth through the needle. It’s basically the same; all you’re trying to do is improve the speed that you can scratch at. Obviously, through doing this, you want to make the amount of vinyl passing under the needle as small as possible. Just find the beat or sample you are scratching through, and keep it on that, try not too spill too far before or after the sample.

Tear Scratch
The Tear involves a bit more skill than the scratches covered so far. Essentially the movement is the same as a baby scratch but is now split into three. The forward stroke stays the same, but the backwards s split into two; the first half being fast and the second being half the pace. Try to practice just the backward stroke first, so that you can get used to changing the tempo.

Using the Fader

Before I get going on this part, find out on your x-fader where the cut in point is. This is the point where the channel first becomes audible. It will help to know where on the fader this is.

Chop / Stab
The Chop (or stab) is a perfect introduction to the use of the cross fader. The scratch itself is the same as in the Baby Scratch, but the difference is in using the crossfader to cut off the back stroke halfway. The fader should start with the sound on (just past the cut in point) and the forward stroke completed as normal. The cut comes just before you start the back stroke where you should close the fader. The key to this scratch is the timing of the fader action. The overall sound created should be a short sudden scratch.
Position the sample so that it is right behind the needle. On a particular point (normally at the start of a bar in this case) move the cross fader in and let the record run. As the sample stops, pull the cross fader back, wind the record back to the beginning of the sample, and let it run again. Then it’s matter of repeating till your hearts content and playing about with the sample. The trick here though is to make sure you get the sample wound back to the correct place, in time. Some Dj’s use tape or a marker, to aid them visually in this, but some tend just to get used to how far it has to get pulled back.

Chirp
The Chirp this is where hand-co-ordination really comes into play. Start with the fader open and make a forward stroke as normal but fade out as you get to the end. The reverse is carried out on the back stroke i.e. start fading the back stroke in. As the name suggests this should create short snappy chirp sounds.

Transformer
The Transformer all explanations of this seem quite confusing to me. As far as I can gather, the essence of this is a use of high-speed cuts in and out with the crossfader. At the beginning of this scratch the fader should be in the closed position. When you are ready to begin you should slowly drag the record forwards and backwards under the needle. The fader should then be used to cut the sound in and then back out straight away. To create a desired stuttering effect, the fader needs to be moved in and out quickly, and quite a few times. One tip I read was to find the cut I point, and place your thumb at that point. Now every-time you want the scratch to cut in, you just tap the fader with a finger. The fader should hit your thumb, then bounce back into the closed position (with a little bend of the thumb that is) Now all you have to do is tap till your hearts content. There are special techniques to get this going faster, which I’ve put at the bottom.

The Flare
The flare is similar to the transformer with respect to the fader speed but the difference lies in the starting position of the fader. To start the flare the fader needs to be in the open position. Whilst doing the forward stroke with the vinyl the fader should be closed then opened again at speed. On the backwards stroke the same should be done again, fader closed then finishing in the open position once more.

The Orbit
The orbit takes the flare one stage further by increasing the amount of times you fade the sample in and out. During a single stroke of the flare you would fade the sample out then back in again. However, during a single stroke of the orbit this needs to be doubled. In terms of the fader movement, it should go something a bit like this… (start with the fader open) closed, open, closed, open. This movement should then be done again during the backwards stroke. The key to this scratch is to try to create a rhythm with the fader so that you are opening and closing the fader at the same positions each time creating a tidy scratch.

The Crab
This is a tricky scratch to master as it requires the dj to have good skills but also the equipment that you use needs to perform well. When the fader is positioned so that you can just hear the other turntable it is known as the "cut in" point. To perform the crab the fader should start in the closed position. Your thumb needs to be placed at the cut in point with your other four fingers held vertically on the other side of the fader. During the forward stroke, each finger should hit the fader to the thumb, which acts as a spring returning the fader to the closed position. Starting with your little finger first, followed by your ring, middle, then index finger you should achieve a rhythmical flicking motion resembling the movement of a crabs legs hence the name of this scratch. The equipment also needs to perform during this scratch. Completing this scratch is almost impossible if you have a stiff fader (normally found on the cheaper models).