DJ Battling, Scratching, Beat Juggling, Trick Mixing - Ask me anything

[P4ULSON]

yo Vekked in this video i see you mark your right record with 3 dots and 2 on your left with whats up with that? how much different is it scratching with the 62 which is usb midi and sound card that runs together with the dvs so the latency ratio between the vinyl and fader are 1:1 vs using a sl2 and a analog mixer like the vestax?

[Vekked]

i see you mark your right record with 3 dots and 2 on your left with whats up with that? how much different is it scratching with the 62 which is usb midi and sound card that runs together with the dvs so the latency ratio between the vinyl and fader are 1:1 vs using a sl2 and a analog mixer like the vestax?

90% of the time I mark with 3 dots. The reason for this is that if you put the first sticker on the first beat, the other 2 stickers will land on or really close to the downbeats if you're using a beat somewhere between 90-110 BPM, which is the common tempo for most of my juggles. The closer the BPM is to 100, the more downbeats the stickers will line up with; with 100 BPM beats your stickers will line up with the downbeats for nearly the entire track.

Also when I make scratch sentences in my DAW I set it to 99.99 BPM and if you snap the beginning of each sample to the grid every sticker will be your next sample. The reason for 99.99 BPM is that the turntable spins at 33 1/3 RPM, so if you set your DAW to 33 1/3 BPM you'll have 1 sticker per rotation, 66.66 will give you 2 stickers per rotation, 99.99 = 3, 133.33 =4, etc. So my Serato records all have 3 stickers, and the one with 2 is actual vinyl and the people who pressed it must have had their daw for 66.66 BPM when they made their sentences because the samples fall every half rotation.

As for the 62 via USB, I'm not actually sure the latency is 1:1 like you say. I could be wrong but unlike with the Z2, the 62 fader still acts as a normal fader even when you're using DVS, as opposed to the Z2 where the fader becomes a midi device. Regardless I can answer the question anyways, more latency = worse, even if it's 1:1, and fader latency is worse than record latency generally. I don't think 1:1 latency really matter cuz although everything would be in sync with each other and you could scratch fine acapella, everything would be consistently off beat a tad when you tried to put it over music, because you're reacting to what you hear. I've scratched on setups where the turntables were ran through a sampler or soundcard that created a bit of latency and it was a nightmare to scratch on even though to people listening it didn't sound much different.

Latency isn't really an issue with DVS these days, as long as your hardware is solid it's going to 95%+ on point. It's more so stuff like how the needles reads control vinyl vs. how it reads real vinyl... certain stuff doesn't sound the same because on vinyl the sound comes from the movement of the needle on the sound as well as external vibrations. There's a certain bassiness/fullness that you get with certain scratches that is completely gone on DVS and changes the sound. There's other subtle differences because DVS is still just an emulation of the real thing (albeit a very good emulation), so if I'm practicing to improve/learn I'm still using vinyl, if I'm performing/showcasing I'm using DVS.

[fokaisnake]

Also when I make scratch sentences in my DAW I set it to 99.99 BPM and if you snap the beginning of each sample to the grid every sticker will be your next sample. The reason for 99.99 BPM is that the turntable spins at 33 1/3 RPM, so if you set your DAW to 33 1/3 BPM you'll have 1 sticker per rotation, 66.66 will give you 2 stickers per rotation, 99.99 = 3, 133.33 =4, etc. So my Serato records all have 3 stickers, and the one with 2 is actual vinyl and the people who pressed it must have had their daw for 66.66 BPM when they made their sentences because the samples fall every half rotation.

Been trying to figure out how this was done using a DAW for a long time now! Now I got! Thanks VEKKED!

[P4ULSON]

thanks for the clarification yea i think your write about the 62 and the 1:1 thing. I use an innofader pro and about to bite the bullet on the 62. You ever consider Redbull Three Style? Thats what i'm shooting for once i feel comfortable enough with my cuts.

[Vekked]

no probs fokaisnake!

thanks for the clarification yea i think your write about the 62 and the 1:1 thing. I use an innofader pro and about to bite the bullet on the 62. You ever consider Redbull Three Style? Thats what i'm shooting for once i feel comfortable enough with my cuts.

Word, I had a 57 with three innofaders previously. The 62 faders take a bit of getting used to but I really like them now for overall scratching/juggling/mixing. If the cut in seems to quick or not quick enough just re-calibrate (just a button push combo, in the manual), seems like cut-in times vary a tiny bit on the 62.

Nah I'm not a fan of Thre3style really, I've judged a couple and been to 4-5 others and to me it's a bit of a joke competition... Like it's an awesome idea, format is cool, some sick sets and DJs have come out of it, but it suffers from many of the things that pretty much all corporate DJ battles have suffered from in the past. It's ran by a company that is ultimately concerned with how many drinks they sell, not with DJing or DJ culture, and it seeps into the competition. My main beefs:

1) It's not open entry (maybe in some places), so most people don't know how to enter, or don't get invited. So right off the bat instead of the competition being among the best DJs in the format, it's among the best DJs who get to enter. Who knows how many amazing DJs don't get a chance to enter because of this.

2) The regional judging is often a complete farce. You have these DJs spending hours, weeks, months on their routine to get judged by a panel of promoters, bar owners, even bar staff, etc. If you're lucky you get someone in the music industry like a producer, or maybe a DJ who's probably not any more skilled than half the entrants.

3) The judging criteria is skewed towards basically playing top 40 and bringing people with you. It's one thing to talk about being good at rocking the party, and another thing to have a competition judged on rocking the party. It's so subjective and results in legitimate DJs getting robbed by popular DJs.

I've heard other random stories of politics that I can't verify cuz I wasn't there, like Four Color Zack was put out in the 1st round of world finals and brought back for the final and won. Pretty disgusting if it's true.

In short, to me competitions in general should be set up in a way that results in the highest chance that the winner is actually the best DJ in a given format. Thre3style doesn't do a great job of this. That said, I wouldn't recommend that NO ONE enters it just because it doesn't make sense for me to. If you do enter, do it for competition experience and take the results (good or bad) with a grain of salt.

[DJKyleHughes]

This dude is dope for those that don't know him. Props for making this thread.

Tutorials: One thing I find many tutorials skip out on is Scratch Theory. Many focus on how to transform, stabs, chirps, etc. but not how to effectively use that when you play out at a night club. Qberts Skratch U has a pretty good tutorial on timing, and half's, and not halfing on time, etc. to create different sounds but putting it together there is some scratch theory behind it that takes knowledge and practice.

I consider myself an expert novice scratch DJ. I don't do anything much more than a few stabs and a babyscratch like a novice, but the intent is not for a battle, but to use this when dropping tracks at a set at a club. When really there are more DJ's playing at clubs than there are entering battles.

I think it would be beneficial for a tutorial on enhancing your gig set with certain scratches and the theory behind it (bars, counts, timing, dropping on the 1, etc.) I've only found one on Q's site.

Great thread man.

THIS! I would love this! +1

[DJKyleHughes]

Any word on when you could maybe do that tutorial?

[DJ G-REG]

Any word on when you could maybe do that tutorial?

[Vekked]

Any word on when you could maybe do that tutorial?

I can't say for sure, it'll take a bit of work to do something proper so I don't want to try and give a time for a proper video tutorial. I can try to give some basic pointers first:

-Rule #1 of scratching in a club/mix/etc is DON'T SCRATCH OVER THE VOCALS. There's the odd exception, but in general scratching takes up the same space as vocals do in a song so they clash really bad. The only time I think it's pretty safe is when you're scratching in a kick drum about to drop in another song. Even then you gotta make sure you dropped the bass on 1 track so the bass doesn't clash.

-An extension of that rule is don't scratch clashing sounds in general. Most scratching is done with vocals or lead type samples, so as a result you're not gonna do much scratching over vocals or lead samples. If a song is heavy on the low end, you don't want to be scratching bass, but you might be able to get away with scratching a melody sound.

-If a song doesn't have vocals, in theory it'll sound find to scratch vocals a lot more. This makes stuff like Trap and Dubstep pretty good for scratching on, as opposed to top 40 or something. However, in practice you have to actually be good at scratching. The better you are at scratching the more you're going to be able to scratch tastefully. Just because a track has plenty of space for scratching doesn't mean it should be scratched over no matter what, lol.

-If a sample you're scratching has a discernable key... make sure it's in key with the song you're scratching on, of course.

-Avoid traditional scratch samples unless you really have a reason to use them (aka they fit the song you're scratching over well). Most people use "scratch samples" because that's what most scratching uses, but often times they don't fit the stuff they're scratching on and seems kinda forced. They're great for practicing, but I think you should lean towards using samples you would already be inclined to include in your mix. If it's a sample/acapella you would never be using otherwise, then it's probably not the best choice to scratch. I think a lot of the better club scratchers these days, like Hedspin/FCZ/Shiftee, use stuff that would probably mix well anyways, then they scratch it to add their own flavour and make it even more unique. Like they could just loop an acapella and mix it in like most people do, or they could scratch it and switch between blending for a few bars and scratching for a few. Hedspin does a lot of scratch synths/guitars/etc over intro drum breaks which I think is really cool. I opened for Shiftee last weekend and he did a 30 minute set and barely touched a "scratch sample" but did heaps of scratching with acapellas, stems, melodies, etc from songs he was mixing in.

The last thing is don't really think of it like "I'm not trying to be a turntablist so I only have to learn the basics". You're basically saying "I'm a club DJ so I don't have to learn to scratch THAT good", which is basically what 90% of club DJs think, and then they suck at scratching. If you look at the Thre3style world finals, all of those guys are pretty much established club DJs, and most of them are BEASTS at scratching. There's videos of Thre3style scratch sessions at the hotel or backstage of the world finals and there's like a dozen guys all killing it. These guys didn't say "I'm just a club DJ so I'm going to just learn the basics", these guys decided to become really good at everything and not put limits on themselves. You don't have to become a scratch nerd and lock yourself in your room for years rubbing records, but if you really want to add scratching to your skillset you can't just put in a couple hours a week and not do any studying and expect to make any progress. Dive right in, shoot to become really good, and then one day you'll be able to do pretty much everything you want with it and you won't have to practice every day to maintain.

**Some of this stuff might be too basic or not basic enough. A lot of scratching in clubs is applying the same theory of mixing like matching keys and avoiding clashing frequencies and applying that to scratch samples.

Let me know if there's other specific stuff you'd like me to touch on when I get around to doing a video.

[P4ULSON]

^Real Talk right there take em to church Vekked

Couple of questons
Hows DJ Shiftee like? You ever consider going Traktor?