Hired professional scratch dj’s use timecode vinyl and midi mixers to create a series of scratches, crabs, spinbacks, etc. The scratches are recorded not as audio but as timecode data and midi/osc data. This data is then incorporated into a plugin or program such as Traktor.
Once the data is available it can be used as an effect in a dj program or to emulate vinyl scratches on audio in programs like Ableton Live, Cubase, etc. Because the scratch data is midi/osc/timecode, it can easily be manipulated to work at different tempos. The end result is that you could easily apply professional sounding scratches to any audio.. entirely different audio from what was originally scratched by the dj.
yeah it could easily be incorporated into Traktor via a 3rd party application that outputs midi into LoopBe (or any other virtual midi program). The ‘scratch plugin’ would listen for midi triggers (arcade buttons or whatever) and then output a series of complex pre-recorded scratch/fader midi commands to Traktor… instant professional sounding scratches!
I doubt it would be very hard to write something like this… the trickier part would be getting the scratches ‘recorded’.
edit: infact, this is kinda what the ‘instant gratification’ midifighter already does… you press an arcade button and it triggers a series of scripted midi commands. The only difference is that this is done at a firmware level, rather than a 3rd party application. My idea is potentially more powerful as you could easily load new ‘scratches’ into the program with an import function.
This definitely CAN be done. Just connect your TT’s (post mixer so that you record the CF movements) directly to your sound card and scratch away. Record to a clip in Live, then route the recorded audio from Live into a separate input on your sound card routed to your DVS system.
I’ve often thought about recording timecode signal while doing juggle routines, then just playing the audio from the recorded vinyl movements to control different tunes in the DVS system. Save some time trying different juggles with different tunes.
hmm thats kind of the thing I’m talking about - thanks josh…
but I think it could be done in a slightly more efficient way… something where pre-recorded scratch data is sent via just one arcade button trigger. This way we could beat juggle AND scratch just using midifighters.
right - but I’m talking about recording the data as pitch/volume data midi or osc data, rather than an audio recording of the DVS timecode. The advantage of capturing the scratching as data is that you can more easily quantise and change the tempo of the scratching so that it matches whatever is being played in Traktor.
