Scratching

History

A rudimentary form of turntable manipulation which is related to scratching was developed in the late 1940s radio DJs (music program hosts) or the radio program producers who did their own technical operation as audio console operators. It was known as back-cueing, and was used to find the very beginning of the start of a song (i.e., the cue point) on a vinyl record groove. This was done to permit the operator to back the disc up (rotate the record or the turntable platter itself counter-clockwise) in order to permit the turntable to be switched on, and come up to full speed without ruining the first few bars of music with the "wow" of incorrect, unnaturally slow-speed playing. This permitted the announcer to time her or his remarks and start the turntable a scant moment before she or he actually wanted the music on the record to begin.

Back cueing was a basic skill that all radio production staff needed to learn, and the dynamics of it were unique to the brand of professional turntable in use at a given radio station. The older, larger and heavier turntables needed a 180 degree backward rotation to allow for run up to full speed; some of the newer 1950s models used aluminum platters and cloth-backed rubber mats which required a third of a rotational turn or less to achieve full speed when the song began. All this was done in order to present a music show on air with the least amount of silence ("dead air") between music, the announcer's patter and recorded advertising commercials. The rationale was that any "dead air" on a radio station was likely to prompt a listener to switch stations, so announcers and program directors instructed DJs and announcers to provide a continuous, seamless stream of sound–from music to an announcer to a pre-recorded commercial, to a "jingle" (radio station theme song), and then immediately back to more music.

Back-cueing was a key function in delivering this seamless stream of music. Radio personnel demanded robust equipment and manufacturers developed special tonearms, styli, cartridges and lightweight turntables to meet these demands. In the 1970s, hip hop musicians and club DJs began to use this specialized turntable equipment to move the record back and forth, creating percussive sounds and effects–"scratching"–to entertain their dance floor audiences. Whereas 1940s-1960s radio DJs had used back-cueing while listening to the sounds through their headphones, without the audience hearing, with scratching, the DJ intentionally lets the audience hear the sounds that are being created by manipulating the record on the turntable, by directing the output from the turntable to a sound reinforcement system so that the audience can hear the sounds. Scratching was developed by early hip hop DJs from New York City such as Grand Wizard Theodore, who described scratching as, "nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it [the recorded sound] out to the crowd." Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, who immigrated to New York City, also influenced the early development of scratching. Kool Herc developed break-beat DJing, where the breaks of funk songs—being the most danceable part, often featuring percussion—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties.

Although previous artists such as writer and poet William S. Burroughs had experimented with the idea of manipulating a reel-to-reel tape manually to make sounds, as with his 1950s recording, "Sound Piece"), vinyl scratching as an element of hip hop pioneered the idea of making the sound an integral and rhythmic part of music instead of an uncontrolled noise. Scratching is related to "scrubbing" (in terms of audio editing and production) when the reels of an open reel-to-reel tape deck (typically 1/4 inch magnetic audio tape) are gently rotated back and forth while the playback head is live and amplified, in order to isolate a specific spot on the tape where an editing "cut" is to be made. In the 2010s, both scratching and scrubbing can be done on digital audio workstations (DAWs) which are equipped for these techniques.

Christian Marclay was one of the earliest musicians to scratch outside of hip hop. In the mid-1970s, Marclay used gramophone records and turntables as musical instruments to create sound collages. He developed his turntable sounds independently of hip hop DJs. Although he is little-known to mainstream audiences, Marclay has been described as "the most influential turntable figure outside hip hop" and the "unwitting inventor of turntablism."

In 1981 Grandmaster Flash released the song "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" which is notable for its use of many DJ scratching techniques. It was the first commercial recording produced entirely using turntables. In 1982, Malcolm McLaren & the World's Famous Supreme Team released a single "Buffalo Gals", juxtaposing extensive scratching with calls from square dancing, and, in 1983, the EP, D'ya Like Scratchin'?, which is entirely focused on scratching. Another 1983 release to prominently feature scratching is Herbie Hancock's Grammy Award-winning single "Rockit". This song was also performed live at the 1984 Grammy Awards, and in the documentary film Scratch, the performance is cited by many 1980s-era DJs as their first exposure to scratching. The Street Sounds Electro compilation series which started in 1983 is also notable for early examples of scratching. Also a notable piece was "For A Few Dollars More" by Bill Laswell-Michael Beinhorn band Material, released on 12" single in Japan and containing scratch performed by Grand Mixer DXT, another pioneer of scratching.

Vinyl recordings

Most scratches are produced by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a direct drive turntable with the hand while it is playing on a turntable, with the styli ("needle") in the record's groove and with the audio outputs of the turntable connected to a DJ mixer, a small audio console that typically has two inputs and a crossfader. At the same time as the DJ is moving the record back and forth, the DJ manipulates the crossfader of a DJ mixer. This creates a distinctive rhythmic sound that has come to be one of the most recognizable features of hip hop music. Over time with excessive scratching, the stylus will cause what is referred to as "record burn" to a vinyl record.

The basic equipment setup for scratching includes two turntables and a DJ mixer, which is a small mixer that has a crossfader and cue buttons to allow the DJ to cue up new music in his/her headphones without the audience hearing. When scratching, this crossfader is utilized in conjunction with the scratching hand that is manipulating the record platter. The hand manipulating the crossfader is used to cut in and out of the record's sound.

Digital vinyl systems

Using a digital vinyl system (DVS) consists of playing vinyl discs on turntables whose contents is a timecode signal instead of a real music record.

1. The turntables' audio outputs are connected to the audio inputs of a computer audio interface.
2. The audio interface digitizes the timecode signal from the turntables and transfers it to the computer's DJ software.
3. The DJ software uses this data (e.g., about how fast the platter is spinning) to determine the playback status, speed, scratch sound of the hardware turntables, etc., and it duplicates these effects on the digital audio files or computer tracks the DJ is using.
4. By manipulating the turntables' platters, speed controls, and other elements, the DJ thus controls how the computer plays back digitized audio and can therefore produce "scratching" and other turntablism effects on songs which exist as digital audio files or computer tracks.

There is not a single standard of DVS, so that each form of DJ software has its own settings. Some DJ software such as Traktor Scratch Pro or Serato Scratch Live support only the audio interface sold with their software, requiring multiple interfaces for one computer to run multiple programs.

Some digital vinyl systems software include:

Non-vinyl scratching

While some turntablists consider the only true scratching media to be the vinyl disc, there are other ways to scratch, as:

Sounds

Sounds that are frequently scratched include but are not limited to drum beats, horn stabs, spoken word samples, and vocals/lyrics from other songs. Any sound recorded to vinyl can be used, and CD players providing a turntable-like interface allow DJs to scratch not only material that was never released on vinyl, but also field recordings and samples from television and movies that have been burned to CD-R. Some DJs and anonymous collectors release 12-inch singles called battle records that include trademark, novel or hard-to-find scratch "fodder" (material). The most recognizable samples used for scratching are the "Ahh" and "Fresh" samples, which originate from the song "Change the Beat" by Fab 5 Freddy.

There are many scratching techniques, which differ in how the movements of the record are combined with opening and closing the crossfader (or another fader or switch, such as a kill switch, where "open" means that the signal is audible, and "closed" means that the signal is inaudible). This terminology is not unique; the following discussion, however, is consistent with the terminology used by DJ QBert on his Do It Yourself Scratching DVD.

Sophisticated techniques

Subculture

While scratching is becoming more and more popular within pop music, particularly with the crossover success of pop-hip hop tracks in the 2010s, sophisticated scratching and other expert turntablism techniques are still predominantly an underground style developed by the DJ subculture. The Invisibl Skratch Piklz from San Francisco focuses on scratching. In 1994, the group was formed by DJs Q-Bert, Disk & Shortkut and later Mix Master Mike. In July 2000, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts held Skratchcon2000, the first DJ Skratch forum that provided “the education and development of skratch music literacy”. In 2001, Thud Rumble became an independent company that works with DJ artists to produce and distribute scratch records.

In 2004, Scratch Magazine, one of the first publications about hip hop DJs and record producers, released its debut issue, following in the footsteps of the lesser-known Tablist magazine. Pedestrian is a UK arts organisation that runs Urban Music Mentors workshops led by DJs. At these workshops, DJs teach youth how to create beats, use turntables to create mixes, act as an MC at events, and perform club sets.

Use outside of hip hop

Scratching has been incorporated into a number of other musical genres, including pop, rock, jazz, some subgenres of heavy metal (notably nu metal, in which some bands had DJs) and some contemporary and avant-garde classical music performances. For recording use, samplers are often used instead of physically scratching a vinyl record. Guitarist Tom Morello, known for his work with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, has performed guitar solos that imitate scratching by using the kill switch on his guitar. Perhaps the best-known example is "Bulls on Parade," in which he creates scratch-like rhythmic sounds by rubbing the strings over the pick-ups while using the pickup selector switch as a crossfader.

Since the 1990s, scratching has been used in a variety of popular music genres such as nu metal, exemplified by Linkin Park, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit. It has also been used by artists in pop music (e.g. Nelly Furtado) and alternative rock (e.g. Incubus). Scratching is also popular in various electronic music styles, such as hard-groove techno.