I am 53 and grew up with MTV. Thrash was my thing in the 80’s and MTV was the sh*t back then. Then Rap and Hip Hop took over MTV and I was very angry. Hated that music. I always said any knucklehead could scratch. Well, I’ve been through so many types of instruments, guitar for years, then and still Electronic stuff, drum machines, etc… Then I came across this DJ Sara video on Youtube. I have to be very careful about what I expose myself to. If I get to close, I get bit. Well this video got me and now I’m a scratcher, LOL.
But the thing is this. This stuff is way way difficult and the learning curve is tremendous. I recently bought an Omni turntable, a Reloop Mixon 8 and a Reloop Beatpad 2. I can’t believe how hard this scratching is to master. I mean I usually can pick up an instrument real quick and at least fake knowing what I’m doing. So I now has mad respect for these scratchers. I’ll be back in a year when I can make something musical come out of these devices.
Just remember that’s a promo video and she makes it look easy
I found in the beginning practicing plattter movement and fader cutting separately helped. Work and getting a rhythm with each hand then start to combine.
Good luck, I’ve been djing for almost 30 years and still think my scratches are shit lol
Nice man. Gonna take me a year till I can do 1/8th of that. The major difficulty I’m having is with the fader. I just bought a practice fader that is coming this week, so I can at least get better since I have 8 hours a day at work to practice.
I used to think the fader was most important, but if I could start over, I’d strongly consider using my dominate hand on the record. All the emotion and funk comes from the record hand.
Well the good thing for me is I got rhythm in my head. I just can’t get it to come out of my hands at the moment. I’m using my dominant hand on the fader. I just can’t seem to do sh*t with my left hand on the fader.
I used to scratch back in the 90s. qbert n the skratch picklz were un fukn real back then. mind blowing.
i was very much influenced by the coldcut journeys by dj / Portishead style stuff tho. slower, throwing in bits that harmonically enhance the tune and whot not.
id be rusty af now.
fun fact: I once left my vestax mixer on the roof of my car n drove off. it went flyin off at like 50mph n survived. had a few battle scars n a cheeky bit of ground hum from the on
I used to be really into scratching. Turntables and mixer are packed up (to make way for a synth I never use ) but I can’t imagine parting with them. Agree with @Prints on the dominant hand on the record. You also might feel better with the fader in ‘hamster’ (aka reverse) mode. I found switching to hamster improved my chirps loads, but also ruined my transforms But generally it made more sense to my mind/coordination.
It is so hard to get good and funky. Let alone beat juggling and being able to cut both sides So much respect for people that can do that.
There’s some free videos on youtube from the beat junkies that are really good for following along. I’ll find and post them up later.
I scratch - have done since the 90s - and got to the kind of standard that makes you realise that only a relatively small pool of people are actually better than you but that you’ll never reach that level and also never be completely happy with your own scratching as a result
I feel like most instruments carry this element of being impressive or enjoyable for people who can’t do it. Not so for scratching
For whatever it’s worth, I did this last year (I think). Took me way too long to film and edit together the actual beat which meant I’d grown sick of it by the time I got to the cuts so keep expectations low and plan for disappointment
Not sure if helpful @JoeHacken, but I thought these videos are good. Follow along Q&A stuff. They go advanced but there’s faderless stuff at the beginning too:
No idea if uploading a video will work but this was me about 11 years ago, about third renaissance of getting into scratching again. It’s not great and I can tell I’m just doing (or trying to do!) techniques one after the other really.
) but I can’t imagine parting with them. Agree with 
But generally it made more sense to my mind/coordination.
So much respect for people that can do that.
