Direct-drive turntable

[6] A direct-drive turntable eliminates belts, and instead employs a motor to directly drive a platter on which a vinyl record rests.

[2] This makes scratching possible, as the motor would continue to spin at the correct RPM even if the DJ wiggles the record back and forth on the platter.

Higher torque also means the platter will accelerate to its proper speed faster so less distortion is heard when the record begins to play.

The first direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic),[3] based in Osaka, Japan.

[4] The signature technique he developed was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables in alternation to extend the b-dancers' favorite section,[7] switching back and forth between the two to loop the breaks to a rhythmic beat.

[4] The most influential turntable was the Technics SL-1200,[1] which was developed in 1971 by a team led by Shuichi Obata at Matsushita, which then released it onto the market in 1972.

[5] It was adopted by New York City hip hop DJs such as Grand Wizzard Theodore and Afrika Bambaataa in the 1970s.

As they experimented with the SL-1200 decks, they developed scratching techniques when they found that the motor would continue to spin at the correct RPM even if the DJ wiggled the record back and forth on the platter.