Scratching
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds.
[citation needed] A rudimentary form of turntable manipulation that is related to scratching was developed in the late 1940s by radio music program hosts, disc jockeys (DJs), or the radio program producers who did their own technical operation as audio console operators.
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.
[3] The first direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic),[4] based in Osaka, Japan.
[5] 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.
"[7] He developed the technique when experimenting with the Technics SL-1200, a direct-drive turntable released by Matsushita in 1972 when he 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.
[8] Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, who immigrated to New York City, 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.
[9] He was influenced by Jamaican dub music,[10] and developed his turntable techniques using the Technics SL-1100, released in 1971, due to its strong motor, durability, and fidelity.
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 audiotape) are gently rotated back and forth while the playback head is live and amplified, to isolate a specific spot on the tape where an editing "cut" is to be made.
Some DJs and anonymous collectors release 12-inch singles called battle records that include trademark, novel or hard-to-find scratch "fodder" (material).
More complex combinations can be generated by grouping elementary crossfader motions (such as the open, close, and tap) into three and four-move sequences.
In 2001, Thud Rumble became an independent company that works with DJ artists to produce and distribute scratch records.
Pedestrian is a UK arts organisation that runs Urban Music Mentors workshops led by DJs.
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.
