So you want to scratch Mr/Mrs DJ,What sounds should you use?

0:00 First of all, if you don't know what I'm on about, what is scratching?

Alright folks, Jonathan here. Someone's emailed me and asked me what are the best songs, the best tracks to use for scratching purposes. Now first of all, if you don't know what I'm on about, what is scratching? Alright, where a DJ is concerned, scratching is the utilisation, the manipulation of the piece of music to make it sound different. In other words, where a vinyl DJ is concerned, what they will do, you'll see them and they'll have their hand on the record and they'll be doing that. Now what's happening... DJ tutorial by Ellaskins He will set, for example here, this particular CDJ, set it on vinyl mode, so basically it acts exactly the same as a vinyl turntable. As soon as the finger is put on the top of this particular CDJ, the jog wheel, then the music will stop. Bring it back, it goes backwards, forwards, forwards, back, forwards, back, forwards, and then if you listen... Like so. And as soon as the finger's taken off...

2:55 Turntablists, what they will use 99% of the time is something called h

Off it goes, but the reason that isn't going off is because I haven't pressed play. Now then, alright, what do we use? Now first of all there's a guy out there, a very, very, in fact he's the god, he's called Qbert. Now he actually says when you do scratching, cutting, it's a good idea, not all the time, but it's a good idea to take away the bass. The reason being is because you'll get rid of that rumble, that very, very deep rumbly sound, especially where vinyl For more information visit www.Ellaskins.com Here we go. Now, also... Turntablists, what they will use 99% of the time is something called hip-hop. Hip-hop is quite a bit slower than the likes of house music. Now hip-hop is fantastic because quite often on an actual 12-inch single or CD single you'll have half a dozen mixes. Yes, the producers would have had different versions of that particular track with all of the elements of the track put together.

Vocals, melody, bassline, percussion, etc. etc. But quite often what they will do, they'll have an instrumental version whereby there are no vocals or no rap, let's say. I mean basically the actual artist is giving his rap over the music, he's putting his rap into the music. But then what they'll also have, they'll also have something called the acapella. That's where everything is taken away and all you've got is just the acapella. You've got nothing else. Now check this out, here we go. Now these particular parts of the music are fantastic to use for scratching purposes because you have no bassline, you have mid and you have top which are the ideal parts of the music for scratching over other pieces of music. Now from a scale of 1 to 10 where turntablist is concerned, let's say Q-Bert is 10, I'm about 9s, sorry 9s.

4:56 Not sorry, for cutting

So, what do you use for cutting? Well, not sorry, for cutting. Sorry, for scratching. Best to use mid and high. Vocals, very good. Acapellas, very good. And again, phone up shops. Ask them for basic tracks for turntablists because quite often on albums you will always get half a dozen if not more particular samples for the utilisation of scratching purposes. Thanks for watching. Practice and enjoy.

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