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Scratching 101 Part 2

Stef wants to know would you recommend practicing with vinyl first? So as somebody's learning how to do this, I'm assuming people are goingto use what they got. Yeah, but is it if they have both? Sure, yeah, I mean, my thing would be this is that I'll use the analogy of driving, so learning on a vinyl turntable would very much be like learning manual learn how to drive manual so if you know how to drive manual b a bit of a transition again to an automatic car, but you'd find your bearings and certain things are sort of automated for you, and you just go on with it. The other part of it is you have a little bit more control, so just like with the manual car, you able to control a few other things and you're able to kind of be in tune a little bit more with what's happening some of the digital equipment, some of these things are automated for you already so that that part of it can be a bit difficult. So my recommendation would be to if you have any desire at any point in time to use a v...

inyl turntable to then learn on the vinyl turntable because it's harder the reverse if you've been driving for thirty years and now you want to now learn how to drive manual that's gonna be a bit of a tough thing. Yes, but not impossible. Thea other thing. So I mentioned this really quickly at home. If you don't have a vinyl turntable at home or you don't have, like, gear at home should do is you take a piece of paper and put it on like a flat surface. So even if I were to take me, you know, you're gonna be my vanna white here for a second, so you're like a ziff this was a table, right? Okay. And so you had practice the same sort of way so you could be at your office while you're supposed to be working or whatever you're doing. Um and you're here and so you're practicing notes so you can actually do this to anything. So, you know, even if you wanted a different beat, I'll take this being, I'll speed it up a lot, okay? Oh, it forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, forward. And the motion will be that similar cool that's really fast. Um, cool. Thank you. Sweet s. Oh, yeah, you can practice that at home. And that might be a good way of again the muscle memory. The muscle memory is always gonna be helpful, um, very for a bar. Not that kind of are you ready for the bar music yeah let's do that all right so I mean have you guys queue up to sounds do you wantto do either of you want to try on the cj and feel the difference actually you guys haven't done this yet here and you guys start here you guys start with the records and most will try with the cpj's later cool so have you put your hand here okay and like yeah very sensitive on the pressure you see now how it's moving onto you okay you feel it right? So you're tryingto find that balance to be able to hold it in place there cool ready let's let me bring that tempo down just a little bit and he's the same be cool um we're gonna do a full bar I'll do four beats you guys do for beat you just follow what I'm doing here we go lock that beat in super important there we go so yeah, I want to always forward first wait caroline caroline good practice guys at home a good way you ready? They go way back more back good wait should there right there with you for that good wait wait good wait, wait your body to help you that way wait, wait that's a bit of a sure you won that I'm not a very nice nice job nice job give these guys a round of applause. Nice job nice all right, so you can see that we did you weaken make different combo is now right? So, um going back to this on did you hear one that we did that was kind of interesting anything that caught your ear what what do we do here and how would you say this was one of the things we did didn't we do a lot of thirty to thirty two's in there? No, we didn't do any thirty two's this time it just sounded kind of fast still sixteen the one that went like that's the one that got tio what is that one? He and tio uh so it's a couple sixteen right? So let's let's fill in let's fill in the easy stuff first so let's start with the sixteenth, right? So what is the sixteenth look like here? So we've got one he and, uh to be in three he and uh for he and uh right so these are our sixteenth pieces, right? Okay, so we also did things where we did eight since sixteenth, right? So like I did stuff where it was like forward back for back for back like we did this last time it sounds like an eight to a sixteen um and you could keep that pattern going all right, so this would just be this like this bar of like eights and sixteenth right? So it's like a quarter beat of aids quarter bi to sixteen like over the course of a bar right? So, um this sounds like this uh cool um all right so what else could we do? What is that? What is that uh quarter look like there's the quarter note look like if we do a full bar of quarter notes two three four right? So one, two three four that would be a quarter note right? So now we start to come combo things play that same one so what is that three sixteenths right too and right says this like part so it's like so let's break it up so the sixteen scratching three sixteen well good so the right bax here so this is so this is kind of like a combination of this and it's just a pause like I'm pausing eso this part of it is three sounds and then I'm holding it to them bring the back on that too right? So this is a good example though of n us like breaking the mold right? So this is how this doesn't then sound like you know, when I first wrote down the notes it was very, very for me like right? And it was like this is how you know you're going to quarter then eight then sixteen's and it's going to sound like that. Now you can see that, like, now, we can deviate from the recipe a little bit. So what? I to use an analogy of cooking, which I'm going to make a ton of analogies to cook, and I told you this before, I'm driving and cooking djs like driving and cooking, and also being a magician at the same time, yeah, eso what I'm doing here, though, is as if I were to cook for the first time. If I were to teach you guys to cook in this is a cooking class instead of a deejay class, we would have a recipe, right? We would make something based on that recipe, especially if you've never done it before, right? You're going to go off of the recipe, and then after you've made it off the recipe, and now you can see like, oh, this is how it's supposed to taste this is how it's supposed to be, but I don't actually want it to taste like this. I wanna add in a little bit more of this, or take out a little bit of this, so once you get the theory part of it down, you have the basic part of theory down and the timing now, when you free stout with it, this is when you can, like bring things in so I'm not even going toe like I'm not even counting the notes and I'm not doing it as like, okay, I'm now going to do sixteenths into eighth notes in tow like I'm not doing that when I'm actually scratching because now what I'm doing is now based on the theory that I have I think kind of freaked out with a little bit more so I'm just going toe actually just do that really quick I'm gonna freestyle scratch a little something using all the scratches that we've now done up to here so you'll see that this sounds a little bit different I'm going tio let's do four bars here ok, so you know, my dear so maybe something like this what sounds now completely different than what there was the one I did throw in there that I did that we didn't go over was a thirty second, so thirty seconds sixteen thirty seconds sixteen wait you can see that like when you're doing this like now based on the theory that you guys know you're about to mix it up a little bit. So when you're up here I know that the exercise that we're goingto give you guys two practice along with is something much more formulaic like this so it's like eight to sixteen sixteenths aids quarters to aids a tsa quarters like this type of combination, these combinations so you can practice that and have that part of it down that's the recipe so you do do the rest in a few times and then now you can kind of deviate from the recipe and you'll know when you're off so like, if you're just kind of free styling and the bee is rolling, if you're not scratching in time with the beat and you fall off of it, you know that you'll feel that so, like, I feel like I'm all right, wait thiss becomes like talking, so you like kind of like whatever making different patterns in your mind like, and you'll have certain patterns that you kind of go to that like that work for you that like that you like? And this is how you're also going to develop your style with scratching. So I said in the beginning that we're going to use scratching for timing, but scratch it can also be used this sort of like flavor, some seasonings and, like extra on top of, like when you're mixing or like, maybe maybe there's just a bi plane and maybe you, like, you know, you've now mixed into this one song and there's a section that's just instrumental, and maybe, you know, instead of just having a beat role for eight bars or sixteen bars, you pull up a scratch sample and you're able to like, give it a little something, give it a little flavor now we were using this one sample that is the law, which really is like the two standard sounds for scratching would be this a sound and this fresh sounds. So these are the most common sounds that people scratch with and for a couple of reasons one is that it's a long sound and by long sound what I mean is that it it's drawn out this like, uh, now why that's helpful, unimportant gets into sort of our next thing within using the cross fader as a way of then chopping up this long sound. So everybody clear on this stuff, is everybody okay on it? Any questions? Do you have any questions? We're good, I just have one question, is it good to just practice the scratches over instrumentals or on really music? Yes, so, you know, the thing is with the scratching, the scratching is almost like words like you're using your using this sample to make almost like, like words like lyrics, almost that you're using with this scratch. So, you know, the tough part becomes when you're trying to do that over a song that has lyrics, it can then feel too much of a clash sometimes, so um it's usually best over an instrumental because then the scratching really shines then you can really hear what it is that you're doing otherwise it's like very hidden in the track um yeah that's a good question though that's a good question so you know oftentimes it's a good thing too then like you know pull up is a couple of instrumentals that you like that you khun scratched you also you know the one thing that while we're still on you know without that without the cross fader the one thing that's interesting is an eighth note is an eighth note no matter what the time is I mean no matter what the tempo is right so if the temple gets faster and eight no is still defined as eight sounds in a bar so if I would like to take this but same bee so scratch eight notes for me which is forward on a beach okay, keep going my chains a temple yep good so still ford on every beat so this isn't now turn into sixteen just because it's faster this is still eight notes and if I speed up even more this's still eight notes that's really important to know is is that with this we're always scratching along to something to some beat so technically this if I were to not move my head and show any sort of tempo this would be wei don't know. That could be a quarter note for something at one tempo. Or maybe that's. An eighth note for something at a slower tempo, or half the anonymous thing. You know, I'm saying so, like it's, really important that the tempo, the I tracked your plane, that you keep that in mind. Eso. Oftentimes what I find is that it's, easier to start with something that's, more mid tempo, like some sort of ninety beats per minute. Ah, hundred beats per minute, which we'll get into beats per minute to on a little bit cool.