Scratching, meet recycling. Rather than allow MIDI DJ controllers to consign themselves to landfills, a new open source project promises to retrofit these gadgets with scratch capabilities.

Scratch Decoder is a collaborative, open source effort to add or extend obsolete controllers, CDJs, and turntables with digital vinyl control – before they get tossed. Inspired by a 2009 thesis by Swiss student Ramon Mathis, advised by the folks who first developed the Ms. Pinky vinyl control system for Max/MSP, and rooted in years of work, the system is now publicly documented.

The ingredients:
An Arduino hardware board
The encoder sensor and board on a Numark CDX – which this project actually hacks into
MIDI, and Ms. Pinky’s software library

Upshot: add a computer, and you can translate scratch movements to MIDI messages for use with your DJ software of choice.

The video is in Spanish, so Mudo, who’s on the team, explains:

In the video, Norbert shows, as proof-of-concept, hijacking the encoder signal and connecting it to the digital inputs at Arduino. Then he sets up the software involved (serial-to-MIDI translator and Traktor controller panel) and starts the platter of the Numark CDX (the CDX is a CDJ without the ability to send MIDI from the platter) — all without a timecode CD, of course. It is not perfect right now, but it works at last.

I actually kind of like that it isn’t perfect.

This deserves further explanation for those for whom this isn’t obvious (mainly, most normal people). Typically, digital vinyl works by including a disc (vinyl or CD) encoded with timecode. That way, by looking at the audio playback from the device, as someone moves the record, the audio stream can be decoded in order to tell that, say, they’re scratching the disc.

In this case, a device that lacks that timecode disc and has sensors that refuse to see MIDI can be retrofitted to provide signal to software.

The team in this case is inspired by other experimental turntablists, artists who explore the potential of modifying technology for use in turntable performance technique. The project says it draws from the artistic ideas of these inventors as well as their technological research, looking to the likes of DJ Sniff, Jason Sadural and the Rastieri Project, Aaron Faulstitch, Jesse Kriss, and Scott Wardle.

I’m finishing editing a video interview with DJ Sniff showing of his current rig, but I asked Sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, about this project. He points CDM to a range of “hackable gems,” devices for DJing that failed in the consumer market but are now available for creative use in used form.

Examples:

The Tascam TT-M1 is, says Taku “essentially just an optical encoder that rides that spinning platter.” It’s the sensor you can add to something like the CDX – a non-open equivalent of the project above, meant to rescue your CDX from the trash heap.

The Stanton SCS.3M brought to bear a fascinating array of interactive touch strips, a compact, all-touch controller for DJing. It’s a device we covered on CDM when it came out, particularly due to its similarity to [warning: getting obscure] the never-released M-Audio [then Midiman] Surface One controller prototype. The SCS got further than the M-Audio piece in that it was manufactured, but apparently has since been discontinued and didn’t quite take the market by storm. [Fair warning: I don't see confirmation from Stanton that it's discontinued, so its status may simply be, "not the biggest controller ever to hit the market" until we hear otherwise.]

Taku uses that gadget in his work, which you’ll see in the video soon.

In the meantime, to follow these community projects, there are some interesting discussions and sites coming together.

En Español and in English:
Proyecto 1: Scratch Decoder. Convierte tu viejo equipo en un controlador midi para scratch!

Discussion on the DJ TechTools forum of this project:
Which controllers with motorized platter does Traktor support? [a slight misnomer in the subject header - eventually, you wind up with the project here!]

See Ramón Mathis’ dream of an open community for sharing scratch skills, styles, and “tricks” via an interactive e-learning system and community:
http://www.skrat.ch/

What should digital DJing look like? It’s an open question. If you aren’t willing to contend with the (potentially-unreliable) combination of real vinyl control records with computers, the question becomes what DJing technique hardware should embody. Writing for CDM, Ambivalent of Minus Records was most enthusiastic about advanced hardware mixing in Allen & Heath’s Xone:DB4. Boutique manufacturer Faderfox focuses instead on advanced, four-deck effects and control, minus the big, record-mimicking platters.

The big players, though, are focused on a kitchen-sink approach that combines turntable controllers with integrating mix, effect, and transport controls with software. We saw Native Instruments’ Kontrol S4, integrated with their own Traktor software, in August. Now, Pioneer and Numark are showing up to the NAMM trade show with their own entries. Numark has one dedicated to Serato; Pioneer is actually releasing two devices, one for Serato and one for Traktor.

Here’s a snapshot view of that hardware. Interestingly, while other manufacturers (inexplicably, I think) try to time all their announcements for tomorrow, Pioneer and Numark seemed eager to get out ahead of the other announcements.

Pioneer DDJ

Pioneer DDJ-S1
Pricing: US$1599 suggested retail
Software: Serato ITCH
Availability: March 2011

Specs:

• Two-deck design (perhaps a demerit, but I think nonetheless likely to be popular, as four deck operation is far from a given with most DJs)
• Inputs for two mics, one aux (RCA)
• Balanced master outputs (2x XLR, 1x RCA)
• Plug-and-play USB connection
• Effect controls, deck controls
• Library navigation, including an LED that shows you position, search, and slip playback (and needle drop-style transport, as on the Numark)

S1 US Product Page

Pioneer DDJ-T1
Pricing: US$1299
Availability: February 2011

Specs are similar to the S1, but with:

• Four deck operation
• Less visual feedback: in exchange, you give up the LEDs with position, VUs. (Personally, I like the four decks, but more of this will break down to preference for Traktor versus Serato.)

T1 US Product Page

Smartest marketing pitch: Pioneer touts that the design and audio fidelity both come from pro Pioneer DJ equipment. That could be a strong selling point, and a draw for people who have been loyal to Pioneer hardware who haven’t yet made the leap to the computer – even if the Numark is cheaper and does four channels of mixing.

Good analysis elsewhere: DJ Tech Tools has extensive practical analysis of both designs.

Numark NS6

Pricing: €999/£799 (not sure on US$ price)
Software: Serato ITCH

Specs:

• 4-channel DJ mixer with standalone operation
• 24-bit audio interface with balanced XLR output
• Touch-sensitive, illuminated wheels with 3600 ticks of resolution
• Effect controls, deck controls
• Library navigation
• USB connection, sends standard MIDI messages

Tasteless product branding award goes to… “Strip Search,” a handy feature (emulating needle drop onto tracks) that unfortunately recalls enhanced security at airports. Bad. Worse, on the NS6, it’s “enhanced strip search.”

Good analysis elsewhere: Skratchworx has some smart insights, including the likelihood of Traktor and Virtual DJ mappings and a competitive price. They actually give the nod to Numark here on price, build, and having two extra channels.

http://www.numark.com/ns6

Snap Reactions

What about the jog wheels? And what about NI? Pioneer and Numark may both face stiff competition from Native Instruments. NI frequently emphasizes to me the quality of the wheels on their Traktor Kontrol S4, which use eddy current breaks so that as you rotate them faster, resistance increases, making the feel more natural for the control scheme. And speaking of NI, they have announcements coming this week, too.

What about space in a DJ booth? Even in some pretty high-end, spacious clubs, DJ booth real estate is at a premium. It’s hard to imagine comfortably pulling off what Numark has in their screenshot at top. Pioneer has designed their controllers in such a way that they fit over top of the keyboard on your computer. (See image below) Advantage: Pioneer.

Is this really the kind of DJ controller everyone wants? This is my big question. Integrating with DJ software in this way certainly looks practical. But I can’t help but wonder if these designs won’t change over time as DJing is no longer about turntables. That could make unique new touch interfaces or Ableton Live controllers or unusual assemblages of looping hardware something that differentiates DJs.

I think the Pioneer units are prettier. I’m sorry. I’m shallow.

What do you think? Let us know in comments.

Since this week has become Unplanned Unofficial Vinyl Week, I might as well keep going. Vinyl with printed timecode is just one path. Here are two examples (one recent, one upcoming) of products that have found other means of connecting digital sound to the turntable. If a product like Traktor Scratch or Serato Scratch Live represent the maturation of the integrated vinyl + hardware + software solution, these two tools virtualize the turntable experience in other ways. And they demonstrate just how much control technology can change in music, turntable or no.

The Numark X2, above, as pointed out by beatfix in comments, is a hybrid of two approaches. It’s a conventional turntable (meaning you can actually hook it up to an amp and hear something, which isn’t the case with timecode-encoded vinyl). But it also uses the turntable to manipulate an MP3 CD. Now, obviously, Numark has missed the obvious next step: why not transmit control data to a computer instead of a CD? The X2, with a street well below US$1000, isn’t new; it’s been around a couple of years. But I’m still waiting for the concept to be applied to a computer output. (Anyone?)

In the opposite direction, the Stanton Control System, unveiled at NAMM in January and due to ship in June, does away with the turntable. The deck, the SCS.1d, simulates the feel of a turntable with a high-torque motorized platter and even a motorized pitch fader. Personally, I love this — and think it could be a sign of other, non-DJ controllers with tactile feedback. (You heard it here first. Uh … but I do expect that to take a while, as tactile control design is hard.)

But the turntable has some control features of its own: trigger pads, LCD scribble strips, encoders, transport controls, and preset triggers and navigation keys. They look a little odd, honestly, on a faux turntable, but it does save some space and gear.

The SCS.1m on left is a traditional mixer control surface with LCD "scribble strips" (reminds me a bit of the Novation keyboards) and endless encoders with a light-up ring (as we’ve been seeing various places.) The mixer controller is also a FireWire audio interface with mic and phono ins and dedicated headphone out, plus a footswitch input. That might win the hearts of some Ableton Live users who aren’t necessarily DJs.

This answers what Stanton has been doing post-FinalScratch. With that system defunct, what the Control System does is get you into whatever software you happen to choose. It works with Traktor Studio (the non-Scratch version of Traktor), Ableton Live, Deckadance, and MixVibes.

Cost: US$1499 for the deck, $999 for the mixer. And you can see the problem — a real turntable might be cheaper. But then, given what DJs make… hey, even a few VJ gigs might make it worth it if you really wanted it.

Part of why I find all of this interesting, even without being in the market for such a device myself, is what it says about controllers. The DJ market ought to be fairly predictable at this point, theoretically. And yet here are two examples of products that suggest that even conventional DJing, with a pre-defined set of basic techniques and hardware, can become unpredictable with the addition of a computer. As people struggle to define what a controller might look like for a laptop artist or musician using software like Ableton Live, I think the possibilities become even more wide open.

But then, that’s the fun of it.

I just want to see more high-torque motors in stuff.

This is a NuVJ, my second choice MIDI controller from Numark

As a class-compliant USB MIDI device it installed fine. I loaded my VJ software of choice, Resolume, mapped the jog wheels to scratch video, and scratched.

The video went bonkers.

A couple of moments looking at the MIDI messages in MIDI-OX told me why – the Total Control jogwheels use a bizarre schema for their endless encoder messages. All the MIDI controllers I’ve encountered in the past have used the same format for endless encoders, rotating clockwise will send out a stream of, (to paraphrase the machines) “+1″ messages. Counterclockwise gives “-1″. Spin your jogwheel or knob faster, and it sends out more messages per second. The Total Control, however, changes its message depending on how fast the wheel is spinning, so an increasingly quick movement would look like “+1 +1 +2 +3 +5 +7 +7 +8″ etc. Even more bizarrely, the values seem the reverse of what they should be, so a clockwise movement gives negative values.

So I took the controller back to the store, along with my Macbook to road test any alternatives. The guys were happy to swap my Total Control for a NuVJ, whose jogwheel behaved much better when tested with Resolume. It was still backwards, but it wasn’t causing the playhead to jitter all over the place.

I should have done a little more testing though, because it turns out that all of the knobs on this device work the same way. The only piece of software which recognizes them correctly is the version of Arkaos bundled with the NuVJ. Ableton Live does an ok job with the general knobs, and the jog wheels work ok moving clockwise, but counterclockwise has the live controls snapping backwards at 5 times the speed of forward movements.

So, sadly, I’m back at the same position I was in 17 months ago, sitting with a well made and reasonably priced controller, which will require hours of hacking and re-mapping to complete simple tasks.

Is anyone else in CDMLand in a similar situation? Or better still, have been in a similar situation and discovered a quick and elegant solution?

TurntablistPC is an ongoing art project coupling a vintage turntable with a vintage PC, creating a hybrid, record-playing server that can be controlled remotely by remote websites around the world. It’s the creation of artist Mogen Jacobsen, and it’s currently being exhibited as part of a show called Webscape at the Art Museum of West Sealand, Denmark. What? You’re not planning to pass through West Sealand this fall? The museum still wants your help: embed a piece of code, and visitors to your own website will trigger manipulations of the turntable based on geographic position.

TurntablistPC Project Page
The TurntablistPC spins again! [Networked Music Review, my new favorite source for artsy music tech!]

Thanks to our artist friend Michael Una for tipping us off. I’m not sure I’ll be building anything of this sort soon, but what I do like about it conceptually is that it returns playback devices — increasingly abstract and virtual in the age of the iPod — to the realm of mechanical instrument. I think we may see all sorts of strange, new, hybrid digital/mechanical instruments in the coming years.

Of course, if you can’t figure out how to turn a turntable into a hybrid server art installation, you can always just don your black vinyl jumpsuit and strap your turntable to your back. I think Numark’s idea here was to somehow promote their turntables, but to me, they may have stumbled onto a new, futuristic couture in which we wear heavy objects as fashion statements. And for whatever reason, I’m game! (People could, you know, come up to you … I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine sorta thing?)

Making_sound grabbed this shot and sent it to our Flickr group; thanks!

I’m pleased to announce the first-ever CDM Giveaway. We’ve got over US$4,000 of hardware and software tools for music creation, and we’d like to give you the chance to win them. To do that, we’re holding a good, old-fashioned prize drawing — I’ve been warming up my true random number generator — so that all you have to do is enter for a chance to win. To better your odds, each prize will get a different winner.

CDM Giveaway Info Page; official rules (no purchase necessary).

Here’s what we’ve got:

Akai MPC500 mobile music workstation
Ableton Live 6 music production software
Alesis ControlPad drum pad controller
Glyph GT 050Q 250GB eSATA/USB/FW400/FW800 hard drive
Moog Music Moogerfooger FreqBox VCO effects box
Native Instruments Absynth 4 soft synth
Native Instruments Elektrik Piano soft synth
Numark Total Control DJ control surface
PreSonus FaderPort

…plus boxes of Ableton beanies and AudioMIDI.com Synth Legends DVDs. You can check everything out on the giveaway page.

And get some link love, too: Eligible residents of the United States can enter to win any one of these prizes. Unfortunately, for legal reasons we can’t extend the whole sweepstakes to international readers. To make up for it, we’ll be watching international entries for the best blogs, project pages, and music websites to feature on CDM, and we’ll send out Ableton beanies and/or DVDs to our favorite entries. (American readers, we’ll be watching your pages, too, so be sure to include your URLs when you enter.)

We’ve been putting this together for a while now and it’s been a lot of work, so I’m excited to be able to roll it out. We’ve hand-picked some of our favorite gear and software makers to partner with, or we wouldn’t be doing this.

Full details on the giveaway page. Enter now, because at the stroke of midnight following Monday, June 11, the contest is over. And I really want to get these boxes of gear and swag shipped. It’ll be a lot more fun out of the brown cardboard boxes, I’m sure.

Update: If you’re not from the US – please do fill out the form, if you include nothing other than your URL (so we can check out your site) and your country. (Nothing else is required.)

We’re really sorry we weren’t able to go global on this one for legal reasons (I try to explain why in comments). But that’s all the more reason to find out where you’re from. Server stats provide a very incomplete picture of what country people are from, and we would like to know. And if you include contact info, I might at least be able to get some of you some swag.

I purchased an AVM02 when it was released in Feb, and have been testing it out in preparation for 2 months touring Australia with a rock star.

While I’m very excited about my AVM02, there seems to be some definite resistance from the VJ community as it doesn’t include some features we’ve come to rely on (MIDI, easily accessible effects parameters). However, for DJs wanting to expand their performance to include visuals this may be just the right mix of audio and video.

Unfortunately the lack of MIDI will probably turn off live musicians who are too busy actually playing their instruments to mess with manually selecting video channels and crossfading. Let’s hope Numark release a MIDI capable AVM03 soon.

In the next couple of years I see this product lineup in the video market expanding similarly to DJ mixers, with different layouts, effects and options available for “turntablist” style highly-technical VJing, live looping with onboard sampling and effects, battle-style VJ mixers allowing you to mount your DVD player sideways and tag over your DVD labels like the hiphop kids do… In the meantime the AVM02 is really the only A/V mixer available at anywhere near this price point, and it does a superb job too. If you’re a visualist branching out into the frightening world of audio, a DJ looking to add video to your set, or just someone looking for a solid, competitively priced vision mixer, you should definitely give the AVM02 a try.

Read the full article on CreateDigitalMotion.

The US$300 NuVJ, in contrast, looks like it might have just the combination of controller features and build that people want, with complete Mac and Windows support. More on that in a moment.

In the meantime, our friend Steve Cooley writes on somesoundswelike about the disappointing lack of nudge controls on the iDJ2, Numark’s revision to its iPod DJ mixer:

I’ve been staring at the iDJ2, and noticed there’s no nudge controls … you know, the thing that lets you simulate a spindle-twist or a finger on the platter to momentarily speed up or slow down a track that you’re beatmatching to another track … these are absolutely critical tools to beat matching … Oof. To come within 99% of solving all of the criticisms of the original iDJ, and then fall on your face for the last 1%… that’s a shame.

Shown: his picture, clearly laying out his response. I don’t expect this will get fixed, as the iDJ2 is supposed to ship some time in August. Sure enough, if you look closely at the NuVJ controller, it has the same problem, and even more oddly lacks transport controls. (Maybe Numark is planning a separate controller for the music market, and assuming VJs will just use the clip buttons to trigger their video clips?)

Thanks, Steve! I’m equally disappointed: this could be a deal breaker on the iDJ2. But back to the NuVJ, I still think some people might find it useful as a controller for software like Ableton Live, musicians and DJs alike, assuming Numark gets the other details right. See Create Digital Motion for a preview of the hardware, but here are the controls that could make it useful for music, from Numark’s specs:

1. Dual large rotary wheels for scratch, scrub and pitch functions
2. Illuminated pads for each of the two channels for assigning and selecting visuals
3. A/B Auto Fade buttons on each channel for switching sides of the crossfader (largely useful for VJing — maybe you could reassign to nudge controls?)
4. Tap BPM for synchronizing visuals to the music (musicians could use as tap tempo, or, again, could reassign to something else)
5. Large backlit LCD to display messages sent by the software (excellent, provided you can send these messages via MIDI from other software)
6. Instant black (or any other color) button (This refers to blackouts/breakdowns in VJing; again, you could easily reassign to something else)
7. 360-degree rotaries: 2 for the effects on each bank, 3 for the master effect, 2 for the master brightness and contrast, 2 bank selectors (this could easily be used for filters, effects, etc., and I find a smaller number is often optimal instead of having a zillion different knobs)

What do you think? Is the NuVJ tempting, or would you rather have a different controller? The only thing really holding me back here is its size; for Ableton Live I’d really prefer something smaller.

The iDJ, Numark’s original iPod DJ mixer, got plenty of buzz from iPod lovers — and plenty of haters here on CDM. And why not? It’s not about snobbery: the iDJ just sucked the joy out of DJing, thanks to the lack of scratching, pitch control, and having to go out and buy two iPods. If you’re a newcomer, you just won’t have as much fun with the iDJ. And as for the wedding DJs this seemed aimed at, why shouldn’t you have smooth, beat-matched crossfades at your wedding? (See my review for Playlist.com.)

So, I’m sure some of you rolled your eyes when you heard about Numark’s iDJ2. But wait a second here . . . now you can scratch? And you only need one iPod, since you can play two songs off of it at once? And Numark added not only pitch control but loop cross-fading? And you can use any USB hard drive (including players like my iRiver H320) or even a MemoryStick? All these new features are possible because the iDJ2 treats these devices as USB mass storage, rather than taking simple audio output from the built-in playback on the iPod. That’s a huge step forward from the iDJ, which was basically a glorified iPod dock with a cheap mixer thrown in.

Numark even earned a little street cred by adding FLAC and OGG support, two high-quality compressed formats now available from some indie online labels and music stores. I’ve been listening to the Autechre reissues in FLAC from Bleep, and I have to say, this format sounds really great.

In fact, looking at the specs of Numark’s iDJ2, it’s almost as though . . . get ready for this . . . they listened to feedback from their customers and product reviews. That alone should warrant giving this a second shot.

So, while there are still lots of questions about how this works, and more importantly, how much it will cost, I’m looking forward to checking out the iDJ2. I can even imagine using this in a laptop music setup as a portable scratcher, loaded with samples on USB drives, for those of us who are already carrying too much gear to add a turntable. I’m also hoping the device will transmit MIDI to a laptop, like the NuVJ also introduced at Messe, though I’m less optimistic about that. (I’ll let you know; it might also connect via USB.)

Yes, I’m sure this will still be offensive to real turntablists, and more power to you. But as an upgrade for the CD-based DJ, it does look promising.

The iDJ2 wasn’t the only iPod product Numark unveiled at Messe. The iCDX is a strange combination of a CD scratch unit with an iPod device. Like the iDJ2, it treats the iPod (or other hard drive) as a USB storage device. This one has a real scratch wheel, and connects via USB; Numark tantalizingly notes that it works as a standard Human Interface Device, meaning some of our more experimental and adventurous readers can do crazy things like connect the iCDX to Max/MSP or Pd. And while the iDJ2 has only large plastic discs for simulating scratching, the iCDX appears to have a more serious scratch ring.

What’s your take? Is it possible Numark devised an iPod product we might actually want?

Numark iDJ2

The MixPod shares the fundamental shortcomings of Numark’s slicker-looking but equally flawed iDJ. Because of the limitations of the iPod, you can’t cue, you can’t scratch . . . maybe you can call it DJing, but what it definitely isn’t is fun. Forget DJ snobbery. It’s just boring. Ed: Shortly after writing this article, Numark addressed many of my complaints with the iDJ2. So I might have to change my mind! -PK

And it’s not much fun to listen to, either. For instance, two DJs were playing a party I was at last night for Res Magazine, both with a PowerBook. One was using a serious DJ program, and he did crazy mash-ups of distorted audio and mixed grooves with The Notwist and threw in Dylan at an unspecting moment. That’s fun. The second used iTunes playlists of preexisting mixes. That was boring.

The vinyl versus digital DJ debate is a non-starter, because so many DJs have already abandoned records for CDs (also potentially boring, though certainly less so than iPods). If anything, computers could reinvigorate DJing. But we have to keep iPods and iTunes out of it. That or else wait for Apple to add scratching/cueing ability to their players — extraordinarily unlikely.

iPods can be fun when people bring their own music, take a number, and play for a few minutes as at the iPod parties. But selling serious “DJ equipment” using iPods is just silly, especially when it’s serious makers like Numark and Phonic. You can call it serious. Just don’t expect us to take it seriously.

Previously:
Numark iDJ Reviewed by “Playlist”, Twice; Does Vinyl Beat `Pod?