Digital Vinyl, Free and Open Source, in Max/MSP, Pd, Linux
Scratching began as a practical means by which DJs could cue records. (So say originators like Grandmaster Flash; if you’re interested in the history, check out the fantastic documentary Scratch — trailer above.) But something about the gesture, the mechanical feeling of scratching, and all that history has made the turntable compelling as a controller. It’s even taught as an instrument at Berklee.
So, what if you want to scratch for purposes other than conventional DJing?
Getting at Timecode
Digital vinyl systems like Serato Scratch LIVE and Native Instruments Traktor Scratch are designed for DJs. Part of the whole advantage is that you get an integrated system with vinyl, decoding capability, audio interfacing with the computer, and software for DJ functions. If you want to take the turntable to other frontiers, you have to find a way to get the timecode data from the vinyl directly and do something different with it, like control an instrument or scratch visuals. (Only recently did a big-name, mainstream DVS, Serato, take on visuals, as seen on Create Digital Motion, and even then it makes some assumptions about what you want to do.)
We’ve seen a few examples of how to do this:
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Musicians have generally had to shy away from slim, light portable PC laptops, but watching the specs on these machines, I’d say that’s finally changing. Take the upcoming Lenovo IdeaPad U110. Like the Apple MacBook Air, you have to rely on an external optical drive, but otherwise, this machine comes pretty close to being a worthy mobile music machine. If shedding pounds and size is important to you, there’s no question you could make this box work on the road.
I love our readers. You’re just sitting on your hands waiting for Max 5 to arrive, because the moment it goes up my inbox is suddenly full. As of a few moments ago, the long-awaited upgrade to the popular modular patching environment for music and visuals has arrived. You can download Max 5 right now, and according to the C74 site, it will happily run alongside Max 4.6, so you can keep the old version for compatibility while you evaluate the new one. Let us know how you like the new release!








