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Digital DJ Turntable 197

Posted by timothy from the me-want-grunt-grunt dept.
Daniel Gomez-Ibanez writes "I made a digital turntable - it stores digital audio and plays it back like a record player. This lets you scratch the audio from a CD. I like it because there's no 'computer' involved- a four year old can figure it out. There's a description here." Daniel also has a more descriptive web page on the inspiration and design of this beast.
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Digital DJ Turntable More

Digital DJ Turntable

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  • Finally! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Gilbert, Louis, Lamar, Booger and the rest of the nerds will have adequately nerdy equipment when they perform their next "No on 15" concert!

    No on 15! Come on, we really mean it!

    • Re:Finally! (Score:2, Informative)

      by NulDevice ( 186369 )
      Interstingly enough (or not), the guy who played "Lamar" went on to play gangsta rapper "Tasty Taste" in the excellent mockumentary "Fear of a Black Hat."
  • Remember when Batman (played by Keaton) recorded the Penguin (Devito) onto a CD and then replayed it?

    It always bugged me how Batman then 'scratched' the CD as if it were a record (which obviously is not possible)

    Makes me wonder if this project was based on the same 'annoyance' and wanted to make something that would work.
    • You should check out the Pioneer CDj-1000 (http://www.pioneerprodj.com/index2.mv) It has a big vinyl size plate so you can do scratching, beatmixing, and almost all the other tricks of vinyl. The scratching sounds just like the real thing and is totally easy to convert to from playing out vinyl. Plus it has some other really cool features, like reverse play, digital link to pioneer cross faders on their mixers, seamless looping, and much more. Of all the cd dj machines out there this has got to be the best. Unfortunately they don't play mp3's at the moment so you have to burn proper cd's. They're a little pricey too, but hey, they have nice blue lights. carl
      • Not forgetting the always cool BeOS solution, where the vinyl was a special time-code record, which was sampled by the computer, and which caused corresponding scratching to be performed on an mp3 file.

        The cool thing with that setup was that you could needle drop anywhere into the track, in addition to using whichever player you had at hand.

        Of course, I imagine they are dead in the water, what with the proliferation of BeOS platforms to run on and what not.
    • which obviously is not possible)

      Umm... it's been possible for years... it's done in buffer.

      Not only does the CDJ-1000 do it (like the previous poster mentioned)... the Pioneer CMX-3000 does it, along with the Denon DN-2100F, DN-2600F, DN-D9000, the American DJ PRO Scratch 1 and CMX, along with the Numark CDN-88 and Axis 8. IMHO, only Pioneer and Denon make rock-solid products, but I know I must be leaving some out!

  • Scratching isn't simply sped up audio (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:29PM (#3861642) Homepage Journal
    There is a lot of white noise generated during scratching, noise that is not available on a digital CD.

    How did you create the scratch effect?
    • My guess is that he's got a sample of a real turntable scratch that is triggered whenever the encoder's shaft changes direction, and changes pitch based on speed.
    • Pioneer makes a hella-fine CD turntable, the CDJ-1000. As far as just about anyone who's tried it can tell, it has the ability to behave exactly like a turntable when scartching/backspinnning/cueing. Although that uses CDs or stored tracks on flash media (i think).
      However, vinyl will remain that "real" Dj's preferred media. As has been stated before, vinyl is sexy. Some dude standing in front of a crowd twiddling his fingers to mix tracks will never replace guys working the wheels of steel.

      • Re:Scratching isn't simply sped up audio (Score:4, Interesting)

        by panaceaa ( 205396 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:33PM (#3861895) Homepage Journal
        I have some turntables and I definitely agree that vinyl is a whole lot sexier than cds. But CD djs are definitely taking over the low-end of clubs. At an average dance club, most patrons don't know or care that the music is on CDs. It's unfortunate.

        Vinyl will continue to be the medium of choice, though, because most house and trance songs just aren't available on CD. And you can see the musical progression on a record, so you can easily line up phrases (32-measures) and see where breaks are without the need to completely know a song 64 measures ahead.

        What it comes down to is the quality of mixes you can create on each medium. You can create a much better experience, as a dj, if you can see the grooves and know where the climaxes and breaks are with relation to the needle. Until you can do that with CDs (with some visualization firmware), and until decent tracks are released on CD, vinyl will remain.

        That said, going to good clubs you still see greats like Tiesto and van Dyk using CDs for about 15-25% of the tracks they play.
        • Here's where I can interject an actual comment.

          Clubbing is my profession, I shoot for a local nightlife guide [cooljunkie.com]...

          A lot of top DJs use CDs, since they get a lot of new material that way...some of those tracks you hear are on CD, because the artist cannot afford to get vinyl pressed at the moment..also, consider Tenaglia, who does 15 hour sets on average..can you imagine toting around 15 hrs worth of vinyl?!?

          Certain other DJs, notably Erick Morillo and Steve Lawler, use the CD player as a sampler of sorts, carrying all their samples and noise on CDs...crobar South Beach just got equipped with CDJ-1000s, and with their response time and effects banks, they are quite akin to a true sampler from what I can see.

          Vinyl has it's merits, certainly. Real clubs demand it. Your average "clubgoer" in Buttfuck, MI is not 'educated' enough to care, but in a big city with a true nightlife, vinyl, as well as a sophisticated CD deck like the 1000, is not only expected, but is demanded...

        • Could you explain to a layperson (me) how you can see those phrases on the vinyl? Every piece of vinyl I've seen, it's hard enough just to see where one song ends and the next begins. Then again, the newest record I've seen is from 1978... Are records pressed differently now, or are trance records labeled somehow?

          As for making it so you can identify phrasing and such, I always wondered how hard it would be to add a new type of packet to the Ogg (or some other) format, so that you can store uncompressed audio (or 320 kbit compressed for the super poor DJ's who can't afford to burn a lot of CD's yet...) in the file, along with beat and sample information for each audio frame. A playback program or digital turntable could read this information and build a visualization chart that looks something like

          [Insert here the best ASCII art interface diagram ever that the lameness filter wouldn't pass through no matter how much I varied the characters -- see my /. journal [slashdot.org] for the ascii diagram]
          Base song title/artist
          Location of beats
          Base song samples
          < Sample1 > < Sample1 >
          < - - - - Sample2 - - - - >
          Sources added by the DJ
          Line going through to indicate current position
          Current song time Song time remaining
          Current show time Show time remaining
          P.S. -- If you're thinking of commercializing on this, then patent is pending (with free license to share-and-share-alike (i.e. GPL, LGPL...)projects). Otherwise, I'm too poor to file a patent.

          At any rate, I've always wanted to try my hand at spinning some tracks, I've made some loop-based songs before (using my own loops that I created). What's the best way to start learning to DJ?

          • When you buy dance vinyl, there are at most two tracks on side of a 12" (and usually, there is only one). This means that the grooves are spaced quite far apart, so that the whole track takes up a lot of space. It is then quite easy to spot the breakdowns and different parts of the track.

            BTW: Dance LPs aren't LPs in the old sense, with 30 mins per side. Dance LP's contain multiple pieces of vinyl, with one or two tracks per side.

            As for learning to DJ, just buy a pair of turntables, a mixer, headphones and some records, and practice, practice practice! Stick with Technics 1200's if you can afford them as they are the industry standard. I don't have any recommendations on cheaper turntables.

            Recess's DJ Hints [recess.co.uk] is a useful resource for learning how to mix.

          • Y'know, It'd be kinda tough to capitalize on it, since Some people [noisemusic.org] have been working [united-trackers.org] on similar software types For a good long time now [multimania.com], and if the name "Amiga" means anything to you, you should know it.

            That being said, attempting to get certain organizations [riaa.com] to mass-produce said file type and push to get it to a more universal and high-quality source (Not like it's not already there [relaypoint.net]) would seem to be a bit futile... Radio DJs give enough exposure to commercial music than to want to bend to the will of Production-oriented DJs like Hawtin. There's enough tracklisters [pauloakenfold.com] who promote the music to the lowest common denominator to distribute the music appropriately.

            Kay. I gotta stop posting drunk. Did that just make any sense?
          • some of the visual cues in your "patent" are allready present in prior art (check http://www.atomixmp3.com )

        • The reason the big DJs are sometimes using CD is bacause, although like you say most tunes are only available commercially on vinyl, before it's pressed up it comes from the studio on CDR. The big names need the NEWEST and LATEST stuff, traditionally this would have been supplied on an acetate, but those cost a fortune and only last a few plays.

          Ask any real DJ if they actually prefer CD, and they'll look at you very strangely ;-) You're spot on about being able to see the music, also being able to drop the needle straight into the start of a break. There's another thing too - you know how CDRs always end up without labels or anything written on them, and you have no idea what they are? The same thing happens with white label vinyl (the test presses before it goes commercial). I knew a DJ who could recognise the tune, hell even the mix, just by looking at the grooves. Try that with a CD ;-)

        • if you can see the grooves and know where the climaxes and breaks are with relation to the needle. Until you can do that with CDs (with some visualization firmware), and until decent tracks are released on CD, vinyl will remain.

          The CDJ1000 has several visual indicators that can give you some of these clues. There is a slow and fast indicator around the central wheel indicating position on the track. There is the "wave data" stuff on top that gives you the relative intensity of each part of the track (you can zoom upto x4, but the interface isn't very good and it scans pretty slow). Finally there is always the time/frame index.

          Of course there's a gread deal of room for growth with these features. You've given me a new look at some vinyl features that the CDJ doesn't quite have yet.
  • Just what kind of article is Slashdot trying to get me to read here? I think I'm offended!
  • vinyl is all about the FEELING. vinyl is sexy.
    • With vinyl you can see how the music progresses just by looking at the grooves. With a light shining sideways on a record, you can see the quiet areas (dark) and the climaxes (lighter) and beat changes (differing reflective qualities), and know what to expect. When the needle on one record is about to come to a dark spot, you know the beat's about to drop out, and if you're mixing another table in, you can plan accordingly.

      You can't do that with CD. With CDs you have to memorize the offsets of all the breaks and drops. It makes mixing music a lot more difficult and for the most part, the quality diminishes. However, when DJs have their own songs, they commonly use CDs because they know the songs so well already, and they don't want to deal with the deteriorating quality that records have.
      • When you use tools like Acid and Mixmeister (note - these aren't "realtime" DJ tools though), you can see the waveform of the song (which IMHO has got to be better than "grooves").

        If someone would incorporate this technology into a program like AtomixMP3 (yes -- you'd need to build the waveform graphs ahead of time in a database) then I don't see why this would be a problem.

        Most of the big club DJs aren't taking requests -- they could get their music collection prescanned on a computer...
        • I'm not sure what you mean. You can already see the waveforms in AtomixMP3. I vaguely remember the version 1 begin kinda lame, but version 2 rocks.
          • You can see the waveforms of the next x seconds of music that will be played -- what some of the DJs were talking about is that they want to be able to see the waveform of the entire track so that they can cue into it immeediately...

            • ah (Score:2)

              by MemeRot ( 80975 )
              This might cause some problems if presented in the same format as the 'next n seconds' waveform. The waveform as a straight line is realllllllly long. All the grooves on the vinyl really are is the waveform of the music, and they take up a 12" spiral. But I guess the waveform could be compressed to a fairly high degree, that would actually make it easer to spot the breaks. I guess the natural thing to do would be to compress it to fit in with the time marker, so that rather than just being a progress bar, it could show you the map of the song. Hmm.... that's a pretty good idea, and would certainly make the program more appealing to anyone with only one sound card.
              • They show you a mono waveform (the zoom level is of course dependent on your choices) that I've found to be fairly useful for making some educated guesses about where to mix in a track.

                Acid drives me crazy because it insists on drawing the stereo waveform which just doesn't give me the same visual feedback.. I wish there was a way (or I knew how) to get it to display in mono...

  • How about a real Digital Tuntable? (Score:5, Informative)

    by RAruler ( 11862 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:31PM (#3861652) Homepage
    Final Scratch [finalscratch.com]

    Final Scratch, uses a hybrid of actual turntables and digital audio. You use a pair of special vinyl records, connect the audio out of the turntables into this strange USB device which controls the software that allows you to cue/scratch mp3s...

    It was only available for systems running BeOS, but they are branching out with Mac OS/Win32 and Linux versions.. You only need a 'standard' DJ setup, two turntables and a two line mixer.. it's insanely cool.. the only downside is the price, $500USD, but thats relatively cheap to a stack of vinyl, or your Technics 1200's.

    • Re:How about a real Digital Tuntable? (Score:4, Informative)

      by spoonboy42 ( 146048 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:15PM (#3861821)

      Actually, Final Scratch is Linux-based. The install CD comes with a bare-bones linux distro and partitioning utils to get you started. Alternately, you can just put the final scratch software on any laptop that already has linux installed. Oh, and you still need a good set of direct-drive tables to use it effectively (1200's or something comparable, i.e. Vestax PDX-2000's, Stanton STR8-100's, etc.).

      I should also note that the Pioneer CDJ-1000 [pioneerprodj.com] has beaten this home-brew to the punch. It has pitch-adjust and a substantial jog-wheel that is actually adequate for scratching. DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist have been using CDJ-1000s in their live shows for some time, now.

      The CDJ-1000 has the benefit of almost zero latency and no skipping. On the other hand, you can drop-cue in final scratch, and its "record box" categorization system is very convenient (and 3 ms of latency is not too bad). You can also plug your final scratch system into pretty much any club setup. Lugging around CDJ-1000's is not so easy.

      • http://remixmag.com/ar/remix_pioneer_cdj/index.htm [remixmag.com]

        I've heard nothing but good things about these. They're supposed to feel just like vinyl. Of course, for over a grand, they damn well better.
      • Played with the CDJ-1000 last weekend at a warehouse party, it is substatially different from traditional tables, but I think it makes an interesting addition to the mix for those willing to experiment. The best use IMHO is for stuff that is not out/will never be out in vinyl format.
      • Sorry to bust your bubble but final scratch was designed and available on BeOS about 2 years before making it to linux. It was Be's "killer app" (more of a look what we can do that anything else).

      • Re:How about a real Digital Tuntable? (Score:4, Informative)

        by TeknoDragon ( 17295 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @12:36AM (#3862442) Journal
        I've started mixing with CDJ's... here is my opinion on the current problems with the CDJ1000

        * cd buffering to memory is too slow, making it hard to do extremely quick seeks and scratch off of a randomly selected point you seeked to on the disk. Note you can do this using the hot-queues, but that's because each hot queue holds a small buffer of it's own.
        * the rapid seek function is not as smooth as even the CDJ100
        * too few queue points, you need a direct song map or multiple queue points so that you can approach a "needle drop" skill on a digital TT

        I should note that very few players offer the true control of the CDJ1000. Even tho the platter doesn't spin pressure on the platter halts and resumes play. I haven't touched the Dannon yet, but none of the other Pioneer DTT's do this.

        DJ's generally HATE anything but vinyl. DJing is a community of luddites. Final scratch is a step towards what they like, but the sample rate and resolution of mp3's and even CD's are not rich enough to completely match the performance of analog records passed through effects and slowed down. Perhaps with a next generation DTT with DVD-A support.

        Of course this begs the question that most audio is produced in the studio at 48khz so what would DVD-A do for you that a better interpolation algorithm wouldn't?
        • DJ's generally HATE anything but vinyl. DJing is a community of luddites.

          IMHO calling them that is unfair since the supposedly new and improved technology can't do something the old technology can.
          • the problem is... that the new technology can do the same tricks that 95% of have the skill to master... that and you can do MORE with the new technology

            just like it's possible for a master craftsman to make a finer sculpture with a hammer and chizel rather than a chainsaw

            vinyl has applications that DTT's can't match, but technology like what's introduced in this article is making that last 5% shrink all the time.

            finally I feel justified in calling DJ's luddites because they view anything that makes the tasks they mastered easier to do with disdain... no matter how much is added to the performer's range of options or how many new skills need to be mastered to use the new device, many still view CDJ's as "posers" and "not sexy" and "wouldn't pay to see that"
    • It was only available for systems running BeOS, but they are branching out with Mac OS/Win32 and Linux versions

      To be more exact on this. Beos is no longer being used as the os of choice sense palm bought them. They now use an embeded version of linux for windows. As for the mac...I would assume that it will just use OS X to run sense it is unix. We will not be sure because there has been no anouncements for the mac as of yet.
    • the only downside is the price, $500USD, but thats relatively cheap to a stack of vinyl, or your Technics 1200's.

      But you can't get any decent house/trance/dnb music on CD. At least not in a timely basis. Look at the BBC Dance Charts [bbc.co.uk]. You can only get about 20% of those songs on CD. And probably only 10% of the current "hot" remix. But at the right stores you can get 80-90% of them on vinyl right now. So even though a CD set-up is cheaper than a vinyl set-up, you can't do nearly as much with it.
    • For about $1500 USD you can get a Denon DN-D9000, forget about all your worries about your computer not booting, etc, hard drive crash, you name it --- and, do some cool tricks, too! [denon.com] (What's in the video? It can play a song in reverse --- you say vinyl can do that too? But not in the forward direction! It inverts the sound (i.e., take a sample and flip it over itself) so you can easily remove curse words when playing to easily-offended crowds. Yep, reverse in the forward direction. Confused? Good.)
      • Oops! Wrong link. The parent link is true reverse play. This [denon.com] is reverse play in the forward direction. While I'm at it... let me clarify: it inverts what you _just played_ for x secs, but still counting the time forwards; when you trigger it again, it starts playing where the counter currently is.
  • first off, IANADJ, but it seems kind of limited to me. it's cool tech and all, but 20 second loops? you would be better off with a few battle wax records and a regular deck.

    or, there's final scratch [finalscratch.com], which uses timecode records to manipulate audio.. so you could use any old deck to "spin" digital audio.

    still, cool idea.
  • Just wondering about the vibrating razor, I notice that it has patent pending and I was wondering when you came up with the idea.

    There was a TV program called "better by design" here in the UK about 1998 (I think) where a pair of industrial designers had to improve everyday products, coming up with a range of alternatives, one of which was (go on, guess) ... a vibrating razor.

  • American DJ has been making CD-players with a built-in scratch box for a gooooood while [americandj.com]. No need to gloat about it.
    • For only 4 times the cost! :)

    • Re:Yawn. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GT_Alias ( 551463 )
      Yeah, but have you ever used one of those? It's ok for fine-tuning the timing of the song to match beats and what not, but for genuine scratching and holding, nothing is the same as literally having the tunes right under your fingers. There's just something eminently satisfying about it.

      Not pretending that I understood everything this guy did, it still looks like an improvement over the current "digital turntables"

    • Technics produce a scratch cd player, check out the new CDJ1000, yummy!!! & BTW they make much better gear than that poxy american DJ outfit

    • Of course, this has to take into account the fact that American DJ makes second-class products. I bought an ADJ mixer back in the day, and have to say that if it weren't so cheap, I'd never have bought it. The cutoffs are just about nonexistant, the fader gives problems constantly, and it just lacks a lot of features that I would have expected to be there.

      On a semi-related note, a Scratch DJ friend of mine got an ADJ t-shirt from relatives for Christmas and everyone constantly bugs him about it. It's just one of those things.
  • One of the biggest cues DJ's use when scratching is the pattern of bands on the record. Good DJs can usually drop the needle to with a few grooves of the spot they want.

    Not sure how this would be done digitally, but the guy's design is still a pretty cool exercise in man machine interface design.

  • FinalScratch? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:42PM (#3861708) Journal
    I remember hearing about a program called FinalScratch that is REAL similar to this, a few years ago. I think it came out first for BeOS. It's the same kind of thing, in that it uses digital audio for the source, but it's actually tied into a real turntable with a "real" vinyl record, and it sounds like it has a lot of cool features for DJ's.

    Here's their site. [finalscratch.com]

  • Scratching ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by White Shade ( 57215 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:46PM (#3861728)
    As has been posted before, there's more to the sound of scratching than just speeding up/slowing down the sound ... There are significant changes in volume, and increases in teh amount of noise. And, if you move the record really slow you get a strange sorta softened crunch noise which is very different than the 'normal' sound you get from a slowed down audio stream..

    Still, it's a damn good idea, and if nothing else (and it's definitely more than this), it would be a kickass gimmick to have on stage with you!

    Technology is a good thing...

  • Denon and Sony (Score:2, Insightful)

    by punkfoo ( 530367 )
    Denon and Pioneer have great digital turntables - the Denon DN-D9000 [mwsound.com] and the Pioneer CDJ-1000 [mwsound.com]. They are quite impressive.

  • Also see MixMeister / GRAM (Score:3, Informative)

    by r ( 13067 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:56PM (#3861757)
    While on the topic of digital DJ'ing - if you're looking for software, check out MixMeister [mixmeister.com]. It's one of the most interesting DJ software titles around, with great waveform and BPM manipulations tools (ie. changing speed without changing pitch), and smart automatic beat matching.

    I understand the free GDAM [ffem.org] has similar abilities, but I haven't used it. Any comments from those who have would be appreciated!
    • AtomixMP3 is set up a lot like turntables -- i.e. it is optimized for real-time DJing. If you have multiple sound cards (or as SBlive using front/rear speakers), you can cue up the next song in the headphones while the other is playing on the speakers. It gives you some visual feedback (waveform) as to what is coming up in the song.

      Mixmeister is better for creating CD compilations -- you can set up tempo, volume, and frequency envelopes in a set up similar to a multitrack recorder. I've used it to make some fun beatmixed compilations.

      You can also use more advanced tools like Sonic Foundry Acid Pro which are better w/ loops and effects -- but Acid is sadly missing a tempo envelope tool and it's technology for changing the tempo w/o changing the pitch doesn't seem to be as good as Mixmeister's...

  • Final Scratch is actually... (Score:3, Informative)

    by LightJockey ( 459672 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:04PM (#3861785) Homepage
    ... based entirely in Linux, because as it says on Stanton's [stantonmagnetics.com] website, Windows is "not a stable enough environment"

    I've played with Final Scratch, Ritchie Hawtin had a hand in it, and it is, without a word of a doubt, incredible. But if you really want to go pure digital, check out the Pioneer CDJ-1000, allows you to save wave data off a CD, store it to an SD card, scratch, cue, add effects, everything. Check it out here [pioneerprodj.com]

  • Interesting choice of words... (Score:5, Funny)

    by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:06PM (#3861790) Journal
    I like it because there's no 'computer' involved- a four year old can figure it out.
    Many four year olds are more computer literate than their parents, but I suspect they'd have trouble figuring out a turntable.
  • A similiar program (quite functional too) exists for windows. OtsJuke [otsjuke.com] lets you create a playlist, mix songs, and has a virtual turntable which lets you scratch music (mp3s, wav, and digital audio extraction). While it isn't hardware based, its pretty nifty for a cheap software based solution.

    -dk
  • The one, the only, Numba One [smokedogg.net].
  • My crappy case mod and half dead dremel all of the sudden seem so inadequate....
  • Wow ... that is one sexy bottle opener. (If you got no clue what I am talking about follow the link. It's the pic all the way at the bottom)

  • terminatorX (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seanmeister ( 156224 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:44PM (#3861926)
    kinda reminds me of the very cool terminatorX [terminatorx.cx] program.... the author built a turntable for scratching using an old turntable and some mouse guts. [terminatorx.cx]
  • Honest to God, who in the hell is this guy? Have you seen the stuff this guy has invented? Son of a bitch, I knew I should have went to Stanford.

  • Yawn (Score:1, Troll)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 )
    American DJ has been making CD-players with a built-in scratch box for a gooooood while [americandj.com]. No need to gloat about old technology.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Blackbox42 ( 188299 )
      But:

      1) They don't sample and playback which is what this device does

      2) The quality of ANYTHING made my American DJ leaves much to be desired. They are the mcdonalds of DJ equipment.

  • From the site: (Score:4, Funny)

    by ByteHog ( 247706 ) <chris@[ ]ehog.com ['byt' in gap]> on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @11:11PM (#3862021) Homepage
    A digital signal processor seemed to be the answer but the cost of the development kit was $3000. Fortunately, thanks to a generous "donation" from "corporate sponsors" I obtained the development kit and a DSP board.

    Does this make anyone else wonder where he got it? :)
  • . . .I have a turntable almost exactly like that one. I'm going to cut that bad boy open tonight!!

  • Laser Turntable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plaa ( 29967 ) <{if.iki} {ta} {nenaksin.opmas}> on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:44AM (#3862789) Homepage
    I wonder what it would sound like to scracth with a Laser Turntable [elpj.com]? According to the specs (under "investment"), it keeps the audio always analog, and the tracking's supposed to be pretty good, so it just might work. (Of course, you'd have to mod it to get hold of the record.)

  • Digital Turntable? It has been done... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NimbleSquirrel ( 587564 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @03:28AM (#3862882)
    Check out Serato's [serato.com] Scratch. They are the same people who made the ProTools plugin, Pitch'n Time.
    After seeing this working, I was blown away. I have seen other digital turntable devices, most requiring specially equipped turntables or scratchpads. Serato's system uses a standard turntable, a timecoded vinyl disc and the computer.
    Unfortunately it currently only works as a ProTools plugin, but very soon they will be releasing a stand alone version allowing scratcing of MP3s and the like.
  • Funny how this is suddenly an original story.

    I know, Troll, Flamebait, Redundant, Stupid.

    Got a mouse? Alternately, you could use the sensor of an optical mouse the same way.
    http://www.terminatorx.cx/oldtable.html

    FinalScratchPro (ok, so it's been delayed for a while...)
    http://www.finalscratch.com/fs2/start.a sp
    (the pictures show a Stanton turntable, so I'm not 100% irrelevant!)

    Still, this is a fairly cool hack, and it's great that he got some credit for it. It just isn't that original. Hell, the fitness machines at the YMCA have a similar sort of rotational tracking sensor. But I guess finding new ways to apply old ideas will keep us impressed for generations to come. :-)

    (i'm just jealous that I didn't get to make something like that for school.)
    • Is that it takes any input, including live sounds. AFAIK, Final Scratch and all the others don't work with a line in, only with pre-recorded songs. Final Scratch, I think, needs to map the mp3 to the special vinyl platter thingy it uses too, don't see any way to mod that for dynamic live sound.

      But it does beg the question of what happens when you scratch FORWARD on a LIVE feed - silence? static? a robot voice saying 'That does not compute'?
  • Hello

    I've DJed professionally (on and off) for about 10 yrs and I've seen this turntable project before - back in 1998, I think it was. It was among of the first interesting things I read on the Web. So I'm a bit suprised that it turns up as "News" here on Slashdot. It's a nice hack yes, but not rocket sience, and this feature already exists on most professional DJ CD-players today. The Numark (www.numark.com) players Axis 8 or CDN88 for eg have this feature. They call it Realtime Scratching.
    But these players are not shaped as turntables. They have a coaster-sized jog wheel on the CD-player to scratch and move backward and forwards in the song. To have a CD/Mp3-player shaped as a turntable is a bit pointless IMHO. Either you use real vinyl or you dont. You can never get the feel and sound of Vinyl mixing/scatching with CD/MP3 anyway. Vinyl has its advantages - A good vinyl DJ can make very, very cool mixes. CD has it advantages - Smaller, cheaper, lighter, more durable, special functions like beatkeeping and key transpose that you cannot get with a turntable.

    Cheers /Patrix
  • Anyone else notice the Stanton logo on the turntable as well??

    Stanton bought (aquired??) a major interest in FinalScratch as it was developed by a company in the netherlands (dutch?) n2it.com was the parent, I believe.

    Seems Stanton might be trying to corner the market on digital mixing.. then again Finalscratch still requires stylii for the turntable, this solution does not and they don't make money off not selling stylii.

    just a though.

  • DENON DIGITAL (Score:2, Informative)

    by ThulsaDoom ( 574868 )
    Denon has had one out for ahwile.... http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=0207100953 10208178155106385950/search/g=home/detail/base_id/ 52564
  • Am I the only one who thinks it real strange that the most technologically advanced music on the planet is played at clubs via wiggling-needle devices little different from what Edison first used to record "Mary Had A Little Lamb"?

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