All right folks Jonathan here. Question for you, can you scratch on a CDJ turntable? Yes you can. Question for you here, this is my opinion, is CDJ turntable as good as vinyl turntables for scratching purposes? No. Turntable is not just for scratching. This is my opinion. No, they are not. I do not think that they are up to standard yet. But, they are getting. Very, very slowly, they are getting there. What we are going to do is that I am going to show you a little way of utilizing a CDJ turntable for the purpose of scratching. And then again, I repeat. Not for turntablism with regards to this video, it is just for scratching.
I am going to show you the similarities between this guy, the CDJ turntable and a vinyl turntable. The guy that we are going to be looking at is the CDJ 800 Mark 2. So, I will pause the camera and we will take a closer look.
Okay here we go. We got our CDJ turntable. We are going to mix in as well. First of all, where these two guys are similar but there is subtle difference where they are not similar is regarding the starting procedure. I will try and explain that a little bit more in depth. Imagine now that we are looking at a vinyl turntable and imagine that what we have got is that we got the needle on the record and we are right at the beginning of that specific track that we want to play. So, what you would do is that you would put your hand on the piece of vinyl and move it forward. [scratching.]
Let us say for example, just pretense, -- again, this is a vinyl turntable – but we have not pressed play. It only works, the platter underneath the piece of vinyl is not moving. So, this is exactly what would happen with a vinyl turntable. Have a listen [banging noise]. It would basically go as fast or as slow as you wanted it to go depending on how fast your hand would be moving around like so [noise]. But, here is the difference, with a vinyl turntable, if I took my fingers off the top of the piece of vinyl, the record would stay where I left it. The difference being with this CDJ turntable, it goes right back to the beginning of the track. I will show you again [noise] and again [noise]. That is what the CDJ does.
Where it is exactly the same as the vinyl turntable is as follows. You can see the moment that we are on pause. If I press play [music playing] the music starts. Press cue again, it will go back to the beginning of the track. Press play, press stop, press play again [music playing] that is the beginning of the track. Now, this is exactly the same as a vinyl turntable. Put your hand on the top and get it ready [scratching]. Press play, now that right there is not flashing anymore. Now, we are ready to go as soon as I take my fingers off the top here [music playing], off it goes. Stop, exactly the same as a vinyl turntable. Bring back, exactly the same as a vinyl turntable. Get the beginning again and off we go [music playing]. Exactly the same as a vinyl turntable. Let us find the beginning [scratching]. There is the beginning, just there.
Now then, scratching purposes. So, how do we do scratching? Now again, with a vinyl turntable, you can do it one of two ways. You can either have the platter moving underneath and you can manipulate the piece of vinyl backwards and forwards while the platter is moving underneath. And of course, the platter will be moving you with the movement. Alternatively, you can just have the vinyl by itself and move it just with your hands. Now then, I will show you how you can scratch with this guy here. Have your hand on the top of the actual platter of the CDJ. Press play and now, the CD in the mechanism is ready to go. So, with moving as well as the volume control or the crossfade, we can get into scratching mode. [scratching]. And also, exactly the same as a vinyl turntable, when the music is going forward like so, I will have to then stop it, bring the volume down, and then I will have to bring it back. That is the difference with play mode. With pause mode, it will go back to the beginning without me having to move the top of the CDJ back myself. When it is in play mode, I have to bring it back manually with my hand to the beginning. As follows again [music playing]. I will do that with the volume up so you can see what I am doing and you can also hear the sound that you would be hearing if the volume was up [scratching and music playing]. Now, what we will do is that I will do exactly the same thing but I will bring the volume down so you are not going to hear that backward sound [music playing]. Now we will hear the backward sound again [scratching and music playing]
So there you go. You can scratch with a CDJ. The only difference being, it has not really got the true touch and ethics of a vinyl turntable. But it is about as close you can get. Thanks for watching. Practice and enjoy.
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