Scratching

Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.

While scratching is most associated with hip hop music, where it emerged in the mid-1970s, from the 1990s it has been used in some styles of EDM like techno, trip hop, and house music and rock music such as rap rock, rap metal, rapcore, and nu metal. In hip hop culture, scratching is one of the measures of a DJ's skills. DJs compete in scratching competitions at the DMC World DJ Championships and IDA (International DJ Association), formerly known as ITF (International Turntablist Federation). At scratching competitions, DJs can use only scratch-oriented gear (turntables, DJ mixer, digital vinyl systems or vinyl records only). In recorded hip hop songs, scratched "hooks" often use portions of other songs.

History

Precursors

A rudimentary form of turntable manipulation that is related to scratching was developed in the late 1940s by radio music program hosts, disc jockeys (DJs), or the radio program producers who did their own technical operation as audio console operators. It was known as back-cueing, and was used to find the very beginning of the start of a song (i.e., the cue point) on a vinyl record groove. This was done to permit the operator to back the disc up (rotate the record or the turntable platter itself counter-clockwise) in order to permit the turntable to be switched on, and come up to full speed without ruining the first few bars of music with the "wow" of incorrect, unnaturally slow-speed playing.