Message: Hi, love your site. I got a basic question, I’m a guitarist who spent years searching for a DJ to add to a band (like Incubus / Linkin Park) only to get frustrated and buy myself some Technics and decide to be the DJ since I couldn’t find one. I have 2 questions maybe you can help me with: I -really- don’t want to resort to using a computer to DJ but am having trouble finding good scratch records… any suggestions? I have Super Seal, battle breaks, hee-haw breaks, and a few others. And how do you loop your beats? Considering I have 2 decks and a DJM-400, whats the best way to play and loop beats without having to bring a 2000 dollar laptop to gigs? Obviously I can’t loop with a 2nd turntable, how do you do it in your videos? Thanks.
Hey Joe
Thanks for visiting the site. Awesome that you became a DJ because you couldn’t find one! Here’s some answers.
1 – Some of my favourite scratch records are Superseal or Superseal 2. Can anyone else recommend their favourite scratch records for Joe in the comments? What constitutes a good scratch record for you?
2 – I believe that particular mixer has a built in sample feature. You could hook up an mp3 player into the line in then loop up beats that way. In my videos I usually use Serato Scratch and a laptop.
Hope that helps.
Happy Scratching!
– Short-e
I really love the old MegaMan records, and still use them quite often, even though mine are almost burnt all the way through. The UPR records are great for tones and more ‘musical’ samples as well. But, being that i now use a CDX, i haven’t listened to any new scratch records in a long, long time… I’m sure there’s some new ones out that are amazing as well.
as far as looping beats, i’d just snag a super cheap mp3 player and load up the already looped (i use soundforge) beats on it. Simple and effective.
hey scooter thanks for replying! Some good ideas in there.
I’ve got Superseal II and 3D, but I also have Gag Seal breaks, and I use all three regularly. For a record with an absolute metric ton of samples on it though, I really recommend Butt Crack Breaks from DJ Flare (also a Thud Rumble record). It’s not a skipless record, so it will force you to practice had control, and the B side has two REALLY good beats on it, one electro (135 bpm-ish) and one in the 80 bpm rage (I think). Check it out!
thanks for sharing Rocktopus! ss II and 3d are good too! delux shampoo is also great from thudrumble, again not skipless. For serato users check out DJ Vajra’s Cuts and drums free digital break record: https://studioscratches.com/2009/07/13/dj-vajra-drums-and-cuts/
Whoa I didn’t know that DJ Vajra released that for free! That’s awesome. Downloading commenceth. Thanks for the link.
Hey Rob yeh that break record is DOPE! I would like a vinyl copy actually too.
scratch roulette, both 1 and 2. its full of stabs, phrases and verses, so its good for pretty much everything – scratches, scratch hooks etc. but beware, those arent like the superseal, if you have a heavy hand its gonna skip alot. these are for peeps with a little more experience
That looks good! Kinda hard to find!