Byone’s Speed Booster is a free automatic pitch shifter for Serato Scratch Live that also works with Traktor.
The application is made for DJs who are practicing scratch techniques and want to improve their speed.
The user specifies a start pitch, an end pitch, and how much time they want Serato to transition from start to end.
See it in action
Download
Download Byone’s Speed Booster (links to his site).
How to Use
Speed boosters are super useful for practicing scratches that you have just started learning. The gradual build up of speed helps you get quicker, whilst you don’t really notice the speed increase. Before this app, you had to manually move the pitch slider on the turntable from -8 every all the way up to +8 in increments of 1, every 4 – 8 bars. Or create an audio file in an audio editor that did the same thing, which took a long time. This app makes it super easy and allows you stay focused on your cuts.
I’ve just finished trying it out and it’s seriously awesome!
I love that you can specify the range and how fast you want it to increase. Sometimes you might have a scratch which you can do quite well but not really fast, so you can start off at a midrange tempo then end at a much faster tempo. If you are just starting out learning a new technique, then starting at a slower speed and not having it increase too much is helpful whist you lock down the technique.
I use the booster with key lock turned on in Serato so the loop sounds the same melodically all the way through.
For those of you who haven’t got Serato or Traktor, I’m making some speed booster wavs / mp3s so that you can just play them in iTunes or from your phone / iPod etc so you can train in the same way. Stay tuned!
Big shout out to Byone for making this awesome tool!
Happy Speed Boosting Scratching! 😀
– Short-E
Does this work with SDJ and tsp2 and, if so, do you need to use vinyl to cut on separately from the software so that both tracks aren’t affected by the pitch control? I downloaded this app but I’m having trouble getting it to work as (using tsp2 in this case) the directions say tempo>tempo in the set up but I don’t have that direct option available. Just trying to see what I’m doing wrong. Thanks so much for your contributions and teachings to the scratch community and for your positive attitude and clarity Emma!
Hi, I think it is only for Scratch Live. I recommend contacting Byone direct to ask for more details as he created it. Thanks for checking out the site!