Scratching while mixing.

[DJArmani]

I've been scratching for about a year and a half now and my scratching has improved. But I still can only scratch over instrumentals when I'm practicing or freestyling. But when it comes to me trying to scratch occcasionally while mixing, it sounds so sloppy. How do you even go with scratching and mixing? I want to add a little more creativity to my sets with scratching, alot of DJs where I'm from don't scratch much anymore so I'd stand out. The only thing I can do is cut records (and it still can be sloppy at times).

[DjDisArm]

just takes a lot of practice... try quick mixing and scratch on the transitions.. listen to the way AM does it, and what scratches he uses he scratches A LOT but it sounds good you dont have to do a bunch of crabs like him but just do it tastefully.. dont over do it. i was where you're at once but just keep at it just takes time

[DjDisArm]

oh and never scratch over vocals just during the chorus on the mix out

[Sigma]

There's a few different ways you would use scratching in a mix: -

1. Scratching the next song in.

2. Scratching a song out of the mix, for instance, doing baby fades.

3. Short scratch solos here and there over instrumentals or looped sections of tracks.

4. Trick mixing, for example, looping a section of a song back and forth a few times while scratching at the beginning of each loop, or doing snare doubling/tripling while adding some scratching to spice things up.

An example: -

Here's a 20 minute live hip-hop mix I did for a battle on here back in 2007 that has quite a bit of scratching in it: -

http://www.sigmamixes.com/mixes/Sigm...2020.06.07.mp3

I'll break down all the scratching parts for you: -

At the beginning, I scratch in a sample from a battle record, then scratch in the instrumental of a Brand Nubian song. At the end of the sample, I do baby fades to take the sample out of the mix.

At 24 seconds I start scratching the first word of the first verse of the Brand Nubian track - the full version of the song - then at 30 seconds I cut over to the full version.

At 2 minutes in, I start scratching at the beginning of the second verse of the Brand Nubian track. When that drops in, it sounds like I've swapped sides (on the decks), but I haven't. I just made it sound like that happens.

At 3:14 I do a little scratch to bring in the last chorus from the Brand Nubian track. Again, it sounds like I've swapped sides on the decks, but I haven't.

At 3:33 I do a chirp to cut in the start of the DJ Format tune, then at 3:52 I do baby fades on a snare from the Brand Nubian track to take it out of the mix.

At 4:11 I do a scratch solo with "ahhhhhhh" over the DJ Format song.

At 5:09 is the most complicated transition in the mix. I scratch in "niggas that I used to know" from the Dr. Dre tune and repeat that a few times with different types of fading scratches, then at 5:29 I wind the Dr. Dre tune back a little bit, scratch it in using a kick, then do a fading baby scratch on the other deck to take the DJ Format tune out of the mix.

At 7:35 I take the Dre tune out of the mix with some echo fades (you use the line fader and do forwards), so the Mobb Deep instrumental is playing, then I mix in a Kid N Play acapella.

At 8:25 I take the Kid N Play acapella out of the mix by scratching on "funky", again with some baby fades at the end.

At 8:41 I scratch in a Roxanne Shanté tune, where she says "whenever I'm in a battle yo I don't play, so you best go about your way and have a nice day", then I do a straight slam over to that track.

At 9:32 I scratch in the beat from Run-DMC's Sucker MC's, then I do some scratching on "have a nice day", ending with baby fades again to take the Roxanne Shanté track out of the mix.

At 10:29 I scratch in the start of a Heavy D tune and at 10:40 I do a spinback to take the Run-DMC track out of the mix.

At 11:05 I cut in a Cash Money & Marvelous song, but I do a basic slam to it because it's too fast to mix in.

At 12:00 I have another copy of the Cash Money & Marvelous song on the other deck and I do a little chirp scratch to bring in a later verse, therefore cutting out some of the song.

At 12:12 I do some looping on "jocks try to rock and do the cuts he made" using 2 copies of the Cash Money track. It's basic stuff with some simple scratching thrown in as I loop back and forth a few times.

At 14:21 I scratch in a snare from Run-DMC's Peter Piper, then slam over to that track.

At 15:59 I scratch in the "la la la-la" bit at the start of the Mark Ronson/Ghostface song, which I repeat a few times before dropping the track in with a simple slam.

At 18:53 I do some crabs/transforms over the "oooooooh weeeee" bit at the end of the Mark Ronson/Ghostface song, then I scratch in a Muppet Show sample, then at 19:09 I do a power down baby scratch on that sample.

At 19:14 I do some baby scratching that I fade in and out with the line fader to bring in "Can I get an encore....." from Jay-Z's Encore.

At 20:39 the lyrics in the Jay-Z track say "perfect time to say goodbye" so I do echo fades on "say goodbye" to end the mix. That's the only bit that I slightly messed up cos one of the fades is out of time, but I wasn't going to re-record the entire thing just for that, haha.

So there you go, listen through that and pay attention to what I'm doing. Even though there's some crabs, 2-clicks flares and stuff used in that mix, you could do the exact same mix with clean, simple scratches like chirps, tears, babies and what have you and it would still sound good.

[Sigma]

^^Oh yeah, and that was done with all vinyl - no DVS or cue points or anything. I'm just mentioning it so you know that there's no "trickery" in there in terms of edited tracks, hot cues or anything like that. It's just straight up original versions of songs from 12"s.

[DjDisArm]

nice crabs sigma

[DJArmani]

Man Sigma, if I could thank you anymore than giving rep, I would! That mix was cleaner than even some legendary hip hop dudes I hear and with straight vinyl! I think the only dude I've heard on vinyl that clean is DJ P (Master of The Mix Winner Season 2). And all your simple scratches sound so clean. I think my problem is that I try to do too much in a little bit of time so it sounds sloppy. Then I try to do simple things like you do, except I end up taking way too long to do it or I do it too long (baby scratches/cutting into a record for like 30+ seconds). Thanks for the help, it also motivated me I've been so out of DJing lately.

[DJArmani]

just takes a lot of practice... try quick mixing and scratch on the transitions.. listen to the way AM does it, and what scratches he uses he scratches A LOT but it sounds good you dont have to do a bunch of crabs like him but just do it tastefully.. dont over do it. i was where you're at once but just keep at it just takes time

Thanks for the advice too man +Rep

[Sigma]

Man Sigma, if I could thank you anymore than giving rep, I would! That mix was cleaner than even some legendary hip hop dudes I hear and with straight vinyl! I think the only dude I've heard on vinyl that clean is DJ P (Master of The Mix Winner Season 2). And all your simple scratches sound so clean. I think my problem is that I try to do too much in a little bit of time so it sounds sloppy. Then I try to do simple things like you do, except I end up taking way too long to do it or I do it too long (baby scratches/cutting into a record for like 30+ seconds). Thanks for the help, it also motivated me I've been so out of DJing lately.

No worries man, and thanks!

If your mixing skills are solid, perhaps just practicing scratching for a few weeks. Try and really nail the cleanliness of a handful of scratches. Practice fades too, because they're always useful when taking a track out of a mix, cos they can smooth over a transition that might otherwise sound abrupt, plus they sound cool. The main ones I do are fading babies, fading forwards and fading tears. Then when you go back to mixing, try scratching tracks into the mix and using fades here and there to take them out of the mix. Maybe record a short mix and post it on here, or post some example transitions where you use scratching.

Scratching in weird random places, doing scratch solos over vocals during verses, scratching way too much, scratching too loud, scratching beyond your skill level so it sounds sloppy - those are all the things you want to avoid when you're recording a mix for people to listen to, or playing a live gig.

[DjDisArm]

it was hard for me to pick up where exactly to out the first track so find a vocal to scratch out and not to hit a snare.. i find when you grab it do a two click reverse then go into whatever youre doing.. and i finally picked up that scratch into a power down and it sounds so good and a quick escape while youre scratching and the song starts.. do a little drag back to cut the song out its timing really youll know when the songs about to start and also work on youre open fader scratching... it helps with a smooth transition on the off hand of what you normally scratch it helps so much with my transitions and not using any echo im really proud of that