Manufacturers around the world are pumping squillions into R&D labs trying to make the perfect MIDI controller. I'm sure there are shelves full of almost but not quite platters of all shapes and sizes littering the vaults of the big boys and many a frustrated Product Manager still searching for the perfect platter for their next generation of bandwagon hopping product. So imagine my glee when some guy in the UK armed with an open source project, a cardboard box and some gaffer tape serves the manufacturers their arses on a MIDI platter. All hail Rasteri - king of the controllers.
When you look at the workings, it's the simplest of principles - the platter with markings spins and the position is tracked and fed to software via MIDI which gives the location and speed for the sample to be played at. That's an incredibly simplistic explanation and for the slightly braver gearheads amongst you, the above link is essential reading.
I've wanted something like this for the longest time - a self contained scratch unit with a fader and scratchable platter, and have bored many people into a coma with my rantings. While the demo shown is actually controlling Traktor via MIDI, Rasteri thinks it's possible to make an all in one ScratchMan (for want of a better name). The technology proves the concept - the rest is a matter of more refinement. Even on its own minus the fader, this frankenstein prototype kicks the arse of any other MIDI controller right now.
Take heed manufacturers - the little guy is bringing it big time. We'll all be making MIDI controllers with little more than a shoe box and a paper plate before long.
I think Rasteri will be able to fill in the geeky blanks and keep you updated of where he is right now and where he's going with it. Even in the current gaffer taped cardboard box state, you know you want this soooo baaaaaaddddd.
21 comments to this story
On June 27, 2008, J.J. commented...
LOL. Looks like me scratching MIDI on my DN-HC4500.
On June 27, 2008, KD commented...
That is wicked. Good find Giz.
On June 27, 2008, Snakes on a Mixer commented...
Daaayymmnn. That was refreshingly fresh. That was totally OG!
On June 28, 2008, SJ commented...
oh F'n wicked!!!!!!
On June 28, 2008, Dizzy commented...
...can these guys mod my TTX's to do that?
On June 28, 2008, fatlaces commented...
Yes, yes and furthermore yes! what an awesome little box. I was really hopeing the buttons would be used to change the scratch sample at some point in the video, im sure it could be done easily.
On June 28, 2008, tobamai commented...
The real problem with this is the same as any other jog wheel: MIDI doesn't offer enough bits per message to be nearly as accurate as a turntablist expects. You only have 64 steps of precision in either direction (forwards or backwards). So you can adjust the sensitivity in traktor such that you can scratch like this fine, but you won't be able to do real slow drags. Similarly, if you adjusted the sensitivity to allow you to do drags, you wouldn't be able to do real fast stabs.
What scratch dj's need is for some company to come forward and adopt OSC in both hardware and software to allow a platter that has much greater precision in movement. If one company does, others will have to follow to compete. If they settled on a standard format for this message (unlike timecoded records) it'd be even better.
On June 28, 2008, O-Flip commented...
what in the world is this? what a very talented person if the existed company can't satisfy the talented person can create it one for them self thank you for sharing it to the world
On June 28, 2008, solo commented...
tobamai, I understand your concern but I don't think it is required- Your points would be very important to the traditional and artistic turntablist, but midi is more useful for gigging musicians and as far as scratching is concerned, just to throw a few in to spice up a set. Real turntablists will be sticking with real vinyl anyways, I don't think mobile djs will really care (or even notice for that matter) the degradation of quality. Agree or disagree? True it could be better but for the application it may not have to be.
On June 28, 2008, Deft commented...
It would be interesting to see real world tests of different platter resolutions and the different 'feels' this gives to a variety of people. I guess something similar to whatever the effective resolution of vinyl timecode is going to be good enough (and I think this is the approach Serato ITCH are taking - in fact they probably have in-house data along these lines anyway).
On June 28, 2008, smittydc commented...
yeah, but if they made it small and easy like that they couldnt charge $600 for it.
On June 28, 2008, bizzle commented...
Giz, here's the newer vid he posted that shows off the touch sensor...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNtCZN97R3I
On June 29, 2008, tobamai commented...
You're right solo, most dj's don't need much more than this. It shows too, most hardware comes with little jog wheels that you can scrub on, while it's nowhere near vinyl, it does the job.
But if you want to nudge the track, you have a nudge button or a separate wheel (like the ring on cdj's). If you want to spin the platter back, you might have that as an effect or you're stuck spinning it back at the resolution's highest rate (which isn't high enough to sound right). If you want to do a drag... you're kind of out of luck.
My real point is that these are the things that make working with vinyl so great: you're physically affecting one thing (the record) instead of interacting with several different controls. We have the technology to make a motorized, high-resolution deck. Nobody has because the investment in development doesn't make sense. Scratch dj's are still using vinyl or they already have timecoded vinyl and don't need an all software deck, software would need to be written or adapted to accept a higher resolution scrub message, and a motorized, high-resolution platter would be much more expensive than the little jog wheels we already have -- who would want it?
Stanton's new deck looks good, but the price point does not. There's also no way to say if the platter will be worth while and the resolution any better than a normal jog wheel. But I am happy to see that they're trying to push something like this along, even if we don't know if it's good or not.
On June 30, 2008, apoclypse commented...
i went to the Remix Hotel in New York, they had the sc system there from Stanton (I went specifically to check this out and ended up liking the Vestax ITCH solution which was also on display much better, too bad its not a full turntable setup like the stanton). I talked to the guy and he said that the sc isn't going to get released until the end of the year since they are still working out the kinks and they are planning to up the resolution on the platters from 1000 to 2000 ( think the vestax/ITCH thingy has 3000, or was that the NS7). So I was actually looking into this midibox stuff to see if maybe I can buy some old technics or some really cheap geminis gut them keep the motor and drop a midi or OSC (maybe both for flexibility) controller on it and see if I can't make my own turntable controller out of it. I'll see what this guy did and see if I can pick up some pointers.
On July 1, 2008, Chef_Mike commented...
Nobel Peace Prize... or some shizzz. WELL WIKKID!
On July 3, 2008, Cesar commented...
WOW!!! LOL!! You be leave this video then I have a golden HUMMER that is for sale!! Listen and watch the video you can hear a bus or something driving by and after he is done scratching the music drops and you hear nothing like a record or cd or something recorded.Come On!!
On July 3, 2008, AgentZero commented...
On a similar vein.
http://www.machinecollective.org/
On July 3, 2008, Sasha commented...
Yeah, that`s our boy!
On July 3, 2008, stryd_one commented...
Yeh, props rasteri this is very cool!
I'm a big fan of turntablism, (not a DJ myself.. at all.. ) but can't quite tear myself from the benefits of vinyl, so I'm always keen on new developments like this. I hope you guys will all bring something new to the table in midibox land.
@Dizzy: Everything you need (including help from myself and other midibox forum members) is available for you to do it This is based on the MIOS/Midibox platform, and as such is a non-commercial DIY project.
@tobamai: The greater concern is the limited bitrate (as opposed to depth). I wrote a bit about this on the midibox forums if you'd like to know more.
You guys might like to look at the work of Sasha and MTE from the midibox community too... they've also pioneered some rather nice DJ controllers, and the rumour mill has it that there are quite a few in the works.
Excuse me, all this scratching is makin me itch...
On July 3, 2008, Solo commented...
Cesar you're an idiot. Thanks for the notice though.
On July 7, 2008, nem0nic commented...
quote:"We have the technology to make a motorized, high-resolution deck. Nobody has because the investment in development doesn't make sense."
But that's exactly what the SCS.1d by Stanton is. And although it's the only "next gen" controller I've gotten to lay my hands on, there have been a couple other announcements along those lines this year (Vestax, EKS, and Numark for example).
The problem has been a kind of "chicken and egg" game until now. Software devs didn't support things like 14bit MIDI or OSC because it was seen as a throwaway feature that no hardware took advantage of. Hardware devs didn't incorporate support for high resolution data because no software took advantage of it. Hopefully that's all behind us now, and we can begin to see development on both sides move towards something that isn't more or less a gimmick.
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On June 27, 2008, J.J. commented...
Nobel Peace Prize... or some shizzz. WELL WIKKID!
) but can't quite tear myself from the benefits of vinyl, so I'm always keen on new developments like this. I hope you guys will all bring something new to the table in midibox land.
This is based on the MIOS/Midibox platform, and as such is a non-commercial DIY project.
21 comments to this story