You've probably heard of Scratching, or Skratchin', you may have even heard of the term Turntablism(the art of playing a turntable as a musical instrument).
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I highly recommend the documentary Scratch. It's a fascinating history of turntablism with a wacky cast of characters including the likes of Q-bert, Mix Master Mike, Naut Humon, and many many more.
You may think that scratching is "old-school" and it died back in the 80s with branded Transformers lunchboxes. Well, YOU'RE WRONG!. haha. There are a few of us left that are still into this stuff. Turntablism has progressed with new innovations in technology. Digital vinyl and the ability to trigger samples is a great example. The below video by Dj Craze is a great example of what can be done these days. If this video doesn't blow your mind, I may be wasting my words here.
ENTER PORTABLISM
"Wait, what? Now you're just making up words", I hear you say. Nope. Portablism is (as you may have guessed), Portable Turntablism. Talk about a niche of a niche! Yet, this is the kind of thing I'm into.
Companies like Numark are even making hardware especially for this niche market. Tiny battery powered turntables that play 7-inch records.
Want to add another niche? How about PT01 scratch mods? I'm also into this! To my PT01, I've added a custom fader:
An arcade style start and stop button:
A custom side plate with built in MP3 player:
And of course an internal lithium ion battery pack upgrade. No point in showing a video of that really, but here it is cracked open.
The original design takes 6 D-cell batteries. Can you believe that? D-cells.. in the current year!
On top of all of this, I added some extra light-up arcade buttons, just for fun.. possibly for future use.
The final product! Dun da da dun!
Just thought I would announce to the world that I love this shit, and I don't care who knows it.
Follow me @anticleric to learn more about the weird crap I'm into :P