Developed and handcrafted with passion in southern France, the ADC Audio Turntablist is a tactile scratching device.
The project started out as a potential mixer feature (tactile A/B transform), but we were having so much fun with it that we decided to take a step further and design a fully sized, scratch oriented “standalone” version.
How does it work ?
Just like a scratch crossfader, it can cut/activate a stereo audio signal.
It features two mixable inputs: a stereo phono/line input with EQ (scratches) and a stereo auxiliary input (beat playback).
There are two touchplates: a large one at the bottom (usually for the thumb) and a thinner one at the center (usually for the other fingers).
In REG (regular) mode, touching one of the two touchplates will activate the sound (transform based scratches) and touching both touchplates will cut the sound (flare based scratches).
In HAM (hamster) mode, touching one of the two touchplates will cut the sound and touching both touchplates will activate the sound.
Is it fast enough ?
The ADC Audio Turntablist electronic circuitry is entirely analogue and the device response time (from the user touch to the stereo signal commuting) is in the µs range, which is totally imperceptible to the fingers and ears.
After a few hours of practice, it is surprisingly easy to perform complex scratches, especially if one’s already used to scratch on traditional mixers. (Re)Discovering scratching has never been so entertaining!
With lightning fast and clinically precise cuts, the tactile technology allows for a different scratching approach.
Describing how to operate it with words can be quite challenging! For the sake of simplicity, we prepared a little demo video below.