carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

I went to the FinalScratch Tour at Guitar Center last night. KNS was a great host and was pretty damn knowledgeable about everything. He answered all of our questions very well.

So there was a guy from Stanton in FL and the local Stanton rep in attendance. They were offering the PC version (FS 1.0) at a deep discount (unpublished, lower than the Minimum Advertised Price). They also said that anyone with FS1.0 will be able to upgrade to FS 1.1 (dual platform, Mac and PC on one install CD) for a modest price when it comes out "soon." It was a deal I couldn't refuse.

So I guess I'll install FS on one of the many decommissioned PCs I have in the basement and use it that way for the next month or so. When I get my hands on the Mac version though... :-)

I was very interested in seeing how they had improved on some of the failings of Traktor. The main thing is how horrible the file browser is. Unfortunately it looks like they didn't really change it. Otherwise the new software looked very slick and I'm excited to get it soon.

That certainly looks interesting. Seems a bit pricey for such a specialized product though.

Think about this: If you were a DJ you would have to carry lots of records with you when you performed. Now if you had FinalScratch you could rip all of your records to high-quality MP3 or even raw WAV or AIFF. Then you could keep all of your records on you laptop and have all of your music with you at all times and wouldn't have to carry tons of heavy records.

This looks really cool, now how does the software interfaces with the turntables? does the "encoded records" plays a signal, and then the software interprets it to the moment in the track?

You play records which have a proprietary timecode on them. The output of the records goes to a device they call the ScratchAmp which is pretty much two sound cards in a round enclosure. One sound card takes the timecode and uses it to control the audiofile playing on your computer and then the other soundcard plays the audio back to your mixer. The ScratchAmp connects to the computer via USB.

So I could start creating loops, saving them as WAVs or MP3s and you could use them in your sets?

Exactly; KNS talked quite a bit about being able to create your own loops and samples (with different software), and incorporating it into your set FinalScratch. It was a really good clinic. I was glad that I went.

Well let me know if you have any specific type beats or loops you'd like to have and I'll see what I can cook up.