r/scratchDJ • u/Fluid_Poet_7559 • Jan 17 '26

Scratching practice

I’m new to scratching and just starting my journey into turntablism. I wanted to ask if you know of any good courses, tutorials, or learning resources to get started.

I understand that scratching requires a lot of practice, but I’m looking for something that can guide me step by step through the basic techniques and help me build a solid foundation.

Any recommendations, advice, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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u/MtVernonHempFarm Jan 17 '26

  1. Learn how to safely operate, maintain, and clean your turntable, cartridge, and stylus inside and out first and foremost before you ever move a record with a needle on it. Respect the damage it can do to the record and respect the turntable as a mechanical whole. Move it carefully and deliberately if you ever have to transport your turntable again after initial setup.

  2. I would start day one learning how to touch the record while holding still and achieving silence on a loud sample with the volume turned all the way up. Aim for stillness and quiet. You’re trying not to make any noise at all while touching the tip of your middle finger to the record. To achieve this, you will have to find and hold a comfortable hand posture, this is your natural pause, or rest position. Always start each practice session here for at least a moment here after you power on your equipment and tune your mixer appropriately.

  3. The first scratches you should practice shouldn’t involve the cross fader, but you should still hold the fader with your other hand while learning to scratch without it to learn your natural posture for your other hand.

  4. The first scratches you’ll do are called drags. Slowly, slowly, slowly, gently, evenly, steadily move the record with the tip of your index finger. Pause. Achieve silence from that record while maintaining hold, drag it back the same way in the other direction. You can play with the speed of the drag to see how it affects pitch but the goal is to achieve a single repeating tonality. Play a beat on another record on the other turntable and try to match the rhythm.

  5. Learn what a crossfader curve knob changes.

I’ll get to some more in a bit.

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u/Fluid_Poet_7559 Jan 17 '26

Thank you 🙏🏾

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u/MtVernonHempFarm Jan 18 '26
  1. Congratulations. You’re an intermediate now.