As my old new media icon suggests, I am a fan of mixing and scratching techniques. For my old new media tribute I wanted to do a scratching device that a person can use to scratch over the song he is playing.
Scratching technique is an important part of a DJ's skills. While, in the beginning of the 50s it was it was part of a more experimental approach to sound, scratching (particularly vinyl scratching) quickly made its way in the emerging hip-hop culture. It works by spinning a playing vinyl back and forth, changing the rate and therefore the pitch of the song.
The technique imitation is done on MAX/MSP environment. Up until the end of my project I decided I would use a motor to spin a real vinyl plate and get the data coming from the two way moving of the motor. However, due to the fact that I could not stabilize the data coming from a DC motor and also a brushless CD-rom motor, I decided last moment I would use the Wii remote to get data in. As one can see from the video a person can control whether he wants scratching mode or a "release-the vinyl" mode.
Nevertheless, as much as many digital techniques exist to emulate scratching, the analog vinyl scratching remains a unique way. Hence, as much as we re-mediate or scale old ways of mediating- the uniqueness of any old-new media remains, just as books' value remains in an age of high-speed knowledge accessibility.