[Jeremy Bell] loves scratching, however he had an issue. His Hercules DJ controller wasn’t actually doing an important job at emulating the type of motion one would get with an actual turntable. The answer was each mechanical and digital in nature!
As inventory, the Hercules MIDI rig permits you to scratch in a comparatively simplistic approach. When it detects a finger touching the rotary management, it permits you to scratch forwards and backwards with nice movement monitoring. Nevertheless, once you let go, playback resumes at common pace instantaneously, which creates a considerably inorganic sound.
The repair was to make some mechanical mods to the MIDI controller. [Jeremy] tried out a wide range of completely different strategies of utilizing a motor to spin the rotary management constantly, from geared rigs to belt-driven setups. It was then attainable to scratch on the controller, after which let it return to regular rotational pace, creating a lot smoother auditory transitions. Nevertheless, this was imperfect, as for no matter cause, the Hercules rig would cease monitoring the rotary management precisely except it detected a finger was touching it. [Jeremy] labored round this by whipping up a slip-ring-like setup to maintain his physique completely in touch with the rotary management even whereas spinning.
The outcomes are fairly nice—they’re each mechanically janky and beautifully satisfying to take heed to. We’ve featured another nice DJ controller hacks over time, like this candy Pioneer UI improve.
