Derknott has released Scratchmas, a fun little turntable scratching VST plugin for 32-bit hosts running on Windows (also available as a standalone application).
Scratchmas is a surprisingly usable little scratching plugin that lets the user load any WAV file and treat it as if it was loaded on a virtual turntable. Emulating a turntable style performance in a DAW is definitely not an easy task, even in theory, which is why most turntable plugins out there are a bit complicated and not all that easy to use. With that in mind, Scratchmas does have its quirks, but it is easily the most user friendly freeware scratching plugin that we’ve tested so far.
After loading a WAV file, you can use the virtual turntable slider at the bottom of the user interface to control the playback. Adjusting the Smooth parameter evens out the speed and increasing value of the Release knob adds a little fade out after you release the mouse button. From our experience, the lowest smoothness setting and zero fade out lead to the best sounding performance in most cases.
The cool thing is that the plugin allows the user to zoom in on the file and adjust the position of the zoomed area, so that everything can be calibrated to your liking before recording a performance. The huge waveform display in the top part of the GUI definitely helps to perfectly lock onto a certain part of the loaded sample. The performance can be captured as automation data in the host application, which makes it easy to fine tune and modify the recording afterwards.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to use Scratchmas for scratching at all. It can also be used to create all sorts of crazy sounds and SFX. Try zooming almost all the way into a loaded WAV file and using the playback slider to search for interesting micro loops and glitches.
The plugin will only work in 32-bit host applications on Windows, however the standalone version can also work on 64-bit Windows systems. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to record a performance in the standalone version (getting an empty WAV file after export), but this might be a problem caused by our somewhat unusual hardware setup.
Many thanks to the developer Derknott for allowing us to host Scratchmas on BPB!
Download
Scratchmas (11.7 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit VSTi plugin format for Windows, standalone application for Windows, made with SynthMaker)
Disclaimer: The plugin is hosted on BPB with the developer’s permission.
Last Updated on December 17, 2015 by Tomislav Zlatic.
