Sister SF Resident DJ Amber brings her DJing advice column, Cue & A, to the pages of SisterSF.com! Every time she'll be answering two questions sent in by different DJs from around the world.

Cue & A for March 2004:

QUESTION: I saw your response to someone that was looking to buy the dj pak from Numark because of the price tag as opposed to getting the 1200's. [Cue & A - August 2003] Granted I agree with you telling him to spend the money as compaired to the tables he was looking at but you made reference to the "cheap, plastic competitors". I'm the first to say I like the solid manufacturing of the 1200's but some of the plastic competitors like the Numark TTX1's offer better features (higher torque, digital output, etc) for a relatively similar price.

What do you think a DJ should do when facing the choice of buying high end tables, stick with the old school or try something new and possibly be on the leading edge of the new wave?

ANSWER: The leading edge is unlikely to be a discount turntable, even with more features many of these cheaper models simply don't hold up with time and wear. Hardest of all, they need to overcome the fact that they don't "feel" like a Technics to thousands (millions?) of Technics trained DJs worldwide. That, and nearly every club globally is equipped with Technics, which keeps them as the standard for DJs home setups.

Only scratch turntablists, who are only too happy to bring their own mixer and turntables wherever they go, have moved at all to other makes and models—mostly Vestax. But even there Technics still reign.

The leading edge of the new wave is digital mixing off a laptop with a turntable interface such as Final Scratch, or multimedia (audio/video) mixing with software such as Ms Pinky from Cycling 74. The turntable, record and mixer as the tools of the music mixers' trade will become obsolete in favor of new media and gear before Technics can be dethroned as king of turntables.

QUESTION: I know scratch DJs have been learning and passing on their skills and routines by word-of-mouth for years. But I heard from a friend that some scratch DJs use scratch notation now to write down their routines.

What is scratch notation?

ANSWER: This week the academia of DJing got widespread attention from the media (CNN, NPR & many more) from a press release on scratch instruction at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. In addition to his accomplishments in getting this class added to the Berklee curriculum, featured instructor Stephen Webber (possibly along with DJ Radar) is the creator of a scratch notation system allowing turntablists to permanently note, recreate, and potentiall share their turntable compositions.

I recently spoke with instructors at norcalDJMPA and learned there are actually two types of scratch notation in use--Webber's and a second method called Turntablist Transcription Method (TTM), co-created by John Carluccio, Ehtan Imboden and Raymond Pirtle. As the norcalDJMPA scratch instructor explained to me, the TTM method is superior to Webber's. While Webber's system is based on traditional drum notation, simply marking the "hit" of each scrach on a traditional staff, the TTM system uses a staff that works on both the horizonal and vertical axis, allowing the composer to notate not only the moment the "hit" of each scratch, but also the velocity, duration and direction (forward or reverse) of the scratch.

Want to ask Amber a question? Email her your burning request at amber@sistersf.com. Amber can't reply to all the mail she receives. We also can't guarantee she'll answer your particular question in this column, but check back often just in case! And don't forget, if Amber tells you to do the DJing equivalent of sticking your hand in the fire, don't hold us liable!