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automation is the future for many jobs and industries out there – but did you ever think it might come to the DJ turntablism world? DJTT member mushrooshi has shared exclusive details with us on project to build robots that can gate the crossfader and manipulate vinyl in time with the beat. See it in action and read our interview with the man behind the robot DJ revolution inside.

First, watch the current prototypes in action – they’re obviously early concepts still. Here’s the both parts of the robot working together to cut over a familiar theme song:

And a closer look at the crossfader cutting bot – here’s a recent video of it in action:

We asked him to walk us through a few parts of his creation and the thinking behind it – read his responses below.

Hey Mushrooshi! What are you trying to build here, exactly?

I’m creating a robotic system which is able to perform turntablist scratches with high precision, synchronized with Traktor. I’d like it to be able to perform in two modes: firstly as a reliable “Instant Gratification Scratching” system, where I hold buttons down to play pre-programmed scratch routines on the fly, and secondly as kind of the turntable equivalent of a “player piano”, where a music loop plays and the scratchbot selects random patterns to continuously play.

So what are the specifics of how each bot works?

The robotic system’s mechanisms are currently comprised of two parts. The first part is a simple crank, powered by a single servo and attached to the mixer, which controls the crossfader. It’s currently on it’s third prototype, which has been 3D printed. It’s action is almost perfect right now and only needs a bit more calibration.

The second component is a swinging arm, powered by two servos, one servo which pivots directly over the turntable’s axis of rotation and controls the scratching sweeping motion, and the other servo of which controls if it is pushing down on the record. It is on it’s second prototype at the moment, and works okay with a small 7-in record. However, the scratchbot’s performance is poor with 12-in records, likely due to the increased surface area with the slipmat and the much heavier mass and inertia of a 12-in record. I’ll need to heavily redesign it for it’s third prototype, which unlike the first and the current prototypes, will be mostly 3D printed.

To read the whole interview follow the link below.