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Scratch like eddie halliwell

how should i practice to be like that? :O
omg i am amazed by what he can do!

Any vids of this? What kind of tracks/music does he scratch over?

I can see how James Zabiela would scratch over breaks 'cause it fits in... but I don't think Halliwell spins breaks, no?

halliwell spins trance, hard house some hard trance and some techno

i prefer hearing scratch over breaks or some disco house funk. djbattle.net has some good vids of people scratch'n to breaks

Yeah Eddie Halliwell is great
he used to be into hip-hop before he made the move to hardhouse/trance/techno 'cos he thought that genre lacked energy, however he incorporated what he learned in this, so maybe you should buy some hip-hop/scratch records and start practising.
Use this site http://www.asisphonics.net/theever.html to learn different scratch techniques and ask questions on the futureproducers.com forum (they have a "scratching" forum). Can't help more than this 'cos I don't scratch myself lol, good luck

the problem is, he isn't that good at scratching!

i agree it always sounds good, but its always the same scratch. he did a new one recently at some ibiza night, but i can honestly say its the 3rd scratch i've heard from him in 3 years (and i used to see the guy nearly every weekend).

my mate challenged him to a scratch-off once, he refused lol.. kristoph would have killed him.

quote:

Originally posted by tu_face the problem is, he isn't that good at scratching! i agree it always sounds good, but its always the same scratch. he did a new one recently at some ibiza night, but i can honestly say its the 3rd scratch i've heard from him in 3 years (and i used to see the guy nearly every weekend). my mate challenged him to a scratch-off once, he refused lol.. kristoph would have killed him.

Well I never saw him live unfortunately, but he's one of the DJs I respect the most solely for his performance in his Essential Mix set which I think is one of the best sets I've ever heard technically speaking. And in that set I think there are a lot of different scratches (though I'm no expert in techniques so I can't really tell )

scratch off?

The basic concepts of scratching are the same regardless of style of music. I suggest you get a video on how to scrath - hip hop web sites are full of them.

Once you have the method down you can then go ahead and adapt it to your particular style of music - i.e creating your own sound rather than copying Halliwell)

quote:

Originally posted by benoitfan Well I never saw him live unfortunately, but he's one of the DJs I respect the most solely for his performance in his Essential Mix set which I think is one of the best sets I've ever heard technically speaking. And in that set I think there are a lot of different scratches (though I'm no expert in techniques so I can't really tell )

yes he is quality in that set and i agree technically it is a wicked set. the scratches are just little variations of the same scratch

vswede: yes, my mate kristoph asked him if he wanted to have a scratching competition to see who was the best.

quote:

Originally posted by tu_face the problem is, he isn't that good at scratching! i agree it always sounds good, but its always the same scratch. he did a new one recently at some ibiza night, but i can honestly say its the 3rd scratch i've heard from him in 3 years (and i used to see the guy nearly every weekend). my mate challenged him to a scratch-off once, he refused lol.. kristoph would have killed him.

I have to agree with you Tu_face... you are spot on. His turntablist skills are minimal and gimmicky in my opinion.

I started as a Hip Hop DJ in 86 and have been doing it for a considerable amount of time and can tell you that he really isn't all that. He maily just uses chirps with little variations. He never flares, crabs or orbits and I have never heard him beat juggle. He may be able to but I have never heard it.
It has to be said however that he uses what he knows quite well so it sounds effective and it's also quite easy to impress really monged out people on the dancefloor with some well placed scratches.

The thing that makes Halliwell good is definately not his scratching ability but the energy/enthusiasm that he puts into his sets. I met my wife to be on a night that he was playing so he will always have a special place for me.
He is also a really nice bloke and that goes a long way in my book.

Cheers
Nem

im sorry for being rude but how the hell can ya say eddie halliwell isnt to good at scratching jesus man you tell me who can scratch as fast and in time for over 5 mins non stop man your living on a dreamwork eddie great his mixing skills are excelent and its very rare he fucks up, hes a great dj and i think there should be others like him

his enthusiasm and energy he puts into his sets is amazing hes always jumping about geting the crowd going i love djs like that

Re: Scratch like eddie halliwell

quote:

Originally posted by Toufas how should i practice to be like that? :O omg i am amazed by what he can do!

Kind of like asking how can I spin like PvD. But how you phrased your question was perfect. If you wanna spin like that then you're gonna need to practise your fingers to the bone. See what he's doing in his sets and try to imitate and ellaborate.

There are some great scratching tutorials on FutureProducers.com: http://www.futureproducers.com/tutorials.php

also if ya look at him dj he is never cueing a record up hes to busy messing with the mixer or scratching alsways messing but also when hes mixing he has no headpones on, its weard

quote:

Originally posted by djsessem im sorry for being rude but how the hell can ya say eddie halliwell isnt to good at scratching jesus man you tell me who can scratch as fast and in time for over 5 mins non stop man your living on a dreamwork eddie great his mixing skills are excelent and its very rare he fucks up, hes a great dj and i think there should be others like him

Errrrr I can...
The main point I am trying to make is that compared to a turntablist he isn't very good. I'm sorry if that doesn't agree with you but I know what I am talking about and I'm not backing off in this one.
I will still agree that he is a great DJ but his scratching isn't what makes him great.

Cheers
Nem

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Nem is correct, a proper turtablist would own his ass in a scratch competition. Now he's a great DJ but don't say the type of scratching he does is what makes him good.

quote:

Originally posted by djsessem im sorry for being rude but how the hell can ya say eddie halliwell isnt to good at scratching jesus man you tell me who can scratch as fast and in time for over 5 mins non stop man your living on a dreamwork eddie great his mixing skills are excelent and its very rare he fucks up, hes a great dj and i think there should be others like him

wrong, wrong, and wrong

he isn't good at scratching, he just does the same thing over and over. with enough practice i am sure anyone could do it for 5 minutes, in time etc. but what sets eddie apart is the fact he can do that AND beatmatch at the same time, whilst bringing in another track previously beatmatched..

i also wish to point out that eddie fucks up all the time. a lot of dj's who play their music like he does fuck up. its bound to happen when you are doing a lot of things at once, but people don't tend to care as much because of all the other stuff that is happening/has happened/will happen, and how they handle the fuck-up.

and there are plenty of dj's like him, go listen to some techno

do not get me wrong here, i fucking love eddie halliwell and i think he is a great dj, some of the best sets i have heard have come from him. he plays his music like a techno dj, and i like that. plus he has a very unique sound to his sets, its always a kind of mish mash of techno, hard house and trance, and he always knows what will sound good over what in a mashup. this is what he gets my respect for, certainly not his scratching

many DJs have been trying to scratch lately. perhaps the whole Zabiela and Halliwell craze is getting to everyone. i've seen Dave Seaman have a go at it (he was pretty drunk though) and Anthony Pappa too. Desyn Masiello did some minor tweaking at one point last time i saw him. but from what i can tell, Zabiela's scratching skills are very superior to Halliwell's. another DJ that rarely gets mentioned in this, and started out as a hip hop DJ in the 80s (according to him, not sure if he was just messin around) is Max Graham.

all of a sudden when he was spinning down here (was playing very deep, driving, and even techy prog), he stops his cued record, pulls up the fader and started scratching like a bastard, letting go now and then to let a vocal come in and pulling it back for more tweakage, finally letting go and it just happened to be phrasematched perfectly. had a very 80s hip-hop feel to it. a friend of mine (works at the club, was up in the booth atm) asked him "ok... and what was that?". Max said "i used to play hip hop in '85". the man has skills.

quote:

Originally posted by djsessem mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

You can "mmmmmmm" all you want mate.

The fact is I have been a turntablist long before DJing was ever considered cool.
In that time I have also entered DMC qualifying heats and admitedly never won anything as the Brighton and London scene has always been fierce so to get anywhere you have to be seriously good.

Started back in 86 and still dabble with it. Lost the inspiration though as Hip Hop went seriously shit!

I'm lucky enough to be able to say it's my job and have also spun with the gentleman in question.
What's even funnier is that in an interview Tiesto hailed Halliwell as much better DJ from a technical point of view. True enough as Tiesto isn't that good from that angle yet he still gets voted worlds number one (although not by me), but then it's not about how many different variations of the chirp you can perform over the top of a funky techno track it's much more.

The interesting thing is that you have people combining skills and inovating with different genres. Zabiella, Dave Clarke etc. Watch a lot of good techno DJs and you will often see guys performing tricks far more advanced than any Halliwell trick.

If you really want to scratch like Eddie then you have to understand the origins and what scratching is about.
Scratching is like playing drums, it's about rythm and fill ins. The Jazzier and funkier you can make it the better. This becomes harder as the tempo of the music increases but with practice can be done.

If you want to learn to scratch then start with Hip Hop beats and work up to breaks. But make sure you get the techniques down on each level before you advance.
Something else to keep in mind is that less is more. If your scratching stands out ontop of the music it means that you sound wank and are doing too much. It's a compliment to what's going on not the main feature.
If you want to scracth you will learn some ok sounding ones pretty quickly. The harder part is beat juggling i.e. the creation of beats using just drum sounds on the records. Watch the likes of Tony Vegas for stuff like that. It's much harder to learn and has limited application in dance music but lots of fun and good for the motor skills required when DJing.
Learing to construct sentences out of vocals is much much harder and needs to be rehersed if you are going to perform it out.

Get some videos and watch the fader positions when the sound is being made. Write down what you see then start real slow.
The other thing to keep in mind is that you need to use apporpriate sounds for this task. Higher pitched sounds generally tend to be more effective espeicially if they are shortish and sharp. Halliwell does this a lot.
A simple trick he uses is just a basic chirp. Which goes like this:

Move record forward, open and close the fader
Move record back, open and close the fader
Repeat.

This will give a sort of Chi ki chi ki chi ki sound (Yup, all this Chi ki looks a bit mad but I hope you know what I mean).

If you then slow one of the movements down you get a Chi ki chi ko chi ki type effect as done by Mister Halliwell all too often.

This is a very basic scratch known as a chirp.

If you then do this:

Move record forward, open and close fader open and close fader
Move record back, open and close fader
Repeat

That is a two click flare. You can also do three click flares etc.

Then you can start mixing it up and getting creative. But those are the basic basics to a little bit of cutting and scratching.

The other thing you need is a fader that can be adjusted to have a sharp cut in such as the Vestax PMC 05 mkII.

Hope this helps a little and that I have made myself understood.

Good luck

Cheers
Nem

You cant really compare turntablism to spinning records and you can neither be hard
on Eddie because he isnt beat juggling. Juggling is very hard and i have
seen vids of Q-Bert beeing asked to juggle and actually stopping and pondering if
he should or shouldnt do it. (the crowd convinced him tho)

Turntablism is nothing like spinning records, you know that and i am very skeptical
about beat juggling in trance/house-music with it NOT sounding dodgy or fucked up.

It seems like scratching is something a bit sensitive, sure Halliwell doesnt do all
the things that A-Trak or whoever would do but thats not the point.
Eddie scratches to add energy to the set and the way he does it is just crazy, i
find his additions with scratching to be much more fun to listen to then Mr Zabielas.
Maybe because Zabiela uses so much of his CDJ-1000 for it.

I think it rocks to hear Eddie scratch and i have heard some of his gigs where, well, it
really reminds me of his earlier sets but im very forgiving.
Id see him live any day because, well, atleast I cant dance to a turntablist.

quote:

Originally posted by webbie Turntablism is nothing like spinning records, you know that and i am very skeptical about beat juggling in trance/house-music with it NOT sounding dodgy or fucked up.

I agree, it may not necessarily be appropriate with trance but you can do it with house and techno. Halliwell does also play techno tracks by the way... Your point is valid though as it does come down to if you should do it or not.
I have to say though that I don't think that Eddies scratching adds anything to his sets... but I love hearing the other things that are less obvious that he does as he performs them really well.

quote:

Turntablism is nothing like spinning records, you know that and i am very skeptical

Wrong, you just never been to a really good Hip Hop and/or Breaks night. I agree that if you just saw a load of DMC style stuff that would be really boring but check out Cashmoney or someone like that. They know how to spin and rock the crowd and chop it up real good. Also worth checking out is Matt Cantor from the Freestylers. Andy C from Portishead also rocks although his turntable skills sometimes leave a little to be desired. Krafty Kuts goes to town and these guys can spin too.

Check out Techno DJs like Carl Cox too.

Raw turntablism in itself is actually quite boring from a dance point of view I agree, but these guys can spin.

The main point is that I don't think Halliwell's scratching is very good and I don't think it does much for the music.

Cheers
Nem

quote:

Originally posted by Nemesis44 Wrong, you just never been to a really good Hip Hop and/or Breaks night. I agree that if you just saw a load of DMC style stuff that would be really boring but check out Cashmoney or someone like that. They know how to spin and rock the crowd and chop it up real good. Also worth checking out is Matt Cantor from the Freestylers. Andy C from Portishead also rocks although his turntable skills sometimes leave a little to be desired. Krafty Kuts goes to town and these guys can spin too.

Il see if i can find any vids of that, you are very right I have only seen DMC championship vids and such and, well, they
tend to get quite boring after a few minutes.

Thanx for the tip!

quote:

Originally posted by webbie Il see if i can find any vids of that, you are very right I have only seen DMC championship vids and such and, well, they tend to get quite boring after a few minutes. Thanx for the tip!

I know what you mean though, if I went to a club and saw someone doing that all night I think I would get real bored. The problem with the DMC guys is that these days it's more based on skills than flow and looses the feel of music a little. Not always pleasing to the ear.

When Tony Vegas (Scratch Perverts) was in South Africa he was amazing. Me and a DJ friend had been playing a few gigs out there and thought we would check him out. He started his set with the Piano Riff from Dre Day (Can't remember the original records name) then when the beat kicked in it was phat as hell and the place went mad, then about a minute in everyone realised that it was him making the beat by beat juggling. It was so tight too.

Another guy who does a lot of work is Funk Master Flex. He doesn't get as anal about his skills but he is still phenomonal to listen to.

Cheers
Nem

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