i've had a sp555 for a good few month now and i'm totally digging it....i was new to this game but finally got my head round most of it for what i want to use it for.
the reason for this post is.......I play bass guitar and been sampling beats from various sources then recording bass grooves over it. I now wanna learn how to scratch over these using a vinyl deck but never really done this before coming from a "band" background and basically i wanna know if you can use just one deck to mess around on (but not QFO) or do you actually need two, bearing in mind that i'm not fussed about mixing yet...i have noticed other posts regarding which deck, mixer to use etc....had my eye on the gemini and the numarks to start out with but wanted confirmation on this? Can someone give me some adivce on this it would be much appreciated????

a tip that many musicians have drilled into me

get with one or two things and stick with it.

thats the only way to get good.

that being said, if you want to scratch you'll at least need one deck and a mixer then have the sampler on the other side.

or you could have 2 decks and the sampler running in the mic on the mixer.

really depends on how committed you are to it.

never heard that saying before but i can understand the logic. i just wanna try out something new and scratching seems kinda minimal and appealing and i wanna give it a go.
i'll probally end up getting two decks....i was just wondering/confused if the crossfader worked with one deck that's all.....i'm a complete novice as you probably can tell from my dumb post but you have to find stuff like this out before spending hard earned cash.
thanks for the reply.

essentially you only need one, you could just scratch over a boombox if you really want to get minial

yeah i just need to shop around and decide which way to go. I have also been looking at the pioneer cdj range but i think they are way over priced for what they are, the manufacturers etc are totally taking advantage....

One deck and a mixer is all you need to scratch. Two decks are needed if you want to mix or beat juggle. You got a sampler so that's gonna provide background beats for you to practise to. And ofcoz another deck can be added later on if you feel you need one. Myself, I got 3 1200's

that's what i want to do really...well for the moment anyway, i just wanna learn how to scratch over beats i've made up and like you said i can always add another turntable later on for mixing etc. is there a low to mid price deck and scratch mixer you could recommend? been looking at the stanton T62 today and the Vestax pmc - 06 for starters???

I have 2 cdj800 and a djm600....and luv em, can´t say that they´re not worth the price....and the scratching works great

cool! they've recently brought out the mk2 version of the 800's out too. Is there much difference between the cdj400 and cdj800 apart from the jogwheel size and price tho?

as far as i know, the cdj400 can be used with an USB-stick instead of the CD

I don't know much about turntables, other than 1200's ofcoz but PMC 06 is a decent mixer for scratching.

yeah, one table is all you need to scratch. the crossfader will just cut the signal from that table on and off regardless of what, if anything, is hooked up to the other channel.

I don't know if you guys have guitar center in finland or something similar, but a lot of the guitarcenters here have been clearancing out numark X2's which are turntables that can use both cd's and regular vinyl. I picked one up a few months ago for around $300 USD and it's pretty dope.

I saw those on musiciansfriend the other day for that price... insane savings compared to what it came out at. So you like it? Good response and what not? Given the price drop I was figuring they must have some major bugs or something.

so far it seems fine, on par with other high end cd scratching that i've messed around with. I haven't had it hooked up for a while though because i got the floor model as-is and it was missing the counter weight and i've been waiting on numark to ship it out to me. I've been DITC almost on the daily after a long hiatus(school, girls, etc) so I've just been using one of my 1200's until i get that damn counterweight.

I think the hybrid thing was something that a lot of people said they wanted and romanticized, but when it came down to it to keep the costs down i think they had to limit some of the features that other high end cd decks have and a lot of people just didn't want to fork over the $1200 for them. which sucks for them, but works out in our favor now. I'm getting ready to move from a 3 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom apartment so I'm stoked on the studio space that it saves...

From my experience thus far i would highly recommend it for around $300, the only downside is if you have to get a part or something like I did, the company that ships out numark parts is pretty slow.

Cool man... sound like a good deal. If I can scrape up some cash I might grab one. I really liked the concept of keeping an actual slab of vinyl on top. Thanks for the breakdown.