scratch-modded ipt-01 demo - now with video! (see bottom of page) greetings skratchworxians etc. this is the basic rundown on my ipt01 which i modified for scratching. the ipt-01 is the same as the numark pt-01 only with ion written on it. you can get them pretty cheep, mine was like $75 shipped and was brand new, giftwrapped in gold paper (i'm sure there's a story there, but your guess is as good as mine), and they threw in a few records and a copy of knowledge magazine (a jungle/d'n'b mag, i ended up getting my housemate a subscription and he ended up collecting all the back issues). quite the good deal i'd say. it's a nice size. it's right around 12"x12" and can fit in a record case, which is quite handy. oh yeah, and this turntable picks up and tracks amazingly well for having a fixed tonearm and a little plastic belt-driven platter with fabric glued onto it. works decent at slight angles (hell, i've had it play at 90-degrees), but you get a little speed fluctuation sometimes (which might have something to do with the belt hating me for using this as a scratch deck a bunch) (oh, and if you didn't already know, it runs on batteries and has a built in speaker, pitch control knob, tone knob, volume knob, and does 33/45/78.) see? you can hide it behind my record. speaking of which, you should buy a few copies of my record, you'll thank yourself for it. right, so pop it open and besides the normalness there's the external portion of my frankensteining which stores in there just fine. here's a closer look at the ends... one side's a mono 1/4" plug (like on a normal guitar cable or an unbalanced 1/4 cable), the other's the 2 wires soldered onto a piece i yanked from a 12-volt resistor or the like that was in a bin of half-broken electronic crapola mostly left from a mad scientist friend who almost moved in here. what i did was bend the metal thingies (technical term) so that the two that have the wires connected hold themselves in contact creating a circuit. when you push them apart you're opening that circuit. oh, and i added electritions tape to make it more finger-friendly. now to try'n get this to make some sense, why that switchy thing matters is that on a whim i opened this sucker up, took a wire, and connected things on the volume pot at random until the turntable stopped outputting sound. then i soldered wires to those two spots and then to a 1/4" jack (which i just drilled a hole in the case to mount. it looks natural enough there). when you plug the cable thing in it's essentially closing that circuit that prevents audio from going through, and when you push the metal thingies apart it opens the circuit back up allowing sound. i call it the turntable's virtual crossfader, it's kinda like having a spring-loaded transform switch or spring loaded tabled crossfader. what i do is take the rubberband i have keep the cable under control when stored and put it on my thumb, then i slip that third metal thingy under it so my fingers are lined up nice to push the switchy thing. then it's scratchin' time! whee! with it positioned halfway decent you can crab-scratch with it and do a lot of normal stuff, just using yer fingers instead of yer wrist (tho by habit i move my wrist as well for the holds and whatnot) and keeping in mind it defaults back if you don't hold the circuit open. now, the primary quirk... if i hadn't established already, this was a random endevour and i didn't actually have any idea what i was doing beyond the basics as i've outlined here. i figgured worst case i was out like $75 and it was more likely i'd just end up wasting time. i was surprised it's worked and continues to work as well as it does. what i ended up achieving by making this volume bypass thing i think has the secondary function as being seen as an input. i stuck my headphones into the jack i added once and they worked as a mic through the built in speaker. so you get a little bit of click from the switchy thing (oh yeah, and with the rubber band rig if you spend too long using it yer thumb starts to turn purple). but i was happy enough this thing worked at all. i've taken it on the road with me, and it's great to be able to pull it out of a record crate and show off my record (which as mentioned, you should buy) to people or do a little jam session, and it kinda blows peoples minds a little (especially when yer randomly turntable drumming along with celtic fiddle or whatever). it's obviously no qfo, but it cost 1/16th as much and is actually functionally portable and self-contained. i'm sure someone with a better electronics background could do the rigging for something like this where it doesn't have the slight click, and if you were ambitious you could likely build a little fader box or something for it. welp, i hope you've enjoyed my little scratch-minded portable turntable frankensteining. and if any companies out there (*cough*vestax*cough*numark*cough*) happen to see this and want me to do any beta-testing or anything, seriously, let me know. * * * update! after some requests i did up a little video. some footage of it tabletop, at an angle (to demonstrate its tracking abilities), and just for amusement value, a short clip of it on my lap with me scratching while beatboxing the sanford and son theme... phonicoid_modded_ipt01_demo-divx.avi (12 meg divx avi, 2:27 long) some notes on this, - it's running on the batteries and through the built in speaker (and the volume's only about halfway up i think (my housemates were sleeping)). - the tonearm's not spring modded or anything, so apparently it can be rigged to track even better than it already does. - the low rumbling noise you might hear is from my shitty camera, not the turntable. - that's the copy (#410) of my record i tend to keep around the ipt, so it's been rather abused and is a bit loose in the center hole, so with a center-stickered record in better shape it'd track even better-er. okay everyone, goodbye for now, hope you were amused or enlightened or whatever by this. cheers,     -mark aka phonicoid