Eli5: Why does dj-ing not wreck the record they’re scratching on?
In: 40
The “record scratch” isn’t really dragging the needle sideways across the record like it’s sometimes portrayed. That does mess up the album.
Usually what they’re doing instead is manually rotating the turntable faster than it would normally rotate. That just moves the needle through the groove faster than usual and causes the audio to more or less be fast-forwarded/rewound.
We *can* take into account that the needles are always wearing down *and* causing wear and tear on the records themselves, but that’s more of a concern for people with very fancy players and speakers who are worried about top-notch fidelity. DJs only need a record to sound moderately OK for most of their purposes, as it’s getting blasted at high volume into a room of people who are having fun and not necessarily criticizing the dynamic range.
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