Nice Touch, Son!
Not all innovations in technology come from big business corporations. The Attigo TT - a touch-screen turntable - is the brainchild of Scott Hobbs, a design student from Dundee.
The touch-screen turntable has been a dream for many DJs, but it's now become reality thanks to the pioneering efforts of Scott Hobbs. The Attigo TT is the result of his final year design project and is a touch-screen interface designed for DJing with mp3 tracks.
Attigo (pronounced a-tee-go) is the Latin word for 'touch' and TT is an abbreviation for touch-screen turntable, now being nicknamed the touch-tables.
It allows DJs to see, hear, touch and manipulate a track as it is being played. It uses a visual waveform of the music travelling vertically upwards on a conveyor belt, in a similar way to Serato Scratch.
"With the TT you can see and touch the music," explained its creator. "It shows where all the beats are, which gives you complete control of the song in a mix."
It is designed to work like a conventional turntable set-up, with two TTs connected to any mixer through a line-out. A computer is used to control songs 'loaded' onto the TTs.
The software onboard had to be custom written by Scott.
"I have plans to develop it to work with other DJ software," revealed Scott. "The TT would make an amazing Midi controller, as well as just a standalone unit, so DJs can use them as they wish."
Boasting all the same functions of a turntable, including transport buttons, as well as the cueing and looping functions of a CD deck, Scott claimed: "There is nothing that the TT will not be able to do."
Anyone who has used touch-screen controllers, such as the Dexter or Lemur, will know that they are more responsive to fingernails than stubby finger ends, but the latest TTs will be different, claimed Scott.
"The older touch-screens were resistive screens and had a glossy film on them, but I've been looking into Haptic feedback in touch-screens and I think it will soon be developed enough to simulate movement of the music."
Scott did all of his research and testing with vinyl loving hip-hop DJs.
"They thought it was amazing for mixing but it wasn't as good for scratching as a traditional turntable," he told DJmag. "The product is far more suitable for dance DJs, who are the kind of people with open eyes for new technologies in DJ gear."
The Attigo TT is not available to buy yet but keep up with the latest developments through Scott's websites at scotthobbs.co.uk and attigo.co.uk