Roland Henry

Twenty years ago, disc jocks boarding carnival trucks would have to bring along volumes of vinyl records and chunky turntables.

In 2008, technology has put a 'spin' on things, and musical machinery is ever evolving to suit life in the iTunes-always-on-the-download era.

"Right now if you playing on a truck, you don't have to worry about the driver making a sudden stop and disturbing the record," quips ace carnival spin doctor Kurt. 'The Party Animal' Riley, ".dem days deh done, it's all digital now."

Riley - who's in demand this weekend since he's scheduled to play at the official WATA party ahead of a stint on the FAME 95 road truck on Sunday during the road march - further expresses his excitement about Scratch LIVE, a hardware/software system from audio research company Serato.

Thursday Tech online checks reveal that Scratch LIVE is touted as "the ultimate software and hardware solution for bridging the analog world of vinyl and the digital world of computer audio files."

"I no longer have to board the truck with 600 CDs," says Riley, adding too that "playing on the road is easier because the software allows me to organise my music. you can arrange what songs you want played prior to boarding the truck."

The Serato system, Riley informs Thursday Tech, retails for around US$500 - $700 - a small price to pay, he believes, for organisation and lightness.

"The Scratch LIVE package includes an extremely rugged, portable, high-quality, bus-powered USB audio device, featuring two software switchable stereo phono or line inputs, a microphone input, two line outputs and pass-throughs for all inputs," the company's website claims.

"Scratch LIVE interface connects almost any computer to an ordinary pair of turntables or CD players, and the software faithfully tracks every subtle movement of the stylus on the included control records. The same movement is then instantly applied to any digital audio file in the user's collection, producing a sound and feel that is indistinguishable from vinyl."

The Scratch is both Windows XP and Mac Os-X compatible, and is able to do a variety of tasks including beat extraction, real-time tempo metering, waveform colouring based on spectral content, multiple cue points per track, and full iTunes library integration.

Riley endorses, further saying: "Just attach it to your standard laptop and that's it. You can actually walk with all the music you own if you have an external hard drive. With this machine you can store and store music. only playing perhaps a tenth of the music you have on there at any given party."

He believes this technology is cheaper, since jocks who own this system no longer need to burn CDs.

He's mindful, however, that though Serato offers 'sweet technology' the Sratch is not infallible.

"The only concern you should have is if your hard drive crashes, and if that happens you know what you've got to do," Riley says, adding, "that's pretty much it for me, until technology decides to throw something else my way."