Your Questions: Can You Scratch On The Traktor Kontrol S8/S5/D2?

Digital DJ Tips reader Bleks writes: “I’m by no means a ‘scratch master’, more a ‘scratcher of disaster’! But anyway, I was following your free scratch training with my old controller… until, that is, a few days ago when I bought the wonderful Traktor Kontrol S8 with its nice touchstrip.

“So my question is, is it really possible to scratch using only the touchstrip? Does anyone have a video and/or tutorial to show how to do this (it’d be good for the motivation to see that it’s possible!). Thanks!”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Well, of course on the face of it this is going to be nigh-on impossible. With the S8, frankly you’re best off just plugging some turntables in and grabbing some Traktor timecode vinyl and doing it that way.

That said though, we’re right in the middle of some scratch training right now on the site, and we also happen to have the Kontrol S8 (and the S5/D2) knocking around, so I twisted our scratch tutor Steve’s arm a bit (a lot) and he finally agreed to have a go… on video. watch it here:

Kontrol S8 scratch video

Have you got a touchstrip controller, and ever tried to scratch on it? Or do you think it’s just a crazy non-starter? Any tips to share? Please do so in the comments.