“Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer.” -Turntablism WIKI
Now imagine all that in a portable setup. Now you’ve got portablism. Numarks entrance into the portablism arena is the Numark PT01 Scratch. It’s your typical PT01 portable table but the Scratch features an imitation “fader”. It’s not really a fader its just a glorified on and off switch that with the help of some clever electronics can create a pretty serviceable scratch (cut) sound. To be perfectly honest though all the component are absolute crap. It’s understandable - Numark wanted to keep the cost down and they did the best they could. Fortunately where they fell short some enterprising young engineers, like Jessie Dean have come to the rescue.
Jesse Dean Customs has a cmoplete upgrade kit for the PT01 (and several other portablism base turntables) thata includes: Straight Tone Arm Brass Counter Weight Phono Pre-Amp Contactless Fader
There are several other upgrades available as well like an on/off button, a platter upgrade, etc.
the whole bloody affari
Theres everything fresh out of the box. Notice the nicely manufactured PCB breakout boards. Also notice there are no motherf***** directions or a manifest with all the parts to make sure you recieved everything. Very annoying. However, they did include a business card with a QR Code link to a page on the Jesse Dean site with a selection of youtube videos to walk you through the install. A completely unorganized in any way list of youtube links where everything is referred to by the SKU.The fun doesnt stop there… in the case of the PT01 Scratch at least, the videos are about 2 or 3 hardware revisions behind. SO for example the fader install video features a completely different fader than whats now currently available.
With that said, its just a turntable if you have a passing knowledge of how a table works and an hour worths of experience working with electronic components you should be able to figure out what goes where. So back to the fader…you will have to clip out a plastic post on the turnrable body. It’s not used to secure anything like the other post and doesnt seem to serve much of a structural purpose but it will void your warranty. You may also want to wipe it down. Once I got mine completely installed and used it for a couple hours I had to go back in to adjust some things and there was grease all over the bottom side of it…enough that it was beginning to pool and drip. It hasnt been an issue since I cleaned it up. fader postcomplete
Next was the tone arm and phono-preamp. These were also very simple replacements but I did notice a few things that bothered me. The screw down terminals are not secured very well to the board. They wiggle around and feel like they can snap off at any moment. The plastic that surrounds the header pin plugins isnt secured to the board either. So be careful when removing cables because you’re liable to pull out more than the cable. It just slides back over the pins but still… phono amp flimsy pcb
Alse notice the super thing guage wire that goes from the shell down the tone arm to the pre-amp? Theres a notch that the tone arm has that presses that little switch opening the circuit to stop spinning the platter. When you move the tone arm towards the record it closes the circuit and begins spinning the platter. Those wires can easilly get in the way of knotch and get ripped to shreds. My solution to that was to simply shrink wrap them. Everything else is shrink wrapped so I’m not entirely sure why they didnt wrap these either but so it goes. I also went ahead and wrapped a few other cables and then taped them down and out of the way. taped
Here it is all finished. After using it for ~2 weeks I can definitely say I prefer this setup over the stock setup for sure. Especially with the addition of the straight tone-arm and ability to install a considerably better catridge. The stock setup is not a Hi-Fi system and if you’re using it to sample like I think most people are, then you’re doing yourself a disservice. Is it great for “portablism”, IE scratching? I suppose? It definnitely feels more natural than the switch but I’m so new to this I have no business giving an opinion. All in all, even with the questionably manufactured PCB components, the diminished 12” scratch ability (which it was never meant for in the first place), and the stupid light on the top of the tone arm that never shuts off, I fully recommend anyone with a PT01 Scratch upgrade. I wouldnt even bother using it stock id upgrade immediately. Its worth it.