Turntablism
Routine
A routine is a composed, rehearsed sequence of scratches, juggles and cuts performed to a set piece of music. Unlike a mix, it is written in advance and repeated the same way each time.
In practice
A routine is composed and rehearsed, not improvised. Build it in phrases and rehearse the ending hardest.
Start from a beat you know well and build in eight-bar blocks, deciding what each block is for before filling it with technique. Record every rehearsal and watch it back — routines fall apart in places you cannot feel while performing, particularly the joins between sections. Rehearse the ending most, because it is the part everyone remembers and the part usually practised least. Two minutes done cleanly beats five with a gap in the middle.
8 bars
The block to build in
Record it
How to find the joins
The ending
What to rehearse most
Where these come from: Standard routine-construction practice in turntablism — technique, not catalog figures. For what we can measure, see the unit it is built from.
Why it matters
It is the format that turns technique into performance. Individual scratches are vocabulary; a routine is a sentence, with a structure, a build and an ending, and it is where the difference between someone who can scratch and someone who is a turntablist actually shows.
The discipline it teaches transfers beyond battles. Building a routine forces you to think in phrases, to plan what comes after a peak, and to rehearse an ending — three things that improve an ordinary club set considerably even if you never perform a routine in one.
Frequently asked
How long should a routine be?+
Battle formats often set the limit, and outside them shorter is usually better. Two clean minutes lands harder than five with a hesitation in the middle.
What is the difference between a routine and a set?+
A routine is composed and repeated the same way; a set responds to a room in real time. The skills overlap, but one is a piece of music and the other is a night.
Do I need battle decks to build a routine?+
No, though battle position and a fast fader make a lot of the technique easier. The composition part — phrases, structure, an ending — is layout-independent.
Related terms
Battle position
Battle position turns the turntables ninety degrees so the tonearms sit at the back rather than the right, and the pitch faders face you. It puts the record surface and the crossfader in one continuous working area.
Beat juggling
Beat juggling builds a new rhythm from two copies of the same record by alternating between them, cutting and rewinding each so that bars and beats land in an order the original never had.
Scratch
A scratch is a sound made by moving a record back and forth under the needle while the crossfader or channel fader cuts it in and out. The hand sets the pitch; the fader sets the rhythm.
Orbit scratch
An orbit is any scratch pattern repeated identically on the way back as on the way out, so the fader clicks land symmetrically in both directions. Most commonly it describes a flare performed both ways.
Explore: Phrase counter · Scratch · Phrase · All DJ terms