A hard drive hack for turntablists

Whether you're a budding mix-master banned from touching your mom's old LPs, or a full-fledged master of the cross-fade looking to get some bodies movin', you need a turntable of some sort. Sure, a couple Benjamins will get you into a decent setup, or you could also make do with a webcam and a flat surface, but, if you're looking for something with a smooth feel on the cheap, the solution is the hard drive sitting in your closet that's too small even for backup duty. A group of students at universities in the UK, Austria, and New Zealand all worked together to come up with a homebrew digital DJ interface, and the above HDD-cum-turntable sits at the center. The weight of the disk plus the quality of its bearings won the crew over, and with "a few op amps, resistors and a programmable microcontroller of some kind" you too can be mixing in no time. Full instructions are at the read link, and check out the video below for a little platter-scratchin', oscilloscope-watchin', "wicky wicky" action.

[Via Hack A Day]

engadget.com

Wiimote trackball mod probably won't improve your Golden Tee score

The folks at Acid Mods refuse to leave their Wiimotes alone. We thought the rapid fire switch was useful (if bloodthirsty) enough, but the trackball has a certain retro charm that all too often gets lost in these days of high body counts. This time they've modded in a trackball, which functions as D-pad and A button -- placing them both under your thumb at the same time -- for easier game play and convenient web browsing. Installation requires some soldering and sanding, and of course you'll have to crack the controller open (pretty typical for a mod of this type). An order page and instructions for adding the trackball to other various controllers (including PSP, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 and PS3) should be available in the not too distant future -- in the meantime, we've provided a dynamic action video of the trackball after the break.

[Thanks, Mark]

engadget.com