Origin of Felts
The first slipmats for vinyl turntables (commonly called "slipmats") were marketed and popularized in the context of nightclubs, mainly in the United States in the late 1970s. They were introduced as a replacement for the standard rubber mats that rested on the central platter of turntables. Unlike rubber, slipmats allowed DJs to control and manipulate records much more easily, particularly for mixing but especially for scratching.
The revolutionary Scratch technique was unintentionally created in 1975 by Theodore Livingston, better known as “Grand Wizard Theodore”.
While playing music at home, he moved a vinyl record from front to back while holding it with one hand. He then realized the sound produced by this effect, its possibilities but did not yet know that he had just created a musical movement that remains a major art today.
Recognized as the inventor of Scratch, he will gain credibility and popularity through his mastery of the Needle Drop and other techniques that he invented and perfected.
It was a little later in the community of Hip-Hop DJs in the Bronx in New York that the first slipmats were used in a more creative and spectacular way.
Pioneers of the genre, such as Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler), popularized the use of these accessories for their performances and mixing techniques, as they allowed the vinyl record to be rotated and slid by manipulating it on the central platter of the turntable while it was running. This gave rise to new techniques such as Backspinning .
In the early 2000s, a company born in a Chicago garage would radically propel the return of felt.
One of the major ideas is to allow total control of the mix or scratch by materializing the back of the felt with a thin glazed and enameled film that allows optimal sliding on the central platter. An innovation that is now patented and recognized worldwide.
Since then, these professional felts have become THE REFERENCE in the world of DJing and very popular with audiophiles. They are available in 3 different thicknesses: 0.8mm, 2.0mm and 3.0mm.
