Who is behind it ?
My name is Lauris HONORE. I am French, born in 1983 and I live in the south of France (If you come by, hit me up!).
I am an industrisl designer by day but also a self-taught graphic designer (as I had no means to pay someone to do my mixtape covers back in the day) These two skills have given me the tools (Conception, 3D, 2D...) to create the 7" Portable Scratcher aka #7PS.
I have also been deejaying for more than 20 years and even if I no longer regulary practice as my life has gotten busy... I still enjoy scratching from time to time.
The story of the 7" Portable Scratcher
Back in summer of 2015 while bored at work, I decided to try to design my ideal 7" portable scratch setup. Using Photoshop, I made this design and called it the 7" Portable Scratcher.
I shared with my old DJ partener who got quite excited. And if he was it meant that I should maybe take this idea a bit more seriously.
Back home, I decided to try making a 3D draft and a render, again just for fun and ended up with a second design.
Next came an event that would change the history of the #7PS. After few days of vacation in Barcelona, I had to go back in France due to a kidney stone seizure. After the operation and few days at the hospital I went back home where days later I had an infection... and had to go back to the goddamn hospital again.
While I was stuck in bed for days, I spent my time playing games and surfing the web. I soon saw on FB that the DMC final was being held one month later in London. Armed with the early design, I impulsively decided to go and see what would happen.
I then prepared a poster with a barely finished design, created a Facebook page, an Instagram account and I took my wife and best friends to London.
What was meant to be a simple design turned into something else much bigger...
Well, what happened next was quite crazy. Besides all the excited reactions I had from everyone I discussed with during the DMC, the scratch community showed so much interest that in 24 hours I had around 1000 subscribers after only one day !!! From a simple design that was unbelievable. It might not seem much but I wasn't expecting that much support. Then, the biggest honor of them all: an article the next day on DJ WORX blog! As a long-term reader (back when it was called Skratchworx) you cannot imagine the honor.
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With all that enthusiasm and positive reaction from the DMC crowd, I knew I had to continue but at the same time I didn't know how. But I decided to pursue this "adventure" anyways and try to build a working prototype and this is where the hard part started.
As I progressed and kept everyone updated on the developments, the comments, questions, and criticism kept pouring in. It was all fine until the day I realized that I had to stop sharing so much online... So I continued alone for some time before creating a private page with some of you that fully supported me (Shoutout to the #7PS Dev Team!)
My personnal challenge was not to build a simple prototype, but to design one that was manufacture-ready (mold, OEM parts... in mind). I learned so many things that was not only technical but mentally helped me. However, I couldn't get the electronics down even after working on it for what felt like years. .
After many attempts and trials with the wrong people, I found Andy "The Rasteri", the PERFECT guy for this kind of project. We exchanged for month to find the best of the best solutions for the #7PS.
Along with working with the right people, I also had to buy a 3D printer to start prototyping parts. It wasn't perfect, as for example when I had to print it in pieces and not as one whole part but it gave me the perfect glimpse of the dimensions and more importantly, I was able to hold it physically. Again it wasn't 100% perfect but I started showing it around and gather even more feedback.
After having several discussions with the first (non-working) prototype, I decided to redesign EVERYTHING from scratch again, to make it less expensive to produce and potentially more affordable. It took some time and at some point I needed financial support to make the second working prototype, so I created a GoFundMe campaign (which I was initially against) to ask for some help.
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57 of you who gave 1200
1200 like the beloved MK2. Is that a sign ?
After months of work, I started to have the parts made from different manufacturing companies (SLS printing, laser cut, CNC machining...).
I also spent a lot of time developing the #7PS tonearm and as you can see, I had plenty of prototypes :-). They all look the same but only one works properly.
When I finally assembled everything together, I had this amazing feeling of pride, satisfaction, and amazement :
It was amazing to have it assembled but it was still an empty shell with no electronic inside and thus nothing was working yet. I sent the empty shell to Andy who implemented the PCBs and put some magic to make it work. During that time I was like a child waiting for Santa Claus. Andy, in the meanwhile, kindly sent me this video to give me my first real taste of the #7PS:
Andy, if only you had monetized this video on YouTube, you would have been rich just because of me.
What came next was just... A dream !
I traveled a bit, first to meet Andy "The Ratseri" for the first time in person and what better than to do it at DJ WORX's HQ. Then I met DJs that would have never came to my little corner of the world. They showed the #7PS so much love and even more after having tried it.
Few names (sorry for those I forget) : VaZee, DJ IQ, Kodak Visuals, DJ Manipulate, FongFong, DJ Skillz, Toltech, DJ Angelo, Jose Rodriguez, DJ Robert Smith, Captain Crunch, Mark Settle, JFB, Dubba Dutch, Djackulate, Chmielix, DJ Chell, Jimmy Penguin, DJ Fooders, Mojaxx... And I hope more to come but mostly YOU !
So, now what?
Now, I have to find a brand, company, or investors who could provide the knowledge and the funding to make the #7PS a quality product in a way that I won't be able to alone. I don't want to sacrifice the quality or fucked up the next steps, that's why I need expertise from the right people.
Last but not least (I repeat myself again and again), I have a full time job, a wife, a life and a soon to be born baby girl so I won't do the production/marketing side by myself even if I'd like to. I hope you can understand my decisions and I appreciate everyone's patience so far.
So I need YOUR help to make this project into a reality. Let's do this together!
With love and respect,
Lauris Honore
