This is a great article that was recently published on the Rane website.  It's a history of the hamster switch and includes an interview with DJ Quest, who legend has it was the first to coin the term "hamster style".  I wrote a blog about the differences between hamster and regular scratching a couple years ago, which you can check out here.  I used to wonder why there were so many hamster skratchers out there, and if I was missing out on something because I was on the traditional setup - but I don't worry about that anymore.  It all comes down to personal preference in the end. This article isn't about that though, it gets into the history of mixers and how they came to start including a "hamster" switch, and also how the term itself came to be.  Click on the mixer picture to read the article, or just click here!