whats your mbpro specs?

whats your usb buffer? enabled pitch n time? vsl/me? controller or timecode?

2.2 i7 60 gig solid state drive 8 gigs of ram

buffer set @ 2 no PnT VSL on a ddj sx ddj sr & vci 380, never one single issue

i also sold one of these to a fried he uses it every week with serato dj no problems, the cpu usage bar never passes the halfway point
en.wikipedia.org

now try the other stuff you haven't tried and report back

i don't have PnT or ME, i haven't been giging with my turntables at all since i got the ddj sx so there will be no further reports..all is well with serato dj for me no complaints

and i admit this thread is stupid, i had a few drinks yesterday…..i don't remember but i was reading someone complain yet again about SDJ

/thread

nm

I use Serato Dj every weekend for the last 2 years on a 2.9ghz 8 gig of ram nvidia 750 m Video Card with 1 gig of Vram Running Mixemergency and i've had a couple hiccups but after upgrading software to the latest version all my issues have gone away, most of the issues people are having come from not having enough Computer to handle Serato... it is very processor intensive more so than SSL by a long shot.

i got mbpro 2.3ghz i7 quadcore retina 16gb ram 2gb vram

usb buffer 1 / me mp4 files / pitch n time / itunes / controller - sdj crashed hard
(filed a report and no specific answer from serato whats the cause)

now, i removed itunes (get rid of that long path filenames), disable pitch n time, usb buffer 2, turntables / rane 62 / latest sdj (bluetooth/wifi off) , no problem so far
(Total Unmasked Dropouts: 1 from the dropoutcount.log)

i don't use iTunes

Don't you guys dare blame iTunes. iTunes isn't the culprit, it's SDJ as it can't handle long path names. Oddly enough though, SSL could.

I still use iTunes, all I did was pull out all the songs out of their folders. Now every single song has the short path

/iTunes/File Name

nm

@6



Would you mind describing how to do this? Is it a long process? Thanks.

-D

Nah. It's super easy. Just do a search in the location you have your iTunes files for MP3 and drag all the files to the main iTunes folder. Then do the same for MP4 or any other formats if you do video.

After you do that, delete all the songs from iTunes making sure you don't delete the actual files then drop that iTunes folder or add that iTunes folder with all your modified files into iTunes so it knows the location of the new files.

nm

@6 Thanks dude. Will bookmark and try not to fuck this up when the time comes.

-D

6 What version of iTunes are you on?

Latest one whatever that is.

nm

Hmmm... I may be missing something here, but wouldn't it be easier to just open Itunes, go to "songs", select all and drag the whole thing into a new folder (essentially copying everything into the new folder), then replace the old Itunes folder with that one?

(granted, if you have, like, 6 terabytes of music or something that may be easier said than done).

This is why I chose this method. nm

I assume the "date added" changes to the current date when you do that?

my file path goes as follows

music/hip hop/jay z/the blueprint/files

all my music/video is organized this way buy genre artist & albums, i don't know if thats considered a long file path, but again i don't have any problems

this is the standard itunes filepath i think , its not much long but it slowing down serato
Serato need very quickpaths for best performance

Does this screw up any iTunes playlists you may have?

Yes. This will basically start your library over. So, make sure you add codes to every single playlist you may have and make them into smart playlists.

Also, date added will change.

nm

Mac or PC Serato DJ still sucks for some people. So the "Mac & PC" debate is all BS

Okay, well this is a solution but Serato... please fix this long-filepath issue debacle.

Another question... you said:

Prior to adding the iTunes folders full of modified music files, don't you have to turn off some iTunes setting which keeps music organized? I don't have my laptop with me so I don't exactly remember what it's called. I thought when iTunes keeps music organized, it nestles the mp3 file within folders and subfolders based on artist name, album, etc.

whats your usb buffer sixxx? have you tried pitch n time ? me / vsl???

just learning whats the best settings

Ah yes. Good call. You don't want iTunes to once again put everything in folder. Good call.

nm

I will check what my USB buffer is later today and post it. I havent tried pitch n time because of the complaints. I use ME and also use Flip.

nm

Can you explain this part a bit more. Are you deleting from within Itunes or from within the itunes folder? Do you also delete all the playlists as well?

seems like this

………drunk rant……….

of a post i made is actually turning out to be something useful to some :)

You're basically just deleting the files from within iTunes as it won't know where they are once you get them out of the folders.

Make sure you don't send the files to the trash. Just delete the files.

If you're worried about playlists you have, you can add a code in the comments section or any field that is free that way you can make them easily once you drag all the files back into the iTunes application.

nm

you can also export your playlist .

Correct. If you ad codes though, you won't have to manually do a lot of work. You can reimport your music rhen create smart playlists.


nm

not using pnt and a controller isnt really saying much about the overall stability of sdj.

i haven't had any major problems using a 900SRT and SDJ, using PNT and 1200s but i cant get under 5ms on the buffer(SSL was 1) with a 2.5 i5 and 16gb ram. Midi mapping has improved in 1.72 but is still not up to SSL levels.

bottom line is that SDJ still isnt at the working level of SSL. It has more bells an whistles, and im sure its fine for controllers and not using any plugs or dvs, but then at that point, why not use SSL.

SDJ is def getting better, but it will be nice when its at the functioning level of SSl with all plug ins an dvs.

The funniest thing about SDJ to me when when I see an update and it says now supporting such and such controller and nothing else fixed.

Yeah. Not upgrading.

nm

^^^ 6, are you not on Serato Dj

Has anyone encountered issues when using dvs after a while of playing 45-60 min range where the movements done on vinyl have a huge delay on the track, i havent bothered with SDJ because of this, and also because SSL just works.

in Mac's terminal:

find /music -name "*.mp3" -type file -exec cp {} /destination_dir \;

I am. I have no choice. I have a 64.

nm

I have. The unofficial fix is to change the buffer and change it back to its original location and it fixes the issue.

nm

Another revival of this thread but I am finally getting down to transferring files over and starting from scratch.

6…in your older thread about crate organization you stated that you allow iTunes to organize your files but in this thread you recommend turning off that option. So I can transfer all my files into one big folder. The problem I am running into is that if I transferred over all my music and imported them, but later if I stumble upon any old files they will have their original date in the tag. If I add these to my iTunes crate they will go by the date in their tag rather than a date added to the crate. I then have to locate each track individually to load into iTunes.

Just curious what yr is your computer? It seems to do fine with recent new computers not so much older machines.

A note on this, i let itunes keep my files organised, never had a problem with long pathnames.

Itunes stores them artist/album/track name, if you copy all the files into the same folder, wouldn't there be conflicts if 2 or more tracks have the same track name?

Also be aware of metadata, with mp3 and aiff, track names, artist etc are stored in the metadata, but some other formats like .wav don't have metadata, and you may lose the information, as it is stored by itunes instead.

2011 15" & 2012 13"

never had one single issue or crash since i stared using serato dj

Of the 2011 & 2012 machines, which do you prefer? I am thinking of getting rid of my 2011 15" 2.0GHz i7 (quad-core), and replacing it w' the 2012 13" 2.9GHz i7 (dual-core). The GPU failures on the 2011 models has be super anxious. But, I just don't know if I want to invest over two G's in a MBP again. That's why I was thinking of getting the 2012 13" as it's MUCH cheaper.

The real question I have.... is the 13" real estate manageable w' SDJ?

i use them booth and have no preference, the 15" when doing video the 13" when not doing video

Thanks, that helps. I'm not into Video.

Just a heads up. I have 4 MBP's and in all honesty I enjoy using my 2012 13" 2.9 I7 more than the rest. I actually got two of them because of this. One is stock (8 GB RAM & 750 GB HDD) while the other is now 16 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD.

This machine has been solid beyond belief and the size/feel just can't be beat IMO. Sometimes I swear whoever designed SDJ used this laptop. I see some horror stories around here. Some CAN be attributed to user error some, under spec's, and some are mysteries. Of the few times it was SDJ to blame it never affected my MBP's beyond small bugs and there has (knock on wood) ALWAYS been a workaround of sorts.

while I am on the fence with Serato I will be more selectable with what I do/don't post in the future I can still say the stability is still not one of my issues with them. I wish other aspects were as solid.

Anyways just wanted to chime in and give a "go for it" nod for whatever that is worth.

i should have mentioned that when i get a new mac the first thing i do is pull out the stock hard drive & ram……..i always add a solid state & up the ram

Yeah, I have 16GBs of RAM, and 2TB (Raid 0) SSDs. I will be placing these same components into the replacement Mac. I think I'm just gonna go w' the 2012, 2.9GHz i7, Dual Core 13". I don't want to be one of the victims of the GPU failure from my 2011 MBP. Better to sell it now when I know it works well, so as to avoid the possibility of not being able to sell it at all.

Besides, if an XDJ-RZ ends up coming out, I may not need a laptop at all anymore. No need in spending loads of cash on another 15" MBP.

You know the exact difference between my 2012 dual core 2.9GHZ 13" and my 2013 quad core 15"ers? ............... 2 ms (for 13"ers) and 1 ms (for the 15"ers)............ to me that is not much of a difference. I truly mean I use my 2.9 every day while I use the 15"s every other weekend (I alternate) unless testing during the week is necessary (due to new version or feature).

Is the 23" capable of running PnT without any hiccups?

*13"

Literally ALL expansions except Serato Video for the 13"s. I keep Serato video for the 15"s but I have tested video with the 13"s and no reported problems. With HD the processor goes a bit high but it still works. I am not certain I do enough with video (as I am a DJ) to put any serious strain anyways though.


PnT
Flip
All FX packs
DVS


All no problem!!

what is your usb buffer?

He said he keeps it at 2 milliseconds.

Quite impressive for a dualcore. Yeah, I'm pretty positive that's what I'm going to go with.

Thanks, Dave.

I use Serato DJ on my 2013 macbook pro with no problems. Some things though, I cannot use USB buffer at 1, I will get heavy dropouts. Usb at 2 is worry free. Screen updates at full 60. I however cannot use pitch and time, which I bought. Pitch in time is so good. To get it to work I have to set my usb buffer all the way to the right and screen updates to its slowest otherwise I get the crackling sound and usb light.

Serato DJ has a lot of cool features, but it takes up way more processor power than the old scratch live. I cannot wait to upgrade my macbook pro so I can use pitch in time without any adjustments in my settings.

Is it a quad core I7? Like I said I can on the quad cores but the dual core's can only get 2 ms and all four are I7's.
Mine does but I do not notice big difference with lower settings so I pretty much set it until I notice a change trying to lower the load.

One thing we learned from the PS4 / XBone debate is that 60 FPS (which is pretty much what updates are) is not even able to be picked up b the human eye and 30 FPS is supposedly the area of the cap anyways. Like I said I go until I notice a difference than raise it a bit higher.

Correct but in all fairness we need to flip that sentence around. Becuase Serato DJ has a lot of cool features it takes up way more processor power than the old SSL.

Is your (select) 13" the 2.9GHz or 2.5GHz model?

@deejdave

do you even scratch?

i don't believe you can go down 2ms in serato dj with plugins enabled

I di9dn;t even seen him mention the size. In another post maybe?

I scratch a little. Of course you can go to 2 ms with plugins enabled. This wasn't possible pre SDJ 1.7 due to the hyperactive CPU overload warning but ever since then not problem.

Just as a disclosure in order to test I run everything at once (all applicable expansions) with as much FX and moving the hell out of the platter as I do not scratch too much in normal play being a dance music mostly DJ. I thought I had a video showing but I only have a video of me doing the drop to cue points using TT's in DVS because somebody didn't believe me that it worked fine LOL. Never heard back from that guy haha.


But yeah 2 ms ALL day with just my dual core I7. Again the year makes a BIG difference so take note to that. In other words a dual core 3.0 GHZ (if there even was one) MacBook Pro from 2010 is NOWHERE near the performance of a 2.9 GHZ dual core from 2013. I know peeps are quick to see the numbers in front of the processor and if it is high all is good........................ not the case. I doubt there is an exact science and it IS possible to have great results with an older MacBook Pro BUT if you search the forums you will see a much higher frequency of issues with individuals running 2010/2011 laptops.


Also keep in mind Pitch N Time requires an I5 minimum processor so anything other than an I5 or I7 is actually below minimum or not supported. That being said I would not be daring enough to try PNT with an I5 processor MacBook Pro.

Lastly keep in mind again I have not done much with Video other than testing to see if things work or can be handled.

@ Ral what are your specs including year, size, processor, RAM and HDD/SSD?

got yosemite / mbpro 2.5ghz quadcore i7 / 16 gb/ 500 gb ssd

**haven't tried serato dj 1.7.3 yet

Wat year?

I also notice another difference. The OS. I try to keep my main performance machine behind a little with the OS> My main quad core is Mav's. The Dual core 2.9 (which I get 2 ms no problem is still Mountail ion if you can believe that.

I don't use any of my Mac's for my day to day stuff so the newest OS is not an issue there. I do have ONE of my MBP's with Yosemite just because it seemed like a neat release with some of the new iOS features.

Also did ALL of the recommended optimizing tweaks and keep minimum apps on them. I use them for music only though as you hear from time to time how this or that is messing with this or that. For example recently the facebook messenger app was causing issues within SDJ.


Keep in mind though I am not telling you what to do or not to do. Simply stating what I do is all but who am I to say whats best LOL.

Actually, my macbook pro is a late 2011 model.
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5

I scratch and juggle all day with serato DJ, no problems.

But once you turn on Pitch N Time things get hairy am I correct?

It absolutely works, but I get this weird crackling sound randomly from time to time. I cant play out like that. The fix is to adjust my settings to a point I dont like. Otherwise Serato DJ works flawlessly without pitch and time. I play out with it and have no issues.

That crackling is whats just before the cpu gets overloaded, just before dropouts. You can combat it by keeping the laptop cooler. I get that on mine when running video stuff as well as pitch'n'time. I use smc fan control to keep it under control, as well as making sure all unneeded process are turned off, and scaling the resolution down.

Great app
And great advice as well as all other optimizations. I am assuming most here (including SELECT) already did them anyways though.
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