Serato Software Feature Suggestions

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Mixtrack Edge Jog Wheel Fix

DCal 1:55 PM - 6 July, 2015
As a precursor, let me say that I've been DJing for 6 years and normally use Scratch Live with Vinyl or CDJs for my weekend sets. That being said, I was very excited about using the Numark Mixtrack Edge as a travel controller or a quick setup for putting together playlists while sitting around my living room.

After purchasing the controller for use with SDJ and running it through the paces, I've found some serious issues with the controller's functionality in SDJ, and I decided to post my findings in the hopes of either warning people about these issues before they purchase the controller or (hopefully) helping make some changes to get this controller to function better for people who bought it for the same reasons I did. I'll admit I'm not sure whether these issues need to be resolved by Serato or Numark so I'll be posting this on both sites.

Without further ado, here are the issues I've found so far:

1. No pitch bend/nudge:
This is my biggest gripe. I prefer manual beat matching because I use a lot of older music that wasn't made with a digital metronome. As such, beat grids and the sync button won't work for my type of sets, so I never bothered setting them in Scratch Live or SDJ and I don't intend to. All the ads I read for this indicated there was a nudge function and I was disappointed to find that there actually isn't. Without it, this controller is basically unusable for the kind of sets I like to put together.

Based on a suggestion from a Numark rep, I tried the "scratch" button in an attempt to nudge that way. Unfortunately it's not really functional as a nudge option. As soon as you move the platter in either direction it stops the track momentarily, thereby A) causing dead air in the mix and B) making nudging into the incoming track nearly impossible.

More importantly, pressing two buttons to get to nudge is not really feasible, as nudges need to be done quickly to maintain the manual sync between the two songs - particularly when one song was made with live instruments.

This controller came packed with Virtual DJ LE, and the mapping and functionality for that software works almost flawlessly (I would strongly recommend that Serato look to that software before releasing the next update to the Edge's support for SDJ). The most notable function is that, with the "Pitch" button engaged, the jogs' default function is to nudge. You have to HOLD the "Pitch" button and move the jogs to change the pitch. That's the functionality I was led to believe the jogs would have in SDJ and it seems to make a lot more sense within the workflow of actual DJing.

2. The jogs are way too sensitive
Manual beat matching is nearly impossible because the jogs are way too sensitive for pitch adjustment. The same goes for cue/mix. I'm constantly overrunning my target on both, even when barely moving the jogs at all. Worst of all, there is no way to change the sensitivity. Oddly enough, the sensitivity seems to works fine for browsing and scratching.

3. Scratching Delay
I made mention of this in my point #1 above, but it applies here as well. If you are in "Scratch" mode and want to use the end of the scratch to start the track, or to use that to simulate the "drop in" function on turntables or CDJs, there is a millisecond delay before the track starts playing again that makes hitting a transient in time almost impossible.

4. "FX" button changes jog wheel function.
Normally when I prep a new track, I get the pitch in place first, scratch in a new track, then use nudge to correct any mistiming I've done. Unfortunately in the Edge's current setup, to get to the "Scratch" function, you have to hit the FX button, which automatically changes the jog function from "Pitch" to (inexplicably) "Cue Mix".

Under the current setup, if the functionality of the jogs is changed per my suggestion in #1 above, and you miss your timing on the scratch in, you will have to hit "Pitch" again before you can nudge the track back into the right timing, wasting a precious few arrhythmic seconds in your mix.

I made a request for a fix on these issues a few builds ago and received some feedback that led me to believe they would be addressed, but here we are a year later and virtually nothing has changed on the Edge. So I'm reposting this issue in the hopes that I won't have to finally sell this controller and find something that works better for my needs.

Thanks.
Davideon 5:09 PM - 6 July, 2015
Buy a better controller.
DCal 5:42 PM - 6 July, 2015
I have three controllers I use for professional gigs. If you know of another controller that is as small and portable as this one that is compatible with Serato, I'm all ears.