I want to buy serato sl3 but before I dish out 700 dollars I just want to have a piece of mind that I can use it with what I got now. Yes, I do have two technics 1200 which I know will work, but I have a gemini mixer, and denon 2600f. Of course I will eventually upgrade my mixer but just want to know if the SL3 will work with the mixer and the time coded cd will play and read on the denon and will the bpm show on the software. I still want the cd player because I play alot of latin music and dont want to take the 1200's if a gig doesnt require me to take it, you know. It's a older 4 channel (gemini ps-727). My computer is a Toshiba, Vista , 2Duo CPU, Memory RAM 4GB, 64-bit, with 500 gb storage. Knowing this will me bying serat0 SL3 a good idea.

From the gear you list, i would say it should work on all of the above.

The mixer only needs two line inputs to connect to the SL-3.

Do you have other questions?

Nope, I'll go pick one up tommorow, and start my new life with serato, and glad I'm one of you guys now and be an advid follower and prometer for serato.

Actually last question, will all bpm's show up for all my music using serato using cd or vinyl on serato software like vdj does. And will you be able to use vdj with sl3 interface someday?

You can have Scratch Live figure the BPM for you when you Analyze the files. That process is important for multiple reasons. Its also something that will find the bad / corrupt files in your library.

Wuz up chad or serato, check it I baought sl3, for some reason when I play the cd's there is a loud like fax, srceening noise Everything is hooked up right, the song plays but no music comes out just that loud fax noise, please help, using denon2600f

In your set up menu under hardware, change the setting to line instead of phono. Switch it back to phono when using turntables.

ok, my cd player is working fine, now when i turn and switch to phono and put technics on it sound low, distorted and awful, ground is plugged in too, sound like speakers under water, help, thanks.

Where are you switching to phono at? It should be within ssl software

no hes got the sl3. you need to change the dip switch on the unit. thats where you change line to phono. also in the software you have abs/rel/int and under that thru. when thur is pressed you will hear the as you call it fax noice on the mixer untill you press abs or rel or int.

also you may want to install vista sp 2, as i see you have sp1. but this has nothing todo with your help your requested. just letting you know sp2 is out and about now.

I'll try that later, had to go out , how do I put all BPM on all songs on my library.

add all your music to your crates. then with the hardware dissconected. you will se above your crates the analyze button next to that tick the box for bpm then select a bpm range or select none range and press analyze. it will now build all your overviews and fill ing the time and bpm for all your tracks. (if you have alot of files this can take hours even days to complete so just hold tight and let it scan all your files.) after it has finished you will want to look out for any files serato has picked up as currupt.

cheers

bet, thanks woolsy

There have been many questions since i left for the weekend. Do you still have some unanswered questions?

What are they?

Enjoy the software but I'm still a little confused how to put all the bpm's of all the songs in my library. Could you please help, thanks.

What I would do is to re analyze everything and this time have it set the BPM's. To do this, first disconnect the hardware.

Next to the Analyze files tab, you see "Set Auto BPM", put a check mark in that. To the right of it, there is "Range". You need to select a range that the majority of your music will fall inbetween. You don't want to leave it blank or on none, that will not BPM all of your music. Once you have those two things set, click the word ALL in the crate section.

Now all of the music in the library is showing. Click a song so it is highlighted. Press ctrl + A and that will highlight everything in the library. Now drag and drop that onto the Analyze files tab. It will rebuild all of your overviews and also BPM the music.

After a while a problem occurs, i get that that " the application has stopped working and that window will look for the problem" What then? I've done that twice.

When you get that problem. if scratchlive hasnt closed already close it. then goto your my music folder in the my music folder look for scratchlive folder. then you will see a file overviewbuilder open that and scroll to the bottum this is the last song it was analyzing when it crashed. this file is most likly currpt and making scratchlive crash. so reopen scratchlive find that file and try just analyzing that file on its own. does it now crash scratchlive? or does it scan but then show up currupt?

In some cases of really bad files, the overview builder will crash in the process. If you saw which file it was working on while it crashed, great. Open Scratch Live back up and remove it.

If you don't see which file it was working on, you can check your overviewbuilder.log file. It is located - Start / music / ScratchLIVE. Find the file at the bottom of the list and then open Scratch Live and remove it from the library. Proceed again with building the overviews.

OK, I see were it stop and has all of the corupts pretty much in order. I san them individually and get all the information on it then, but the corupt sign still shows up. They play find though, should I still delete them? or you think It will be ok, I not I'm taking a chance. How do you get to put your files on the long bottom screen which has all the information insted on the side that show only the name of the song.

You still need to delete them. Even if they play fie or even if you never play them, they can still cause Scratch Live to crash.

If you only want "song" to be shown in the library window, follow the grey bar that has "song / artist / album" all the way to the right. You will see a grey triangle, click that and you can deselect all of the options that you don't want shown.

on my crate track list how do I put bpm, artist time lenghth?

You can drag and drop them into the position you want or you can deselect and then reselect them in the order you want. To do that, follow the grey bar that says album / artist / comment ect. all the way to the right. Click the grey triangle and you will see those options.

Well ive been doing great with serato so far. Love it. New question is how to I get all my library to be at the same volume without having to do each one. And do you recomend the dns3700, Ive been hearing mixed reviews about it working with serato, I dont know something bout the cd, or go for the pioneers. THANKS

Are your music files all of the same quality or do you have 320, 256, 192 Mp3's?

There are many people who like the Denon unit but I commonly get asked when will they be natively supported. There is no answer for that at this time. I personally like the pioneer 800 or 1000 models. Either way you go, they would work with Scratch Live.

Well they range from 192 to 320. Just dont want to got to each one and raise gain to 2nd yellow which I heard was a good average. Yeah, the problem is that now they have cdj's2000 and theyre 2000 dollars, damn, steep.

A 192mp3 and a 320mp3 at the same Db level will still sound different. Otherwise, I would suggest using "Auto Gain". In this case having mp3's of different quality defeats the purpose.

In your case, simply adjust the gain as you first play the song. Every time after when you load the song, it will load with that adjusted gain setting.

New issue love my sl3 finally gonna get mixer. Im looking at buying a djm 800 for 1000 dollars. But now pioneer is coming out with djm900. Got 1500 saved up what should I do save money and buy a used djm800 or add a little and know I have the industries new standerd mixer. I heard that it it licensed with tractor. Will it affect my set up at all in the future or will they eventually have serato certified djm900. Does that effect sl3 at all. Or save and get the 68.

I don't ever forsee pioneer having a Serato certified mixer.

You will be able to use your Sl-3 with the pioneer mixers. They will still always function as a basic mixer.

So you think I should by the used 800 or buy a new 800 which I know its price will drop now that 900's are coming out or Save a little more and get the new indutsrty standard 900, money not being an issue. P.S. used 800 for a thousand?

Its impossible to get all of your songs at one volume because each song has different musical content.

Before I analyze tracks in SL, I always remove any ID3 tags that have anything to do with gain adjustment.

I do not use the autogain function of SL as I haven't heard the value in it. My guess is it is lowering volume on more tracks than adding gain since most tracks have the proper gain already.

Once you remove all of the gain-related tags, the song is back to the original gain when the file was created.

My recommendation is to use your expensive mixer as intended and use the faders and tone controls with every song. You can use the meters to get a reasonable idea of what the gain is. After that, use your trained ear to determine what (if anything) needs to change regarding volume and equalization.

Thanks but my question is based on which mixer should I go for.

Personally, I like the Allen-Heath XOne 9 series over most others in that price range. Your mixer choice doesn't really have a lot to do with SL unless you purchase a mixer with SL built-in.

Pioneer is a good mixer too and lot of people use them. Allen-Heath has a nicer mic section. Pioneer has better on-board effects and has mostly digital innards. I like the Allen-Heath fader and mostly analog circuitry better than Pioneer.

I like the idea of having more barebones features on a mixer. One of the things I like less about the Allen-Heath is it has that LFO circuitry.

All in all, I would say go to a good music shop that has the various units on display and make your decision from your own perspective.

I rent equipment to some notable djs and nobody has turned down the Allen-Heath mixer. Nobody has demanded a Pioneer over anything else either.

Just cuz its says its not compatable it doesnt mean I cannot use my sl3 right? Serato will work with sl3 box still on the djm900? Will I loose quality on my music library though. Got money for it ready or stay safe and buy djm800, and maybe wait for a certified serato pioneer mixer, if they will ever make one. Opionion please.

When I close serato they always ask me that "Your Scratch Live Library backup on SQ********V01 (C:) is more than one week old. And has a Backup Library were I could put a check but never do and I aways exit? and put yes Should I have to back it up or not. Also I color tag my music but lately when I color tag them when I go back they are not colored and only when you put them on to play is when they show up. I color them to keep my hot tracks together under catagories and go thru to much trouble on doing this over and over again. What do I need to do in order to not have to go thru this thanks, Serato rules.

If you like the way your library and crates look, yes choose to backup?

If your color dots only show when you load them to the deck, try the "rescan ID3 tags" inside of the files tab in Scratch Live. That should get that information to show from the start.

I got alot of music, how often should i save it, and will it use up space on my c drive or just overlap it everytime i back it up. Will be buying a Mac soon good move?, if yes why? Thanks for your quick response

When you tell Scratch Live to back up, it does not back up your music files. It simply backs up the order and way Scratch Live looks with all of its crates, history sessions ect. It will overwrite your previous back up.

I personally recommend MAC's. In my experience, they handle audio and video applications more effiecently than a PC.

ok Chad C like always a great help.

cheers, let me know if you have any other questions.

Looking at some headphones. Considering hdj1000, hdj2000, or axone92, or the sony's. I will be getting a djm900 in the very near future. Thought about selling my sl3 and buying rane xb4 but feel i end up losing more money that way. I remember that the djm900 had issues with headphones other than pioneer and dont want to mess it up.

I've always used the industry standard Sony MDRV 700 headphones. Have been using the same pair for at least 8 years.

No issuse using the mdrv700 with djm 900

Never used that mixer ;)

Thanks for the info

Just bought me a mac its a i7 4ram and 500 gb. Now how do i transfer my music from my other latop to this one. Will I lose quality? And which update do I download. I just bought a pair of dicers, but heard its having issues with new updates. Please give me some feed back.

Reading and find out everyone is having problems with 2.3. How can I download 22 on this new laptop. My mac, don't want to go thru the nightmare there going thru. I have it in my pc, works great want to put it here. Thanks.

do i download the x os installer

Here is a link to all of our previous versions -->serato.com

Are you transferring from a PC to a MAC? Is all of your music stored on the internal HD or do you use an external HD?

On MAC yes you will want to download the osx installer.

Yes all my music is stored in internal HD. How to transfer song?

Are you transferring from a PC to a MAC?

yes I am

On the PC go to - start / music and you will see a _Serato_ folder. You should also see a _Serato_Backup folder.

Take those folders and put them into this location on the MAC - Macintosh HD / users / music. When you open that folder you should immediately see the newly moved _Serato_ and _Serato_Backup folder.

You will then need to transfer your music from one computer to the next. Once done, open Scratch Live on the MAC and open the files tab. Press Rescan ID3 tags and that will make the songs turn pink. Once that process has finished, use the Relocate Lost Files feature. After that finishes you should be ready to go.

You mean scratchlive and scratchlivebackup right? I need to copy those too to a portable HD right? Then to mac right? Thanks for your time Chad.

I downloaded a track from whitelabel, once done it plays it on itunes is that fine or should it not be on itunes. I heard alot of mac owners say let it just organize it with tunes but not let it play there? If so how do you set that up

_Serato_ and ScratchLIVE folder are the same thing, it varies depending on what version you are using.

Whitrlabel tunes play at a low bit rate in any program other than Scratch Live.

Wuz up Chad, so this is what I did. I copied all my scratch live folder and COPIED it to a portable hard drive, then I connected to, then usbed it to my mac and copied pasted it to my music folder on my new mac. Then opened a folder in serato and anaysed it. Its all there and it plays fine. I think its sound 320 bit. The issue Im having is I totally got lost cuz mines didnt turn pink? Did I do something wrong or is it fine. How come everytime I download a white label song as soon as it downloaded it plays on itunes. Is that ok, I heard from people to not let itunes manage your music, true or false. If true how do I stop it from going to my itunes library? Chad thanks for your time again.

If your files didn't turn pink, that is OK and actaully a good thing. If they all play you are good to go there.

If you download a whitelabel tune and it immediately opens in itunes, it's because you have selected that as your default program to open downloaded music. That is o.k. but we recommend you manage the music yourself in your own folders and then manually import into ScratchLive. At Rane tech support we commonly do not advise people to have the Scratch Live library read the itunes library.

OK. Great advice thanks. One more for you for now. I have an external hard drive filled with Latin music all catogarized in their own folder. Like folder for salsa, merengue, etc. I want serato to recognize it when I have it hooked up thru usb, but do I need to also tranfer those files from ext hard drive to my new mac, or can I leave it there and play it thru serato when I open the external hard drive file on serato. Will it have bit rate, and bpms on it?

If you drag music into the program from an external HD, it will write the crate info there. This way when you connect the HD you will see those crates, when it is not connected you won't. If the files are analyzed it will shoe that information.

So I just connected my external hd to my mac it shows its there on my scratch live under music, macintosh hd then it shows my ext hd iomega HDD. So I tried to drag it from there to were crates supposed to be. Left click it to crates, plus green sign there, but it doesnt copy it there. How do I let serato read my ext HDD when its hooked up with all info, then when I take it off, not to worry about it.

When I play song from my ext HDD they are put in the bottom of all my songs when they are all showing with a padlock sign next to it. What does that mean?

The padlock icon means they are read only files. They will not save any new information added or crate placement.

So that mean I have actually copy it to my mac and the create a crate for it? I was hoping to save the space?

You could try and change the files permissions. What format is your external HD that you are using with the MAC?

Are you familiar with cerwin vega cva118. Thinking about getting these powered subs. Any comments on them or suggestions. Looking for the best powered sub that will match my mackies 450's.

i don't have any real world experience with them but I am very familiar with the 450's. if I were you I would start a thread in the DJ discussion area. I'm fairly certain there are some users who have experience with those speakers.