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How Many Have You Crashed And What Was Your Setup At The Time?
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How Many Have You Crashed And What Was Your Setup At The Time?

Dj Shamann 6:51 PM - 3 March, 2007
I was doing a little something at a friends new club last night and was using half rented, half mine because I didn't want to lug all my gear in for a favour jam. DNX 400, DN-S 3500's and my Serato so I was getting questions from people about "all the pretty lights" And this one dude who knows about equipment and is a Serato DJ himself was asking me how many times I've crashed. I said "none" and he said "be honest". Now this isn't the first time I've been met with this reaction and I told him the funny thing was I'm using a borrowed laptop and a release "candidate" (17113)

First of all if I was using my own laptop (haven't been able to pick one up yet) it would be Serato dedicated and that's it. I also use a laptop cooler and before I leave the house I test everything, I'm from the old school and still don't trust this whole digital DJ thing completely so preperation to me is number one. (the times that I didn't have ample preperation time really cost my performance and peace of mind)

I was just wondering what types of set ups people had when they crashed and what types of set ups people who have had rock solid performances were using and how much preperation is involved in either.
Releaux 7:20 PM - 4 March, 2007
I've never crashed with SSL. Currently using

* 15" MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (2.33GHz, stock configuration)
* 500 gig LaCie 7200 RPM external drive (USB2, FireWire 400/800)
* 2x Denon S5000 decks
* Denon X1500 mixer
* SSL 1.7.1

I have my laptop set up with BootCamp so I can hop over to Windows and do my accounting in QuickBooks. I currently have three user accounts on the Mac side of things: one for everyday stuff and graphics work, one for music production, and one for SSL.

When I'm at home I run SSL on my normal account and have never had a hiccup, even when running IM clients and checking email between mixes. When I'm out, though, I run on the DJ only account because I'm paranoid.

My library is currently almost entirely in 128k MP3 because I've been building it since around 1996. Since getting SSL, I've converted my most frequently used tracks to 320k and have started using LAME. I still laugh that I'm working so hard to perfectly reproduce all of Trent Reznor's distortion. :D

Once SSL supports either ALAC or FLAC, I'll probably re-rip my entire library to that... Actually, I'll probably maintain an AIFF disc image library at home and then mass convert to whatever format I'm going to use on site. Only problem with AIFF/WAV is that the tag specification is lacking...

Long-winded answer, but if you've read any of my other posts, you're probably not surprised.
Dj Medley 8:16 PM - 4 March, 2007
I have an upgraded Powerbook G4 and I've had several crashes. Whenever I try to play two songs off a CD without dragging them to my desktop first, it crashes Serato. I haven't tried doing it since 1.5 so maybe the issue is fixed but I don't want to find out. I've had it crash maybe one or two more times with other issues, probably due to a corrupt/improperly coded files. My system is dedicated to Serato, I use an external hard drive as well. Lots of free space.
SYK39 8:33 PM - 4 March, 2007
I havent crashed since 1.6.3, thats why I am so nervouse about upgrading to the newest SSL
Releaux 7:05 PM - 5 March, 2007
SYK, set up a new user account to test out 1.7.1. If you use an external drive, move a subset of tracks over to the user account to keep the SSL files separate.

On the one hand, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If 1.6.3 does what you need it to do, there's no reason to upgrade. If, on the other hand, you want some of the new features, take a week or two and stress test it in a new user account to see if you're going to have any problems.
DeezNotes 7:21 PM - 5 March, 2007
I made 1.7.1 crash very recently. Not live... at home with my USB powered M-Audio interface plugged in while running WaveLab recording my set (on the same machine running SSL) with my powered USB drive plugged in (3 USB powered devices total).

Everything was going fine until I did a super-long-super-fast backspin. SSL froze and just blue screened. I don't have problems when the USB audio interface isn't plugged in. That thing introduces a little bit of instability when everything is running at once.

Other than that... no problems in a LONG time.
ral 7:32 PM - 6 March, 2007
i've crashed SSL @ home, the whole lappy just shut off without warning. i guess its overheating. using pentium 4.
djivanlopez.com 7:44 PM - 6 March, 2007
Quote:
i've crashed SSL @ home, the whole lappy just shut off without warning. i guess its overheating. using pentium 4.


I've just recently cam across this problem, but I'm not sure that it was SSL related. I thought it was since the restart without warning didn't start happening until I upgraded to 1.7.1.

So, I restored to the original default settings (erased everything from the C drive), but the problem persisted. I'll be taking it in to Fry's for them to do a diagnostic's test on it and I'll keep you guys posted.

Again, always back up everything, you just never know when you're going to problems.