this output issue is (so far) a huge disappointment regarding twitch,
i was really not expecting novation (or any manufacturer of new itch hardware) to make the error of having such a low output after all the complains about vestax vci 300 mk1 output…
(in all fairness i dont even understand how no one at serato noticed this and informed novation)

as workaround, i am currently considering using my audio card in standalone just as amplifier between twitch and mixer / speaker

^^^ Exactly. I, and few others I know actually had to get rid of the VCI-300 all together because of the poor output. Can't believe Serato and/or Novation would make this same flippin' mistake considering what a huge issue it was... so much in fact that Vestax wound up needing to produce a whole new unit to correct it.

Your workaround might work, but IMO defeats the whole purpose of having a compact, portable "all-in-one" single unit controller solution. That was one of the major appeals of this unit (or so I thought :-(

Someone from Serato/Novation please respond.

I have always thought a master output setup choice page would be great to be able to control the master volumer and limter volume / headroom all together.

Will someone from Serato/Novation please respond.

Need to decide if I'm ditching this unit or not.

Thanks.

dont hold your breath for any serious serato response, besides some mod chiming in and starts to argument against any problems you report, even regrading the most standard features...

sometimes it just seems they prefer to waste resources with dumbed down posts instead of really providing some response to users feedback, as widespread as it may be

kinda sucks that your output is no better than the mk1 VCI 300. Ouch playing the VCI 300 was ok for home use take it to the club HA good luck hearing your mix.

Hi [O/][iii][O/].

There are reasons why the output is low on Twitch.

USB power: there is only a limited amount of power that a USB cable can send to a unit, and as such, this means that some primary USB powered devices such as Twitch or the VCI-300 have lower outputs than mains-powered devices such as the NS7.

Also the amount of LED lights draws considerable power. So to have the visual interaction of the device, the output volume needed to be lower than if it had no lights etc.

We're not intentionally trying to limit the volume for the user, but had to work within the constraints of modern technological USB standards.

kinda sucks?

better to say it was completely avoidable if any there was any self-respect in this industry or care for the users...
the problems you mention about vci have been corrected (sort of...) on mk2 released one year before twitch!
anybody that tried a pre production unit noticed this problem for sure, either no one cared to report it (i would not be surprised) or they did and no one cared to take to fix the problem (i would be even less surprised)...

matt, i am sorry if i sound harsh, but none of the reasons you presented justify a sub par output (even lower than a previously reported sub par output that has been sort of corrected since then)

if there are problems with usb power then dont use usb power! it is that simple, really...
why should users be forced to live with a crappy output, this is such an important issue that makes no sense to compromise on it...

in any case, personally speaking, i highly doubt the problem is usb power, as an old vci 300 mk1 is louder than twitch on usb power, this for me alone is just simple proof this argument is not valid

also when i tried a s4 for couple of weeks and compared its output with vci mk1 i did try using the s4 both on usb power and ac power and could never find any difference in sound at all, just on leds/display brightness
so, if a s4 is able to keep same output when using usb power i dont really understand all this usb power arguments regarding sound...
not to mention even an ...

history repeats itself...

Thanks for the reply Matt, but I have a HUGE issue with your answer. If the output of Twitch is hobbled because it doesn't have enough power via just the USB, and this handicapped limitation was known eons ago with the VCI-300 MK1 (hence the MK2), then why on God's green earth would you guys go and develop yet another controller with the same damn handicap by not including a simple port for plugging in a power supply? This makes absolutely zero sense — especially since all the complaints from customers on the VCI-300MK1! This isn't a constraint as you say, rather a choice to take shortcuts and make a subpar product, pissing everyone off in the process. When is Serato ever going to get serious about the professional DJ market in regards to ITCH? Or is ITCH viewed by Serato as just for home/hobbyist use. Tell my know so I can stop wasting my time and money.

not to mention that according to novation
(www.novationmusic.com)
twitch is advertised as having:
"Professional, high level outputs which eliminate hum and noise"
even though according to matt they
"had to work within the constraints of modern technological USB standards"
(wich do not seem to be really set in stone as older vci mk1 units with reported low levels have higher outputs than brand new twitch)

+1


That's not a fair statement because it is not based on a fair comparison. The amount (and type) of LED's between both units are different. Plus the sensors are very different.

maybe it is not entirely fair (that is why i started by stating i was just "personally speaking")
in any case the units are really not that different (the number of leds is really not that different between both units), besides the fact that one has jogs (with leds!) and the other has touchstrips (wich we dont even know if need more or less power than the vci jogs) they do sort of provide similar functionality in all aspects and even have same amount of audio io, so it is also not a completely unfair comparison, is it ?

That's the point.

I had to completely unplug Twitch and switch to CDJs last night at gig because output from Twitch was so low. Had volume turned all the way up on Twitch, limiter light on Twitch was flickering, input gain on outboard Rane mixer was maxed-out and it still sounded nowhere near as healthy as CDJ and SSL connected to it. Frustrating and embarrassing. Novation, PLEASE RESPOND and ADDRESS THIS.

novation are not going to do anything about it now, they already did what they had to do, ruin any possibilities for success for this product

serato has also chimed in to let us know that the low audio output is not a bug but the result of design decision so i am afraid the only possible response is on our part to return the units if they are not working as expected (and never will) and look for alternatives

as far as i am concerned i guess i should never had considered anything else than the already industry standard s4, i dont care that much about the software i use as long as it works and i can get its gui uncluttered, wich i can in t2 to some extent
my reason was that i was looking for something a little smaller and portable, maybe i will bite the bullet in october with the today announced s2 as it does not seem like we will see much changes on itchland controllers (not going back to vci's as i still have my mk1 + vfx1 for sale, ns7 / v7 are too damn big, ns6 does not even have vu meters, xone dx might be the only decent option for now but it never appealed to me and for long time there seemed to be some issues with it for some users)

Hey guys.

I'm not giving an 'excuse' but a reason.

We don't intentionally try to piss off users in any way. There are financial considerations and business considerations when developing a product. A product at the lower end of the market won't have the same functionality as ones at the top end. This is because there will be some design and engineering decisions made to try and cut costs, so that you, the user, gets a cheaper product.

I wasn't part of the team making those design decisions, that would be Novation. Please feel free to contact their team and discuss this in person - companies always take on constructive feedback, as the user pays their bills, so it'd be pretty stupid to ignore it.

I am only assuming that in this case, they opted for USB power because it was vastly cheaper for an end user, and that the target market from the research they did, didn't see lower output as a hinderance.

Remember, most people won't be going directly into powered speakers with this, there sill most of the time be some other gain stage that is mains powered to amplify the signal if needed (ie. pretty much any club or bar or sound system, or the vast majority of home systems).

It's not an excuse, but a limitation of technology.

This will change when technology gets companies the ability to deliver more power to devices that aren't mains powered, but this type of decision is set by standards committees that are industry wide, and there's probably no way that even if all the DJ companies in the world combined, we'd be able to sway some opinions, as much as we'd all love to.

Sorry if this sounds like passing the buck, but we can't change physics and we can't change economic behavior.

@matt: as you can see not even when going thru a professional mixer twitch is able to provide adequate output, regarding powered speakers most ppl will probably use them at their home (in this case enjoying an output that might even be lower than built in laptop headphone jacks)

you seem to imply that serato has no saying or participation in the approval of hardware a company like novation prepares to use, branded and marketed specifically with your software, to the point of allowing such low standards products being released at the cost of users that trust your brand
is it really like that ?
i suppose this is the result of having one brand making the software and a different one making the hardware, they have to really work together and share info (like past problems that users massively complained about) otherwise if any problem arises one will tend to blame the other
basically it ruins the whole marketed advantage of these integrated products



i though it was cheaper because it ditched more expensive components like jog wheels, not that it had compromised on audio while still advertised as having:

(www.novationmusic.com)

i dont get it, isnt this what they call false advertising plain and simple ?
i mean, the low output is a measurable characteristic...

please dont try to sell us the idea that it is not possible to get higher audio output from usb powered controllers, as twitch basically broke the record of being the lowest one (when compared to all the other itch controllers and competition products like kontrol s4 all on usb power)

as far as i am concerned this issue is quite simple and demonstrates a sad state in this industry:
if novation could not build a industry standard product then maybe you should have not endorsed it, but you did and now user are complaing, this is hardly surprising...
if serato does / did not follow up on hardware development or demands specific requirements to be met, then probably it should start to think about it,
i can understand maybe in the past you only dealt with a couple of reliable brands and maybe everything could work seamlessly but now you are opening the twitch platform to more brands and it is obvious some sort of regulation needs to be enforced if you expect to keep users trust in the itch brand

I would've gladly paid whatever it would've cost more for Novation to have added a power supply so the damn thing would be usable. Now it's just an expensive paperweight/toy. So disappointed and pissed now. Feel like I've got "SUCKER" stamped across my forehead. Losing faith in this whole ITCH thing fast for professional use.

Twitch must be recall and correct this error, is the best thing to Novation do if they dont want their equipament became a total disgrace on the market, in Brazil this equipament don't came yet, but i guarantee that now knowing about this information, a lot of users dont will buy this equipament here !

It will became like a very expansive equipament here beacuse our brazilian taxes, but most of us buy the equipament properly meets with their functions even with the highste prices they became in Brazil, but now knowing about this information i think this will be a total FIASCO in Brazil !

Im doing a lot of research and talkin about with the people who import this equipaments from Brazil, and everybody is very worth compensate import this equipament to sell here, im decide not buy this equipament and maybe move for use Traktor, a lot os users will do that but all have the pacience to say that here.... but i have, so shaaaaaaaame if Novation/Serato do not take a attitude and FAST, about this shame...

Im talkin with Lopazz on facebook right now about this problem, everybody now him work with twitckh some times and Serato/Novation make a video about that, thats are Lopazz's words

"
12:32
i told the novation guys many times...i only have a pre-release -model...they said at the end it will be louder...we have to wait what comes with a software update...
i never use twitch without a mixer...always with a mixer...

"
Even a big Dj who test the equipament for you Novation/Serato compleined about this problem with lower output, and you do nothing about that, you say to the man that the would be much louder, but thats not the result of the final product...
Buuuut, please answer me Novation or Serato, this problem can corrected with a software update ? i think can't ! because is a deep hardware problem !

What a cluster fuck. I sincerely hope Serato learns from this. This really could have been avoided with certain standards in place on Serato's end.

One would think they would've learned this exact same lesson way back on the VCI-300 debacle.

I'll tell you where else this bit about most won't be connecting direct to powered speakers doesn't hold water - Twitch was designed WITH a separate booth monitor output and control. So you know it's going to be ran in many cases without any other signal boosting device in the chain. Duh. I mean kudos for including the separate outputs/control (it was a huge selling point actually) but now it's practically unusable and don't go and say it wasn't really intended/considered to run direct to powered speakers. And to add insult to injury, even WHEN connected to an outboard mixer the signal isn't hot enough without destroying the signal quality. Christ on a bike already, all this just for skimping on a damn power supply. Hell, Novation could've just made the power supply an optional accessory if penny pinching was needed. Just put a damn receptacle on it.

I'm so pissed.

Novation never says in the specifictions this is not recomended use twitch direclty on powered speakers, alerting that doing this you will have muuuch MUUUUUCH lower output as everybody saying

Now with alot of complaints, Novation started say that you need to use a mixer, but even using with a mixer, the problem is not solved.

Im definitly will not buy this equipament anymore, and sore i will be tell for eveybody to not buy because this problem.

In brazil this equiapments is to much expensive, i dont want see people that had a really hard work to accumulate money for buy this product and be sad and feel they passed to bring

Is clear for me the Novation prefer loose some efficience on this product for low the prices and sell more products, and this loose of efficience is compensate by HYPE and MARKETING, dont try fool us with hype and marketing ! i former in Marketing and Publicity UNiversity, IIIII DRIIIIIIINNKKKK YOUR WATHER !!! HAHA i know whats up in your mind about that, lower costs, cut the quality and sell the product like the most quality Hyped and Marketing this product !

And i know the efficience of the CONTRA PROPAGANDA TO ! :) that i will do a lot of CONTRA PROPAGANDA and clear the reality about this product, to you apologies and correct the problem.

I Talkin with you NOVATION/SERATO...

Hey guys.

We do appreciate your feedback. We do listen, and while we do work very very closely with our hardware partners to design controllers, we are a software company first and foremost, and Novation is a hardware company first and foremost. Feel free to directly contact Novation about this - they are also keen to hear customer feedback - they are a very customer friendly organization.

It's not applicable to compare devices such as the S4, as that has an entirely different power blueprint.

Since this help thread has been answered, I'll close if for now as a Feature Request (ie. to not USB power devices so the output can he higher for high power blueprint devices).

Please feel free to keep chatting about this in the General Discussion are. Those areas are made for this type of conversation, users feedback from a wider chunk of the community helps us immensely.

Cheers guys!