Hi Knightfx,


Check out the FAQ section regarding this issue, try out the steps listed and get back to me if you are still having problems.

serato.com

Hi Martin,

I have done that and I am using a separate power supply. The FAQ section mentions I should "Connect your VCI-300 with a suitable power supply (9V, 500mA)", but the MKIIpower adapter requirement as seen on the units housing is (7.5V, 1000mA). Which one is it, and is this effecting my ability to get the MKII to work properly? Are there any other thing I can do to fix my hardware disconnect issues?

Your MkII will require the 7.5V 1000mA.

Is the VCI-300 showing up in Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup ?

Perhaps try reinstalling ITCH software

Thank you for your responses. I can not get through to Vestax, and no one there is returning the message I am leaving them. The VCI 300 does show up in Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup. I will try reinstalling ITCH and get back to you.

Ok definitely let me know mate!

Still does not work. I even switched out USB cables. Still no help from Vestax either. What steps should I take to reinstall ITCH? I deleted it from my hard drive and reinstalled it. Was that the best way to reinstall ITCH? I know my MKll work because I had it hooked up to my wifes Dell Laptop. There must be something going on with my first generation 17" Mac Book Pro. Have you noted any special problems with this these older laptops? I am going to chat with a Mac Genius at the local store in one hour. Are there any other suggestion you can make. How long can you help me for today? Please advise.

I finally had a break through. I found the attached information on the Vestax web site. Please update your FAQ's to accomidate MKll users. Thank you for all your help.

Glad to hear you are up in running! Yes, I see your point, the Vestax website explains it better. I have updated our FAQ to include that link.

Thanks for your input :D

Well Martin,

I got the gear running, but now the audio completely stops outputting from the VCI 300MKII intermittently. I can see the audio signal to the MKII through the channel fader meters, but I do not hear any sound in the headphones/speakers via the main outputs. Arrrh! Is this exclusively a hard ware problem? I am still having a hard time getting through to Vestax. Do you know if their customer service is always this bad? Please let me know what avenues I need to take to remedy this problem. Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

Kind Regards,

Knightfx

I can't imagine it is the hardware if it works perfectly fine on your DELL computer.

Perhaps go through our Troubleshooting guide for USB dropouts on MacBooks and see if anything helps there:

serato.com

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your response. I think it may be a problem with the MKII because the program does not lock up at all. The channel fader LED'S are still moving up and down as if there is signal coming through and out to the speaker and headphones. I finally spoke with Ron from Vestax and he suggested I try a different USB port. Move the power supply away from the MKII. Switch USB cables. Disable WiFi and Blue Tooth, or switch to a firewire external drive. I will try all of these options, but I see signal in the LED'S and I still have control of the program with the MKII. Please let me know if you know of any other fixes. Thank you.

Kind Regards,

Knightfx

Ok I will do some further research and see if I can find anyone that may have found solutions to the same problem. Please let me know how it goes when you get the time to try out Rons suggestions.

Still having problems, but I do not have the time to trouble shoot for a week or so. The MKII will not output audio once it cuts out, and the computer does not lock up. I can still control everything, but there is no audio output to the speaker or headphones when it cuts out. The power side USB port furthest away from the screen seem to work the best. I still have cut outs, and the computer does not lock up.

I see. On the back of the VCI-300 unit there should be a switch that says PC or THRU ON. Ensure this is set to PC.

Sorry for the delayed response. I am back from a trip and I think my problems are finally starting to go away. I have to turn off every function on my computer, and use only one specific USB port for the VCI 300 to not crash my computer. Question. Do you think the controller will work better if I use a firewire external hard drive? Please advise.

I see, so now there is audio but you are having drop outs with using an external USB hard drive?

Yes I think a firewire external hard drive will definitely help if that is the case.

No. I was having problems with drop out with out using an external hard drive. The solution is to only use one port. I will switch it to a firewire external drive. Next Question. I took the contents of one of my hard drive and consolidated it onto one large drive. Now I can see all the files in my main library, but there is question mark next to a lot of them . Running the relocate lost file function does not seem to work. What else should I do? How do I tell when the process is finished? Please advise. Thanks

That seems odd! So you are telling me that withOUT an external hard drive you have no problems. But removing your external drive creates problems? If that is the case then something else is causing your dropouts.

This is confusing because you say the solution is to use only one port, but with an external drive connected and the VCI unit connected, you would have to use two.

Regarding your question, have you moved across your _Serato_ folder and now your crates within ITCH are showing up?

There is article here about relocating lost files to double check you have done everything correctly : serato.com

Make sure you have not already imported those music files to your library first though.

I see your point. It was a week or so ago when I first contacted you. My problems may have been due to having several other functions running at the same time as well. I-tunes, blue tooth, the airport etc..... The unit is running well now, and I just purchased a new fire wire 1Tb hard to help my cause.

My crates are showing up in ITCH, and relocate files is starting to work. It is taking a long time though. Thanks for all the info. Cheers!

Oh ok, yes other functions like that can definitely cause issues. Relocate Lost files can take some time if you have a big library, but if you have got files popping back up slowly then it sounds like you are on your way to success with it!

Let me know if you run into any issues :D

Martin,

I do not have any more issues, but I could use a little help to find the instruction on how to transfer all my music files in my Serato Library to my new 1TB firewire drive. I remember seeing something in the forum, but I cannot seem to find it now. Please advise. Thanks

Ok cool, yes there is a helpful article here serato.com

Hello Martin,

I am still having the same problems with the ITCH and or the VCI 300MKII crashing. The software keeps working, but I get zero audio output to the headphones or the 1/4"/RCA outputs. It is killing me! I see my CPU monitor on the upper right corner of the ITCH window in the red when the irreversible drop outs occur. I have to reboot in order temporarily fix the issue, only to have it crash again several tracks later. The crashes are intermittent, but they always seem to happen when I am playing live for an audience. My computer has all the needed specs, and I have tried just about everything other than purchasing a new computer to fix the problem. Do you have any other suggestions? Please advise.

Sheldon

Sorry to hear that man!

Have you analyzed all the files in your library? Have you ensured to remove any corrupt ones?

Does this problem still occur when you are not using the hard drive at all?

Does the problem get any worse if you move your USB buffer size over to 10ms, or 5ms?

Hi Martin,

Thank for the reply. I did not analyze all the tracks I played when my software crashes. I will make a point to do that, but I have over 3.5 G of music. It will take forever. The software crashes when I am using my firewire1Tb WD hard drive on it, but I store all my music on it. ITCH does not crash when I am not playing tracks from the firewire drive. My USB buffer size is 10ms. I hope this helps diagnose my problems.


Sheldon

I strongly suggest analyzing all your files, although it may take a while, having all your files analyzed can take away a lot of strain on your CPU when playing, as well as fix a lot of issues.

Make sure to remove any corrupt files from the library.

I am little confused with your explanation, you say "the software crashes when I am using my firewire 1TB WD hard drive" and "ITCH does not crash when I am playing tracks from the firewire drive".

Are you saying ITCH does NOT crash when playing from the internal drive? and does when using the external?

Sorry. I that was confusing. My bad. I meant to say ITCH does not crash when I am not using the firewire drive. ITCH only crashes when I use the fire wire drive.

Cool, I thought that is what you meant.

Well for starters, make sure that all the files on that drive are analyzed. It is always quite a bit more work for the CPU to pull information off any external drive in any software/situation, and with your files not being analyzed Scratch Live will attempt to build and analyze files on the spot as you play, making for an even more straining situation on top of the whole thing.

Get back to me after you have analyzed all files and removed any corrupt ones. If you are still having issues we can try some other things.

Copy that. Do you mean ITCH or scratch live? I am using ITCH.

Sorry yes, I meant ITCH.

I have read all of the articles and configured my computer so it is optimized to run ITCH. All of my music files are analyzed as well. I do not have any problems with the output when my Mac is configured properly unless I try to record my sets. My first two recordings were successful, but the software has crashed during my last three attempts. Weird! It worked at first and then it just stopped working. My system is configured properly, but it just stops outputting to the speakers and headphones. The software and LED meters on the controller does not stop functioning, but there is no output to the speakers or headphone. Is it possible I your minimum system requirement are rated to low? Please let me what I should try next.

The controller and software continues to run as you can see, but there is no output.

Here is a copy of the crash logs

So just to clarify the issue you are experiencing now, is that if you use the recording function, at some point, you begin to lose any output through the master and headphones?

Are you using a power supply with your VCI-300?

Does this ever happen when you are NOT using the recording function?

That is correct, I lose output through the master and headphones. I am using a power supply. The loss of output use to happen when I was not using the recording function, but that problem went away when I analyzed all of my music files.

Ok, so at this point you are using the firewire drive still right?

If you moved some of those files onto your internal drive and tried to do the recording, would you still have those same problems?

I have simply had it with ITCH and its claim that all I need is 2G of RAM to run it. ITCH crashed again during my last live performance. I see the resource bar at the top right of the display max out and then the software crashes my computer. I have invested too much in the controller and I like the portability of this system, so I am shopping for a new computer. Will this laptop be sufficient? TOSHIBA Satellite C855-S5231 Notebook Intel Pentium B970(2.3GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel HD Graphics. Please advise.

Thats a shame!

The computer you are looking at sounds fairly decent. However, you will not be able to run Serato Video (if that ever interests you) and you might want to think about trying to upgrade the harddrive to a 7200rpm, it will be able to access information a lot faster and as result access the files in your ITCH library with less issues.

If possible, see if you can test how your VCI-300 works with the computer first, or see if there is some sort of return policy on the computer in case it doesn't work out.

Thank you for the advise. Would you recommend I purchase another apple machine?

Yes, generally speaking, Apple computers run audio software a lot better than Windows computers.

A few things I thought we could try with your current machine:

1. Update to 10.6.8? I recall 10.6.3 to be problematic, and technically speaking, is below our minimum spec, we no longer test on machines below 10.6.8.

2. Did we already try rebuilding the database? You could try doing that on your external drive and see if we can eliminate crashes: serato.com

Hi Martin,

Thank you for the advise. I am already running 10.6.8., but I have not tried rebuilding my data base yet. I will try this next, and would you recommend I give up on this computer if this does not work? I am wondering if anyone else is having problems with this generation of Mac Book Pro's, or is this problem unique to my machine? Please advise.

Hi Martin,

I am reading the instructions on how to rebuild my data base, but my music files in the finder are

sound cloud mix 1
098 bpm - Kurtis Blow - AJ Scratch.mp3
Ableton
Audacity files
GarageBand
I-tunes
iTunes
new mix
S.K. Battle Tracks
ScratchLIVE
ScratchLIVEBackup
Serato Recording 11 .

The database V2 file is found in Scratch Live. Could this be part of the problem? Please advise.

Martin,

Please note that this is how the music files on my finder are for my internal hard drive. My external hard drive looks like this.

sound cloud mix 1
_Serato_
_Serato_Backup
Digatized tracks
Lacie Disk Music
Music

Should I proceed with rebuilding my data base through the Scratch LIVE file?

Perhaps, so we could look at sorting that out. Is all your music from the internal drive, or the external drive? Or are they from both?

Ideally, you want to rebuild the database in both locations.

I think we should persevere with your computer, it may be a bit older, but it should be able to run the VCI-300 with ITCH ok.

Most all of my music except for I-tunes is from my external hard drive. My controller is the VCI-300 MKII, would that make a difference?

Should I rebuild the data base in ITCH or Serato? Does it matter? Are they the same?

I did the procedure in Scratch Live and I will try to use the controller now. Will let you know if it crashes.

I am also wondering if anyone else is having problems with this generation of Mac Book Pro's, or is this problem unique to my machine? Please advise.

No, this doesn't make a difference in this scenario.



No, this isn't really an issue that is common with any Macbook Pro, it is most likely unique to your computer.

I would advise to rebuild the database on both the internal and external drive, then rename the "ScratchLIVE" to "_Serato_"

Remember to close ITCH or Scratch Live when doing either procedure. Then try loading the software and test thoroughly to see if you are still having crashes.

Martin,

I have rebuilt and renamed my data bases, but ITCH continues to crash intermittently. I see the CPU meter spike in the red after I load new track and then it stops outputting signal. All of the tracks I play have been analyzed as well, and I do not have anything running other than ITCH and the Activity Monitor. I will update to the newest version of ITCH and give that a try. Any other suggestoins?

How full is your hard drive? Do you have much free space?

You are still playing from the internal drive right? If not, perhaps just try that again. Remove all other USB devices.

What does the CPU look like when loading one track to the offline player?

Have you tried moving your buffer all the way to the right hand side?

Hi Martin,

My ITCH issues may have been sorted out by rebuilding my data base for the second time. Maybe I did not do it right the first time. I am still running everything from my external drive, and I am happy to report that I have not had any crashes in the last 5 hour of use.

I have a 1 TB external hard drive, 316.45 GB on disk, 683.59 GB available . The CPU will spike to around 90%ish when I first oad a track on the offline player, but it quickly settles back down around 20%while the track is playing. The CPU will spike to well over 100% when loading a track and slides back to around 53% while using the controller to play tracks, but it has not crash the software during my recent test. The buffer is set on 512 samples/ms. I did not have to try moving the buffer to the rar right. Will I be able to detect the latency if do that?

Should I try to use the latest version of ITCH. I have read some not so favorable comments about version 2.2.2 in the forum. Please advise.

Awesome to hear!



That does seem a little high, would be this the same when loading a file from the internal drive and the external is disconnected?



Perhaps a little, but its usually only noticeable in the case of scratching with the platters etc. Its worth a try though, just to determine whether that is actually a factor.



Some people have had bad experiences, but generally speaking it works well I think.

You can have both ITCH 2.0 and 2.2.2 installed without problems, if you want to keep 2.0 there. Check this out: serato.com