by Serato, do you mean Scratch LIVE?

Serato is the company.


the answer is no, Video-SL is the only plug-in currently available for Scratch LIVE.

What kind of plug-in were you thinking of developing?

Yes, I do mean specifically Scratch Live.

The plugin I am thinking of would simply need to access the track information for the current track(s) playing. Basic info like track name, artist, version, and maybe a few other details about the track.

My brother is an expert programmer and has already expressed interest in my idea. But he doesn't know the first thing about DJ software and asked me if it was even a possibility to gain the proper access to build this plugin.

I emailed Serato's general information email and asked for a contact who has the authority to sign a non-disclosure agreement and discuss my idea further. No response yet, but that was just on Monday.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

so are you talking a plug-in really? or another application accessing an API?

You can tell I'm not a programmer. But now that you mention it... an API is probably what I meant. Basically, whatever it takes for my brother to write an application that can extract all of the relevant track information of what's currently being played.

I am in the position of tracking down the necessary information to get him started. So where do I start?

There are no publicly available APIs for Scratch LIVE, and no current plans for making any I'm sorry...

you might want to try emailing us, but I wouldn't hold your breath unless you were willing to tell us details of what exactly your app would be doing while running alongside ours :-)

cheers

- Josh

I am more than willing to discuss the details of my application... once we both sign a non-disclosure agreement. So can you please email me at musicalmissionary@yahoo.com so we can get this ball rolling. I would really appreciate that. If you are not authorized to sign an NDA on behalf of Serato, then please email me the contact information for someone who is.

Thanks a bunch for your responses Josh. I hope to hear from you soon.

We won't sign an NDA I'm afraid. Chances are we've thought of your idea already :-)

feel free to drop us a line some time.

- Josh

I'm a big fan of defying odds. The application I want to build has nothing to do with audio, video, or how a DJ mixes his sets or any of that. Would it kill you to email me so we can discuss this further off the boards?

musicalmissionary@yahoo.com

Thanks!

If you don't want to sign an NDA out of fear of putting all your code in someone else's hands... I understand, but that won't be necessary. All I need is a way for my application to access the track info for what is playing through Scratch LIVE. There must be a not-so-difficult way of gaining access to that info without digging too deep into Scratch's code. Do you follow me?

Please email me Josh. Thanks!

musicalmissionary@yahoo.com

I am in the same boat. I would love an API that would allow a component to read the mp3 data of the current running tacks as well as the current track position. I would love the ability to get the Martin LightJockey to be able to interface with SL. This way I can set off pre-defined cues based on track position.

Ooh, ooh, please tell me too because my brother's name is Mr. Big and needs to keep his eye on everything he can. This way we can control every DJ through the fear of being sued millions of dollars they don't have and then they'll have no choice but to play the same songs 15 times a day for 3 months.

Maaaaaannnn, Funk Dat!

I was being sarcastic, but hey you never know!

Hey create a program where I can scratch like Jazzy Jeff and I'll give you ten bucks!

Hi,

same question, different position on disclosuring my top secret rocket science "plugin"/app:

I would like to write a simple lastfm scrobbler for serato scratch live.
I already wrote a perl script for polling on the CSV-Exports and scrobble new tracks in it. But that sucks.. You still have to export it manually and in its current form its no that easy to track which tracks are already scrobbled and which not.

So its for me the same: I need nothing more than artist, trackname, maybe length and deck for the currently played song.
Already thought about scrapping it from the UI, but I guess live don't use the windows ui toolkit and it would be pretty hard, ugly and incompatible with further versions..

discordian, are you on PC or on a MAc?

In that case, it's an Mac.

Hey discordianfish,

Have you checked out Playlists in Scratch Live 2.0?

Ah crap. I tough I've already answered on that.

Yes, i tried it. Looks nice, but i don't get it to upload the played tracks on the fly.
It says that it would do, but I only see them after clicking on export.

And if it would work, is there a nice way to poll/fetch the currently played tracks? Like an csv export? Or would i have to scrap my profil page to fetch the tracks?

We're looking at giving you tools to push your playlists from serato.com to other places.

Nice, but how do the "live playlist" feature work?
I didn't work in the way I tried. It says that I now will live upload the tracks and warns about slower performance, but I can't see anything on my profile until I click export.

Okay, I'v just watched "What's new in Serato Scratch Live 2.0" an saw how it should look. I have selected "Enable Serator Playlists Plugin" and "Enable Live Playlists" but I'm still missing the "Start Live Playlist"-Button in the History-View.

I'm running 2.0.0 (Build 20049)

...I'll open a report for that

OK, thanks.

I want a lastFM audioscrobbler for scratch live, any idea if this will ever happen?

PaulC: I've written a scrobbler for ScrachLive, github.com

It's not user-friendly (yet) though, you have to run it from Terminal / Dosbox, but it does work, and it scrobbles as you play.

Ben,

This is a great tool. Looks like you've put a lot of work into reversing the binary output fed into the SSL history files... Will definitely check this out

To the SSL devs : are there thoughts of adding an API that provides access to currently playing songs, so that we're not required to go to extreme measures such as Ben XO has?

jw

Thank you jw!

Yeah, it took a while, although the binary format is actually quite straightforward once you get your head around it.

A simple API would have made this much easier, though. And there's still some information I would like to access and can't - such as the current play position.

Ben,

Just checked out your scrobbler and am planning on playing with it this evening. Awesome work!

Has there been any movement on the API development side? I run a nightlife website/soon to be app (www.nite-fly.com)that takes people looking for places to party and connects them with venues/deals/vip lists etc. What we'd love to do is offer our users the ability to search based on music being played at the moment/over the past x timeframe.

First up, I've moved this to DJ Discussion, since the "Plug-ins General Discussion" area is meant to be about our studio and live sound plug-ins.


Our goal for Playlists (www.serato.com) is to make that the central place to send your track plays and then we can send the info from there to where ever you want it to go. We have some updates for Playlists coming soon, keep an eye on it. As it is now, it's a super simple process to get your track plays online, try it out.

As far as integrating light control with SSL - I could see potentially a way to drop a "MIDI file" onto a track as well, and it would output that MIDI file at the same tempo as the rest of the track (based on timecode)... Kinda like how you drop a video file on, if you could drop a light program MIDI trigger onto a track, that would be dope, esp. if you had MIDI crossfader integration (like VSL has) so it would output the MIDI for the currently playing track.

/dreaming

@E Rose: no movement on the API side that I'm aware of.

@DouggyFresh: I've had that dream too, it's a pretty one!

@dave and the Serato team: Your online playlists are pretty cool, but they just don't quite meet my needs (especially when there's no internet connection). Personally, I think it's misguided to try to channel everyone through Serato's own online playlists first; in doing so you're forgoing Serato's prime position as a platform, and what it seems like to me (as a DJ) is that you're being protectionist over what is actually MY data (my playlists) and that's a bit of a turn off.

The use cases I have for myself and my plugin are as follows. These are not hypothetical: they are actual use cases that I have been serving me well for the last six months.
* Last.fm: I listen to a substantial amount of music through ScratchLive and I want that to contribute to the recommendations I get though Last.fm. (Yes I do work for Last.fm, so you don't have to believe me when I say they're the best out there - but that's been my experience!)
* Twitter:
** people follow my playlists in a zero-effort way, as they're already on Twitter; posting them automatically gives them a heads-up when my radio show is on air
** some people like to retweet their favourite songs, which is good promotion for me
** i get instant feedback from producers whose music I am playing as they monitor their name being mentioned on Twitter already
** In future, I will be posting "buy" links in the tweets, probably using 7Digital or iTunes APIs
** in future, I will make a 'which DJ played the song' feature (based on full file path, as my back-to-back partner brings his tunes on an external usb drive).
* Local (no-internet):
** I added a full-screen feature which shows what song is currently playing on a projector attached to my mac at Music Hack Day Boston (boston.musichackday.org) when I went there to represent Last.fm last month, that was my hack. As a proof of concept I made it show QR codes which were links to buy from 7digital as well, although that's not the worlds most practical way to get people to buy music, it was still kinda fun.
** I need to get scrobble-caching working so that I can still get my Last.fm recs after-the-fact even with no internet.

Also @dave, please drop me a line if you would like to discuss proper Last.fm scrobbling (or other) integration into any of your products (such as Serato Playlists or ScratchLive itself) - we'd love to have you as a partner. One of our goals is to tie together your listening experience no matter where you are and how you listen to music. We already do that when you listen on your PC through iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player; through your iPod; through a set-top box such as Logitech Sonos; or listening on-demand through Spotify, We7, HypeMachine, RDIO, Simfy or others.

Hey Ben, for sure, I'll wing you an email.

I think the protectionist ship has sailed and sunk. If you take a look at some of the most successful software vendors today you'll see they are all very open...from web browsers and CRM to CMS and social media. Opening your product with an API creates a development community that will only grow your customer base and their loyalty. It may be difficult to give up control but I think the growth potential will far outweigh the any losses and allow you to focus on the core functionality of your product while letting 3rd parties develop enhancements...and take the risk if they flop.

Just my thoughts ;-)

Interesting.

If playlist or track data could be exported via xml feed, it's a start.

I use a cheap text to screen program that will run live xml feeds into it. perfect if you want to text vote on screen.

What i want is for the track info on screen as i run a silent disco and it's a battle of two DJ's on two channels. Having the data up there with incoming text messages would rock.

mr wilks: the SSLScrobbler thing I made will pretty much allow you to do that, although it'd need a little work to get the data to look the way you want.

Hey Ben, that sounds like a pretty good form of integration.

I use a program called T2S Mobile www.t2slive.co.uk for the text messages and it will read .xml files and output them as text messages. I helped with many ideas in the software and think it would benefit from the "NOW PLAYING" option. It already displays Bluetooth images that could use QR codes too.

Your SSLScrobbler sounds like it's just the ticket. Let's hope Serato look into building your ideas into the Playlist function.

@Ben: I've just discovered your SSLScrobbler. LOVE IT! Question, why PHP???? I think i'll create a little automator script to help launch your app.

On a similar note however.. Ive seen a few failed attempts out there where people have attempted to create crate management applications. Does anyone out there know of any serious efforts out there.. or want to start one.

This is the best information that i've been able to find..
code.google.com

Cogito... Because I know PHP inside out, that's the only reason. Kinda wish I'd used python or something but it's done now.

I want vst plugin support

Use the bridge

Curious if there's been any progress or even a glimmer of hope that Serato would allow an API to program against for Scratch Live plug-ins. I'm a software engineer during the day (iPhone apps, for the record), and I've got a couple of ideas.

Anyone?

Hey Dave,

Can you give us a status update on whether or not an API is being considered for Scratch Live?

I am interested as well, I am a C++ and Java programmer (as well as an Android / Iphone app developer), I'm interested in finding out more as well.

Hei BenXO, any news on that scrobbler implementation? I would love to write an IRC Bot for the Bassdrive chat, using your scrobbler.

Cheers
TheDragon

Hey there,

What sort of news are you after? My scrobbler is now fully functional and writing a plugin for it to do that would be fairly easy! github.com

Cool! Thank you Sir! :-)

+1

I'd love to be able to get BPM of each deck, song position, and cue position - you don't need much else to do a wide variety of control tasks, e.g. lights, vide, etc.

You can access some of these, and others, via video-sl or mix emergency using Quartz composer compositions.

interesting, thanx!

I'm a database developer working with a client to test with SSL-Scrobbler with Scratch Live and we've got it working great in updating our FileMaker playlist database.

But when an external DJ controller is connected to the computer Serato is on, Scrobbler doesn't seem to make a distinction between what gets played over the air and what the DJ is cueing up. For instance, if he's playing Song A over the air, and he cues up Song B -- as soon as he puts the needle on Song B it shows up on the playlist.

Is there a Serato or Scrobbler setting we've missed? Or do I just somehow need to filter those out in the PHP?

Thanks -- I appreciate your help!!!

Howard

Hey Howards,

Sorry I didn't reply to your email. What sort of controller are you connecting?

My Serato Scrobbler doesn't cope well (i.e. has bugs) with tracks that are manually added to the playlist, and I have a feeling the controller may be doing something similar, but I have no idea, as the only controllers I use with Scratch Live are my turntables.

yo Ben XO, amazing work. great job.

Thanks for the response, Ben. I appreciate your support even though you don't charge for the program!

The controller is a Rane TTM 57SL mixer.

The only thing i would like Scratch Live to do is to link crates with folders. So when put a new song in a folder, it automatically shows up in your crate.

BenXO or any of you other techies.... i run a weekly internet broadcast that i have to put together playlists for, which is easily done with the playlist plugin in Scratch Live... i would also like to broadcast a live metadata feed (now playing) for the playlist during the show, which i can't seem to get to work with the LIVE playlist plug in option... will your scrobbler do this? anyone else have an idea... seems to me, and i am not a programmer, that there would be a pretty high demand for such an application??? i guess without having the open API it makes it a little difficult, but one would think that serato and scratch live would want to jump on the opportunity to bang one out??? thanks for your time in advance...

This feeds live track info to your twitter stream; should be a way to pull that info out of twitter into where you want. I'd imagine...

Whoops, no link: radr.dj

phatbob... looks like that is for traktor? i use serato scratch live...

They still got SL compatibility listed on their download page: radr.dj

It's Hawtin's company so unsurprisingly they're Traktor focused, but I tried it with SL months ago when they first launched as Twitter.DJ and it worked fine.

Guess Twitter made them change the name...

Last year this never worked for me in scratch live. The only thing it would do was broadcast my location and the rest did nothing.

I am too a software\firmware developer and was wonder if such a thing is available. I have an idea that would be a sure win among Djs. Most of the time, I play for a crowd that desires clean music and sometimes I would like to pre-edit some songs.

It would be nice to set markers to blank words or have the ability to place jump markers that maybe used to skip a whole section.

What do you guys think?

This is something we want in the feature request somewhere and could be done with quantized cues. Traktor can do this IIRC and it's something i'd love to see in SL one day.

They have said they are looking at how to implement cue quantisation so hopefully it's not far away now. Fingers crossed.

*cough* good luck ;)

Well I do know we are imminent on a new release of SL so can only guess that the private beta testers know it's not a feature as of yet. lol.

We would have to ask the testers I guess. I was just assuming based on the history.

Awwwww!

I read it as a hint :(

Hey Ian,

Yeah you could do that with my Serato Scrobbler.

I searched 'Developing a Plugin for Serato' and ended up here. Maybe someone can help me... we've created a visualization application using the Kinect (it also works with the other Prime Sense cameras) that is being used at parties by DJs. Basically it uses the user silhouette of whoever is in camera range and applies all sorts of effects to the shape. It makes everyone look like a better dancer. :)

I've been playing around with the video plugin for Scratch and it seems as though our little application would be a cool plugin to add live interactive video effects. You can see some video of people using it at the one minute mark of this video: Watchwww.youtube.com

I was wondering if there's someone I can talk about including this as a feature of Scratch?

Very cool app...

Thanks. :)

We make a lot of stuff for djs and parties.

I've been trying to use Ben's little app and it's just not working for me. I've gotten it to read a past set once and scrobbling in the present doesn't seem to be working.

Is there anyone on the boards that knows the program and could walk me through it?

I'd be very grateful.

A few years, I am still dealing with the same situation...

Has there been any update to the api issue?

Also, MixEmergency appears to be able to extract information about the currently playing track/play status, has there been any effort to reverse-engineer that link? I have tried, but unfortunately reverse engineering isn't exactly my speciality.

I think that the reverse engineering was done as Nick who developed MixEmergency was a former Serato employee.

Knowing trade secrets when you do your own thing is controversial but seems to have mural benefit to both companies in this case as you need SDJ for ME to work.

I think an API would be a great revenue stream for Serato as increased pressure from Pioneer will shake up the market.

That's actually a pretty cool idea - some of the more niche requests that DJs ask for could be accommodated by such development.

Hi,

I just open sourced a java "API" project of sorts. It's an app that monitors and parses in changes to the binary SSL history session file, and publishes out play data (i.e BPM, title, deck, etc) to all registered clients:

gitlab.com

Hope it can be of use to some of you!

cheers,
Elad