Hey Bill C,

Sorry to hear you are having this issue. Interesting work around, sounds to me that there maybe an issue with the size of your iTunes library, however i'd need to know a bit more before I could make an accurate assessment.

What are the system specifications of your computer?
How are you storing your music, internally or on an external hard drive?
How many songs are there in your iTunes library?
How many playlists are there in your iTunes?

Regards
Dave W

Hello Dave,

The laptop is an HP, Intel Core i7 with 8GB or RAM. All of my music is on the internal 750GB C : drive. My iTunes database is a bit large. I have just over 56,000 songs and about 30 playlists in it. I don't have the laptop with me at the moment, if you need exact numbers, I can get them in the morning. By the way, the OS is Windows 7 64 bit. I appreciate your willingness to help me on this and will provide any info you need in a more timely fashion. Had to take care of my wife and Mother In Law for Mothers Day Weekend so I am sorry for the delay. One other thing: any news on when the Numark N4 might be supported? The website says Summer of 2013. I am thinking of updating my MixTrack Pro to get 4 deck functionality, but I'm on a budget and won't be able to spring for an NS6 or the like!

Best Regards,
Bill

Hey Bill,

Thank you for the feedback and answers to the questions above. It sounds to me like the iTunes library may be a oversize, and the computer program is maxing out on it's available virtual memory. This happens because the program is 32bit and can only access a limited amount of memory at this stage. Serato DJ is more memory intensive, as it has many more features and effects than say, Serato DJ Intro is you have found out. Do you have any files you can remove that you don't really use? Duplicates are always a good place to start when downsizing your library.



It's not to far away, I can't give you an exact date though unfortunately.

Let me know how you go with downsizing and let me know if i can do anything more to assist you.

Regards
Dave W

Hello Dave,

OK, I have deleted just over 3000 duplicate tracks, updated iTunes, repaired the library and still no luck. My database is still at 54,671 songs so it is quite large. What is the limit on size to work with Serato Pro? I was thinking that I could start another iTunes account and only load the songs that I use with my main sets in it to keep it under the limit. Lastly, is there any way to increase the virtual memory size in the software so I would not have to chop up my database? Please advise.

Best Regards,

Bill

It's hard to say, it's such a varying thing from user to user. I'd suggest moving away from iTunes and using the crate system in Serato DJ, here is a guide to help you understand the process and you can have a think about further you'd like to move it over:serato.com

Unfortunately you can't up the virtual memory, once it's maxed that is it. However i'd run through these guide before you make anymore big decisions just to make doubly sure you are optimized for audio:

blog.dubspot.com
serato.com

Dave

Hello Again Dave,

Thanks for staying with me on this one! OK, I am running the latest BIOS for my laptop, there were 2 motherboard and chipset updates on the HP Tech site and I have now installed those. Still no change. According to the tutorials, my set up is pretty much spot-on. I will admit to cheating on that one: I did some major homework before I bought my MixTrack Pro and I tested and compared a number of software platforms prior to my settling on Serato. Traktor was the runner up. I played with it a bit on a controller at Guitar Center, but I came back to Serato because I like the GUI much better, and the overall feel of the software. Once I settled on Serato, I read the linked tutorials as well as hit a few blogs and forums. This lead to the purchase of my i7 machine and the high horsepower specs, next I optimized it for the software after I loaded Serato DJ Intro. That said, I had pretty much hit all of the points made on the links you sent me prior to my installation of Pro. You got me on BIOS and drivers, I admit it. As noted I am now up to speed on those as well. For the record, I have never had any problems with audio dropouts. The only audio issue I noted was intermittent poor sound quality on the headphone output when I upgraded to Pro. At was completely fixed when I upgraded to 1.2 so thanks Serato for that! I have played with latency, buffer size, response, and still have the library problem but audio is fine. Also, I took your advise from a previous post and renamed my V2 file and created a new one. Still no luck (and I had to redo my mappings for my LPD8, that sucked since I forgot some of them!)

Considering the above, is there anything I can try next? Again, the main issue is finding my newly purchased music. Since I am just starting out with DDJ'ing, I am purchasing a great deal of music so this feature is important to me. So much so, that I take the time to use my Intro program to add the new crates so I can reopen them in Pro. I already extensively use Crates and have learned to love them but I really need the iTunes! I put together playlists on my iPhone as I listen throughout the day then want to pull them into the Serato world when I get home to practice mixing. This stuff is addicting! I won't lie or disrespect the pros out there with the real skills and say I'm a great DJ (yet! LOL) but I did mix at my wife's birthday party which landed me my first actual gig! I will be doing a graduation party for the son of one of the people that came to my wife's party. As such, I have built a mobile rack, bought an active crossover, 2 more amps and a pair of 15" subs. That said, I really want to get the bugs worked out since I am actually starting to get serious about this stuff! Please let me know if there are more things I can try. I will even take beta versions or patches if you think it will help!

Many, Many Thanks,
Bill

So are you able to load your iTunes and crates yet without it crashing? When you open iTunes in Serato DJ you can used the Date Added column in the library tracklist to show the files which were added most recently.

What you could do is still use iTunes however what you did was build crates within Serato DJ (which it sounds like you are doing anyway), then go to setup > Library + Display > disable 'Show iTunes Library'. This will remove iTunes once you have all the music you want to use in your crates only showing the music which you have added to your crates. How about that for a work around? Further still you could add a crate called 'Purchased' which you move all the iTunes purchased tunes into before you connect your controller ?

Not sure if you can even do this is you are still having crashes, let me know.

Regards
Dave W

Dave,

iTunes works fine by itself, I have "Show iTunes Library" enabled in Serato Intro, which is how I have been pulling the playlists I have created while listening to tunes throughout the day on my iPhone. Also, I have already created a number of Crates in Intro called "Purchased xxxxxx" in which the xxxxxx is the date I purchased the music. For example, the last crate I created in Serato Intro is called Purchased 051813. I then close Intro and open Pro (which has to have "Show iTunes Library" disabled to avoid crashing) and open the puchased crates and move music to the Crates I am working with at the time. For some reason, when I browse to the folder that my iTunes music is in using the Library in Serato DJ Pro, I can't seem to locate the Purchased music, hence the need to do it with Serato DJ Intro. Let me ask you a quick question: if the root problem is the size of my iTunes Library, what size does it need to be to work with Serato DJ Pro? Maybe I can try to break up the Library? One other thing: if the Virtual Memory size is what is causing the crash, will there be an update coming that will allow me to set up a larger virtual memory? I am at the point where I am sitting down to mix about 4 times a week so I really want to get this to work!

Many Thanks,
Bill

Dave,

One addtional note: Pro crashes whenever I have "Show iTunes Library" checked. It does not matter if my MixTack Pro and/or my LPD8 are attached.

Bill

Any further info available on this yet? Also, is there a patch for the fader mode bug?

Here is an article we have for users in your position: serato.com

Have a read and let me know how you go. Hopefully this will answer your questions and help to get you back on track.


Regards
Dave W