Like many DJ's, I started out by using the traditional turntables with vinyl. Over time, records became a hassel to cart around and took up a huge amount of space. Also, Mp3's were much easier to get a hold of and were a lot cheaper. As a result I slowly made the transition to spinning from CD players (I still love spinnings records and I still do). It does take some getting used to, but the end product is the same. One thing that I found useful on the CD decks was the numeric value assigned to the pitch slider. I try to be a perfectionist when mixing and I found that by watching the slider numbers when having to make very precise pitch adjustments was helpful. I learned that if the beatmatch was slowly falling apart over a certain amount time, I knew approximately how much pitch adjustment I would need by using the pitch slider numbers. With the Technics, this adjustment would be extremely small and a little hard to make, but still achievable....

Now, I've made another transition, which is to Serato and back to vinyl turntables. I think Serato is a great program/tool and it has made dj'ing even easier and cooler. By the second time firing up the laptop and tables I was right at home. There aren't too many suggestions I can make except for the numeric value pitch assignment. I was always curious to see how much change the Technic's pitch slider would make just by slightly nudging it...

For the actual Serato programers/coders, this shouldn't be too difficult to add. The digital signal from the turntables control record already has a time code/speed that is analyzed by the program. A simple "starting" point for calibration, like zeroing the turntables pitch slider and zeroing the Serato virtual pitch slider.

I understand that most DJ's wouldn't really care about this sort of thing, but they may find it easier!


Jim