+1

Just purchased it and so pumped to have it in my arsenal!

My ears are extremely sensitive to digital audio artifacts so I bought this rightaway, and tried it immediately with a couple of difficult tracks.

Verdict: to my ears, not as good as what I can get with Elastique (granted, I never had the chance to try Elastique in real-time so who knows).

Nevertheless, this Pitch'n'time plugin is LIGHT YEARS AHEAD of the regular ITCH/SDJ Keylock.

I still hear "something's wrong with the sound" when going over 6% pitching, but I'm pretty sure none of my customers would. And I almost never go over 4% anyway, so for my usual DJing this is a huge improvement.

*Heaving a sigh with ease.*

After having played with it for 30 minute more, with music varying from jazz & classical to electro and lots of alternative pop in the middle, it feels like I have a brand new DJ tool. At last, I'm rid of the fear of the dreaded pitch fader "blowg glowd blowaouwgd" effect!

Dancing around while mixing Sly & the Family Stone "Thank you" with 7,5% up-pitching with fantastic audio quality. Color me happy. Some of my mashups are going to be real killers now.

Really makes my day. :-)

Do you need to download 1.6 to use this? I am still on 1.12 I think. Never had any crashes so no need to update but I would like pitch n time

Yes.

I'm having FUN with this new confort while pitching. Loads of fun.

In the end I don't care that it doesn't sound as pristine as Elastique, because the quality is extremely consistent, right up to the most insane settings: out of curiosity I tried 50% up-pitching and down-pitching and, on most material, it's still sounding totally acceptable. Actually to my ears it sounds more acceptable at 50%, than the stock SDJ Keylock does at 3%!

Not all ears are the same, though, so YMMV... I, for one, am totally satisfied.

I bought my copy as well and am doing the same thing with some of the more difficult songs I had in my library. VERY happy with this option!

Just purchased and will chime back in after messing with it :)

I'm getting a lot of usb dropouts, usually when making adjustments on the platter while mixing. Anyone else getting this.

Using OSX 10.6.8 2.2 i7 quad. USB buffer at 1

Yep, Niro, you'll need to dial down the usb buffer.

Just tested on my Mac Pro and major dropouts. What's your buffer set too?

thanks

Just Got It

No issue at all on a PC laptop with Pentium 2020M, so I'm surprised that problems can be had on a Mac Pro...

"USB buffer @1"

Ah, this may be the culprit. What WarpNote meant was to dial UP the usb buffer, not down. In the sense that you need slightly higher latency. Try 2ms.

Mine is set to 2, Im running a retina 2.7 ghz. 10.8.5
Make sure settings in SDJ and the int Osx control panel match. If still having droputs, keep lowering until acceptable. PnT will consume more memory and cpu than the old keylock.

same problem guys...USB dropouts when latency is 1ms and Pitch'n Time is enabled... with a macbook pro i7.@ 2ms no dropouts ..but why?

From what I understand a 2ms in SDJ is actually comparable to a 1ms settting in SSL anyway?

Interesting, my Mac Pro is 6 core and has 32 gigs of ram. Interesting, I usually don't mess with the internal buffer. I thought I remember reading somewhere not to go below 8. I'll try your setting suggestions. Thanks

Hey guys,

The minimum specs for using Pitch 'n Time DJ are higher than the normal specs -> serato.com

With that said, if you are getting dropouts and are above the minimum specs for Pitch 'n Time DJ then you should start a help request -> serato.com. Our Support Team will assist you with this :)

Cheers.

["i5 or i7+ recommended when using Pitch 'n Time DJ"]

How about that!

I had no issue at all with the laptop that I had at hand for the testing, a mere Pentium 2020M... well below these specs...

BTW guess what, this low cost machine even runs Windows 8, though Serato doesn't oficially support Windows 8...

I guess I'm the king of PC optimization! lol

All hail the king ;)

what does the plus (+) signify?

Great to hear guys :)



For those of you running Rane hardware, you should avoid going below 8ms in the Rane device driver panel as this is the setting recommended by Rane. Once set, you should then be able to put the USB Buffer Size setting in Serato DJ to your preferred position without issue - system dependent :)




All hail the king!

Im using a macbook pro
2.9 ghz intel core duo i7
mac osx 10.7.5
8 gigs of ram

using rane 62
control panel usb buffer at 2ms
serato dj buffer at 1
screen refresh at 60

with using pitch n time the cpu shoots up a little but never close to half way and no drop outs so far.

I noticed setting the control panel to 1 the sound distorted and digital clips constantly. I pushed it to 2ms and no problem so far.

I have been spending the last 4 hours all excited, coming up with new and creative mashups that weren't possible with the standard keylock (I mean not without sacrificing the audio quality).

This plugin was definitly worth the price, I just wish we shouldn't have waited so long to get this keylock quality in Serato. Better late than never, though. :-)

Or Higher (There are several generations of the i7 processor).


Long live the King...
- Scar

Where'd you hear that? 1ms is 1ms. 2ms is 2ms.

Some talk here about buffer size from Serato and Rane.

serato.com

Interesting...

It seems that this is on a per-device basis, however.

Thank you, PM!

Is the improved sound quality of Pitch N Time noticeable when you're only going +- 6% or so?

I really think Serato should have offered this as a free upgrade.

I understand their new approach of monetizing the software with Izotope expansions and sample packs, but Serato owns Pitch N Time. If SDJ is a pro product (and now our only option), it should have the highest possible sound quality standard :-/

I guess this depends on your personal sensitivity to digital audio artifacts.

With the stock keylock, with real music (actual instruments) personally I hear artifacts even at 2%. Not so with Pitch'n'time, I hear no artifacts. Only a very, very slight change in phase, which I can ABX but this is extremely subtle.

So with my own ears, the answer to your question is a big YES. :-)

If you want to be sure for yourself, try the following test:

Try the standard keylock with US3's version of "Cantaloop".
Downpitch to -3%.

Can you hear the pop-like artifacts? (To my ears they sound like some tape editor from the 70's was drunk and did a very poor job)

> Yes you hear them?
Then you will LOVE the pitch'n'time plugin because these artifacts entirely disappear, the sound is 100% smooth.

> No you don't hear them?
Then I'm not sure if you have any need for anything else than the standard, stock keylock... (though some of your patrons with more difficult ears could think differently)

Hope this helps.

More infos:

Yeah, I was reading through that. This was interesting to learn. I wonder, however, how much it differs on a device by device basis.

Roy gave the answers:

I would have to disagree with the free upgrade. I would rather pay for functions and features and give Serato resources to work out bugs and stuff, than to keep getting free updates that really don't do anything. They need to survive and profit as a company, just as most of us with our DJing career. I'm all for supporting companies that help me make money. Also $29 is a steal for Pitch N Time.

^ +1million!

+2014!

Getting this @ the weekend! Will report back then!

I understand where you're coming from. But for me, sound quality is at the very core of the DJ performance, and I don't think it should be an "add-on" or bonus feature, like the sample packs, FX expansions, and Serato Video. It feels like Serato is locking away a core technology to get a little more dough.

To your point about supporting Serato: Serato has and will continue to make money because the hardware tie-in partnerships with Rane, Pioneer, Vestax and so on. SSL, for example, was supported for years without these premium add-ons (aside from Video SL).

Feel me: what's the point of having high-quality 24-bit convertors and 32-bit FX if you're coming up short on the sound quality of the tracks themselves? Maybe they could include PNT as a free upgrade for Sixty-Two / Sixty-Four / Sixty-Eight owners?

Anyhow, I'm just making a point. It's worth $29 to get the most out of this $2K mixer so I will bite.

I agree with sound quality being the very core of a DJ Performance. This is why I am willing to pay for it's continued research and development.

Yes, Serato will make money with tie-in partnerships. But I would rather have straight dedication to the software with no Tie-ins. Focus on software features, instead of software for whoever is selling the most units. A one time buy-in on anything will not guarantee anything in the future. The current software works fine and has worked fine for years.

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, just being straight forward. I do this for a living and am willing to pay for a premium for stable quality stable product. To do so takes resources and I am willing to help fund those resources plus incentive to achieve what I am unable to do.

Like I said not trying to be a jerk, just want the best possible tools and am willing to pay for it. The 2K mixer is worth it as a mixer, the software is a separate deal. The sound quality of the mixer will not change depending on what media I choose to use.

I'm very impressed with this, WAY better than the standard keylock implementation.

I'm really impressed with this too..

I have two tracks that when pitched up to +6 - +8 have a very distinctive "warbling" on the bassline.... with Pitch n Time that warbling is practically non-existent!

Well worth the $29... and far superior to the standard keylock algorithm

TOP WORK :)

I'm hoping we get a more robust update that allows a nice meet in the middle of the ability to have a lower USB buffer for scratching and no USB dropouts. I currently feel like I have to use between the two.

Serato's standard key lock has been always so much better than Traktor's key lock but now the key lock quality of Pitch 'N Time DJ is just unbelievable. It's just WOW! Thanks so much for this feature.

In which universe? As far as I know, it's actually the contrary. The numerous people (including myself) who have been whining to get a better keylock in Serato, did so for a reason...

+1

+1

I agree with these guys. Serato has been playing catch up to Traktor in this regard for a long while.

Question

Once we buy and intall/activate Pitch N Time
Can we deactivate and use the standard one.?
Just for the sake of comparing the 2 once the better one is installed
Of course we will prefer the new, but maybe to show a friend the difference a few days later

Anyone?

You can disable PnT anytime in the Expansion Pack tab in the Setup screen. Then it will fallback to the regular Keylock.

Easy. I've done just that immediately after having installed the plugin.

- Go to setup > expansion packs > pitch'n'time DJ
- You will see a "enable" checkbox
- Uncheck the box
- Exit setup
- Launch the song
- Modify the pitch up (or down) to the point when you start hearing artifacts
- Don't stop the song
- Go back to the setup
- Check/Unchekl the "enable" box, this enables /disables the plugin WHILE the song is playing, so this it's really a A/B comparison on the fly.

And to me, as previously stated, it's really day and night.

+1

Another audio demo by me... Watchwww.youtube.com

I did a quick demo with scratching due to a request in another form to show you can still scratch with PnT is enabled.

Also, if you know the tempo of the original song, you will realize it's pitched up and the bass tone in the track is unaffected, etc.

soundcloud.com

I just want to thank all the Serato team, this is amazing!

One Question...

Does this Plugin also improve audio quality without keylock on?

No.

Interesting choice ;) LOL!

Uhm yeah, thought so too ;)

Well, that's the song everyone talks about sounds so bad with the normal keylock (going back a few years on the forum, but granted, could have chosen a more recent song).

Great demo Konix. Also, I think they were referring to a few words in the song and was it directed towards anyone :)

Haha, I was just messin' w' you.

great demo and I agree this has to be one of the worst songs for the old keylock :)

Im getting all kind of issues with it while scratching.
testing control buffer at 2
serato dj buffer at 1
i was getting drop outs and digital glitches so I raised the control buffer to 8 and still noticed digital noise while scratching fast. It wasn't noticeable when slow scratching. Im gonna test more today. I tested it 3 hours lastnight. with the pitch n time plug in activated. The digital noise wasn't present with the control panel buffer at 10 but with this I noticed the latency suffered. I will do more testing and chime back in.

Konix I appreciate your help and videos . Over the years you helped me alot with trouble shooting and with Info.

and you done this....


Just checking :-)

no prob and thank you

this is the song i use when i show other djs about the crappy keylock of SSL lol

+1 :-D

Yeah add me to that list too!

One of the mixes I did recently Slum Village - Fall in Love suffered horribly from the original key lock. Because of the long bass tones for the bassline, nothing but warbles.

With PnT is nice and clear!

Best tune I've found so far for showing how good P'nT in DJ is Watchwww.youtube.com

I used to hear horrible arrifacts even at -1%, so Keylock was a no-no for me serato.com

The new algo sounds just fine, very natural, though CDJ2000 Nexus' still has an edge as far as I remember (that one is just jaw-dropping).

All in all a much needed improvement, priced right. Thumbs up!

Is Keylock in SSL and SDJ exactly the same, quality wise?

Yup.

Great job , Serato.

FINALLY!!!

It is the single best upgrade since day 1.

The funny thing is, I never bothered to use Pitch n' Time for DAW's in my productions because I associated it with the dj software which was god awful.

Along with me, I think you will gain some customers for the PNT for DAW's.

Again, nice work.

I have been using Pitch 'n Time for a few days now. Using it on early Drum and Bass 1996 era, pitching it up 10-15 bpm to play it with new 2013/14 Drum and Bass and it seems to work great : ) Same with pitching up 1989/90 stuff with 1992 Oldskool Hardcore.

Love it : )

Nice one.

I haven't DL'ed PNT yet but from the vid it sounds very similar to what I have experienced in the past with Traktor. And about 1,000x better than Ableton. The artifacting and tinny-ness you hear when pitched down 50% in the Konix vid is almost exactly the same effect you get from Traktor. If you know how Serato's regular key lock works, by removing samples, or even if you don't and you just watch the vid, you can hear a major improvement with PNT enabled. If I remember correctly the same distortion (artifacting and tinny-ness) with PNT enabled at 50% in SDJ are apparent in Traktor at a smaller percentage. Like around 30-35%. So in that regard I'd say PNT with SDJ is now better than Traktor. But, who is really gonna be mixing songs at 35-50% pitch? That's more of a DAW type of thing.

I don't typically go past +/- 8% anyway but I'm stoked to start using PNT as soon as SDJ supports my workflow (MIDI Panel and MIDI Out). So, come on Serato... take my money?

Sorry guys.....a little off topic here...does pitch'n time come included in the final release of Serato DJ 1.6.0 (1603972)? When I go to the plugins in setup the option is not there.

Thank you
Sergio D

Only if you buy it.

In certain styles (i.e. hardstyle) you may want to slow down to 50% (to, say, 75 BPM) then mix the next song at 150 BPM (double tempo).

This is only enabled by an excellent algorithm.

That's a good example. I used to mess around with R&B acapellas over Drum & Bass tracks where the BPMs are halved/doubled (87/175). It works great cuz you don't need to pitch up or down but didn't really work when trying to overlay House music vocals (128/175). Maybe now with PnT, it'll be possible. I don't think I'd wanna do it with a well known track though. Watching everyone try to sing really fast would be funny. Be on the look out for the Sub Focus vs. Avicci - Hey Brother (Dokumentary Mash-Up Remix). lol.

um... Maybe not...

Even if you don't go that extreme it will open up some new creative doors while keeping the sound quality now.

Yeah. I'm thinking the full range of Hip-Hop/R&B/Reggae (65-110 BPMs) will sound good instead of just mid 80bpm.

:-D

Boom-cha..... boom-cha..... boom-cha..... "Theres nothing in this world I wouldn't doooooooo"

Sound is great. Only one bad thing for me is it uses loads of CPU. I have had to put my USB buffer up to 5

I've been working with Pitch n' Time for about a week now.

Set a track at 0% pitch, and toggle PnT on and off. You can hear audible spectral artifacts when using Pitch n' Time that are absent when using Serato's normal keylock. (Listen for an "underwater" kind of sound, especially in the bass)

PnT certainly sounds better with pitch shifts greater than 4%, but at 0% it should really be clean.

I will be sticking with Serato's keylock for now. Wish I could get my $ back.

O_o . sounds great to me so far. are u using a i series processor ?

I'm on a quad i7 MacBook Pro, Rane Sixty-Two and Technics 1200-series TT.

The sound I'm describing occurs at all buffer settings, in both INT and REL modes.

Cue up a FLAC or ALAC house track with a clean kick (in the intro, for example) and no other instruments playing. You can hear the little spectral gurgles in between the kicks, even at 0% pitch. If you switch over to Serato's keylock, it's clean.

It's the characteristic sound of spectral artifacting, similar to a lossy MP3.

I wouldn't say I'm an audiophile, but I'm probably more sensitive than most.

I can post an audio example, if you like.

Here's a short audio demo: x.onehub.com (2.8MB AIFF)

It's a four-bar kick loop. There are 8 counts with no keylock, and 8 counts with PnT turned on. It alternates twice.

I have posted about the warble sound of the bass when using pnt. It takes a while for it to start but it's there even with the pitch at 0.

Once you turn pnt off, the sound clears right up but if you enable it again, that warble is back instantly.

Pnt and 1.6 are not ready for prime time yet.

I'm using a late 2013 i7 retina 2.6GHz Quad-core with 16 GB memory and a 1tb ssd hard drive.

My MBP should handle SDJ with ease bit that is not the case and it does not matter the buffer size.

I posted a recording of it for Serato.

This bad sound is internal. It can be picked up in the serato recording.

I hope they get to the bottom of this.

Indeed.

To my ears, it sounds like the standard Serato DJ keylock is using a granular processing algorithm, and Pitch n' Time uses a spectral / FFT algorithm.

The transient response is far better with the standard keylock (until you get beyond +- 4% or so). I typically don't mix outside of that range, so I'll stick with the old one.

Speaking for myself, I would strongly recommend anybody using Serato DJ to stick to the standard keylock, if they stay within those pitch margins.

I'll add this to the list of things I hope they resolve with an update. I am really enjoying getting to learn Serato DJ, so I hope they get this sorted soon!

I'm baffled.

My ears are extremely sensitive to artifacts, and I have not detected the slightest issue at 0%or low values, in two weeks of use.

And even at low shifting values, Pitch and times sounds a thousand times better to my ears, It's with the standard keylock that I hear a terrible warble sound even at low values (it starts to bother me over +/- 1.5%).

I totally hear the artifact in your demo, though. It sounds like nothing I've heard since I use PnT. I wouldn't call this warbled, what I personnaly hear is a high pitched creaking very similar to what a kick pedal sounds like (which funny in this context :-)).

I'm going to test rightaway with a "clean" sound like you did. As yet I only tested with complex music so it's possible that such artifacts were masqued.

If what you expericence is really a problem with PnT (it could be something else related to the activation of the plugin), I see that DJs who play lots of Drumn' bass or similar stuff will be seriously put off...

OK sadly I can confirm this after careful litening tests including all sorts of music.

Granted, I can detect this ONLY with bass drums which have a strong boost under 100Hz and with little other musical content. Think drum'nbass, or disco intros with boosted low-freq kicks (like the intro of "Holiday rap").

With such bass drums, each kick indeed creates a high pitch artifact similar to a creaking noise, that can be heard when the bass drum is playing alone, or with not much additional musical content in the higher range (again, the intro of "Holiday rap"). The slightest trace of guitar masks the artifacts entirely.

Looks like you found a bug in PnT.

I'm not really bothered since this artifact is masked 99% of the time in my own DJing, and the standard keylock's artifacts are far worse to my ears.

Nevertheless, as Serato presents PnT as an "industry standard", they should definitly fix this.

I forgot to mention that I did NOT, in any circumstance, hear any artifact at 0% pitching. I think there is something amiss in this regard, in your own testing.

But the artifacts DO appear even at the smallest negative pitching values, as little as 0.3%!

I made my own demo of this issue at -0.3%:

www.wizzu.be

Same method as No Handle's demo: 8 kicks without PnT, 8 kicks with PnT and so on.
With PnT a creaking noise is audible with each kick as a pre-echo.

I have re-checked and PnT wins hands down, even at small offsets. No comparison.

I actually use PnT Lite in my DAW, always been very happy compared to Logic stock algos.

It wins hands down in actual use for most music I agree, but this creaking pre-echo on bass drums even at as low pitching values as 0.3%, is entirely absent in the standard keylock (just check my demo switching between PnT and standard keylock), it exists only with PnT.

At -0.3% I hear zero artifact with the standard keylock with the same source (or any source for that matter).

So yes, PnT is overall far superior and I'm never going back to the standard keylock, but PnT has this annoying creaking artifact with specific music contents, that will put off some DJs playing lots of stuff with prominent kicks and bass with lots "air" around (silence or low-end resonances). And the standard keylock does not have this specific artifact at all.

So depending on the DJ and the music, in specific instances, the standard keylock can actually be superior. Which is quite a paradox.

^This^

I have a help request for it.
I sent serato a recording of this and I'm hoping they can get to the bottom of this and fix it.


serato.com

This is thread I started for the benefit of the Serato community.

serato.com

There is good info in these threads.

I disagree with you on this, but I'm glad you were able to reproduce the issue. Let's hope Serato takes notice.

Listen, honestly, I think that's just because you're more sensitive to this specific artifact on bass drums, than to the "dropout-like" artifacts introduced by the standard keylock on most music.

This "bug" you discovered in PnT annoys me indeed, but it doesn't put me off, because 99,9% of the music I play has a lot of texture (guitars, keyboards, vocals...) so this artifact gets fully masked. The proof being that I didn't notice anything wrong in two weeks of daily PnT use, and I like to think I have pretty good ears (I'm often considered as an anal person when it comes to sound, lol).

With the standard keylock, none of the artifacts ever get masked, they're just too subtle to be noticed by most people under 2%. But all genres of musics suffer. And I was bothered by it ALL THE TIME.

I hope too. But as they consider PnT as a very mature product, I have my doubts on their good will to aknowledge that it has a very noticeable problem on some audio material even at -0.3%... We'll see.

Have you guys checked with a 100Hz sine wave?

I am pretty cnfident no noticeable distortion will show up.

I'm into music, not pure tones ;-) (though I know that these days it's considered old school lol).

You' re probably righ of course, since sine waves are so easier to treat than complex signals... I'm not sure what your point is?

My point is that, given the problem you reported is apparently less severe on complex sounds, then going the opposite way should in theory highlight the distortion, if any distortion is happening.

Checking stuff with sine waves is a good, common way to spot problems ;)

I don't think so. I think the artifact gets masked among more complex sounds, that's all.

As of yet what I suspect is:
- PnT's algorhythm is not able to flawlessly handle transients in the sub-bass domain (<100Hz)
- This creates the creaking pre-echo artifact on kicks
- The creaking pre-echo artifact is audible only when there is lots of "air" around the kick sound (i.e. not much instruments or sounds with mids or highs)
- The artifact gets 100% masked as soon as the music gets more complex, since it's not very loud (in the demos above, the creaking sound is definitly NOT very loud!)

For artifacts generated by transient sounds....? I'm not sure about that. Remember, it seems to appear only on bass drum attacks (unless someone else finds differently). I tried bass guitar and sustained synth bass notes, I hear no artifacts...

Bass drum attacks have NO bass information, just highs and mids.

And sub-low don't have any transient problems. In production, you're not going to use a transient shaper on subs, for example, whereas critical transient information is in the mids and especially in the highs.

So, it's basically a transient problem, and not a lows problem, what you're detecting.

To clarify: I'm just disagreeing with your assertion that Pitch n' Time is "overall far superior." In your post, you went on to say that most of the music you play has a lot of texture and midrange, so PnT is a better solution for you. But for me (and many other DJs), transient preservation and bass reproduction is paramount, so the standard keylock may work better.

This isn't an attack, I just wanna be clear and make sure this is a constructive post for other people using PnT (and Serato developers). We both want the same thing.


This has not been my experience. To my ears, there's a consistent qualitative difference, even with tracks with live instruments and very little frequency information below 100Hz. If I had to describe it, I'd say the attack of drums and transients is somewhat "smoothed out" by the PnT algorithm, and it has a lot of the characteristic underwater spectral artifacts of a low-bitrate MP3.

What kind of hardware are you using?

If i scratch on a beat a notice a like crackle click sound with pitch n time. Not all the time tho! Will have to make some recordings and open a help request.

I stand corrected, you're right. I guess I've finally been contaminated by the internet audio folklore. Sigh. Getting old. I hear this artifact only with bass drums, and specifically with bass drums which have been pushed hard at the mix for this "booom" effect (~70-95Hz).

So I assumed that it was a problem with bass frequencies.

Maybe you're right and the reason why I can't hear it with isolated snare drums (for example), is that it's so easily masked by mid/high contents.

I'll search my library for isolated plosive sounds without much bass info, to check if I hear anything...

I guess I came across as defensive. That's just my writing style, I didn't feel attacked :-)


Agreed.


This I personally don't hear at all at lower pitching values.


I hear something similar with PnT at higher values (>+/- 6%) but it doesn't bother me.

Though I find it vaguely similar to lower bitrates lossy audio, it sounds a hundred times better to my ears. And under <+/-6%, I hear no degradation in the sound apart from the artifact I discussed (which I first heard in your own demo).

Maybe your ears are better than mine, but maybe -maybe- you're having expectation/confirmation bias?


DDJ-SX. I used Sennheiser HD650 and HD25 for my listening tests, plugged directly into the DDJ-SX.

Out of curiosity, I transcoded the lossless file used in my demo to AAC 256k, Mp3 320k, OGG Q8 to check for a possible worsening of the artifact with lossy files when played with PnT, but couldn't hear any.

Honestly, I'm going to stop testing: I'm kinda loosing my time since I'm mostly happy with PnT anyway... as previously said, before you posted your demo, I didn't notice anything wrong with it (ok there's a strong flanging-like effect at high values, but hey, there's a downside to anything, I'm not expecting pristine audio quality at all BPM values while keeping pitch, that would be irrealistic...)

Any *worsening*

Hearing through headphones is one thing but it's real bad coming through a sound system with subs.

Pitch n time becomes unuseable.

I tested with qcs kw181's and ev tops. Also with yorkville Ls801pb's.

It takes a while for the sound to degrade but it DOES degrade to the point that it is totally unuseable.

I'm taking some time later this week for a more serious set of tests.

From my quick A/B's I hadn't noticed a severe transient smearing, PnT seemed much better in any regards compared to the old algo (that I detest and never use). But I may be wrong about transients integrity, I'll check it out! :)

In my experience, if I can't hear a problem through excellent headphones with extended freq response, I'll never hear it through any loudspeaker. Except for possible phase issues of course.

So.... I'm extremely skeptical that any issue with a sound source could be detected through loudspeakers but not through excellent headpones. I'm among those who believe it's actually the other way round.

But I'm kind of open-minded. So I just played your demo and my own (the one that I posted here) on my mobile sound system. Guess what, even though I knew exactly what to look for, it was extremely difficult to hear the artifact.

In my headphones though, I hear it very clearly.

Besides, I performed 9 gigs since I bought PnT, including 3 on pretty loud sound systems, and neither I, nor my customers, heard anything wrong with the sound. I'm always asking for feedback about the sound, as excellent sound reproduction is one of my selling arguments...

If you're going to take the "you can't hear the problem I'm talking about beause your equipement is not good/loud/professional enough" route, I'm not sure I'll take you very seriously.



Uh? Takes a while? What do you mean?

Honestly, I never thought to listen for it in the headphones so you may very well be correct. I will listen for it through the headphones.

What I have noticed is that with pitch n time enabled, the sound was decent for about 15 minutes (approximately). The sound degrades after that to where pitch n time is totally unuseable.

Nice Machine Problem is defiantly not there.

I hear the artifacts you are talking about in this demo. I think it may have to do with sub harmonics, In most dnb music they use sub harmonic processors on the kicks to give them the low end rumble. serato may have to modify the frequency range of the plug in. Just like when using a subharmonic processor on tracks that already processed the bass sound like that also.

Another interesting (and very plausible) explanation...

While mixing several tracks? While leaving a loop running? At what +/- % settings? "Unusable" as in... "???" Please give more details, because as is, frankly it sound like a hoax!

I haven't heard the artifacts but, I have to agree with Mr187 that all the processing that added to the music plus the processing of with Pitch n Time is a cause...it doesn't fix the problem and hopefully Serato can alleviate the problem I just don't think it will be able to fix it completely because it's so specific with processing taking care of music that is being processed again.

Have you read the help requests I posted?
They answer your questions.

Please don't come to me sayings anything about a "hoax"
I've tried to contribute and provide information and my experiences with pitch n time.

Hint: it's a very short creaking noise immediately before each bass drum hit.

It could also be described as a duck-like sound (think Donald Duck :-))

Dynamic compression makes the artifact much more audible to casual listening. I had to go that far for a friend of mine to finally hear the artifact.

So while I was at it, I checked the spectrum and the maximum audible energy of the artifact is situated at ~2290 Khz.

So I boosted this region in a multi-band processor to make the artifact more audible and uploaded the file so anyone can hear it.

Reminder:
- 8 kicks with the standard keylock
- 8 kicks with Pitch and time

Here's the file:
www.wizzu.be

Actually I hear artifacts in both versions but they are of a very different nature.

The demo was made specifically to show a specific artifact generated by PnT, with bass drums which have lots of energy under 100Hz.

Once again, personnaly I'm far less bothered by this than by the awfully-full-of-dropouts-like sound of the standard keylock.

I followed the links you provided in this thread, but they lead to threads about audio dropouts... not about PnT.

Are you expecting me to do all the work and search the entire forum to find the threads you're referring to?

I'll read them if you provide the links.

Actually in the demo posted by No Handle's, it's far more easy to hear the artifact since there is only a bass drum and nothing else.

So I did the same processing on his file.

Here is No Handle's demo file re-processed to make the artifact easier to hear:

www.wizzu.be

Reminder:
- 8 kicks with standard keylock
- 8 kicks with PnT

I guess that's what you were referring to.

For some reason I couldn't download the file you posted so I can't listen to the symptom.

But it's extremely likely that this "degradation in sound" over time with PnT enabled, is due to buffer underrun, not to the PnT audio algorhythm. Even less so since you say you can hear a problem even at 0% setting (!!), which proves that it's not the algorhythm that creates the "bad sound", but the mere activation of PnT (and the computer resources it takes).

What you're experiencing is an entirely different problem than what user "No Handle" reported, and that I investigated.

Basically, what you're reporting about PnT looks like a computer/incompatibility/stability issue, NOT a sound quality issue per se.

It also looks like all people complaining about PnT and stability/CPU/buffer issues with PnT are MAC users, so the compatiblity with the OS seems to be the culprit, and Serato will probably fix this soon.

Here I use Windows 8 (which is not even supposed to be supported by Serato, lol!) and a mere Pentium 2020M (which is supposed to be not powerful enough), and I have zero overload issues or "degradation over time" so believe me, what you experience is a compatibility issue, not "something wrong with PnT sound quality".

Once again it has nothing to do with the specific issue that No handle has raised, which is all about the *sound quality* of PnT.

Wizzu,

you're saying you're running Windows 8 and PnT without the USB dropouts. Can you tell me what type of equipment you are using and what your buffer is set to?

I experience USB dropouts (Windows) en masse with PnT enabled at lower buffer settings although system is running perfectly fine at lowest buffers with PnT off. To use PnT, I have to set ridicilously high buffers (15ms+).

..
[kinda off-topic]

@aleksey:

I have two laptops for DJing, the one I'm reffering to (with the Pentium 2020M and Windows 8) is a low-cost Acer TravelMate P253. It's basically my backup unit but I've performed two full 5 hours gigs with it, so to be sure I can count on it when the time comes. :-)

It took me some time to have SDJ working properly with Windows 8, by uninstalling all the OEM crapware, and disabling many unnecessary Windows services... but once I was there it became rock solid.

Thing is, my DJ laptops are 100% dedicated to DJing so my systems are very "clean", with only ITCH, SDJ, Foobar2000 and MP3Tag installed, absolutely nothing else. I also DJ with wi-fi disabled. I think all this contributes to the fact that I can get away with a mere Pentium 2020M without issues with PnT.

My buffers are set to 2ms. Tried 1ms with the Acer but it can't handle it, buffer overload-o-rama and stutter-rama. Anyway I'm used to 2ms so it's absolutely not a problem with me.

I do experience very small dropouts from time to time (1 or 2 and hour) but nothing serious. No dropouts with my main DJing laptop (a Toshiba with an i5 4200M and Windows 7).

15ms buffer is indeed very high for what is supposed to be real-time audio... :-( Let's hope they come up with a fix..

[/off-topic]

Yeah, little bit off-topic but thanks for the info. My PC is also audio-only and optimized so I'm confident Serato will come up with a performance fix. For now, I had to decide to stay with either SSL or go to SDJ (genre tags still get messed up when using both). I shouldn't have bought the DDJ-SP1 so early so decision would have been easier. SDJ is OK but still has some flaws I can't get along with (too hot signal, PnT, FX < SSL IMHO etc.) I tried for a few days but went back to SSL after all. Luckily I still have the dicers ;-) I hope we'll see an update soon... because the SP1 really rocks.

All we are is beta testers that purchased the plug in.... smh

notice very limited feedback.

What kind of feedback are you after dj shadow from detroit? This is a general discussion that seems to be going really well as far as I can see - great investigation @Wizzu and others :)



No. The beta period for Serato DJ 1.6 is over, this is a final release. Furthermore, the Pitch 'n Time algorithm that is being used in Serato DJ is exactly the same as the (Harmonic) algorithm that has been used in the DAW plugin for 15 years. Movie studios, Recording studios and other top-end users have been more than satisfied with it so we are quite confident in the quality of the processing.

Cheers
Aaron

I did a test on 'Holiday Rap' and heard the same strange sound once activated.

I could hear the sound after a tiny (<1%) nudge of the pitch and can also sometimes hear it at 0% once I've invoked the problem.

Now I know it's there I hear it but I don't mind too much I suppose.

I agree when the plug in is tweaked it will be great I have trust in the serato team.
Thats why i purchased the 56 - 57 - 61 - 62 and sl-1 box since 2005

I meant that the people that purchased the pitch n time plug in for serato dj are all beta testers right now :)

I think what was meat by this is that help requests have gone unanswered and people have been experiencing issues and posting about those issues but we have not heard from Serato in relation to these issues.

something seems to be clearly wrong but serato has given very little feedback in regard to the issues people are having.

Some think it's mainly a mac issue. Some think it's a Mavricks issue.
Some think it's a pitch n time issue while some others think it's a 1.6 issue.

Whatever the issue is, there ARE issues and Serato has not been forthcoming with acknowledgement or information.

Unanswered help requests and long threads that have just about no posts from serato equals

I still don't like that they discontinued the sl-1 and the rane 57.

DjCity you are correct :)

Same here. It's totally masked in 99,9% of the music I'm playing.

But for people who play lots of drumn' bass or similar stuff, as the artifact gets much more noticeable, I understand it can be annoying.

****

Now that I've worked with the resulting audio files, I can confirm that No handle is right about transients: they are indeed tampered with, even at low PnT values. There is a level cut in the transients of bass drums, it can go as far as 6db. I can't really hear it personally (ABX 6/10), but it looks like some others can (we all have different ears...)

All in all, as there's always a taken for a given (i.e. you can't expect to keep a perfect sound while changing the speed, this is kinda irrealistic), I find PnT does a good job. Personally I'm satisfied with its sound for DJing purposes. But I still prefer the sound of Elastique for production purposes, it sounds more natural and precise to my ears.

As for the computer overload when using PnT, Serato should definitly work on that, or they will probably loose sales... but what annoys me, is that one way to lower the load would be to lower the precision of the processing of PnT, and I don't want that.

Personally until the next update (official or beta) I'm off this discussion and back to more urgent things. :-)

They supported USB 1.1 devices through to 2013. USB 2.0 was introduced in April 2000. The Rane SL3 was introduced in 2009. For four full years, Serato supported two functionally obsolete devices running on a 18 year old spec (which has been superseded twice) that was made functionally obsolete when the Pentium III was released.

Please take that into consideration.

This algorithm will not get tweaked. Any key lock algorithm will produce some sort of artifact.
The new PnT plugin has a similar voicing to the "Complex" algorithm in Ableton Live. The old key lock is similar to the "Beats" algorithm in Ableton Live.

The "Complex Pro" algorithm in Live has less overall artifacts but the tradeoff is it adds a dullness to the audio.

Until we have some major strides in this technology, we will all have to choose which byproduct we can deal with the most.

Initially, I was praising the hell out of PnT. But then with certain tracks with certain tonality and certain bit rates, it reared it's ugly head.

I am pretty happy with the PnT sound, but for me it will stay disabled until my crashes are addressed.

Bitrates...! Didn't think of that.

Would these guys complaining about the sound of PnT use low quality lossy files?You know, the kind of twice transcoded three times re-EQed crap that you can download for... free... :-p

Crap in, crap out... with audio processing it's even often: crap in, double crap out...

Just an idea.

That was my thought. Is PnT making crappy bit rate tracks sounds worse or sound like they really are?

Double crap…..lol

I'm going to have to test the bit rate theory out.

Wizzu...

If you have low bit rate tracks, could you please test this too?

I'm redoing my equipment and will not be able to test right away.

I dont think i have any low bitrate ones to test. how low do you guys think?

128/192 I would think should be low enough.

ok ill test

true dat But the 1200's came out in in 72 to 73 I think one of those and discontinued in 2010. and cd players came in 1982 we didn't get one until 1986 when they became affordable, yet serato support both of those and vinyl is now obsolete. I'm Just Saying.

1200 came in 1972

But 1200's are analog. Both the 57sl and sl1 are midi.

Totally different technologies. The 1200's work through the Rane hardware. it's the Rane hardware itself that is outdated in respect to the 57sl and sl1.

I still have both the 57sl and a sl1 but I also upgraded.

The 1200 is a device reliant on an Alternating Current, a ground, and another device capable of receiving a phono input over unbalanced audio cables.

The SL1 and TTM57SL are units reliant on a USB 1.1 connection that is limited to 12Mbps (theoretically), and a computer capable of managing that (Let's not get started on the crap shoot that is i-Series machines with Windows attempting to run USB 1.1 devices. Nothing stops Apple from dropping support either).

An analog medium reliant on fewer points of failure cannot be compared with a digital medium reliant on hundreds (if not thousands) of points of failure.

Even tho they are only usb 1.1 They had very few connection issues compared to usb 2.0 devices. Even on usb 3.0 usb 1.1 devices work better than usb 2.0 devices.

^ you not tried on windows then? The SL1 and ttm57 have not worked with any of the intel i series processors. (Some people have had luck)

Also the sl1 does not have midi!
And the ttm57 also does not have midi.

The pioneer ddj-SX is USB 1.1

serato.com



for guys with windows having problems with huge librarys and the virtual memory issue. that link maybe a fix and huge.

Great find :-)

Thank you for cleaning that up for me. I said midi cause it was easier to say than what you said.

Whats the latest news with Pitch n Time? Are people still having trouble with the usb drop out lights? Has there been any updates or are any updates planned? Anyone got any info?

Thanks

Borrowing an SL4 to test against this. I've been using it with the NS7FX.

I was playing a deep track the other day (Claptone - No Eyes) and thought how bad the mp3 was. It sounded like a 128 kbps file rather than the 320 kbps file i was playing.

It turned out it was the P'n'T artifact :(

> It sounded like a 128 kbps file rather than the 320 kbps file i was playing.
> It turned out it was the P'n'T artifact :(

Hi Mr Wilks :-)

The questions is... at the % of speed change you were playing the track at, would it have sounded better with the standard keylock? Which degradationis the worse of the two?

To my ears the artifacts with the standard keylock sound like a badly edited tape (for those who are old enough to know what's a badly edited tape, lol..): pops, irregular warble sound, put differently a defect in the continuity of the sound. The fluidity of the music is broken. "Broken" is the word.

To my ears the artifacts with Pitch and Time sound like some echo/flanger effect, with some ringing added to it. But the fluidity and continuity are preserved, which is what puts it in a whole different range than the standard Keylock in my book. Because it keeps the musicality.

One sounds like the track is broken, the other sounds simply like a lower audio quality file (like you said, lower bitrate-ish). To my ears, that is.

I'll take "lower quality" over "broken" anyday, but to each his own...

I usually mix house at home and a mixed genere out so found myself doing just that... turning off P'n'T when playing deep house.

I only adjust a small percentage so not found a problem with the old algorithm as 3% doesn't produce much artifacting and a 0.10% adjustment in P'n'T causes a pretty rough sound on some tracks so I just keep it off. Some sound systems really pick up on it so for light usage I'm back to the standard. I just switch to the P'n'T when doing big pitch changes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissin' it as I love it. I just think for small changes in pitch, the old key lock can be better for some styles.

Agreed, it seemed to be the (early) conclusion we kinda came to in the other thread.
- Playing mixed genre music and generous pitch changes : PnT is way better than the standard keylock
- Playing mostly music with prominent kick and bass, with very few instruments or vocals in the medium/high range (drumn'bass, deep house etc...), slight pitch changes: PnT artifacts get audible and can be annoying, and the standard keylock can be a better choice.

I'm having internal level discrepancies and CPU spikes when using PnT. With PnT on, if I change the tempo up or down my internal levels start to spike, going up about five bars. Haven't had any dropouts, luckily, and the internal level problem discrepancy doesn't seem to actually change my levels on my DDJ-SR, it just messes with my head. I've tried moving my latency to 2ms, 4ms, 6ms but it hasn't helped.

Anyone else having these internal level problems with PnT?

Here are my specs:
Macbook Pro
2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5

That SIGNIFICANT little detail should be clearly stated here:
store.serato.com

And here:
serato.com

OMG you're very right, this is a huge overlook by Serato's team. :-O

Just tried sl1 on toshiba i7 and it works just fine.

You're probably one of the lucky ones then, as its not officially supported...

PnT compared to the old keylock in SSL is like day and night, I don't want to miss that anymore!

it's cool to be lucky sometime :)



I know I can't play without it anymore

Sure is!
Watchwww.youtube.com

lol

I sold my spare SL1 to someone with an i5 HP laptop about four years ago and he never had one issue.

I think it was certain models that suffered but it was a roulette as to which ones. I think I saw a thread that listed models that was not playing ball.

It does seem strange that the SX is USB 1.1 too, especially for such a new product to come to market.

I purchased it today.

It is good, it is way better than the normal key lock, but actually 29 USD is a bit much just for a better Keylock. If you guys would also build in a key detection people would even pay 50 USD or more.

Since playing out with it now, I cannot return to SSL and the original keylock.

The sound quality is too superior to go back.

Love me some Shadow Child.

before I buy pitch & time, I have a question about how it would handle a certain situation.

let's say I'm playing at 130 bpm with house track after house track. i decide to select a hip hop track that has a normal bpm of 90; will Serato Dj force it from 90 up to 130?

that's what I really need and if it can do that and do it fairly well, I'll buy it.

90 to 130 just ain't gonna work.

Pitch n time can make it theoretically possible but you should never ever ever try to mix like that!

What do yo mean by "force" it? You can always go from 90 to 130 even without Pn't, so I don't understand the question...
I hear you, but there are situations when you can do that to achieve an effect. For example I like to do that as a joke when the dancefloor is packed, hot and "psychologically ready" to follow me anywhere. I can then drop a pop hit (preferably a BIG pop hit, and the "cornier" the better) at twice or half its normal speed, believe me people have a great time dancing to "poker face" @190BPM... because it's silly and fun! Of course, this works only if the rest of the set is NOT silly... ;-) it's a matter of balance, contrast and seizing the moment..

My question is does it play the 90 bpm track at 130 bpm to match what is currently playing at 130?

With Serato Dj, it seems like there's a limit to the difference in tempo. I've seen some situations where I can be at 130 and load a 105 bpm track with no problem but if I try to select a 95 bpm track, it's outside the range so the software will load it but drop it down to 65 bpm instead of speed it up to 130 like it should.

I'm just asking for clarification on exactly how pitch & time will treat varying tempos in conjunction with the tempo of the track currently playing.

Whoa, I've never experienced that before.

Ooooh!

He's talking about sync.

Sorry, I can't help you with that.

You should never even try to match tempos that fast apart.
No matter what, it's gonna sound like shit.

Pitch n time will stop the chipmunk sound but won't increase or decrease the tempo. It wool only stabilize the pitch.

staying on topic with my original question......

here's the official description from Serato:

"Pitch 'N Time DJ - Expansion Pack for Serato DJ users - allows you to speed up or slow down your track to extreme tempo values while maintaining its key perfectly, with the highest quality and definition of any available software."

I'm asking about the software's ability to force a track to play at a different tempo.

It's doesn't force anything. The time stretching algorithm has superior audio quality to the original keylock.

So you if you do extreme tempo changes it will hold the key but sounds WAY better.

Watch this video Deejae Smooth: Watchwww.youtube.com

Miscommunication. Pitch'n time has zero influence on this. Its doesn't change the way sync works in any way. It just stabilizes the pitch (meaning the TONE pitch) with a better sound quality than the standard keylock does it. Don't expect it to change anything to the way sync works... its just makes it sound better.

I wasn't aware of that. I barely use auto sync.

Thinking of it... for once, I'm with Serato on this "ignore what the user wants and automatically select the closest half/double matching tempo when sync is engaged" decision.

First, tempo analysis can be treacherous and be wrong (halved or doubled) in many cases anyway. So this is the safest way to deal with such situations, choose the closest halve or double if the tempos are extremely far from each other. You get less mistakes like this.

Second, If SDJ did the opposite, i.e. always sync at the very same tempo, you'd have get far more complaints from DJs!... Imagine how it would be horrendous to beatmatch a 65bpm reggae song with a 130bpm disco song with auto sync, if autosync actually doubled the tempo of the reggae song! By choosing to beatmatch at the closest half/double, auto sync makes such transitions possible...

If you insist in matching tempos that are this far away from each other, I guess you'll have to first switch to manual sync. Good ol' manual beatmatching. A breeze with the "icicles" display anyway. Takes less than 5 seconds. THEN when you have matched the tempos, you can probably press "sync" safely (not sure about that though).

Yes you can manually match the tempo and that's exactly the point.

If the software at manually force 90 bpm to play at 130 with the sync off, it should be able to do it with the sync on.

I use this technique for quick up and down transition mixing. If the software will do what I tell it, I can mix into a hip hop track while still in the upper tempos and then slide the fader to bring the tempo down into the hip hop range while staying on beat.

If you tried to do this manually, it would be very hard to simultaneously change both faders at the same time to change both tempos and keep them on beat.

I personally think that the way SDJ handles this situation by now is quite clever, but I'll leave the pros/cons to experienced autosync users (I'm not among them, I beatmatch manually most of the time and use autosync only from time to time). You could nag Serato for an option in the software setup "always sync at exact same BPM".

OK now I get it, and I understand why you want autosync to work at exact same BPM even for very different tempos...

That's what I would try if I were you (as previously explained):
1. Match tempos manually first (coarsly - just to make both BPM very close to each other)
2. Then engage "SYNC"... and see what happens?

Anyway, this is entirely off topic here since Pitch & time has no impact at all on the way autosync works. You should IMO open a thread dedicated to this if you want to discuss it further.

Just throwing in my thoughts on PnT:

(1) There's a bug that causes software track gain to increase into the red with PnT enabled: serato.com Serato tells me it doesn't affect actual track gain, just the visual meters. Still though.

(2) To my ears, while PnT definitely works better for large tempo changes, there's a noticeable difference in the audio even with small BPM shifts. I hear it in the high hats specifically, like they go from clean to slightly metallic sounding. It's subtle, but there. Maybe I can do a test sometime. Anyone else hear this?

Yes, definitly. A slight flanger effect on the very high frequencies (sybillants, high-hats, cymbals)...

I think it's totally to be expected with a "generic" setting for a time contract/expand plugin, meaning that normally there are lots of settings to fine tune the result depending on the musical contents. Here, we can't, we're stuck with a single, "one-size-fits-all" setting that Serato came up with somhow. So depending on the musical contents the flanging effect can go from rather audible to frankly undetectable.

I'm not bothered, it's so slight that at my "usual" max tempo changes (+5%, -3%) I can hear it only in my headphones, and with a fair amount of concentration. None of the dancers will ever notice. Noticing this change in sound requires active, critical listening like many of us are used to. People dancing? Never. They're not actively listening. As for DJ demos, there are so many horrendous MP3s out there anyway, with ringing artifacts etc., that this slight flange effect introduced by PnT won't change the game.

At higher settings it gets very audible, but it's still a hundred times better than the standard keylock with all the music I'm playing. At all tempo changes, evenn the slightest. I can't stand the standard keylock at all.

Thanks for the insight. Yeah I think we as DJs/music lovers tend to nitpick things that nobody else would notice. I haven't really compared PnT to Traktor/VDJ/Cross keylocks. Any thoughts there?

I can hear it totally and it really sucks :(

It doesn't matter in the club too much, people are drunk, I notice it though.

But it is very obvious when recording a mix for the radio. The audio sound hollow, like a 128kbps mp3 file :(

Ableton Live with the Complex Pro 2 algorithm sounds definitely a lot better and does not show the artifacts PnT shows.

I really can't understand why none of the comparisons on the web mention the degraded sound, because I am pretty sure there must be a lot more who experience these issues.

They don't mention it because all of those comparisons are like, "Hey, check it out, you can pitch the song up or down 1000 per cent and it still sounds okay!" What would be way more useful is a comparison of the sound quality between keylocks at plus or minus 6% or under, a range most DJs never go outside of.

I think you are greatly exaggerating. Expectation bias must play an important role in your perception of the change introduced by Pitch and Time, unless you are talking HIGH tempo changes.

I've been performing A/B comparisons with two fellow DJs and a musician, and on first listening no one could pick the -3% PnT version over the 0%, non-PnT version (they didn't know the song so the tempo didn't help them picking either way).

After I told them what kind of artifacts to listen to, ONE of the three (the musician) could detect the flange-like effect. The other two didn't pick it even with attentive, careful listening through a Sennheiser HD600 and B&W 801s.

So don't tell me that the difference is like @128K MP3, which gets picked consistently over the original by anyone with good ears.

The song was "Rock it" by Earth, Wind & Fire. Great recording and mastering, plenty of high-end and low-end, lots of air, large soundstage etc... I played a lossless FLAC file, recorded both versions to WAV through Serato.

Now of course if your sources and bad to start with, which I suspect, PnT will make them sound even worse of course. But then don't blame PnT: blame your three-times-transcoded, twice-ReEQed illegally PTP'ed MP3s. ANY additional processing done to these files will unveil their crappy quality.

yep, wuuut woooot wuuuut wooot...
reported it to serato, so i guess they know about it to

I agree on this with some tracks played from Eurosolution pool.

Claptone - No Eyes (Original) sounded like a really poor mp3 of around 128kbps with only a 2% pitch shift. Without it on it sounds nice.

I think the genre has a lot to do with how the output sounds and think the 'one size fits all' approach doesn't work for all styles.

Other DJ friends have heard the 'quacking ducks' sound that has irritated me on my deep house tracks. Some styles it's not noticeable at all. I think it's the filter kicks that someone suggested further up that really stand out.

I just turn it off for small pitch adjustments. It's a shame we can't have a switch to toggle between PnT and standard keylock instead of going into setup every time.
Moving between genres is great with PnT on but feel it awkward moving through setup pages when wanting to activate/deactivate.

I'd love a hybrid mode in the setup.

Perhaps this will come when we finally get a MIDI panel.

Wizzu, oh wow, interesting that *you* are telling me how *my* ears are working? Without even knowing me? Haha. Thank you.


So your friends are the norm now? ;)


I was not telling *you* specifically, but hey I take the challenge. You will post a few snippets (these must be well known songs) of before and after PnT and I will tell you with a significant probability which snipped was using PnT and which not. We'll use a moderate pitch difference of -3%.


Lol. Dude, are you talking to me? Why would you say that I use "ReEQed illegally PTP'ed mp3s"? This is NOT a question of having super high quality as the original format. You can use your high quality 128bit 1568kHz files as the "original" sources - I still take the challenge and I will hear out the artifacts from PnT. I am comparing the sound quality before PnT and after PnT. Matter of fact... it is quite the opposite. Use a shitty quality audio file and use PnT, I might *not* hear a difference, because it is garbage before, and garbage after! So maybe you're the one using "ReEQed illegally PTP'ed mp3s" and can't hear the difference ;) Just kidding, but I hope you're getting the point.

Can you quote the part of my post where I implied that you, personally, could not tell the difference? I very much doubt that you missed the part where I recognized that even *I* do hear a difference, so you're just raising a straw man argument.


Another straw man. Even so, you do have a point somewhere (probably without realizing it) since 3 people is indeed not a valid sample.

But my point was not that most people couldn't tell the difference. I cannot know this, and I give M. Wilks enough credit to trust what he explains.

No, my point was that the difference with and without PnT at -3% when playing a FLAC file is far more subtle than the difference between this FLAC file and a 128kbits MP3 made out of it.


Another straw man. I said FLAC.
Should I have specifically mentioned it was a standard 16bits / 44.1Khz FLAC file?


Really? Well known songs?

This is not how to avoid bias when making experiments. If the song is well known, lots of people will of course be able to tell apart the original based on the change in tempo... so you're having multiple variables. Which is one of the the basic requirements for bad science. This is why the opposite is actually necessary here: people trying to tell apart the original should NOT know the song at all.

Think about it.


The lower the bitrate of the source, the more errors are introduced in the processing.

That's one of the reasons why transcoding lossy files is recommended against.

Anyway I know very well that most of your post above is just an attempt at pissing me off by making strawmen arguments and deliberatly missing my points, because you see things as an egos war. Hence the fallacious arguments.

I don't care much because I'm not posting on this board to look good, sound cool or piss off people for fun. I post to help people get away from simplistic thinking and move towards a rational approach to things because we will all benefit from it.

Hey Wizzu,


Sure, you said:


"don't tell me" while referencing a quote from me before sounds like you were meaning *me* personally.


Haha. Right.


And my point is... that I think that the difference is similar. Esp. since mp3 at lower bitrate adds similar pre and post echos like PnT does.


You missed the point, totally. I mentioned this obscure bit and sample rates just to emphasize that higher bit and sample rates don't make a difference here.



Haha. No, looks like you're missing the point again. First of all: Yes, it is right that telling the difference just by the BPM is an issue. But I am pretty sure that the majority of people will not notice a difference in tempo/BPM of 3%. I know that even with well known songs I would not be able to tell whether this is the original tempo/BPM or 3% off. (Unless it is really one of my favorites which I know in and out - but I am not talking about those 5 songs in my library ;) ). But in the majority of the cases I will be able to tell whether PnT was on or not.

To elaborate: Your suggestions makes very little sense. If the song is not know - how can you tell whether the pre/post echos/anomalies are part of the original song or not? You can't because you don't know how it should sound like.


You're mixing up things again.
This topic here as nothing to do with transcoding. Nothing. Zero.


This is wrong again. Do you really think a modern audio processing application will stay in the domain of the original source? Do you think when using a 11.025kHz, 8Bit file that the processing happens in 11kHz and 8Bit? If it had been be that case, then I would had agreed with your "more errors will be introduce in the processing"-statement.

But this is not the case. The processing happens at the application's native or output samplerate/bitdepth. For the algorithm's added errors it doesn't make a difference whether it is 11.025kHz/8Bit or 44.1kHz/16Bit (if latter is the native samplerate/bitdepth). (Except that it has to upsample/convert the original file, but this has to be done anyway - with our without applying a filter or effect (such as PnT).

To reiterate this statement:


If you start with a shitty mp3 ("your three-times-transcoded, twice-ReEQed illegally PTP'ed MP3s") it will be difficult for me to find out whether PnT is being used or not. Why? Because I couldn't tell whether it was the shitty mp3's low bitrate causing the artifacts or PnT.


Not at all. I don't care about *who* is right or wrong. It is more important to find out *what* is right and what is wrong, to find out "the truth" ;)

But it is interesting to see that again you're telling me what I am thinking. You did this previously...


I agree, but some of the points you have mentioned are simply wrong.

Sorry, I hit "post" by mistake. :-)

Yep, very much agreed. I totally heard the artifacts (pre-echo on bass drums) you discovered and found them annoying too (though "musically" acceptable in my book - but that's only mine).

The thing is, if Serato gave the DJs out there all the bells and whistles of the original PnT plugin, with all its fine tuning possibilities, many would be totally lost. Besides, Fine tuning PnT while mixing would be a new skill to master. I'm not against it, but in Serto's place I would hesitate to open this can of worms.


I'm dreaming of a controller/software interaction where EVERYTHING could be done from the controller without EVER using the computer's keyboard or mouse. Now that would be something. I hope it's the future of digital DJ'ing.

@nik39: I don't have the courage to adress more of your nonsense and straw men. You're simply not listening at all and put up a wall of verbiage as a smoke screen. Very trollish. Not worth my time.

No worries. As said:

Except you haven't proven any of my points wrong. Just verbiage, straw men, false logic, and sophomoric audio technical babble.

Just saying to someone "you're wrong" doesn't magically makes him wrong (nor you, right).

True. But I just didn't say "you're wrong" and left you with that. I have explained this roughly, but it should give you the right pointers:

As I said: straw men and sophomoric audio technical babble. Sound like you're believing in magic.

You make me think of a great Lisa Simpson line: "As usual the playground has the facts right but missed the point entirely".

Has anyone compared MP3 vs FLAC vs WAV/AIFF and the plugin? Is it just MP3s sounding the worst?

Right now you're the one babbling. I put the facts on the table.

Feel free to hide behind your "straw man" logic and words or to really prove that my explanation is wrong. I am open for the truth even if it means that I am wrong.

As you mentioned this song, I tested it out of curiosity.

At first, it didn't appear to me as suffering more than other songs from PnT enabled. I was playing a lossless file.

Then I compared the effects on three different files for the song: the original lossless, an AAC VBR ~256 (Itunes encoder), an a 320k CBR LAME 3.99 MP3. The lossy files were of course coded from the same FLAC source.

The degraded sound with PnT on this song is, at least to my ears, definitly far more noticeable when playing the MP3. The sibillants start ringing with PnT enabled and the "flanger" effect is far more pronounced than when using PnT on the FLAC and AAC files.

Without keylock, I'm unable to tell the three files apart, unless I go to high tempo change values (±50%) . At these values, once again, to my ears it's the MP3 that suffers the most from the tempo change: the highs are kinda smeared and the whole frequency balance seems off.

Thus I'm more and more certain that the format of the file makes a huge difference in the results with PnT. As to why, I'm not sure.

Would you try a similar experiment and tell me what you think?

Funny, I hadn't read your input before doing just that :-)

I really wish the pools did FLAC as an option. This seems to be a cure for now as lossless is the way forward.

Certainly. I consider lossless to be the future of DJing.

This said I think AAC is already a substantial improvement compared to MP3, I mean for DJing and producing. For casual listening, I can't tell the difference between (Quicktime or Itunes encoder) 256VBR AAC, and LAME 3.99 320k MP3. But when I start adding effects, EQing, or using PnT etc. then the MP3s start showing their inferior nature. The AAC files sound more robust when used for DJing, almost on par with lossless.

Before someone jumps in to tell me this is subjective and not conclusive: I know it is. :-)
I'm only talking about my own experience and perception.

If you like, I can send you a lossless 30' excerpt of Claptone "No eyes" so you can try the comparison for yourself? Maybe you'll come up with a different angle.

u think a packed up club can tell the difference between using a FLAC file or a 320kbps MP3 file? you guys got a very picky crowd, they approach you like hey can u use flac files your music sounds like crap?

Or is this more for your personal listening pleasure?

Not really. Maybe a couple of discerning music lovers in the crowd could... depending on many factors (music played, loudness, amount of tempo change, quality of the loudspeakers system, acoustics of the room, drunkness factor etc. etc.).

But when you're bothered by an artifact that you yourself as the DJ can hear consistently, it can't be good for your concentration or your confidence. I agree this is a little anal, but I consider it legitimate to care about these things when you're aiming at excellence.

If the result really consistently sounded (as someone suggested..) as bad as a 128kbits MP3, then there are lots of chances that yes, your audience will notice that the sound is not great.

Also there are many different qualities of "320k" MP3s out there.
Some were encoded by poor older encoders, and the difference is very noticeable when compared to lossless.
Many other MP3s, specially on P2P, were actually transcoded to 320k from lower bitrate files, and may sound even worse than "first hand" 128kbits files.

But well OK, if you're thinking exclusively of LAME 3.98/3.99 320k (or V0) MP3s, I think the differences with lossless are subtle enough to go totally unnoticed by the vast majority of the dancers. Even better with Quicktime AAC as previously mentioned (YMMV).

But have you listened to the specific pre-echo artifact on bass drums, introduced by PnT, that Mr. Wilks discovered? When something like that happens, it's IMO 100% legitimate to try to find solutions. If one of these is using lossless files, it's only natural to do so.

Last point: DJ demos. When sending out your mixtapes, isn't it natural to try and get the cleanest, hi-fiesque-est sound possible?

I've been exclusively Lossless for years now. Whether the crowd can tell a difference or not, it doesn't matter, because I can.

And what's your experience with PnT? Are you more or less satisfied with it, or is the resulting sound below your standards?

I personally find that irrelevant. I know I can tell the difference.

^ This.

I think it can use some tweaking. It's not so bad that I feel as though I got jipped. But it needs an update or two to be up to par with the sound quality from the CDJ-2000nxs' (native) Keylock.

More or less reflects my own feelings. Very glad to have PnT, couldn't go back, but some tweaking would be very much appreciated. Or some kind of basic choice in the settings, like "best preservation at smaller tempo changes" vs. "compromise for larger tempo changes" (though I have no idea if such a setting is doable or even if it makes any sense algorhtythm-wise).

And judging by the rate at witch Serato tends to make updates, we can expect that tweaking in roughly 3-5 years. :)

I agree that this is all really anal stuff that most people would never notice except under direct scrutiny and comparison, but still, it affects HOW you'll DJ. You may not pick the right song for the moment because you want to stay closer to the range of the current playing song, etc.

Incidentally, I downloaded the free version of Cross DJ to casually compare and didn't notice any problems with that keylock at +/- 6%. This could be a "grass is always greener" thing though. And I much prefer the Serato UI.

"But then don't blame PnT: blame your three-times-transcoded, twice-ReEQed illegally PTP'ed MP3s."

I can't believe this guy called someone else a troll.

Except I didn't.

"@nik39: I don't have the courage to adress more of your nonsense and straw men. You're simply not listening at all and put up a wall of verbiage as a smoke screen. Very trollish. Not worth my time."

Well I didn't call him a troll. I said that what he did was very trollish. Kinda like I'd say to someone "you're doing bad things", not calling the person a bad person. Or saying to someone "you're being stupid", not saying that the he/she's a stupid person.

But I admit that the phrasing was poor, and I accept your remark.

I don't consider nik39 a troll. I've read lots of his input and much of it is relevant and interesting. He's obviously intelligent. He just has sides that I don't like much, like reading just what he wants to read when he's bothered by someone else's input (hence the straw men), or using sophomoric audio knowledge to preach to people who are actually more knowledgable than he is.

But no, not a troll.

Lol. You're obviously nitpicking. And on top, *you* are seeking for attention and reaction (troll?):


"as *someone* suggested" - huh....


I am not bothered by someone's input per se because it's coming from someone else, that doesn't make sense. You and me - we don't even have a "history" or something. There would be no reason for me to hold a grudge against you, because I don't know you and your other postings. Of course there are some stupid people here who I wouldn't like to be bothered with, but you're not part of that very special group ;)

I am bother by posts from people who pretend to know better, but when you put the cards on the table and ask "look, these are my thoughts, this is my opinion/conclusion based on this and that - if you think something is flawed/wrong - please correct me", all you get as an answer is "(I) am actually more knowledgable than (you)"... yep, this could bother me, because you are helping absolutely no one! YOU are stroking your ego in the public.

Wow guys, let it go! How about we keep the topic on Pitch 'n Time DJ and not on breaking apart who said what.

these boards arent supposed to be modded for content are they michael r.?

you're worried about this post and years of bezzle and johnny m and others, and this blip hit the serato radar?? wtf?

Hey Mr. Goodkat,

We don't moderate for content as such (unless it breaks our forum rules), however sometimes we intervene if needed. In this case, I've been following this thread closely as the information in it is of interest to me, and now it's degenerating into personal arguments. As a forum reader, I just want this post to stay on topic. I'm not warning or banning anyone, just asking that we let the personal stuff go and keep the discussion on Pitch 'n Time DJ. If Wizzu and nik39 want to argue amongst themselves, they are welcome to do so via private messages.

I hope that clears things up!

you got a lot of work to do Mike.

Nice to see that a Serato rep finally on the scene.

Ok, I just got my PnT last night and had my first freezing even before I torture it to the max.

My laptop is not brand new but it was the best from the shelf when I got it on mid 2011.
Macbook 15'
16 GB RAM
i7 - Quad Core

I was testing PnT with an SX at 2ms buffer setting as recommended.

I was dowloading my music video subscription when this happened.
Is the internet ON a big factor to affect the performance of PnT?

*I always turn OFF internet on live gigs, but I am just curious if this is a factor or there's something else I need to look into.

Thanks in advance : )

Hey 938MyDJ,

As a starting point I'd suggest trying it with your Internet disabled and no other applications running. Your machine definitely sounds like it's above the minimum specs.

If you're still having problems, I'd recommend you start a new help thread and our Support Team will help you out :) -> serato.com (click link).

Cheers,
Michael.

I was able to reproduce the freeze I got last night while doing same testing. This time with internet disabled.

A track playing on deck 1 with 130 bpm (a beat looping on deck 3)... I loaded a track on deck 2 with pitch range set to 50%, click sync and the bpm went 65 bpm (instead of 130)...

BOOM! Freeze!

Good to see some Serato rep here now. And yes, let's keep the discussion on the software.

I haven't had any performance issues yet with PnT, but I do have a late 2013 MBP retina with 16GB of RAM. I would hope that machine can handle pretty much anything I can throw at it.

I think the key takeaway, based on what others have said on this forum is this: PnT, while clearly superior to the standard keylock (at least for extreme pitching), still has issues that we hope Serato can address, especially since this is a PAID upgrade.

With the standard keylock, I start to notice artifacts and "pops" at around +/-3. With PnT, those artifacts are gone, but even at minor relative pitch (like +/-1) it affects the "character" of the sound in a way other keylocks don't.

Many people have mentioned the "flange" like effect on the high hats. That becomes very noticeable in direct comparison. Others have pointed out (with recorded examples) other issues related to sub-bass, etc.

What I'd like to know is if Serato is aware of these concerns, and if anything is being done to tweak this PAID upgrade so that it satisfies the customers who have bought it.

+1

And the more positive feedbacks from us, the more sales you will get from other SDJ users.

It's a fairly NEW feature so I believe there's plenty of room for improvements.

I just hope it won't take that long like the upgrade for Serato Video which counted years before it happened.

These updates are free and most companys that is not the case at all and those update usually have added features so i tend to give serato a lot more slack and im sure pnt will get adjusted as time goes. Ive had no issues with my 62 or sz with pnt and video so far keeping fingers crossed.

But PN'T isnt. We bought it.

Oopsy... Sorry.. Ignore that. I had two windows open and posted the wrong thing!

I think we just would like acknowledgement that we could have the issues looked into.

Yes, we're definitely looking into these issues :) I don't have a timeframe for an update though sorry.

I am happy to report that after having those 2 crashes when PnT just got installed on my Macbook, I never had one again.

I've used SDJ 1.6.3 on 4 different gigs which PnT and Serato Video already and never had a problem.

I've used SDJ 1.6.3 on 4 different gigs already with PnT and Serato Video ON and never had a problem.

*We badly needed an edit option on this forum : (

Now I am sad to report that with PnT running, SDJ froze on me 4 times on home practice :(

I might not going to use it on live again yet.

Runs

fine

fine on

works fine on the first two hours... and then boom!

Sorry keyboard at work is sticking : (

Hey 938MyDJ

Can you please open a help request for this? --> support.serato.com

Thanks!

i.imgur.com

Regarding minimum specs for P'n'T - it's "merely" not recommended for anything less than, or it plain won't work if it doesn't see i5 or i7? I'm talking late 2008 Core 2 Duo / 2.4 GHz / 6GB. Has anyone tried it?

Hey swavek

You may be lucky and Pitch 'n Time DJ might work fine with your processor. However, we can't assure you that you won't have any issues.

Cheers
Aaron

Im Using It With A Core 2, Getting An Occasional USB Light.

Too bad none of these issues seem to be addressed in 1.7. The "metering bug" in particular would have been a great fix. It's really annoying when PnT pushes your tracks into the red.

I've been mixing without keylock lately, trying to stay within +/- 3 BPM so I can still keymix. Works a bit as a workaround. Just to see though, I threw on PnT and immediately there was a super-noticeable difference in the sound. The "presence" of everything changed. Hi-hats were buried and flange-y, as we've seen on this thread.

And so we wait... :(

Wait... How does +/-3 stay in key?
That was a serious question btw. I don't know how that works. Is +/-3 the limit you can go without significantly changing the key?

Sorry, I meant to say +/- 3% pitch. So the "rule" is that if you're only moving +/- 3%, you're close enough to the original pitch to still mix in key. Increasing to 6% pitch moves the key up a semitone. You can read more about it here: community.mixedinkey.com

A little personal rule I'm finding is that if you're only moving 1 BPM you can leave keylock off because the key shift is barely perceptible at all. Give it a try.

Nah, I figured you meant % not 3 notches. Lol. Probably because I've heard about the 6%=1 semitone rule before but never read much into it.

Very cool. Thx for putting me on to it.

My ears tell me very differently.
0.3% sounds ok.
1% already sounds off to my ears.
3%? Sounds awful to me.

These "rules" @mixedinkey are to be taken with a grain of salt. Musicality is MUCH more than percentages, theoretical semitones and whatnots. Use your ears, not numbers. If you're pitch deaf, you're screwed because in your audience, there will always be at least *some* people with good ears. Numbers?! You can totally get the numbers right, but still make a total wreck. Just like with beatmatching: if you get the BPM right but you don't get the bars/phrases right, you're making a musical mess. Very similar situation.

My own ears tell me that the artifacts if PnT (I don't even hear them most of the time, and my patrons don't hear them at all) are far less damaging to my musicality as a DJ, than mixes "in key" which actually sound sour because of a small difference in pitch. These make my teeth cringe. I consider clashing quartertones (the 3%) as the worst kind of musical dissonance known to mankind. Except when heard in rock music with lots of euphonic harmonic distorsion.

I even prefer to mix songs of a totally different key, than two songs of the same key with a 3% difference. Clashing quartertones? Have mercy, please, no. It's a torture.

It's a complex subject anyway since not all recordings use exactly the same 400Hz "A" reference, so sometimes to mix two songs properly in key you NEED to manually de-pitch for it to sound right. It's then almost impossible to beatmatch, of course. Often you have to choose one or the other if you really want good musicality. Which incidentally you determine with your ears. Not with numbers. Sorry to repeat myself, lol.

Granted, this post comes from a long time musician... I'm far more sensitive to these fine-tune things than to the tiny "flang-ey"effects of PnT. Just sounds like... an effect. Big deal. With all the FX that most DJs use on their tracks anyway, I don't see the problem. But YMMV of course.

^^^^ nice post.

I too use a core2 @ 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM Toshiba and Works fine, no dropouts.

joseNG whats your buffer set at ?

Same question here, and what device are you using for that matter?

Am i the only one getting "clicking noises" whenever i scratch with P´n T activated? Rather disappointing since i´ve paid for a plug in i can´t even use!

Same here.

It has improved compared to the first version though.

I'm using it for a couple of weeks now, what i noticed is a granular degradation in high frequencies (it sounds more filthy). I don't like Pioneer, but i think CDJ players do a much better job. I had expected more of it. The more granular sound of it starts to irritate. But it is better than the old SSL where low frequency snapping is very audible and an embarrassment when DJing.

Same problem here with serato 3. I have tested on several controller Rev 7, denon MC 7000 with Mac, windows, laptop, desktop. When pitch n time is enabled as soon as I move the pitch and go back to zero% artifacts begin to be noticeable. A kind of metallic squeaking sound following the Beat. It's not on every track but much noticeable when there is not much elements playing like a intro house beat. And the meter of the tracks jumps to red when pitch'n'time is activated. With headphones like hd25 you can clearly hear the audio artefacts... And if you try slip mode with pitch'n'time the sounds become horrible.. Please serato fix this pitch'n'time problem.

You do realise you dont need to bump threads that ended 7 years ago and copy pasta your comment across multiple threads right?

Once would have been enough, no need to spam the forum.

I just try to have answers to my problem so I posted in the few discussions about this problem to show those people there are not alone even it's an old problem nothing has changed...

You can just start a new thread or bump a single one, we dont really need 5 on the front page all with your same comment, its isnt adding any worth or weight to your problem.

Perhaps share a video or even better, raise a ticket with Serato themselves detailing your issue, with evidence of it occurring.