Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

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 Serato DJ Pro General Discussion
Tablet PC for DJ'ing Observations
Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

Tablet PC for DJ'ing Observations

thorissr 1:47 PM - 12 April, 2014
This week I picked up a brand new MK1 Microsoft Surface Pro i5 3317u 4GB RAM 128 SSD for a irresistible price. While setting it up I got the idea to load SDJ and use it with my 24" HD monitor via mini display port for home use only. Of course this tablet comes with no bloatware and minor tweaking is required in regards to maximizing performance for SDJ, i.e. tweaking intel's graphic display settings, modifying the high performance mode etc. Anyway, much to my surprise this little thing runs SDJ without a hitch, and dare I say (pulling out flame shield), better than my 2012 MacBook Pro. (13" MD101, i5, 8GB RAM, 128 internal SSD, Maverick 10.9.2)

I'm not sure if it's the drivers (PC/Mac), but I can enable PnT on this thing with no yellow/red USB warnings running @ 2ms (no video). Now with my MacBook Pro which is used solely for DJing and optimized for SDJ, I receive occasional red/yellow USB warnings with PnT disabled @ 2ms. Forget about enabling PnT on the MacBook Pro, as the USB light stays on yellow and peak out to red from time to time and 50 - 75 percent CPU usage. To the MacBook Pro's credit it runs better when connected to my NS7 2 than it does on my primary controller, DDJ SZ. The sound is much better, with no waveform lag when I use the MacBook Pro as well. Outside of that the Surface Pro has performed flawlessly with both controllers, with NO usb warning lights with and without PnT @ 2ms, with the CPU usage bar never exceeding 50%.

I've read several posts around here and the net about this issue, however there are so many variables with issues being reported that I can't pinpoint it with my MacBook Pro. Note: I haven't used my Surface Pro in a live setting, and don't plan to do so.

Does anyone have any insight on these findings? I even rolled back to SDJ 1.6.0 and received the same results on my MacBook Pro. Or should I give ML 10.8 a run with 1.6.1/1.6.0?

Any suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
thorissr 2:24 PM - 19 April, 2014
Reporting back after a recent hardware change. I upgraded my MacBook Pro memory from 8GB to 16GB and now I can run audio only @ 1ms with no yellow/red light!! When I enable PnT @ 1ms I still receive the yellow/red light (obviously).

Further testing indicates that when I drop the USB buffer down to 2ms with PnT enabled I do not receive yellow/red light!! However, when I begin scratching it lights up yellow with an occasional red blip.

With the only upgrade being RAM, 8 to 16, obviously helped my case to be able to run @ 1ms with heavy scratching and no yellow/red light. It has been mentioned several times, but PnT is a CPU resource hog!!! I'm confident that Serato will address the PnT CPU resource issue in a future update. I'll just have to run without it for the time being, although I rarely mix out of the 5 BPM range in which normal key lock works fine in my case.

I now feel much better that I can run my audio @ 1ms with heavy scratching without having fear that I will experience drop outs in a live environment.
DJ Quartz 12:58 AM - 20 April, 2014
When the Surface came out I was theorizing about using such a setup. I just don't have confident with SV on the Windows platform since I had nothing but issues before switching to MacOSX (OpenGL native support).
Papa Midnight 4:23 AM - 20 April, 2014
I've used my Samsung Series 7 Slate before without issue (albeit, no PnT), but I don't do video. It is a nice backup, though. Specs are on my profile.