I am curious as to the CPU flashing at all on SSL. Generally SDJ is a CPU hog and machines running SSL with no CPU warnings whatsoever will have better luck with SDJ. Have you tried raising the buffer at all. Possibly to 5 ms. I am also having trouble finding your MacBook. The only 2.2 i7's I could find were Feb 2011 making the laptop over 3 yrs old.

Is is MD318LL/A or MC723LL/A by any chance?

Thanks for your reply deejdave :)
For public performance purposes, i do raise the buffer on both ends a notch or two just to err on the side of caution but, i only really mentioned it to illustrate that i was able to do so and suffer no audible interference on SSL. When practising i'm happy to sacrifice quality for responsiveness and so this is why my buffers usually remain set to a minimumIn; i've never had to actually make the 'quality' side of this 'trade off' whilst using the MacBook Pro in question; In addition to this, it's rare for me to turn off the wifi and close other processes whilst running SSL. I may have slightly exaggerated the regularity with which i see warning indicators on SSL; they are very brief, almost imaginary, they never actually interfere, but i definitely do see them on occasion.

My MacBook was purchased in feb 2012, part number MD318B/A.

A couple of weeks after i updated to the current version of SDJ, after having said 'just stick it out until the next update' through the prior version, i saw there was no improvement and so i did a back up and full format of my computer. I've since restored nothing but OSX Mavericks, my music library (my Serato crates contain in the region of 12,000 tracks from a pool of 80,000 which are 85% stored on an external firewire800 HD with the remainder stored on the local HD) and essential software (inc. SDJ & SSL). I also set up all my crates and [most of my] beatgrids again....Still no dice :(

Now when you are hearing the audible "skipping" I am assuming the CPU light is either flashing at a pretty regular rate or even constantly on?

Have you though of upgrading from the FW800?

Sorry to ask so many questions but what I am getting at is you should have NO issues whatsoever at 2 ms.

I use 4 MacBook Pro's. One being the fastest one available right now but my two middle ones are both (what I would think) inferior to your current machine.

I have two 13" 2012 i7 Dual Core non retina MacBook Pro's.

One being 16gb RAM & SSD
The other being 8gb RAM & HDD

BOTH use external library & BOTH work flawlessly at 2ms with all my hardware (DDJ-SZ, DDJ-SX, Rane 64, Rane SL4, DJM-900SRT & NS7II.

Not bragging here but what I AM doing is making a point that with top notch gear and using my 2012's (which I use more frequently than my beast MacBook Pro btw) I have a flawless experience and this pretty much directly means SO SHOULD YOU!!


I guess it's just a matter of getting you there but I hope this shines some light that you should in fact get there. I NEVER have to move my buffer from 2 to 5ms. Not with Pitch N Time, Not with Serato Video, Not with FX. I DO notice a difference when using an internal library (that it is a bit smoother) but the benefits of me using an external FAR outweigh using internal. I use Thunderbolt anyways so not much speed lost.

I brought up the FW800 upgrade question because I have not heard much use of FW800 since the introduction of USB 3.0 which is in fact over 5x as fast and a cheaper technology to run. I also have not noticed many users being affected by BUS issues as USB drives used to bring on and only benefits are felt by upgrading. Also possibly having the entire collection one way or the other. As in if you don't have the external HDD connected do you still have these issues? Lastly I bring up Mavericks. My 2012's came with 10.8 so they still have 10.8.5
I am curious even if your OS has something to do with it. I am basically just going after the differences in my working setups and your setup which is having issues and troubleshooting by process of elimination.

The beatgrids are done on my library but this will have no affect on the sound quality anyways.

Thanks for being so thorough, but I think the waters have muddied a little. Regardless of any indicators I see on SSL, performance is never impaired. My main question and problem relates to use of SDJ which is impossible for me. I have NEVER had an audio glitch of any sort with SSL that couldn't be traced to a faulty mp3 or connection.

With regards to the FW connection, I hear ya on that front, but I feel upgrading this, no matter how cheap, is still unnecessary at a time where everything is performing as expected...well that and the thought of moving 3TB of data makes my head hurt.

I did wonder if reverting back to OSX 10.8 might give me a better base to work from and so, prior to the full system refresh, I created another partition, installed the older OS and still had no joy with SDJ.

I understand your point that with the comparison of my setup against yours, which yields positive results, that we should expect mine to as well. Although it reassures me that this is your thinking (as I had the same line of thought when I picked it out; i.e. that I'd be 'future-proofed' for a while) i can't get it to ring true :'(.

Appreciate you a taking the time to play devil's advocate with my rig :D

Oh yeah, when I hear the skipping (in SDJ) the indicator stays lit up like a Christmas tree and the CPU bar goes into overdrive. It stays like that for as long as the software is open, I've even tried leaving it running overnight to see if it 'settles in' : /

After reviewing your post again, I think a ram upgrade may be my next step, after the next update of course ;)

No I got you. I meant on SDJ when i asked "Now when you are hearing the audible "skipping" I am assuming the CPU light is either flashing at a pretty regular rate or even constantly on?"



Noted. Not an easy or fun task at all. Keep in mind you are approaching the threshold of max data as well. You can't use anything above 3 TB and even that is dangerous. Not saying I agree that it should be this way (and I too feel that moving to a 64 bit app would fix this) but I am saying it is the way it is.


This part is NUTS to me. I can't get the CPU light to come on no matter what i do even with my 8 GB 750 GB hdd MacBook. I say go for the RAM upgrade (as it can't hurt anyways) and if that doesn't help I fear it would be library (or hardware in which library is located on) issue. You seem to be better educated than the majority here so I have no doubts you will prevail. I did look into your specific hardware set to see if any known incompatibilities exist and came up with nothing so one would think success is inevitable.............. let's hope.

1.) Let's say you connect the library without even connecting the hardware (controller or mixer) ......... what happens?

2.) I may have missed this one but if you don't connect the external and go about things as normal ........... what happens?

Fair enough-I'll just stick with SSL, upgrade ram and ride out a few updates and see how it goes. Real bummer they're not going to work on SSL any more, I'm going to be jealous stranded here on this side of the fence.

Right, with everything disconnected from the laptop and SDJ opened (hardware and software latency set at max) I've no CPU indicators on screen and 'no compatible dj device connected' message. I plug in the SL box and as soon as the view changes the CPU bar appears, fills up and is then joined by the flashing light. At this stage I've still not reconnected the external HD : /

Check out the pioneer Website. If I remember correctly there is a mapping for SSL and the sp1. Not perfect, but at least something.

Correct. I'm using it with SSL and you pretty much have all the same features when using it with SDJ with the exception so Slicer Mode. Running it with 2 TTs eliminates the need for dicers and Serato Remote. In my opinion, it's the best investment I've made as of lately.

Couldn't agree more. SSL & SDJ alike it is a very powerful tool. People bashing on it due to it's higher price calling it not worth the money are simply losing out. Love the Sp1 though.

Found it now, thanks guys.

**UPDATE**

Through a long process of trial and error, extensive troubleshooting with the help of one of Serato's GREAT range of knowledgable staff, (shoutout to Dave); after a random sequence of events today and being at my wits end it has transpired that this issue is somehow related to my use of a 2nd monitor via my thunderbolt connection. Removal of the offending connection and an un/replug of my SL box now has SDJ running on my system like a wet dream :D

anyway, radio silence for the next few days, got some catching up to do ;)

you're kidding me? that was it? always good to know weird Mac things like that for future reference. the Serato community & I thank you. Cheers :)

PREACH!! Even as i was doing it i thought it was a stupid n pointless thing to try : /
Got up this morning and thought i'd imagined the whole thing and so had to try again - SDJ's still happy (maybe not the neighbours though at 7:20ish)

Hi Grimis,

Just wanted to jump in here to see if this problem is related. I had an issue with the thunderbolt on a newer 2014 13"mbp
I couldn't get the software open and then i ended up plugging my thunderbolt to firewire adapter into the thunderbolt port, then SDJ opened up.

So after finding that i went through all the drivers installed on the Mac and updated them. After updating a certain conflicting RME Fireface driver i could open SDJ without the adapter connected.

I hope that might help

Regards

Matt P

Thanks for that Matt but i've solved the problem and just forgotten to update everyone.

This all concluded about 2 weeks ago.

After exhaustive support from the Serato team, the only option left was to look at the Mac. I thought that, since it was a decently spec'd MacBook Pro that had been nothing short of perfect up until then and otherwise, it couldn't possibly be the issue but went to the Apple store just to see what they said.

Took laptop, SL3 box and one of my thunderbolt adaptors in-store and got 'em to emulate my setup with just an LCD monitor. The fault was eventually witnessed and diagnosed as a faulty thunderbolt port that is somehow creating a CPU panic that manifests itself in this isolated way (dafuq?!). The fix would require a £450 logic board replacement and, as the laptop was over 2years old, it was out of warranty and my bill to pay. After some back and forth, and bitch-slaps with EU Legislation, they agreed to replace it free of charge under EU Consumer Law - I've been happily spinning, error free, since :D