Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

finally moved from SSL to SDJ. it feels half-finished.

djtoast 4:16 PM - 19 November, 2015
I don't wanna seem like a dick to the developers, not least cos I'm so insanely grateful for the marvellous Scratch Live, which I've loved for years and couldn't praise enough.

But I've been using SDJ for about two weeks now, and it feels hopelessly amateurish and littered with stupid errors by comparison.

The shambles that is getting a track to load at the START when the beat grid decides there's some bullshit "downbeat" two minutes into the song (EVEN WHEN SYNC IS SWITCHED OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and very often even after clearing and resetting the beat grid) is just nonsense. I mean, if for some reason this downbeat thing is judged useful (it isn't) why the hell doesn't "play from start" (and/or "play from first cue point") just ignore that and, um, play from start...?????? I'm not a software developer but I can't believe that's hard to achieve.

I've had the same issue as others with the cues on the left hand deck triggering cue points on the right hand deck; there's some suggestion in one thread here about that being down to hardware not software, which I couldn't absolutely rule out I suppose, but it's never once happened using the same hardware with SSL, so...

The BPM calculations seem waaaaaaaaaay less dependable than in SSL, which is odd... (loads of ~130bpm stuff got recalculated as ~98ish, for example) and selecting ranges when analysing wasn't really practical for me as I re-analysed my whole library (>50,000 tracks) out of curiosity regarding the key detection (which is passable), but many of the previously correct BPMs are now wrong, and there's no quick way to figure out which; just have to correct them as you find them while playing I suppose. I don't think I ever selected a bpm range when analysing in SSL and I bet way under 1% were wrong; I certainly don't recall fixing many, so SDJ seems to be getting tracks wrong which SSL got right the first time. (SSL would occasionally misinterpret one quite specific rhythm in dance music at 130bpm as 87bpm but it was literally half a dozen tracks for me that shared that kinda syncopated rhythm. There's no reason that's obvious to me why these new errors are there. At any rate I don't expect 100% success, but it's odd to get WORSE with newer software!?)

There's a ton of other things I like less well that aren't actually "errors", just down to being used to doing things a certain way, but more than half my songs loading to random points in the middle is just an embarrassment. Am I alone feeling this way or do others feel it's lust robust, and less "trustable" than SSL?
boabmatic 4:54 PM - 19 November, 2015
check your settings in the menu ...

Even though you are not syncing the track there are options that might be affecting it like 'snap to beat grid' and 'maintain Sync on track load'

Also check your selected options for On song load,control prefs etc , as these do not carry over from SSL so you may need to enable options in SDJ to match what you had in SSL.

I've no issues with SDJ/Rane 62 loading tracks to start at the beginning of the track/First cue point if available and also respecting the sticker sync mode.

Not noticed issues with the BPM calculation and been using it since switching from SSL when 1.6.x came out.

Never has a crash in that time either.
DJ Lil Vito 2:47 PM - 20 November, 2015
I have the same issues with BPM calculation and it's just befuddling to me. How can they be going backwards in that realm. The thing that sucks about the miscalculated tracks is that some of them may be decent but because the tempo range is so far off they get lost in my library.
skinnyguy 6:10 PM - 20 November, 2015
+1 on the odd bpm calculations.
Dj cuervo 6:39 PM - 20 November, 2015
SDJ has way more options than SSL. There is a learning curve. I suggest using the help option in the software and go over all the options. The BPM issue you can use Mixmeister to help correct the bad values. SSL just works. SDJ requires some setup. Once you figure out the new options you will see the value in SDJ.
Dj Owe 6:28 AM - 21 November, 2015
I have found alot of the points you bought up annoying also. Especially the bpm calculations.

At first i ddnt like sertao dj because if all the extra tweaking i had to do. But ever since i have found serato flip i can not go without it. Also am a lover of sync feature to purely for speed mixing tunes.