I convert all my music files to .mp3 320kbps and never have this isssue

This has nothing to do with DjSyndic8's reported bug.
I'm guessing his music files are .flac on purpose.

DjSyndic8, I've posed the following question to the Serato Team -
serato.com

Frankly, I think the Public needs to be brought into this whole process a lot sooner so that things like this are picked up.

DjSyndic8 - Your great 'suggestion' is for the OP to take his superior quality FLAC files and down-convert them to the comparatively inferior MP3 format?

Wow.

+1

My previous Post was incorrectly worded. It should have read -

"This has nothing to do with alec.tron's reported bug.
I'm guessing his music files are .flac on purpose.

alec.tron, I've posed the following question to the Serato Team -
serato.com

Frankly, I think the Public needs to be brought into this whole process a lot sooner so that things like this are picked up."

Serves me right for doing this before my second cup of coffee - I guess I need to start a Beta Test on myself!

Thanks Hangion!

Yea @ Detroitbootybass... wasn't really worth commenting on I thought.
But hey, since I'm a believer of the 'teach a man how to fish' parable:
@ DjSyndic8 - you should do some reading...or, since some things do have to be experienced; play on some good sound-systems where mp3s, no matter the 'quality' setting, fall apart quickly and you start wondering why your mp3s loose their punch & sound muddy on Funktion Ones and bigger Nexos etc. Unfortunately those are hard to find in NZ (which I find a real shame...).
c.

Mp3's are fine with me cause Im not david guetta or calvin harris that plays on a epic scale sound system where your files have to be highest quality possible, I find normal dj's having issues with different file formats, that's why I said I keep it simple and hassle free by encoding my files to 320kbps mp3 files, and I carry alot of music so hard drive space is another thing.

Fair enough! As long as you know about the tech/limitations and it's a conscious decision; just wanted to make sure.
I just played at a festival in Europe (and I'm an amateur doing it for the fun of it...) where more than half of 30+ stages were equipped with small (2 older F118s) to medium sized (8 Infrabass 218s on each side...) Funktion Ones. A few years ago it was just a hand full of the stages there that were sporting them... so quality is becoming ever more important - and so is our ability to manage our libraries & files imo.
c.

True +1

If this is true across the board (meaning for ALL users with Flac collections), this is bad. Very bad. I just hope Serato don't deem it a low priority fix just because it affects less people than it would if it were MP3 for example.

lets say that a small minority of DJ's use FLAC

Syndic8, I like you, so I don't like saying this but you're pissing me off in this thread. Way to go for stating the obvious and contributing nothing meaningful.

I don't really use Flac either so it doesn't affect me (yet) but so what? Are you really that selfish that you're only concerned about things that affect you, so screw anybody else until it's something that does?

Have you any idea, or is it so hard for you to imagine how pissed YOU'D feel if the program suddenly borked thousands and thousands of your files, causing you not ony to lose potentially hundreds of hours of work and progress, but forcing you to have to do it all again? Even if you have backups, it's still going to take time and then there's the issue of re-doing whatever you did since your last backup.

It doesn't matter how many DJs use Flac. Serato decided to support it and adjusted their code to accomodate it. Therefore any user of SDJ can rightfully expect it to work the same way, regardless which file format they're using. If there's an issue in that code that causes the problem, it's an issue that needs to be resolved. Period.

The fact it wasn't picked up on yet is an error in itself really. The fact that an unsuspecting user had to find out the hard way and suffer the consequences is most unfortunate and I commend him for how well he's taking it and how constructively he's dealing with it, especially when people like yourself are coming and trolling his thread making blindingly obvious statements that contribute nothing meaningful to the discussion.

How about helping out your fellow DJs instead? Why not grab a flac file and test to see if you can replicate it or disprove it and help to narrow down the issue? Why not lend your voice and co-sign or support the issue? Or better still, go and post in a thread where your voice and advice can make a positive contribution (as it most often does).

It'd be a much better use of your time, trust me.

/end rant

Thanks for the empathy & support Marv! ;)

On the plus side, and since I'm at home with the man-flu coughing my lungs out atm anyway, I had some time to think about how to not throw away all that analyze-data/-time invested, and schooled myself on:
taglib.github.io
& its' python wrappers
So I'll attempt to salvage the botched flac files from Serato and inject them with the data I care about from my backups tomorrow, i.e. the original Artist, Genre & Comment metadata (plus flushing the description tag which I don't need and Serato apparently neither).

As for the how relevant flac/alac/lossless is for DJs playing digitally nowadays, I would be curious to see exact numbers there as well.
The only rough estimate I saw was from around 2009 ( www.quora.com ) which was a) for the general market share, and b) before Apple released its' ALAC codec as open-source as well. So things will have shifted a lot since then I would assume, although, yes, the majority still uses mp3 I would assume as well.
Not that it should make a difference when a Software truncates user files' in a supported file format. That's the crux.
c.

lets say that a small minority of DJ's use FLAC


wow I didnt know commenting about FLAC could hurt someones feelings? what you need to do is open up a help ticket right here >support.serato.com instead of getting mad at me about it, cause that sure aint gonna fix your problem, divert all that energy and start a help ticket cool.

@DjSyndic8
You quoted all of Marv's post, yet you completely failed to read and/or understand what he wrote...?!

Hey alec.tron, what is your support ticket #? I will chase this up.

Cheers

Hey Scott,
much appreciated, I also left a message on the serato voice box on your Auckland number with my mobile #.

Tickets: 218441 - this has been marked as 'solved' on Wednesday, yet, I have not heard from anyone from Serato Support. So I called Serato Support, left a message, got a call back with the promise someone would chase it up, yet still no reply.
So I made a follow-up ticket:
218684

I understand that you are all busy/excited about the Serato X Roland announcement... but would be great to get some sort of feedback before the weekend.
Cheers.
c.

Thanks, i've bumped Nathaniel who was working with you on that ticket, he should follow up shortly :)

Cheers

Who's the support manager in charge atm btw ?

And is there anyone in the support team with the technical expertise when it comes to metadata & flac containers from a technical point specifically ?

I do have to ask this upfront as so far there was no "working with you on that ticket" at all, the opposite was the case... I mean switching tickets to solved without any communication in 5 days whatsoever (on a data crippling bug) is no way to 'work' with each other!
Also, when I finally had someone on the phone there was no willingness or ability to go into technical details either, just a "I get him to follow up" which yet has to happen....
I'm actually trying to help, but so far there is only frustrations & time spent pointlessly on this.

Excuse the blunt words, but I'm starting to get rather p*ssed off.
Cheers.

Aaron E is our Support Manager.


Not from a Flac container technical point specifically as you say, Flac files aren't the most popular file type (although I do understand people have and use them!). However they should be able to work through with your issue to get it resolved. It should be clarified if this was a bug first introduced in 1.9.2 or it has been in Serato DJ since earlier versions. Have you only noticed this issue with 1.9.2 or was it happening on older versions too? 1.9.1 for example?

Regards

Hey Scott,
thanks for the reply!
Re SDJ versions:


As for flac - the file format has been officially supported since 2.4.3:
serato.com
so could have been introduced at any point inbetween (I only now switched to multi value tags - and allowed Serato to sync back to my main library... prior to this I always overwrote Seratos data on my external HDs for various reasons...), and since it's an officially supported format, popularity should not play into this. Ever. If it's supported, it's supported, and data crippling bugs have to be taken very seriously, which has not happened here.

The essential bits I want to find out and why I need someone with some technical expertise; since 1.9.3 is in beta - what's the philosophy at Serato dev HQ - does this mean there's a bug fix/build stop or can this still be fixed for 1.9.3 ???

If it's unlikely to be fixed soon, is there any way for me to control which fields SDJ 1.9.2 can write to on analyze ? I assumed analyze would only write into Serato-analyze relevant fields, i.e.:
bpm
initialkey
serato_analysis
serato_autogain
serato_beatgrid
serato_markers_v2
serato_overview
serato_relvol
serato_video_assoc

Yet, Serato 1.9.2 also alters/removes data from (at least) these:
artist (semicolon bug)
comment (value gets copied from)
description (value gets copied to)
genre (semicolon bug)

The above I have to stop asap as it's wreaking havoc with my files; and through the GUI I only have access to control the writing of Key/BPM/Grid info!

Cheers.
c.

I don't believe there will be any change around this for the 1.9.3 release. What essentially needs to happen is troubleshooting the initial issue so we can pinpoint exactly what version of Serato DJ this was introduced in. I haven't head any reports come up about this in the past, so if this bug was introduced in Serato DJ 1.0.0 there is probably a low priority to fix this when comparing to other bugs and fixes that we are working on right now. However, if it's only recent to 1.9.2 that means something broke during that version's production - in which case it might be a much easier fix.


We have never explicitly said we support multi-value tags, I would assume what ever the case is with Flac will most likely happen with MP3s as well - although like I mentioned above, this needs to be troubleshooted so we can clarify what the actual issue is. It could come down to Serato DJ's ability to read the semicolon and ignores any following characters. In which case your best bet is to revert back to only using one value per field (eg. "Hip Hop", or "Dance" in genre column)

It's best to troubleshoot with a customer support team member, so I've bumped the ticket and told them to get back to you - they should get back to you with further info soon. I'm sorry this behaviour is affecting your workflow so hopefully we can get it resolved!

Regards

Cool beans.

Re multi value tags or not
Supporting multi-value tags is one thing (i.e. displaying multi-value content and interpreting a value separator correctly...), I'm aware this is not there (... yet hopefully -> serato.com ).

BUT - overwriting existing tags on a supported file format is a wholly different pair of shoes...

Churs.
c.

Phew.
Managed to merge all of my original artist names & multi value genres from backup files' metadata and combine it with the Serato analyze data I was actually after which I spent 2 x 12hrs to get...
Tag merging worked thanks to
taglib.github.io
and "only" took 10+hrs to get comfy with it, recompile it for python and write something that works with the python wrapper libraries...
c.

Good luck for peeps without programming btw...
The damage caused by Serato was 4972 files that had their metadata altered from their original state which I managed to resurrect from backups via the above method...
F*ckery.
c.

was just thinking the same,wow just wow!!

Heya,
for those people that care, there's some more info now, based on communication with Aaron from support:

And I also did some more testing quickly; as you mentioned this:
"We can add tags inside SDJ in the way you've suggested and have no problems saving"
and something clicked in me head...
Turns out SDJ is attempting to write literal string data to the flac container, which SDJ itself can handle.
That is true.
But, nothing else can... or not the way it's meant to be... let me explain.
This is what I get out of a flac file when tagged in SDJ 1.9.2 (on the files I sent you guys), for the fields in question:

'genre': [u'Cumbia; SDJ tag test genre 1; SDJ tag test genre 2'],
'artist': [u'Se\xf1or Coconut; Se\xf1or Coconut2; SDJ 1.9.2 tag test'],

And that's the explanation as well as the issue here... flac metadata is not ID3.
The convention set by the developers/maintainers of the FLAC file and container standards ( which all software I work with follows... but Serato doesn't ...) is this:
www.xiph.org
"Field names are not required to be unique (occur once) within a comment header. As an example, assume a track was recorded by three well know artists; the following is permissible, and encouraged:
ARTIST=Dizzy Gillespie
ARTIST=Sonny Rollins
ARTIST=Sonny Stitt
"

So, the tag, when I query it through some python libraries (you probably have much more low level programmers who can phrase this better for Serato's internal library/architecture and what this means for you...), this is what SDJ should write according to the FLAC standards:

'genre': [u'Cumbia', u'SDJ tag test genre 1', u'SDJ tag test genre 2'],
'artist': [u'Se\xf1or Coconut', u'Se\xf1or Coconut2', u'SDJ 1.9.2 tag test'],

and which is why SDJ doesn't understand and truncates data that has been written correctly to multi-values as per the FLAC standard.
Hope that makes sense.

Cheers.
c.

Meh, the URL shortening bites again...
Proper URL to FLAC comment convention:
www.xiph.org

c.

Nice. Care to share your Pything scripts?

Heya,
generally I wouldn't mind, but it's pretty specific to my case, and there's no handling of errors or room for differences to the way I run it...
Also, you'd need to:
- have a python 2.7.3 build/env w a compiled taglib dll (which was a nightmare)
- have 2 exact same libraries in different locations (let's call them volume A & B)
- you write out and point the script to a playlist in m3u format with all the files from volume A you want to have Artist & Genre overwritten with the data from volume B's files.
- you build/run it and it goes ahead and overwrites the metadata on volume A's files.
Pretty raw.
Oh, it does have a simulate option, so you can look at what it would do when you let it run...

Anyhow, I was thinking while writing... if you have the same problem - actually flag it with Serato and ping it here...!
And if you're happy with the above and know what you're doing (I can't offer much support!), let me know and I might re-work it so it's slightly it's easier to use.

Churs.
c.

That'd be cool!

I am looking for a way to adjust tagfields and merge them - could do this in Java, but something scriptable would be helpful. :)

So, turns out, the official Serato Support statement regarding their user-metadata crippling bug is:
This is not a "challenging thing to implement from a technical perspective;"
but
"there are a lot of users out there accustomed to the status quo",
i.e. the broken / bad implementation.
Upon suggesting that this could easily be driven with a user preference setting to accommodate both needs (= a broken, and a correct implementation), the statement is:
"Given that this is not a highly requested feature, it would be unlikely to qualify for inclusion..."

So, good luck for all of you guys with flac files and multi-value metadata using the official value separators... be prepared that it'll screw up hours/days of your work.
Fun times.

One last, simplistic general 'feature' request:
serato.com

I'll shutup now.
c.

Meh, URL shortening of the forum software hits again, and no edit-ability...
Correct link:
serato.com

c.

Facepalm. Sounds like a good idea very ignorant response :(

Ehm... Stupid autocompletion...

"sounds like a very ignorant response "

Let's be realistic, flac is far from the standard format in high use currently so what percentage of Serato users are actually affected by this?
So how much of a urgency should be put into this based on other needs?

It's never nice when you have a problem that is not going to get resolved but it happens I dealt with this many times with Digidesign and later Avid.

On a side note I found it interesting how people were so quick to jump DjSyndic8 for his suggestion.
It was a realistic suggestion yet people acted as if he was trollin.

Funny part is Serato seems to be on the same page.

QUOTE: That'd be cool!
I am looking for a way to adjust tagfields and merge them - could do this in Java, but something scriptable would be helpful. :)

********************************************


I use MP3 Tag - It may take a couple actions but it can absolutely do this in a supertagging fashion.

Since you state this as a fact - can you link to the source for your claim ?


It only is a realistic suggestion if you do not hear (or care about) a qualitative difference between a 320 mp3 (or lower...) and a flac/wac file.
c.

I dont think its a matter of sound quality to the masses, its just that Flac is outdated and not many software support or have ongoing support for this format, lets just say that Flac is not mainstream, DJ's would rather use other common file formats.



I could say the same thing about you claiming that this is the best sound quality format out there, wheres the source of your claim?

24 bit AIFF or bust.

Carry on...

Meh...
There is no claim about

in this thread here...
The contents of a lossless .wav = lossless .flac = lossless .aiff.



If you dispute / don't understand that the contents of an audio file with a lossy compression applied is not equal to the original audio data, then read some of these; pick whatever suits you:
Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

An explanation for musicians...? :
www.soundonsound.com

Or some more or less academic ones...?:
swphonetics.com
listening-tests.freetzi.com

Or how about one from an art angle...?
ryanmaguiremusic.com

c.

It seems silly I'd just use AIFF now if I wanted something at high quality that allows for decent meta tagging.

Though if you have a ton of FLACs you made I can understand the frustration. I'd slowly move away from the format just like video DJs have moved away from some of the more dubious video containers (like AVI) at this juncture.

The fact that Warner Music & Merge have started offering .flac in their digital distribution channels recently should speak for the popularity and validity of the flac format...

www.mergerecords.com
store.warnermusic.com/hypnotic-eye-flac-digital-audio.html


If it's just subjective/unfounded impressions or theories of such - can we stop the general flac discussion here please ?

Cheers.
c.

flac to alac?

You trolling or serious ?
It's all options for work-arounds, sure... but all come with considerable work & compute that needs to be invested to shift the whole library over to another format.
Whereas, and that's the crux - Serato says it's compatible with these file formats, and among them is flac :
support.serato.com

And, I simply prefer .flac due to its' MD5 hash [= allows you to check the audio stream for corruption... and catch HD/USB issues early on before they spread to backup]).

So, there's 2 issues at hand:
1 - the container metadata handling implementation is wrong (also is for mp3... but no one cares, it's been around since forever, and it also does not remove user data); but
2 - under certain conditions, Serato removes user data from a supported format.

c.

maybe just dont use serato? you seem really heated about this. dvs should never get you heated.

lol alec.tron is so passionate about his FLAC,

I like buying FLAC files online, but only because they're smaller to download than other non-Apple-locked lossless files; as soon as I get them downloaded I convert them to AIFF (or mp3 if I want to listen to them in the car). FLAC is too much of a hassle to play/deal with in other software for me to use them as-is. To me they're basically glorified .zip files for music.

That said, if they -were- handled with more finesse in other programs I'd certainly use them more, but for now they may as well be Ogg Vorbis or something.

Heh.
There's posts from me here in the original flac support thread from 8 years ago...which has been running by 4 years then already...
So, yea, you can say I'm passionate about flac as it's my preferred format for a few reasons; which are based on actual features of the format... not just the fact that "Apple decided for me" and who, as a company, is also actively trying to eradicate open formats that they see as a competitor to their own ALAC format.
But, everyone should use whatever works for you.

A few bits of more info so you can make your own decisions (if you care about that kind of thing):
wiki.hydrogenaud.io



I would. But my vinyl stash is spread over 2 continents, so I need a DVS system...
And if you can not see why a software removing data from a supported file format is really bad, then I just don't know.

c.

And that's my point. The fact that i don't personally use flac doesn't matter, nor does the number of users with flac files. If it's supported, then I'd expect it to be supported and that means if the code is broken, it needs to be fixed, especially if and when it has the potential to corrupt user's data.

'xactly my point as well, with the difference that I use flac and am affected by this.
c.

I am a dj who uses a mix of mp3 and flac files .
I prefer the flac files as they have the quality but the down side it uses much more hard drive.
I don't get any problems with the flac files .
I normally rip from cds into flac and have all the id tags.

traktor?

Yes. And No.
I already use Traktor & Serato both extensively.
RB I've tested as well and could be an option too, but I do not like their approach/politics and it's not stable enough yet imo.
So for now I try to support Serato & Traktor, but for that I also would like a product that does not destroy my data, as it says on the tin by claiming it's compatible with a given file format.
c.

It's a special case in a "specialist" format... but a user data destroying bug nontheless.

If you want to reproduce it just as Serato Support did:
- Set multi value metdata
eg
Artist tags, i.e.:
Alix Perez; Rockwell; Spectrasoul
so the track should appear under each artist when browsing as per the vorbis comment (not id3.. which only mp3 uses, but does have multi value data as well... ) spec,
- then after SDJ analyzing it will just be the first tag encountered... i.e. this:
Alix Perez

So no, it won't happen on every tag.
c.

That will get us nowhere.

Alec has some very valid points.



How about fixing issues like this which corrupt your data?


... and? This doesn't take away the fact that this is not proper business ethics.

never said they werent valid.

Funny to see the mainstream DJ blogs, such as
djtechtools.com
now starting to fly the flag for flac as well...

And one year later, this user data destroying bug mentioned here in detail is still in SDJ with no intention/effort by Serato to address this.

c.

personally use ALAC

bonus tip: if you can find a tune on bandcamp, the price is the same for any format mp3 to aiff to flac or alac

And as a nice plus too - Artists/Labels do get the biggest cut from sales on bandcamp compared to all other platforms afaik.... i.e. 85% from a sale on bandcamp, VS only 60% (... and it gets worse... up to as low as 23% for signed artist on major label as a single track download) on iTunes/Amazon...

www.theguardian.com

Shame really it's mostly indie/self-managed artists or labels that use bandcamp (which is fine by me, but limits its' usefulness to the general public) making selection somewhat small/specialized, and search is not overly intuitive and requires jumping through hoops...
But, especially us people loving music, and wanting to make it an option for our favourite artists to actually earn a living and being able to make the music we enjoy, this should be a real incentive for every DJ/music-lover as well...
c.

Hi, I started another thread related to this. Please check it out. Any constructive input you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

(hopefully someday serato Flac will work properly, but until then maybe we can combine our knowledge to best work around these issues)

Link to thread - serato.com

Thanks for the thread. Unfortunately it's full of stupid trolls and comments. Maybe you should start a new thread with just the plain facts.

+1 just use 320kb mp3. theres a reason why every club pool an dmobile pool uses 320 mp3s lol

because bandwidth and storage. lossless files are huge compared to mp3s.

Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.