DJing Discussion

Forum
 DJing Discussion
Serato Not Picking Up in Bassy Club
This area is for discussion about DJing in general. Please remember the community rules when posting and try to be polite and inclusive.

Serato Not Picking Up in Bassy Club

rythmatix 11:57 PM - 12 November, 2017
Hi - we had a weird problem DJing on the weekend whilst using a combination of vinyl and Serato.

When I put a normal record on, it was so bassy in the club that the feedback hum was prominent (so much so I had to keep turning the bass down to stop in, especially in the breakdowns). This is obviously a case of the turntables not being isolated enough, which I have had multiple times in the past. It wasn't ideal, but still workable.

The real problem we had was with Serato (I think its the DJ version). The buffer just wouldn't load up (both were showing block red), meaning that the tunes would play but the bass was causing severe interference (meaning the tunes were doing all sorts of things including skipping, jumping ahead, playing slow, etc) - making it unusable without just playing from internal mode.

Does anyone know a solution for this, without isolating the turntables properly (I tried putting foam under the decks from CDJ case while we were up there but it still didn't fix it) - you would think the big stages would be effected by this far more and I can't see any discussion about it (and therefore no possible solutions...)

thanks in advance
O.B.1 8:32 AM - 13 November, 2017
Always calibrate during soundcheck. It will help, although some stages I've encountered have subs built into them underneath and some bass heavy tracks cause too much vibration and can rumble the needle right out of the groove causing tracking issues. (quickly jump to INT mode - but be careful, sometimes the pitch will drop a substantial amount if you try to hit INT in the middle of a bass hit, so wait for a even a tiny window with no bass)

*There are numerous threads within this forum discussing this very issue. I guess it's the price we pay to play on real wax...
rythmatix 8:48 AM - 13 November, 2017
hey OB1! thanks for the reply...I did a search on here but couldn't find people talking about the same issue (they all seemed to be about bass issues when recording etc - not interference and performance of the signal while using turntables/vinyl control records). Do you have a link to any I should take a look at?

The rumble/bass wasn't causing issues with tracking as far as I could tell (as I said actual vinyl was playing, albeit with the bass rumble), and we had to jump into internal mode a few times (and the pitch drop problem caused one of the many audible issues we had in our set). Obviously in internal mode you can't use the turntable pitch, so live mixing is out the window...so basically you can't use the software with control vinyl on a bassy setup? seems crazy to me if so...
RonDu 2:53 PM - 13 November, 2017
Quote:
Obviously in internal mode you can't use the turntable pitch, so live mixing is out the window...so basically you can't use the software with control vinyl on a bassy setup? seems crazy to me if so...



This isn't true. You can change the pitch with the keys or use your mouse pointer to do it. Make sure your CAPS LOCK is ON or you're going to have to hold the SHIFT key if you're doing it with the keys. Sometimes you have to LIVE mix in INTERNAL mode. It's kind of cool once you get the hang of it.
rythmatix 10:52 PM - 13 November, 2017
Quote:
Quote:
Obviously in internal mode you can't use the turntable pitch, so live mixing is out the window...so basically you can't use the software with control vinyl on a bassy setup? seems crazy to me if so...


This isn't true. You can change the pitch with the keys or use your mouse pointer to do it. Make sure your CAPS LOCK is ON or you're going to have to hold the SHIFT key if you're doing it with the keys. Sometimes you have to LIVE mix in INTERNAL mode. It's kind of cool once you get the hang of it.


Hi Ron - you misunderstood me... I said 'you can't use the software with control vinyl in internal mode'....no one wants to be using a mouse/keys to change the pitch on tunes when you have turntables in front of you haha
RonDu 2:25 PM - 14 November, 2017
My bad. Misunderstood
O.B.1 5:26 AM - 15 November, 2017
kind of unrelated but I have mapped a midi knob to the pitch when my needles crapped out in the middle of a gig. It works in a pinch, but less than ideal. Back to the topic at hand, I'm not sure what you typed in the search heading but there are several threads here with people experiencing this exact issue and members offering helpful solutions.
rythmatix 7:32 AM - 15 November, 2017
OK, I have tried some other terms in the search bar and after trawling through lots of seemingly unrelated threads I found some stuff (maybe its because this issue can be called a few different things?)

serato.com
had some good discussion, and links to calibration
(note I only use the 'through' option for Serato to play my records, so don't give me crap for not knowing my equipment because I'm a vinyl DJ (who also owns and runs soundsystems lol)):
support.serato.com

so will see if that, in combination with better turntable isolation, sorts the issues next time...