Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

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 Serato DJ Pro General Discussion
Read this if you're planning to use SDJ Pro with a 2018 T2 Touch Bar Macbook Pro
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Read this if you're planning to use SDJ Pro with a 2018 T2 Touch Bar Macbook Pro

Diego Johnsson 12:46 AM - 18 April, 2019
After SDJ Pro had a latency issue 4 times at my last gig, i decided to dig a little bit deeper into the problems of 2018 Macbooks with T2 Chip:

I hope, that this thread helps anybody who is uncertain if they should buy a new Touchbar Macbook.

The short answer is: YES, you can! You do not have to worry anymore...

The long answer is:
Everybody knows, that a lot of DJs are skeptical about SDJ with new Touchbar Macbooks...
I have used SDJ on my old 2012 Retina Macbook for 7 years almost every weekend without even one hiccup, but then a random girl spilled some coca cola over it, so i had to get a new one.
I didn't read any threads and purchased my new Macbook straight away, since i thought it would be the best option.
At first i recognized that the waveforms were much smoother, that's a big plus (i did every mac optimization step, optimized the touch bar and turned the ambient light sensor off).
But then i realized, my new Macbook got really hot (about 90 degrees Celsius, thats 194 degrees in Fahrenheit), so i downloaded a Turbo Boost Disabler, to keep my computer a bit cooler... Then i noticed the T2 chip latency issue... I first thought it was because of the Turbo Boost Disabler, but i found out later that this wasn't the case.

You can read about the issue here: www.extremetech.com

I thought about purchasing an expensive Thunderbolt 3 dock, because it should solve all problems i had using just usb-c to usb-a cables. But it's one device more to carry around.

THEN:
Apple put out a Mojave update a few days ago, which should fix the USB latency issue. So i installed it, and began testing...

After 6 Hours intensive testing (mixtapes running for hours, scratching, mixing, looping, triggering samples and effects) at home i can say confidently: The issue has been solved and Touchbar Macbooks with T2 Chip are perfectly fine to use with SDJ Pro. They run very. very smooth and stable!

I use it with a SL4 box, Rane TTM-56s, a fully MIDI-mapped Launchpad and my Rane Twelve.
I turned on wifi and bluetooth, turned them off and repeated, i browsed the web while playing, had dropbox open, downloaded songs and turned the time zone clock sync on and off a lot.

They are getting a bit hot, because their unibody is much thinner then the previous generation, but they can handle it ( older Macbooks get even hotter, but because of the thickness of the aluminium body, you won't recognize it as fast, but i checked with my 12" Macbook, and a Retina Macbook that a friend gave me for testing purposes. They all get approx. 80-90 degrees.)

My only Pet-peeve is:
The hot-plugging issue still exists, BUT you do not have to restart the whole computer to start djing again, just unplug all devices and restart SDJ. That worked for me.

Hope this helps anybody, who is unsure about upgrading their Macbook.
I tested everything on my Late 2018 13" Macbook Pro.

Best Regards, and sorry for my bad english :)
Yona 1:19 AM - 18 April, 2019
Thanks for the write up! I'm due for a new machine sooner than later and this was a concern.
Rebelguy 1:26 AM - 18 April, 2019
Quote:
After SDJ Pro had a latency issue 4 times at my last gig, i decided to dig a little bit deeper into the problems of 2018 Macbooks with T2 Chip:

I hope, that this thread helps anybody who is uncertain if they should buy a new Touchbar Macbook.

The short answer is: YES, you can! You do not have to worry anymore...

The long answer is:
Everybody knows, that a lot of DJs are skeptical about SDJ with new Touchbar Macbooks...
I have used SDJ on my old 2012 Retina Macbook for 7 years almost every weekend without even one hiccup, but then a random girl spilled some coca cola over it, so i had to get a new one.
I didn't read any threads and purchased my new Macbook straight away, since i thought it would be the best option.
At first i recognized that the waveforms were much smoother, that's a big plus (i did every mac optimization step, optimized the touch bar and turned the ambient light sensor off).
But then i realized, my new Macbook got really hot (about 90 degrees Celsius, thats 194 degrees in Fahrenheit), so i downloaded a Turbo Boost Disabler, to keep my computer a bit cooler... Then i noticed the T2 chip latency issue... I first thought it was because of the Turbo Boost Disabler, but i found out later that this wasn't the case.

You can read about the issue here: www.extremetech.com

I thought about purchasing an expensive Thunderbolt 3 dock, because it should solve all problems i had using just usb-c to usb-a cables. But it's one device more to carry around.

THEN:
Apple put out a Mojave update a few days ago, which should fix the USB latency issue. So i installed it, and began testing...

After 6 Hours intensive testing (mixtapes running for hours, scratching, mixing, looping, triggering samples and effects) at home i can say confidently: The issue has been solved and Touchbar Macbooks with T2 Chip are perfectly fine to use with SDJ Pro. They run very. very smooth and stable!

I use it with a SL4 box, Rane TTM-56s, a fully MIDI-mapped Launchpad and my Rane Twelve.
I turned on wifi and bluetooth, turned them off and repeated, i browsed the web while playing, had dropbox open, downloaded songs and turned the time zone clock sync on and off a lot.

They are getting a bit hot, because their unibody is much thinner then the previous generation, but they can handle it ( older Macbooks get even hotter, but because of the thickness of the aluminium body, you won't recognize it as fast, but i checked with my 12" Macbook, and a Retina Macbook that a friend gave me for testing purposes. They all get approx. 80-90 degrees.)

My only Pet-peeve is:
The hot-plugging issue still exists, BUT you do not have to restart the whole computer to start djing again, just unplug all devices and restart SDJ. That worked for me.

Hope this helps anybody, who is unsure about upgrading their Macbook.
I tested everything on my Late 2018 13" Macbook Pro.

Best Regards, and sorry for my bad english :)


Thanks for the info. What are the specs on your machine?
Diego Johnsson 3:03 AM - 18 April, 2019
Quote:
Quote:
After SDJ Pro had a latency issue 4 times at my last gig, i decided to dig a little bit deeper into the problems of 2018 Macbooks with T2 Chip:

I hope, that this thread helps anybody who is uncertain if they should buy a new Touchbar Macbook.

The short answer is: YES, you can! You do not have to worry anymore...

The long answer is:
Everybody knows, that a lot of DJs are skeptical about SDJ with new Touchbar Macbooks...
I have used SDJ on my old 2012 Retina Macbook for 7 years almost every weekend without even one hiccup, but then a random girl spilled some coca cola over it, so i had to get a new one.
I didn't read any threads and purchased my new Macbook straight away, since i thought it would be the best option.
At first i recognized that the waveforms were much smoother, that's a big plus (i did every mac optimization step, optimized the touch bar and turned the ambient light sensor off).
But then i realized, my new Macbook got really hot (about 90 degrees Celsius, thats 194 degrees in Fahrenheit), so i downloaded a Turbo Boost Disabler, to keep my computer a bit cooler... Then i noticed the T2 chip latency issue... I first thought it was because of the Turbo Boost Disabler, but i found out later that this wasn't the case.

You can read about the issue here: www.extremetech.com

I thought about purchasing an expensive Thunderbolt 3 dock, because it should solve all problems i had using just usb-c to usb-a cables. But it's one device more to carry around.

THEN:
Apple put out a Mojave update a few days ago, which should fix the USB latency issue. So i installed it, and began testing...

After 6 Hours intensive testing (mixtapes running for hours, scratching, mixing, looping, triggering samples and effects) at home i can say confidently: The issue has been solved and Touchbar Macbooks with T2 Chip are perfectly fine to use with SDJ Pro. They run very. very smooth and stable!

I use it with a SL4 box, Rane TTM-56s, a fully MIDI-mapped Launchpad and my Rane Twelve.
I turned on wifi and bluetooth, turned them off and repeated, i browsed the web while playing, had dropbox open, downloaded songs and turned the time zone clock sync on and off a lot.

They are getting a bit hot, because their unibody is much thinner then the previous generation, but they can handle it ( older Macbooks get even hotter, but because of the thickness of the aluminium body, you won't recognize it as fast, but i checked with my 12" Macbook, and a Retina Macbook that a friend gave me for testing purposes. They all get approx. 80-90 degrees.)

My only Pet-peeve is:
The hot-plugging issue still exists, BUT you do not have to restart the whole computer to start djing again, just unplug all devices and restart SDJ. That worked for me.

Hope this helps anybody, who is unsure about upgrading their Macbook.
I tested everything on my Late 2018 13" Macbook Pro.

Best Regards, and sorry for my bad english :)


Thanks for the info. What are the specs on your machine?


8th Generation 2,3 GHz Quad‑Core Intel Core i5 Processor
Turbo Boost up to 3,8 GHz
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM
256 GB SSD
popnwave 2:55 PM - 18 April, 2019
Yeah the hotplugging issues will always be there without a proper dock, the audio drops outs with the T2s are what Mojave finally fixed. PRIOR to the Mojave update the only way to deal with BOTH was to use a dock, now you just have the one issue.
Diego Johnsson 3:26 AM - 23 April, 2019
Quote:
Yeah the hotplugging issues will always be there without a proper dock, the audio drops outs with the T2s are what Mojave finally fixed. PRIOR to the Mojave update the only way to deal with BOTH was to use a dock, now you just have the one issue.


yeah, you're right. but the hotplugging issue isn't really an issue for me, since i have never unplugged my SL Box during a set. only when finished, or between breaks, and even then i have always closed the software in first place.

anyway: i'm happy i can finally run serato flawlessly at 1ms with my turbo boost disabled without any problems :)
RICKY-SEKHON 5:17 PM - 9 September, 2019
i have a stupid question but why would you disable turbo boost off?
popnwave 6:57 PM - 9 September, 2019
Helps with heat.
RICKY-SEKHON 4:34 PM - 11 September, 2019
is it going to affect performance?