DJing Discussion

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"Your first night out with Scratch LIVE" feedback

Serato
dave 4:47 AM - 4 July, 2006
Have you read our new article, "Your first night out with Scratch LIVE"?

If so, let us know what you think of it!

If not, check it out here -> scratchlive.net

A PDF is available here -> rane.com
KMXE 6:27 AM - 4 July, 2006
bravo - the service you guys provide are 2nd to none and this is just another fine example. ive skimmed through it and so far so good... i'll give it a proper read tonight and see if i can point anything out
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 6:38 AM - 4 July, 2006
on page 2 (loving the nerd friend reference :)

any chance of having links to videos to help thoses who have trouble reading?

keep up the good work folks !

- dj mike coquilla
Marqs 9:29 AM - 4 July, 2006
Very nice! Reading now...

m.
Smart 11:30 AM - 4 July, 2006
Great!!!
Revolutionary 1:52 PM - 4 July, 2006
Tight as always! Good work, guys! :)
mexicannnnnn 3:16 AM - 5 July, 2006
Change the picture of the Fan to a "laptop cooling fan".
DJMark 4:33 AM - 5 July, 2006
This is a great example of how there's much more to a product besides the actual hardware and software. Excellent document, very well-written with a nice balance between clarity/simplicity and not seeming to "dumb-down" or condescend to the reader.

One minor criticism: on page 4 there's a lot of discussion about setting up the SL-1 in an existing system, but with two pictures of a TTM57-based setup. Seems like it would be more relevant and consistent with the text if these pictures showed a separate mixer/SL-1 type setup.
dj dawn 9:33 AM - 5 July, 2006
I want a picture of a typical computer nerd friend ;)
DJ Nevoc 3:45 PM - 5 July, 2006
^^^ bump, maybe Napolean could do a picture with Scratch Live, with the quote, "Heck Yeah its Serato, what did you think this is FS?" or "SSL is probably my most favorite DJing Software, Mostly because of its Fast mixing Abilities and Magical Powers!"
MusicMeister 6:06 PM - 5 July, 2006
Nice article...
Pete Moss 11:20 PM - 5 July, 2006
Where are the instructions for Pong in the tutorial?
Serato
Josh 12:53 AM - 6 July, 2006
you want to play pong on your first night out? hehe.
punosion 4:29 AM - 6 July, 2006
Hey, is this where I get the beta? ;D

Kidding aside, GREAT article guys! Nicely laid-out, good info.
catbox 11:08 AM - 6 July, 2006
A god send to a DJ white-belt, excellent work!
nik39 11:21 AM - 6 July, 2006
Very nice article. It should be compulsary to read this article before posting in the help section :)
soon-2-be-ex-FS2user 3:14 PM - 6 July, 2006
hi im new is this free thanks
DeezNotes 4:52 PM - 6 July, 2006
There is a typo on the caption under the lacie hard drive pictures. Nice article.
DJUltimate 9:11 PM - 6 July, 2006
Quote:
Very nice article. It should be compulsary to read this article before posting in the help section :)

Yes, yes it should. This article would have helped me alot a few weeks ago.
thenewyorkgiant 12:38 PM - 7 July, 2006
great article. this board is just as good as the article, you just have to click and search a lil more. lol
DJ AL 4:13 PM - 10 July, 2006
love it i will never go to cd's anymore
djheadhoncho 3:32 AM - 11 July, 2006
i used my boys serato out quite a few times ..... but finally rocked alone with my mac & serato ..... & i must say .... there a match made in heaven !!!!!

now all i need is a ttm56 (anyone selling) ???
punosion 4:04 AM - 11 July, 2006
Quote:
now all i need is a ttm57 (anyone selling) ???


Quoted and corrected. ;)
LightFighter 7:19 PM - 12 July, 2006
I would say make sure you lock your decks.........!!!! if you have a crazy tab like I do @ the bar then after a few drinks its easy to drag a song on the wrong deck!!!!

I would say burn a few cd's with the hot tracks on them just incase you have a computer crash!!! once my computer downloaded an update which required a mandatory reboot from the clubs wireless network.......... yeah
B-Lo 5:17 AM - 14 July, 2006
My first night a drunk unpluged my hard drive thank good 1/2 of the music was on the laptop, but if not or no other media i would have been screwed. lesson learned; make sure your cables/ equipment is inaccessable. Other than that no problems EVER!!
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 1:29 PM - 14 July, 2006
Quote:
My first night a drunk unpluged my hard drive thank good 1/2 of the music was on the laptop, but if not or no other media i would have been screwed. lesson learned; make sure your cables/ equipment is inaccessable. Other than that no problems EVER!!
oh crap! i gotta warn all my local ssl buddies (we all have our tunes on externals) ... thanks for tha tip B-Lo :)
djtonypsalms 1:40 AM - 20 July, 2006
My first night...

Had to remember:

• Thru---> Phono
• Line---> Line
• Stop taking SSL vinyl from off the turntable.
• Clean dust from of the needles.

Other than that, no problems! :)
danield 1:01 PM - 21 July, 2006
great article, but it's too bad i read it only now, almost 1 year after my first night ;)

i just would complete with the information about mono turntables, and strong recommend to you learn and practice to play with only one turntable ; this could be your savior in a gig with one mono turntable.
dj trends 3:40 AM - 27 July, 2006
I brought all my vinyl with me for the first month in the club. My laptop sucks (256 MB of RAM) and I have never had a problem. Gangster.
slip_matt 10:46 AM - 5 August, 2006
Had a crash course with SL. Bought it 2 hours before my gig, got it loaded onto laptop and figured out how to load and use it without even reading any instructions at all from the booklet. It was great!! Didn't have to lug record crates.
Soulman 3:31 AM - 9 August, 2006
I've had it for a month. I have my library loaded and have my first gig coming up with Serato. The article put me at ease. I am having some problems with my computer crashing when I run Serato with anything else running. I have 512 MB of RAM; should I be having this problem?
KONUPE 5:00 PM - 13 August, 2006
Aight Yesterday was my first gig with serato. It was a 12 hour gig going from 3pm-3am. It was a cookout, stepshow and after party. And SSL HAD NO PROBLEMS. No usb drop outs no lock ups nothing. That is pretty impressive for a 12 hour gig. But I did have one dissater lastnight. At around 1 am when the party was really jumpin my fucking turntable just locks up on me. The platter would not move at all. So i just flipped the input reverse switch ( Thank God For SSL and still rocked it anyway. Overall the gig went great and I kant wait to do another one. Now I just have to hope I can return my one turntable and get it repaired or replaced.
Dj KaGeN 5:03 PM - 13 August, 2006
SSL saves the night, excellent!
DJSpot 11:45 PM - 13 August, 2006
DJ Spot, Fort Wayne, IN. here

Just started on Serato last monday with the setup of:
2x Numark TT200's
Vestax 07-pro black
Dell Inspiron E1705 on Windows XP
Western Digital 120GB external

LOVED IT!! I was using CDJ's for the past couple months so I had all my musically digitized and on iTunes.

First Gig, Tuesday at a low key "eclectic" bar known for live music. Ran flawless! Had a virusscan pop up about 2:30 during a mix and no slowdown. Noticed a few screen hiccups but no bearing on the sound.

Second Gig, Friday Night at my regular club. Flawless again even after a quick switch of turntables and mixers (beer tent move)

I built all my overviews on tuesday before the gig, then BPM analyzed using mixmeister on thursday, rescanned ID3 tags, everything popped up beautifully. Really love this software! Im using 1.5 and havent had a single drop-out or crash yet. Only hiccup was a WEIRD slowdown caused by corroded connections on my headshell (gotta change it)

hats off to serato! You've made my life much easier!
Soulman 10:51 PM - 27 August, 2006
Great article. I read it and it helped me prepare for my first gig wiht Serato. That gig was this week, I had a gig Thursday and Friday night. Both of them went on without a hitch. I followed the advice from the article and I was ready. I am totally sold out on Serato. Thanks for great advice, support and for the product.
DJ Whizlam 6:40 AM - 31 August, 2006
My first night was great!!! I'm so glad I invested in this program! Because of Serato, I landed two gigs back to back!
BorDeauX 2:16 PM - 27 September, 2006
This article is highly recommanded for every SL-user.

Is it possible to get it as a pdf-file? That would be great!
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 4:24 PM - 27 September, 2006
i've been slowly converting to Relative mode (did a whole gig last week in rel mode). things to keep an eye on:

- when in search mode, becareful to exit this mode when trying to trigger your cue points...otherwise, the cue points will not be enabled and will not respond simply because in that lil window, you'll see a bunch of 1111122222333334455566667777889990000... if you're still in search mode, ssl is waiting for you to type into that box.

- also, (i guess this applies to all modes abs/rel/int) when u do a lot of searches... becareful with getting all happy with the backspace button. the times when i 'coulda swore' i was still in search mode, i was actually 'eroneously' deleting my tunes and or crated from ssl (that's only because 'i thought' was in search mode, trying to type artists, and backspacing trying to clear or edit my typo)
brotha reese 4:49 PM - 27 September, 2006
Serato is a Blessing for me.i use to cary 10 crates to the clubs,switch over to cdjs and carried 3 books.now i carry a laptop, seagate 400 gig hard drive and 1 book of cds for back up.man gotta love that!
djSpinz 2:58 PM - 10 October, 2006
Quote:
My first night...

Had to remember:

• Thru---> Phono
• Line---> Line
• Stop taking SSL vinyl from off the turntable.
• Clean dust from of the needles.

Other than that, no problems! :)


No need to remember things when you can just label the cables or put a sticky label on the box near the outputs
punosion 5:05 PM - 10 October, 2006
Quote:
This article is highly recommanded for every SL-user.

Is it possible to get it as a pdf-file? That would be great!


x2, very good call.
DJ BIS 4:37 PM - 15 October, 2006
3 times yesterday and lovin' it!
Serato
dave 11:44 PM - 30 October, 2006
A PDF is available here -> rane.com
DJ BIS 12:51 PM - 1 November, 2006
great guide! The "keep the cell phone away" tip is probably something I should have done before. Its probably what caused a problem a couple of times now that I think about it!

Thanks SSL mods!
grrillatactics 9:08 PM - 2 November, 2006
Had my first night out with the 57 last Saturday. Despite being a seasoned vet of SSL, and vinyl emulation programs in general as well, I was still surprised at how great everything performed at crunch time.

It seemed that in the past, with a competing system, it always worked great at home, and would work improperly (if at all) in the club environment. So I switched to SSL, and never looked back. SSL has been great, never having a single problem, and the functionality of the program is made even more apparent with the 57. Now I can't imagine doing a show without SSL, and I am trying to make it a point to have ample opportunity to bring my 57 for all future club-type gigs.
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 10:42 PM - 2 November, 2006
question directed to TTM57SL users regarding club use application / integration:

it's pretty evident in regards to the SL1 user with setup/teardown of SSL / SL1 / existing installed venue mixer/ttable/cdj...playing after a non-ssl dj, then handing the club back to a non-ssl dj....

...., 57SL users, what's your process? do you go through an open heart type surgery, not only removing ttables/cdj, do you additionally repatch your main/booth outs into your 57SL? or can you follow the similar step by step of the regular SL1.
DJ BIS 8:44 PM - 3 November, 2006
Hey Mike, I think that patching the 57 to an open line input on the house mixer will work just fine. This is what I normally do with my setup (not a 57) at clubs that allow me to. The only thing is that you still have to control the booth levels from the main house mixer.
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 10:41 PM - 3 November, 2006
ah, thats right, i forgot that's all you gotta do (i wonder how 57 users mount or position their mixer ... like do they place a towel or pillow on top of the venues' permanently install mixer?)
DJ BIS 11:54 PM - 3 November, 2006
What I usually do when I place my stuff (I bring a full coffin to the clubs! LOL) I bring with me some big blocks of heavy foam, the real dense/hard stuff (usually used to pack computers and monitors) and I stil them under the coffin.

The big draw back is that it raises your coffin WAY UP, and so that laptop covers your view and sticks out big time, depending on the way the booth is put together. Some booths do no even allow for this if they have an angled rack for the mixer, thats when trouble starts if they have shitty equipment. I may try to just skip the DJ booth and dj on a freakin' table outside of the DJ booth... lol (that happens mostly at shitty bars, etc, most clubs should be good to go).

I am now considering carrying a keyboard stand in my car, just in case.

Oh, and if you don't have foam or plastic for setting up your cases I guess you could stick a couple of wood blocks under there, they will just be a little bit heavier to carry.
DJ Dave G 3:48 AM - 2 December, 2006
I just received my long awaited copy of SSL. It was a breeze to set up (approx. 20min), and I can't leave it alone! I've been DJ'ing for over 23years and have been dedicated to my vinyl. But after reading the post in this and other forums regarding digital vinyl, and researching the hell out of both FS and SSL, I decided to take the plunge with SSL. And after playing around with it for the past 2-3 hours, it's simply amazing!

The sound is great, and my laptop seems to be handling it fine.

I have a gig tomorrow night...a Christmas Party and will use SSL. At this point, I'm pretty optimistic about my gig and will let you guys know how things turn out.

Wish me luck.

Peace.
Thundercat 3:55 AM - 2 December, 2006
Welcome Dave. Nice to see another from Dirty Jerz. We're infultrating slowly but surely. Don't know if we'll catch up the the Cali contingent, but we're building...Tpke Exit 10, Pkwy Exit 129. Holla!
Dj KaGeN 4:12 AM - 2 December, 2006
wow - confidence gained in a day.. that's impressive and ballsy in one.. LOL

G' luck - up the USB buffer another notch or 2 and have at it.
sG 12:28 AM - 3 December, 2006
my first night i was sweating that i was going to cue up the wrong side.
DJ Dave G 7:00 AM - 3 December, 2006
Quote:
Welcome Dave. Nice to see another from Dirty Jerz. We're infultrating slowly but surely. Don't know if we'll catch up the the Cali contingent, but we're building...Tpke Exit 10, Pkwy Exit 129. Holla!


I'm right with ya Thundercat...except I'm holding it down in southern Jerz - Tpke exit 3.

My first night with SSL went great. No problems at all. I was amazed at how I was able to multitask with my laptop while SSL was still running in the background (I won't make that a habit). Also, going back-n-forth between SSL and regular vinyl was very convenient. There was a couple of times that I had to open iTunes and re-encode a song from an AAC file to an mp3. I couldn't find a couple of songs in SSL, eventhough I knew they were in iTunes. Then I remembered that SSL does not play AAC files which is what these songs were encoded. So I shut SSL down, opened iTunes, re-encoded the songs while I played a couple of records, fired SSL back up when the songs were encoded as MP3s and were able to play them in SSL.

Once I become more familiar with using the interface, things will go even smoother.

But overall, my first live experience with SSL was very good!!!

Cheers to Serato!

Peace
DJ BIS 10:38 AM - 3 December, 2006
Good to hear it man. You sure sound like a multitasker! shhhiiiieeet...
Serato
dave 11:33 PM - 3 December, 2006
Hey DJ Dave G

Nice name, I've used that name too, but it looks like you're the OG with 23 years DJing experience!

- Dave G, Serato
DJ Dave G 9:06 PM - 5 December, 2006
Thanks Dave.

I was wrestling with whether or not coming up with a "slick" DJ name. Some of the names I see on the site are great and creative. However, in the end I decided to keep it simple.

DG
allenbina 10:41 PM - 5 December, 2006
I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but practice in complete darkness. I remember playing in a club where the dj booth had no lighting. good thing my pop up lights work.
DJ BIS 11:29 AM - 7 December, 2006
LED lights... I am a freak-LED-clipping-flash-light-collector. LOL

Wanna know where the best/cheapest one's are? Walmart.
I have bought the Odyssey $20 ones at DJ stores (very nice), the Craftsman mini clip lights at Sears and a bunch others on the internet, EBAY, you name it...

LOL, these puppies rock:

www.airgunexpress.com (Walmart website did not have them so I found them on this site... but check your local Walmart's fishing section, they are the "Coast - tackle box light")


And I just saw these on the ebay website:

i.walmart.com

Not too bad but the clip does not open very wide it seems.


Call me crazy, but I LOOOOOOooooooooovvvvvvVVVVVVVEEEEEE!

MY L-E-D clip-ons.


haha. Ok I have to hit the sack or elssssse.
DJ_Mike_Coquilla 3:23 PM - 9 December, 2006
i got some pretty dope ones (LED lights) at Borders (made for reading)... they got them FAT led style ones on em, and they use like three or four AAA batteries
DJ Dave G 12:49 PM - 10 December, 2006
My second night out with Serato was a blast!

This time I left my records at home, but brought a s*#t load of CD's just in case.

I'm happy to report that everything went fine. However, I did notice that my laptop started getting alittle warm towards the end of my five hour gig. I really didn't push my unit until half way thru the night. I also noticed that in some cases, when I loaded a song from another playlist, it took an extra second or so for that song to load. Again, this started happening later in the evening. Is there any cause for me to be concerned?

Aside from that, everything went fine.

DG
DJ BIS 4:52 PM - 10 December, 2006
Heat is defenitely a reason for concern. Look for temperature measurement software on Google. There is quite a few apps that are free and will measure your CPU/HD/GPU temps.

What may feel hot from the outside could be REALLY hot inside.

I assume you are working with an APPLE notebook?
RICHY RICH 11:35 PM - 10 December, 2006
alright so first and second nights..... im coming from CD's, denon 3000's. so my goal was to move to serato, so i didnt bring any sort of cds or anything, just a couple of vinyl incase it crashes. I quickly realized i hadnt reallly copied everything over. I couldnt find alot of stuff and was not used to scrolling or searching...i know by heart were every song is in that binder and what page, so it was wierd. in the end the first night was ok but i still wasnt used to it. The second night has the denons already so i brought my cds along, it certainly made it easier. i did notice that the orange and red usb thing would pop up and there was one point where it cut out for like 30 millseconds. but nothing else. basically i realized i have to spend ALOT more time organizing my shit!
Thundercat 12:00 AM - 11 December, 2006
Quote:
basically i realized i have to spend ALOT more time organizing my shit!


Now, you will experience the full power of the Dark Side...
RICHY RICH 12:17 AM - 11 December, 2006
yeah but i just read the relative mode thread....i havnt even tried relative mode.....haha
Alixx J 3:28 AM - 11 December, 2006
Richy, it will get to the point where you work on serato so much you will forget where all your tunes are in your CD wallet. I can say now that i wouldnt like to play a whole night without serato, i just wouldn't be able to mix it up as good.
The search function is the most powerfull tool, find, mix, blend, scratch in a second. it's awesome.
DJ Dave G 7:07 AM - 11 December, 2006
Quote:
I assume you are working with an APPLE notebook?


No...I'm using a Dell Inspiron 6000.
Celeron M 1.2GHZ
1GB Ram
40 Gig HD with an attached 120GB Western Digital External Drive

However, in the NEAR future, I'd like to upgrade to an Apple MacBook Pro.
DJ Stuart (AR) 8:10 AM - 11 December, 2006
nice article.

www.djstuart.com.ar
Serato
Josh 9:17 AM - 11 December, 2006
thanks everyone : )


what should I write for the next one?
CMOS 9:28 AM - 11 December, 2006
Maybe a really detailed article like that on relative mode for those who dont use it too much. Or internal mode to keep in your bag in case the turntables crap out on you.
RICHY RICH 12:50 PM - 11 December, 2006
no seriously...relative mode!!! i think that is something that is not used enough for sure!!!
CSR 12:32 AM - 19 December, 2006
Article is great... but maybe all the stuff about finding the bathrooms, and club owner to get paid, etc could be left for a separate article entitled "First night DJing ever." I would guess that most people who need this article are djs who are dealing with "the big switch" not absolute newbies.

I switched to Serato the week before last and found it much easier than I thought. I was careful to follow all the advice I could find on the forum and from friends who had been using SSL to ensure a glitch-free night.

So far I find the biggest problem is remembering all the extra parts like power cables for everything etc. I made a checklist which helped (like the one in the article).

I think the weirdest part is remembering NOT to pull up to the front door of the venue to unload boxes--cause there aren't any! Downside is of this: no grand entrance. Walking to the front door of an out-of-town club with a couple of bags means the doorman doesn't know that you're the DJ until you explain! ;-)

Oh yeah... and this past Friday I walked into a club and found that there were already 2 laptops in the booth! LOL... I suppose shuffling laptops around between sets is STILL easier than figuring out where to put the crates.
CSR 12:33 AM - 19 December, 2006
Oh yeah... I should point out that I was VERY skeptical before I switched, but I'm loving it now!
D-MINH 6:15 AM - 24 February, 2007
i really appreciate this guide. shows how much rane cares about its customers
Serato
Josh 10:20 PM - 1 March, 2007
of course you meant to include Serato in that too :-)
otrebor 3:27 AM - 2 March, 2007
i loved it my first night out at the club, but i wish more clubs had the sl1 already installed. the only thing that sucked was switching between laptops. i forgot to bring a regular record, so i had to use another dj's record. the look on his face... you would have thought i just told him i had sex with his mom. i wish i didn't have to bring any extra stuff.
dj fluffylumpkins 7:50 PM - 2 March, 2007
well i did my first gig with SSL last night and it worked a dream, still have not completely rebuilt all my indexes, should be another couple of weeks.

The only problem i had last night was my backup retard, this boy is cornfed and built like a brick outhouse, he really did not get the idea of using vinyl as all he has ever worked with is another mp3 based dj'ing program.

well he opened and the frist track came on (wrrrrrrr boom boom boom) ohh dear, ok he will get the hand of it, next few songs same kinda thing, so i explained that he can start the next track just before potting it up and so it will be at speed (i did not suggest he slip started it as i did not want to see my decks and vinyl bounce off the wall of the booth), the final straw for me was him not lifting the needle and getting a lovely scccccccccccratch sound as it grazed the vinyl.

So anyway i took over was having a blast, it was only a pub/college night so nothing too heavy, i had to deal with some organisational stuff so i asked him to get back on for a few. Now mind you he had been sitting behind me while i was playing to see how i did things (foolish boy), and anyway i explained that i had been using the crossfader and he might find it easier to use.

I was sitting in the managers office when the track ended, ok i thought he will mix in, mix in now, arrrrrrrrrgggggggghh. I ran back to the booth to see him paniced and twiddling knobs, only to see the cross fader all the way to deck 2.

anyway the product stood up well on the night, was very intuitive, sure i kept it simple for now, but the owners and the crowd liked what we did (even the breaks, i am sure breaks mean mixing bits of tracks together not 10 seconds of silence followed by a wind up sound)
allenbina 3:20 AM - 5 March, 2007
make sure you know where to park.
Stjohn909 1:58 AM - 16 March, 2007
Weird little club in Studio city. It had been open for about a week and I was filling in for another guy.. This was 2004, and I had just gotten SSL. Had to cobble it up to their system, a DJM 909 and 2 m5g's. Well, when your laptop does funny things like go into shutdown while you're spinning vinyl, guess what happens if you don't have AC power running to the SL1? Yeah.. Dead. Fucking. Silence. Lesson learned. Right after bringing it back up and mixing deftly into the soothing sounds of the Serato Control Vinyl Orchestra. It was OK though. My transgression was quickly overshadowed by the antics of the fire dancer they brought in, and for whom the owner stopped the music so the thirty ppl there could watch him fill the room with burning hair.
J3RMZ 2:03 AM - 19 March, 2007
First off I started with fs2 and was iffy about the whole dvs systems but then I sold it and purchaced ssl along with a pair of 1210 m5gs this past thursday and all I have to say is wow. It wasnt even one day until I got a call from a friend who wanted me to dj his gf's b-day party. Still not knowing ssl in and out I gave it a shot and accepted the offer. With my new decks and ssl It was better than I had hoped for. I had my laptop full of bs on it background programs running etc anything and everything that could throw off ssl. Did it? you ask. Nope, I mean there was very little split milisecond dropouts and the usb light poped up every now and then but over all 99% of the time it was flawless. I ran it for 4 hours mind you and man ssl is amazing. Now I did all the xp tweaks uninstalled alot of bs defraged my hds and made my laptop a ssl dedicated one. I ran ssl and so far it is flawless. I have yet to test it out with a 2+ hour set with the new and improved settings. But I tell you the next time I play out I will be even more amazed with its stability.
DJKelly 7:52 AM - 7 April, 2007
I DJ at a big club in Milwaukee... Saturday nights (OK, every other Sat..). I bought SSL on a Tuesday, ripped & built overviews for about 10% of my usual carry along library (which is about 400 CD's). I actually "practiced" with SSL for all of about 45 min. before going into the club. Sat, March 17. .thats right, St Pats. SSL performed absolutely flawlessly, I run it solo on a 3 yr old IBM Thinkpad, 2.4Gz CPU, 30Gb drive.. MP3s are all on an external. I never opened my CD cases. Now they live in the trunk of my car, I throw a couple mixed CD's in my bag just in case. (Lucky enuf to have a spare CD deck on the mixer without having to repatch anything.) I can't say enuf about SSL it just freakin' rocks.

YOU should not do what I did...(and either should I.....) you really want to DJ for 4 or 5 hours with your setup to make sure your lappy won't overheat. Other than that it's really intuitive and soooo easy to work with.
jrcook 8:07 PM - 16 April, 2007
Quote:
I've had it for a month. I have my library loaded and have my first gig coming up with Serato. The article put me at ease. I am having some problems with my computer crashing when I run Serato with anything else running. I have 512 MB of RAM; should I be having this problem?


What version are you running?
DJKelly 6:00 AM - 18 April, 2007
I would up the RAM to a gig.

Also, make sure you are not connected to the internet while DJing and also turn OFF your McAffee, AVG, or whatever you run so it doesn't start a scan while you are DJing. Keep your PC area clear with good airflow so it doesn't overheat. Keep any other devices away from your hub (cell phones, wireless mics, big ol' magnets like speakers....); on the topic of overheating... do a practice DJ gig at least as long as your set will be so you are exercising the laptop for the same aount of time that your gig will run.

MAKE SURE you built your overviews (you have to do that with the hub disconnected) and MAKE DOUBLE SURE you have **NO** bad MP3 files... if it finds any bad files, DELETE THEM and do without that track until you can re-import it. Good luck with your first gig, let us know how it goes !
Menace82 10:36 PM - 18 April, 2007
does anyone know what external hard drive starting from scratch in canada uses?
eklipse 11:24 AM - 19 April, 2007
Well well well.. Serato or "Sarah" being my 2nd Wife arrived via courier today and quicker than you could say "panties" she was out of the box and ready to be used.. I am in the process of building a p4 2ghz machine 1gb ram and 250gb sata hdd's to use for serato but at the moment I loaded it on 2 a old p3 1.3ghz and 256mb of SDRAM!!! LOL 20gb hdd and guess what! runs super x0x0 Love it..
anyways.. got my first gig with it in a weeks time so im keen to really put it to the test. c u soon!
D Duff 9:41 PM - 19 April, 2007
Menace,
Email him. He's pretty good at getting back to people fast

u can get his email off of the FLow93.5 site
sixxx 2:20 AM - 20 April, 2007
eklipse, I'm really loving the "Sarah" reference to Serato. :)
DJ Big Sha 10:08 AM - 26 April, 2007
Quote:
My first night...

Had to remember:

• Thru---> Phono
• Line---> Line
• Stop taking SSL vinyl from off the turntable.
• Clean dust from of the needles.

Other than that, no problems! :)


LOL.. Happen to me..
DJ Biggz 7:38 PM - 26 April, 2007
Hello. I'm new to the forum and just purchasing my Serato. Everything runs smoothly with one problem (Maybe something I'm overlooking). I have crates set up 1) With Hip Hop (which is about 3500 songs). I built overviews for them and everything went ok. I added a new crate with about 200 old school to start (Have alot of cds to get through). I want to build overviews just on the new crate of old school but instead it's scanning my hip hop files over again along with some of the old school. Is there something I'm doing wrong?
DJ-A 8:52 PM - 26 April, 2007
Quote:
I would up the RAM to a gig.

Also, make sure you are not connected to the internet while DJing and also turn OFF your McAffee, AVG, or whatever you run so it doesn't start a scan while you are DJing. Keep your PC area clear with good airflow so it doesn't overheat. Keep any other devices away from your hub (cell phones, wireless mics, big ol' magnets like speakers....); on the topic of overheating... do a practice DJ gig at least as long as your set will be so you are exercising the laptop for the same aount of time that your gig will run.

MAKE SURE you built your overviews (you have to do that with the hub disconnected) and MAKE DOUBLE SURE you have **NO** bad MP3 files... if it finds any bad files, DELETE THEM and do without that track until you can re-import it. Good luck with your first gig, let us know how it goes !


its good to at least have the part of the laptop that has the CPU off of the table (use anything thats an inch or to raise that part of your laptop.) mine is on the front corner, so i place the lid to a bottle of soda in the front middle. the air keeps it a lot cooler.
eklipse 8:15 AM - 29 April, 2007
First Night was last night.. Lucky I was prepared cause we broke a needle but other than that It went smooth as ran of a pc and the crowed was loving it.. stupid new bar manager wanted to close at 2am for some stupid reason, we had a great crowd so its there loss and it took me 20 min to get a bottle of water so i know they were milking it.. anyways we had some tuff competition with the neighboring bar throwing a 3 room party but we held it down so I think it was a great success.. not one glitch.. www.myspace.com for video and pics very soon :)
Styx 8:49 AM - 1 May, 2007
had my first night out with scratch live yesterday at this lounge in town. i took cds just in case my mac decided to crash on me. fortunately, it didn't and my SSL worked a treat together with my mac. I did notice however that the USB dropout indicator light would come on occasionally, but it didn't really affect the audio output, i.e., there weren't no breaks in the music...not sure what that's about.
mental note: must lock down the turntables...yes you guessed it, your's truly was dancin' around like a noob and lifted the needle of a track which was playing...silence for like two seconds...i really gotta start lockin' my tracks down..
hifi sushi 2:49 PM - 8 May, 2007
Used it for the first time on sunday night out, went for the leap of faith and didn't take any cds just encase. Worked like a dream, well chuffed after taking so long to have the balls to use cause wasn't sure vinyl rips were upto it....

Col :)
B-Lo 11:28 PM - 9 May, 2007
Quote:
Hello. I'm new to the forum and just purchasing my Serato. Everything runs smoothly with one problem (Maybe something I'm overlooking). I have crates set up 1) With Hip Hop (which is about 3500 songs). I built overviews for them and everything went ok. I added a new crate with about 200 old school to start (Have alot of cds to get through). I want to build overviews just on the new crate of old school but instead it's scanning my hip hop files over again along with some of the old school. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

highlight the songs you want to build over views for then drag up to the build overview button then it will only build for what you just added.
DJ_AL 6:23 PM - 11 May, 2007
i know we may be getting a lil off topic here but since we're talking about overviews...i have a ? ....do we have to build overviews everytime before gigs or does SSL saves the overviews once they've been built ??
sixxx 6:26 PM - 11 May, 2007
All the overviews are done once and that's it. You don't have to (or shouldn't have to) redo them.
Dj KaGeN 5:13 PM - 12 May, 2007
unless you change versions and it's suggested you redo them to benefit from the advances in the overview building process, like the improved BPM engine, setting volumes equal, etc.
DJ Bob 2:50 AM - 14 May, 2007
Quote:
My first night...

Had to remember:

• Thru---> Phono
• Line---> Line
• Stop taking SSL vinyl from off the turntable.
• Clean dust from of the needles.

Other than that, no problems! :)


I thought it was just me bro...lol I kept ejecting my Cd's all night last night. The SSL 1st night out for me was awesome except for that.
J0be 10:51 AM - 17 May, 2007
Quote:
silence for like two seconds...i really gotta start lockin' my tracks down..


Locking your tracks down? Dont understand, I know you can lock your decks, so you dont load the song onto the deck thats playing, but locking your tracks?
That would be useful actually, locking it so that if you take the needle off the track thats playing, it switches to internal mode.
Dj_DuMpTy562 5:25 PM - 17 May, 2007
when I first purchased serato last june, my first night out with it was at some club the same night I bought it. Everything went well, but I still used half or my records because I didn't have a lot of songs on my comp yet. But I couldn't wait! Lol
Serato
Josh 10:50 PM - 22 May, 2007
new articles coming soon! {a_a}
dj cubicle 11:21 PM - 23 May, 2007
my first night is tomorrow. i'm more nervous about MYSELF than i am with using serato. LOL
oldest toddler 8:23 PM - 24 May, 2007
Got Serato a couple of weeks back and i'm so so pleased with it, cant believe how well it works. Fantastic!

...however, i took it to the bar where i have a residency and encountered a couple of problems. I'm thinking it's probably the turntables at the bar that are the cause. The first minor problem i had was with the right deck, when i place the needle (my own needles which serato works fine with at home) on the control record at the start of the record it began scrolling the library, and when i tried to enter the setup screen it just kept switching back to the main view each time?? I managed to resolve this with a few goes at switiching on and off and re-plugging in the wires but i dont know why it did this in the first place??

Secondly, the left hand turntable is quite old (they both 1210's) and the GND has unfortunately lost the metal prongs and is just bare wire at the end - i usually just wrap this round the gnd on mixer and it works fine with normal vinyl, the phono leads have also been changed at some point in the past as they are not the usual red/white colours but some fancy silver ones. The problem its having with serato is that in setup screen i'm just getting a diagonal line from bottom left to top right (i cant see this particular diagram in the manual!) but i'm guessing it's not picking up a signal from the deck? I dont think the bar is gonna splash out on a new deck just for me to use as all the other dj's just use vinyl and they work fine with that - i was just wondering whether anyone else has had similar problems and maybe getting the phono/gnd fixed properly would resolve the problem?

help anyone?

thanks!
DJZ 3:28 AM - 25 May, 2007
I'm having the first night out tonight. my only worrie is that I'm to juse to have records with pictures. To look at crates is very strange for me. But I got my other records in spare :)
Lexi 10:13 AM - 3 June, 2007
I'm sweating this big event in London, Ontario on June 7th... I mean, at home I mess around and stuff but I really fear something going horribly wrong in the mix :S I can't sleep at night! So far I've gotten 2 weeks practice with my 57SL, sertao, and about 50 tracks.
Lexi 10:14 AM - 3 June, 2007
Quote:
sertao


* Serato
DJSEVERE 4:24 PM - 3 June, 2007
When ia the driver coming out for vista
DJSEVERE 4:25 PM - 3 June, 2007
Quote:
When is the driver coming out for vista
When it comes out it is over
Serato, Support
Matt G 10:37 PM - 3 June, 2007
DJSEVERE, check out 1.7.2 (www.scratchlive.net). It has a Vista driver.
Dj_Ryan 1:05 PM - 4 June, 2007
I used my Serato Scratch Live for the first time outta my house on Live Tv! It worked great and I used it later that night at the Club....it saves lives i tell ya...lol.
trixdj 12:07 PM - 17 June, 2007
First time for me last night, went like a dream. Bit of callibrating mid way but only cause they turned the bass up.
I did the first time mistakes of taking the record off and looked at the record to see how far through a track I was.
Fantastic.......
Lexi 9:54 PM - 18 June, 2007
Ah it's been a while since June 7th, but I still gotta post. I played at Rum Runners in London, Ontario before DJ Benny D. The night went very well, the setup crew used the 57SL instead of the DMJ-500 mixer :D score for me! I never used the Serato "box" and don't ever want to. Going back and forth between decks and computer is just too complicated for me. Except now that I hate Technics 1200 MKIIs! They must have been right from 1980. I'm too used to my Stanton str8-150's high torque, pitch and breaking. But I have to conclude that Serato is simply the best computer DJ solution on the market - bar none.
polocorp 11:41 PM - 20 June, 2007
Quote:
Quote:
When is the driver coming out for vista
When it comes out it is over

I'm running a MixVibes smoothly off Vista. Worth trying if you're interested in spinning with VISTA.
dj cubicle 4:50 PM - 25 June, 2007
Just as a testament to how much I trust SSL, I bought a new laptop with Vista on Friday and installed the SSL drivers right before I left for the club on Saturday, not a single problem.

The only tweaking was to disable the wifi.
dj_KaSE 1:49 PM - 28 June, 2007
I experienced bad USB dropouts with buffer setting at 1. Had to play lots of hip hop that night, so with my buffer setting at 10 to avoid drop outs, I had a hard time skratching.

And a guy was beaten and purposely run over by a car after the party and died about 20 minutes later.

=/
KaGeN 5:46 PM - 28 June, 2007
is your control vinyl getting old?? buffer setting creeping up is a good indicator that you need to flip your vinyl and use the other side or get new ones..
dj_KaSE 6:18 PM - 28 June, 2007
Oh naw bro, I was using CDJs. That problem is gone now, though.

It turns out that I had to disable wireless networking via XP itself by right-clicking the WiFi icon in Network Connections choosing "Disable" It also turns out that this was the only way to get rid of the problem because, for example, disabling WiFi by using the On/Off switch on the side of my laptop didn't work.

I can now have my buffer setting at the smallest setting and rarely see it hiccup.
djbriguy 12:21 PM - 2 July, 2007
My first night out was this past friday, with about 4 days of practice and organization at home.

A few things that really stressed me out, was the way my files are sorted. My "Library" has so many genres, including acapellas and instrumentals... so it made it somewhat tough. I tried making as many crates as i could from home, but i knew that I would need a real-live experience to "know" what crates i would need.

Other than that, my lappy held up great for how old it is. I must say, I thought the scratching sounded great on CDX's before... well it sounds 100x better with SSL!

I was also a little nervous about all the cigarette smoke and my laptop... i think next time i'll bring a desk fan.

So all-in-all, better organization for next time!
tekniq 1:32 PM - 2 July, 2007
Quote:
It turns out that I had to disable wireless networking via XP itself by right-clicking the WiFi icon in Network Connections choosing "Disable" It also turns out that this was the only way to get rid of the problem because, for example, disabling WiFi by using the On/Off switch on the side of my laptop didn't work.

I can now have my buffer setting at the smallest setting and rarely see it hiccup.


I too had to put buffer up to 20 with WiFi enabled. After disabling it i can go to 1 with some minor audible drop-outs. At setting 2 they also occur but not like you could hear them in outcoming audio stream.

Seems to be a common problem.
tekniq 1:37 PM - 2 July, 2007
Quote:
I was also a little nervous about all the cigarette smoke and my laptop... i think next time i'll bring a desk fan.


Some canned compressed air could be a good investment too. Couple of small blowings there and now cleans the laptop inside and out.

I have my lappy running 24/7 on my home desk and it collects some amount of very fine dust on the ventilation holes in no time. No that i'm a bit lazy on cleaning the house or something. :)

Even bought a small oil-free compressor, it pays itself on the long run compared to buying canned air.
djlayz 1:06 PM - 9 July, 2007
Had my first night out on saturday. only had serato for about 3 weeks and only uploaded about 20% of all my music. It was a pretty diverse party so I had to use the thru on my box and go back and forth betweens serato and normal cd/s. Worked good just had a few questions.

1) when i'm going from serato software to a normal cd should i close serato or leave it open. I was closing it each time i would play cd's for 20-30 mins, don't if thats aasking for trouble.

2) Playing at home I couldn't really tell the diff, but playing on my p.a. system I really had to turn it up much louder than noraml to compensate for the volume loss of the mp3's. Do I need some sort of sound card, when i bought the lappy the guy at future shop said all laps have a built in one but I could tell he didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

Any thoughts would be great


other than that serato rocks
dj_KaSE 9:20 PM - 9 July, 2007
1) Leave it open, bro. There's no need to close it, and it would come in handy in case you need to switch if, for example, one of your CDs were to start skipping.

2) Volume levels depend on the ripping process, as well as on the gain knob in the Serato decks. The sound card MIGHT make a difference if you are ripping vinyl, but either way you can compensate for this by adjusting the gain knobs in Serato. I have tons of MP3s that had to have gain adjustments in Serato, and since then I have had no major issues with volume level.

Hope this helps.
djbriguy 3:14 PM - 10 July, 2007
djlayz,
I have alot of MP3s and tracks where the volume has always been really low... you know, like 80s jamz, etc... I've noticed that since i set the auto-gain to -92DBS on the setup screen, that most of my music's levels match up pretty well now. Give that a whirl.
djlayz 6:29 PM - 10 July, 2007
thanks guys i'll give it a try,

the only reason i was closing it is because after I'd go from the control cd's to a reg cd the last song i was playing still appeared on the screen as if it was playing. is there a way to clear the simulators on the screen
tekniq 11:17 AM - 11 July, 2007
You can push the eject-button on virtual decks.
LosMintos 11:13 AM - 2 August, 2007
What about the Sound?


Well, my first night:

- learned "quite fast", not to remove the control vinyl after each track :-))))

- it is hard to figure out the next tracks. Coming from vinyl and therefore always looking on covers it is hard to look just for names/titles.

- was woundering about relative mode and why the song is at the end while the needle is at the beginning. Back cuing the record results in skippin off the needle ... well, starting with absolute mode.

- ALWAYS when playing digital needed to turn down the heights (from normal position in the middle to, let's say, 9 o'clock)

- when playing digital needed to increase gain to 12 o'clock position while it is about 10 o'clock while playing vinyl

- switch for the main time back to vinyl because it is more familiar and I do not have all the tracks digital right now.

Over all, Scratch Live seems to be a great tool and furthermore I won't need to carry hundreds of vinyl!
djtoast 6:29 AM - 5 August, 2007
Quote:
make sure you know where to park.


That was the best advice in the article; if you're from outta town and pick the wrong neighbourhood, someone'll steal your laptop and SL1 when you walk back to the car!

Anyhow, my first night with serato was the day I bought it, so not much time to practice. No turntables in that venue, just Pioneers. Now, because of the way the channels work on the mixer there (a DJM600), you can't set it up with the THRU outputs from the SL1 on the same channels as the LINE outputs, the way you would if you were using vinyl, and just switch the channel from line (serato) to phono (thru)...

So for regular audio CDs it was channels 1&2 on the mixer (set to line, obviously), and for Serato it was channels 3&4.

No problem, except JUST how many times do you figure I forgot whether it was control CDs or audio ones in the CD players, and pressed CUE only to hear SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL (Or worse, cued it properly, but then put the wrong fader up and played that noise to the whole crowd...) All bloody night, practically. Or so it seemed.

That aside it went well. Two weeks into using it now and only one further blunder: stupidly put my laptop on a padded surface, thus no air could move under it so it shut down without warning once it finally overheated. I was running Serato with Technics that night and had CDJs set up too, and there was one ready to go so punters only had silence for about two seconds. FLAT, HARD surface for my laptop from now on.
DJ HECTIC 10:32 AM - 6 August, 2007
MY FIRST NIGHT WITH SERATO WAS AMASING I WAS KIND OF WORRIED OF MY COMPUTER CRASHING BUT IT WORKED LIKE A CHAMP. EVEN THOUGH I BROUGHT SOME BACK UP CD'S JUST IN CASE I DIDN'T HAVE THE NEED FOR IT. I WAS SO ANSIOUS SINCE I BOUGHT IT BACK IN JANUARY AND COULDN'T USED IT DUE TO THE CRASHING OF SERATO NO BEEN COMPATIBLE WITH VISTA. THANK U SERATO FOR MAKING MY LIFE EASIER. NOW I DON'T NEED A FLASHLIGHT TO LOOK FOR A RECORD OR CD WHILE TRYING TO GET THE NEXT SONG. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
DJ Jean Verano 10:35 AM - 6 August, 2007
no need to scream in here :)
DJ Rugged One 5:07 AM - 7 August, 2007
My first night was back in February when I had my pc laptop with Serato and it was hit for me. I did some several test at home and get some basics down. Then I had a gig that week and it was the ultimate test to see if it holds up and it did. Was a little bit scared but managed to pull through. All I can say is Serato you made me a believer and glad you made software that was in mind for dj's who still wants the feel for vinyl in a technology way.....THANKS !!!
mike d 5:29 PM - 26 August, 2007
So i had my first gig last night after owning Serato for a little over a year. No problems at all. I spun for 6 hours ! There were two highlights during the night. First is when i dropped Royksopp - Remind Me. People were going crazy ?!?!?. I got a kick out of it. Second highlight was when he cops showed up. They were complaing about the noise, so instead of killing the music i dropped Krs One -Sound of the police then I played The "Cops" Tv show song, Even the local police respected it and they thought it was funny. I messed up a little bit here and there but not to many people caught it. One guy even told me that he was using virtual dj and he hated, told me that he was going to buy Serato.. Great night
V-Mag 4:51 PM - 28 August, 2007
I've been playing around with Serato since Summer of '06 but didn't use it publicly until '07. First Serato gig was New Years '07 at Soundbar Chicago, spun downstairs, played from 10pm to 4am, Had no problems at all , countdown was awesome! Just remember if you are using serato for more than a couple of hours be sure to have a notebook cooler. Mac & Serato performed w/o no flaws had backup club songs on the control cd's just in case. Use Serato for 20+weddings so far this year. I bring some CD's just in case, lightens the gear! Wondering when Rane will have a 19" Mixer with the SSL built in?
djblkice 10:42 PM - 28 August, 2007
im a beginner dj and i have 2x tt500, djm 400 and scratch live. i have hooked everything up (atleast i think its right lol) but for some reason it wont play on the speakers i have. the speakers i have is a bose companion 2 laptop speakers with rca jacks in the back of it. everytime i play the sound only comes out of the headphones and very distorting and then the master level 1 goes from green to red. i know the speakers work because i played a record on it. can someone please tell me what im doing wrong? thanks
DJ Velvety 11:02 PM - 28 August, 2007
I've been a casual hobbiest DJ for about 6 years, spinning vinyl mostly at home and sometimes at parties or on radio shows. I just got Scratch Live a few days ago after seeing it used a few times this year. So far it works great without any problems. I'm amazed how well it works actually. I haven't found any differences from spinning regular vinyl, plus now I have the extra features like being able to cue and loop parts of songs.

The best part, the reason I got Scratch in the first place, is that now I can buy digital songs and keep up with new music releases. Vinyl is just too expensive for a casual DJ to keep investing in ($15/song vs. $1-$2/song now). I've already got a few hundred new songs to play with, including some new music styles I can experiment with that would normally be too expensive to invest in (ie: I mostly spin deep house but now I've got some electro songs I can try mixing into sets.. if it doesn't work out, well I only spent a few dollars trying it).

Anyways, I'm really impressed and excited with this hardware/software solution, and look forward to future features.
Dj Steve Mixx 6:00 PM - 3 September, 2007
First Night went good...one thing though... Loaded track onto playing deck....didn't go over too well. but now I Have it where it has to be stopped before a track is loaded... Second night should be better. I'm still carrying a few cd's "Just In Case". I will ween off of it by my fourth set. Hadn't had a good test on my comp. yet. I will try a 6 hr. sim. tomorrow.
BriChi 6:31 PM - 3 September, 2007
Quote:
Loaded track onto playing deck....didn't go over too well.


If you ever do that again accidentally, you can quickly hit ctrl+z and it will revert back to the song that was playing
Andy Cule 12:37 PM - 4 September, 2007
Sorely you will take some cd's out with you??? I would never trust a computer enough not to take anything!! I would always take a back folder of cd's just incase something happens!
mike d 4:56 PM - 4 September, 2007
Just did my second gig. 9 hours straight in the sun/heat, with no back up cd's. No problems at all( Thank God). Serato Rules and made alot of people happy at the party
liquidx 6:54 PM - 4 September, 2007
Bought Scratch Live on Tuesday, played out for the first time on Saturday at an open air event.

Luckily, I'd given the docs a good read through because when I setup I immediately ran into trouble.
First, the threshold slider jumped straight to the end so there was obviously a problem. I then tried using the scope and got a flat horizontal line which I remembered from the docs meant one of the channels was missing. Switching the phono cables produced a vertical line, confirming the problem. As I was told the decks were practically new, I assumed it wasn't a cabling problem so checked the cartridge, and the problem was there. I cleaned the contacts (vodka from the bar is your friend), tightened it in and I was off. Amusingly, both decks had the same problem.

Strangely enough, DJs earlier on must have been playing with only one channel (the guy before me was on CDs)

Apart from that, no problems at all. Great set, people loved it and I could use relative mode to avoid skipping caused by people getting too excited and jumping up and down on the stage :)
The Real DJ Maestro 1:26 AM - 7 September, 2007
My 1st night with scratchlive..... And yes Vista was my operating systems, I had no problems what so ever, and it played outdoors, indoors, on stage with people jumping around and all that. Serato ScratchLIVE is the Jump Off. I will always bring back up cd's just incase cuz anything can happen to a computer. Does anybody know where you can get an AC Adapter for Serato... Just In Case
Dj J-bird 5:54 AM - 7 September, 2007
I played my first gig with serato at a house party in pasadena. It was great, didn't run into alot of problems only a few like the usb drops. Other than that ptoblem the party was jumping. Played their again about a 5 days ago, landed another gig for next month and hopefully much more too come..
Serato
Josh 1:52 AM - 11 September, 2007
*unsticky* :-)