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WMA is the worst wannabe-mp3 invention M$ has come up with. Just re-rip your CD's into mp3 again or even into ALAC so you can use lossless.

No they're not... either or, Serato should be able to recognize all of the major audio file types to be the most user friendly and best out there..

Well, it's just not that easy to introduce a new audio-format for this kind of application. I already took them 2-3 years to introduce a compressed lossless format (ALAC), and I think FLAC is the next priority format. In my opinion there's just no need to have all formats supported. It's not some winamp media-player, it's a specialized DJ-software.

I don't believe that introducing every possible major format is a good idea, since every format has it's difficulties and introduces bugs, which is something they'd like to avoid. They have spent years testing as much mp3's as possible to make sure it could handle all of them in a stable way. Now it got stable and mostly bulletproof, I think it's a bad idea to expose it again to these possible problems redering it instable again.

My opinion? There's a 0.01% chance this is going to get introduced also because there is very low demand for it. Stop wasting your time and convert your WMA's to a different format so at least you can start using these tracks and enjoy them.

my 0.02$

The problem here is the Serato wrote the mp3 and ogg decoder parts of SSL themselves and they are very stable but that stability took a lot of work, I think 1.5 was the first version that didn't crash when it encountered an unknown mp3 corruption.

Serato have been able to add aac and Apple lossless by tying in to the decoding ability of quicktime. That functionality has been added in the large part due to a lot of people using iTunes to manage their music which uses aac by default, and also because it was needed for Video.

wma is a niche audio format, like real audio or atrac-3. wma is only as popular as it is because people have been tricked into using it by windows media player.

This is the difference between Serato and all the other programs out there. They want to be very very good at what they do, not just be all things to all people.

Stability comes with a price and WMA's are not only a bad codec but they also add to the instability of the program.

I for one would just wish Serato would be only a Mac program as most of the issues on these borads are from PC users.

most issues DJs have is not really the fault of the DJ software, but rather the dj's lack of knowledge on how to correctly set their machine to operate with the software...
imo

i will never use WMA format.
i understand you guys have WMA files and would like to use them.
there has got to be a converter out there that makes MP3s out of WMA files

anyone ever use OTS Juke?
it converts ur media to .ots format
i used it at a strip club, and loved it for that application
what i'm getting at is every software company has their way of decoding the music files

WMAs are an excellent format, and extremely stable. I am a software architect by day and have worked with the format quite a bit. The quality is generally better than that of ACC as I beleive MS has a better encoder. Also, MS is continually optimizing their encoder to take advantage hardware improvements (new CPU instruction sets, etc). On a Windows Vista or 7 machine, Serato could simply tap into the DirectX API and use whatever codecs are installed on the workstation, incuding WMA, ACC, FLAC, etc... This would also allow media operations to be hardware accelerated if a compatible device existed on the workstation. I know that Serato needs to support a cross platform environment, but it would be great to add this support to the Windows version of ITCH or SSL.

Honestly, if Serato gave me access to their API I would write this for free and give them the source code. Would be cool if i could give this away for free as a plugin or something.

Maybe the reason it's not supported is $$

Perhaps Billy G. wants a cut and Serato is telling him to go Scratch!

ZESH, I think you are right, hehe. It would not cost them anything on a Windows machine (the licence is included in the OS), but they would have to pay for licensing on a Mac. i beleive. I can understand that Serato wants to have both the Mac and Windows versions of their software identical... Billy G's personal wealth went down about 6B this year; he is only worth around 50 billion now. Times are tight.

Right there is the moment where it would transform Serato into Final Scratch. And I'm not talking about "I hate Vista" rubbish. Too much dependencies will turn your software into slime.
I'm pretty sure there are all good reasons for it. SSL didn't become famous because of crappy software and lack of features.

And please stop trying to make it look easy. If it's all that simple, why aren't there more millionaires enjoying the good life because they made the most awesome DJ-software ever? As far as I can see there's just SSL and there's also Traktor Skratch that's doing pretty good...
Making it look easy sounds a little disrespectful to me. T1, as a software architect you should know how frustrating it is when your manager/someone comes up to you with an ignorant look on their face saying "that bug doesn't sound too difficult to me, can't you "just" drop your work for 10 minutes to fix it?"

Evil_banana, I have the upmost respect for the SSL authors. In my previous post, I acknowledge that Serato has to maintain multiple codebases for different platforms, and that when SSL was initially written, robust APIs such as DirectX were not an option. You comment, "Too much dependencies will turn you software into slime." really does not hold up. No matter how many dependencies you have, there are design patterns to mitigate over referencing the core (dependency injection, etc...). Also, I offered to write the code for free, and give Serato full rights to the source, if given access to the API. Let me reiterate that SSL and ITCH are awesome and my software of choice. I hate that I have to go to VDJ or re-encode my wma files to tap into a large wma library I encoded a few years back. Note, I now keep lossless copies of all the new media I buy so I do not get stuck in this situation again.

SSL and ITCH are great. I also own an NS7 and APC40 (Ableton also does not support wma) and I do understand the reasons for not including wma support in the past. I feel that the Windows platform has matured to the point where wma is a valid and robust format, I would love to donate my time adding this functionality with Serato’s permission.

Evil_banana, you are right, adding wma support is not an easy or quick feature to implement, especially as I do not know about the internal architecture of SSL. I apologize if I came across that way, I simply meant to say that it would be a great feature and I would love to help implement it.

Oh please don't apologize, it's just a discussion :o).
I'm just irritated sometimes by the way a lot of people make things sound easy, you know.. "hey serato, you should really implement this because it's really easy", a reminder once in a while can't hurt.

I still believe that injecting codecs residing within your OS is not a very good idea when trying to ensure stability. I think hardcoding the codecs would still be the best way to control all of the processing. Which also means that your software is a lot more portable in between OS'es and less prone to instabilities or missing library's and codecs. SSL is even using it's own coded interface instead of using the windows-API (I think it's called... I'm not a SW engineer, but a software test engineer :o).

I know you offered your time for free, but I don't think it's really a matter of price or resources, but more about priorities and structure. I'm not sure that giving someone access to add code in his spare time is a good idea. It's best if things are planned etcetera, you know, somewhat managed.

If I were you, instead of offering your time here in this thread, I would actually contact one of the Serato guys here in the forum with your offer in a private message or something. That will probably take you a lot further, who know.... it might even get you a job :o). Perhaps you can work something out with them. good luck!


PS: NS7 and APC40... nice. I like the portability of the NS7, and I've considered it, but I just can't let go of my turntables and my ttm57. That's too much compromise,... but cool anyway. How do you like the APC40? Is it worth the money? (using the mpd32 right now as my main controller). Does it handle context/device-dependent parameters like the novation-controllers can? (my main beef with Live)

The APC40 is great. It supports all the device parameters just like the Novation controllers, although i think the Lauchpad is like a scaled down APC40. I also have an MPK49 in my home studio, so i use the mpd style buttons for producing beats and getting my sets ready for use with the APC. The APC's buttons are not pressure sensitive like the MPD pads, so it is really better for controlling Ableton; but it is fun as hell to work with. Honestly, i have been neglecting the NS7 a bit as i have been spending most of my time playing with the APC. If you already have an MPD, you can map a lot of the functionality over, but the APC will give you better control (more buttons, dials, ect. for mapping). As i never bring the MPK out of the studio, the APC made sense. Not sure i would have bought it if i had an MPD already...

I am using Ableton Studio 8, but i also work in Cubase 5 every now and then.