have you updated to the latest pioneer DDJ-SR firmware?
what serato version you running?

Yes, firmware has been recently updated to ver 1.08
I'am running Serato 3.0.4
No changes unfortunately

Does the issue persist with older versions of SDJ?

Yes, there's no change.

i dunno if this is useful info, I tried this windows 10 install (Windows X-Lite (19045.2788) 'Optimum 10')

its basically a stripped down minimal version of win10 know as a "Lite version" theres a few out there online just google search it.

I did a dual boot on my win gaming machine and Serato 3.05 ran butter smooth including the wave files almost as good or the same as mac machines.

no antivirus including defender software, just serato and it used at most 35% ram memory this is with auto load stems on every track.

looks promising this could be my new gigging laptop, I do have 2 other macs that I take out

Nitro an515-55
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.8 GB usable)

@stilleto_dj what you describe as stutters I have been calling dropouts. It's been happening on my Windows laptop as well. Same hardware didn't have a problem on a much older Mac. CPU usage never goes above a few percent.

I should point out my Windows laptop is new, it has a 12th gen i7, 16GB ram. This is extremely frustrating because I think this wasn't happening until a Windows update sometime in April perhaps?

Make sure your controller isn’t set as an audio device in windows.

I’ll keep that in mind thanks!

Anyone else notice there was a new USB driver installed on April 14th by Microsoft? And there’s no option to rollback?!

There was an update which causes an issue when using devices in exclusive mode. Pretty sure Serato uses the asio driver for the DDJ-SR, though. If Serato uses wasapi, there could be a driver conflict.

What's exclusive mode? I have Rane 72 mk1 and two Rane 12s and I think I have to use internal mode for the 12s...

In the windows sound settings, right click on an output/input, tap the advanced tab, make sure the checkboxes under exclusive mode are not checked.

I have a new theory about this. It appears that Windows 11 background apps by default. I noticed there was no latency with Serato. If my foreground app, Firefox was windowed instead of fullscreen, I looked for how to turn this feature off and couldn’t find a way to do it but I found that in task manager you can select processes applications, CPU priority. I gave Serato the highest priority, and since then, I don’t think I’ve heard a single snap crackle or pop indicating latency which is amazing. I’m glad I’m finally done figuring this out this took forever.

Browsers like firefox, chrome are the worse cause every tab you open uses up a lot of memory,

all serato stuttering in windows is because of lack of GPU and CPU power, thats why when you overclock or boost the clocks in your laptop then you wont have any stuttering or issues.

But with a 12th gen i7 the computer should not be struggling with Serato… I think Windows 11 is aggressively throttling background applications to try to improve battery life and optimize the foreground experience, etc, not because it’s running out of memory or CPU power.

Right or wrong, setting Serato to be top priority in Task Manager fixed the issue for me!

You can disable cpu throttling in power management.

Also, it depends on which 12th gen i7. A 1255u, for example, will definitely struggle when using keylock, stems, and fx in Serato.

This is why I installed Win10 Lite, which is a very debloated version of windows,
win11 Lite is out there too you just have to search for it.

on my 10th Gen gaming laptop with 32gb ram I dual boot normal windows 10 and win10 Lite,
when I DJ I switch to win10 lite and Serato runs butter smooth including waves, with no issues at all, Serato uses a max 32% memory ram the whole night and cpu usage is at 10-15% the cpu meter on serato is barely visible (SDJPro 3.06)
Testing (SDJ Pro 3.07) tonight
also my power setting on my laptop is set High or balanced but Ive never seen serato run smooth on windows.

When I switch to normal win10 serato has laggy waveforms, stuttering, it just looks unstable.

Ive found a nice sweet spot for serato and I'm happy, I hope you will try this out too especially for a 12th Gen cpu



this is important too, optimize your windows settings on your normal windows,
but on windows Lite this is already done to maximize GPU, CPU, Ram power

Not starting a Windows vs Mac debate as both have their merits, but it’s a nightmare the amount of hoops you have to jump through optimise a Windows PC for DJ work.

I can’t install anything on my Surface Laptop as it’s a work Webtop version, but I do know that Teams is like some kind of software cancer that’s embedded itself into every orifice of the OS, my laptop sounds like a jet engine if I leave if open.

The Mac on the other hand, simply closing programs down and disabling wifi/BT and I managed a 90 minute 3 decks and FX mix on a 2015 MBP with only 8gb RAM, I was also recording it in Serato too, admittedly this is the 2.5 version e which is sounding like the last really stable version of the Software.