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1st Serato Nightmare - audio dragging
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1st Serato Nightmare - audio dragging

Product
Scratch Live
Version
-
Hardware
Ortofon | Serato S-120
Computer
-
OS
Platform
-
DJCQ103 10:56 PM - 8 August, 2004
Here's my first problem I encountered with Serato last night

Problem:
About 1/2 hour into my set, the audio started to drag, (sounds like when you put your finger on a spinning platter to slow the music down). My USB BUFFER was set to "2". Later on I tried it again with a different mp3 file with the USB Buffer set to "10" It happen again 1/2 way through the song. I'm not sure what's causing the audio to drag/slowdown.


Computer Specs:
Dell Latitude D800, Pentium 4, 1.4ghz, Centrino M, 1gb ram,
Serato: v1.1 build 1107

Any suggestions? I recently switched from TFS to Serato to avoid the instability issues. Oh oh, I think it's still haunting me.

Thanks for everyone's advise in advance.
DJC
Serato
Josh 11:02 PM - 8 August, 2004
Did this happen constantly or only some of the time/with certain files?
Lephunk 11:36 PM - 8 August, 2004
it's not only haunting you DJCQ... i doubt it's because of certain files(when the song was uploaded again it was fine)... it just acts up sometimes without warning(like midway through a song)... i still can't diagnose the problem...
DJCQ103 2:10 AM - 9 August, 2004
Josh - after the audio dragged for the first two files, I stopped playing after that and went back to my trusty back-up system....real vinyl! I still need to do more testings with Serato.

Lephunk - how are you dealing with your problem? This is my first time that it happened to me. Does it happen to you often?
Serato
Josh 2:23 AM - 9 August, 2004
can I assume you've both callibrated correctly? how do the scopes look in the setup screen? nice and round and clean?
Lephunk 4:19 AM - 9 August, 2004
i always bring some wax just in case... it's happened numerous times... the best way to deal with it in a LIVE situation is just to play it off as cool as you can... jus make it a part of your routine... hhaahaha... naw but really, it happens out of nowhere sometimes and there's not much you can do about it... i have a cooler for the laptop... the laptop is clean/virus-free...usb 2.0 connection... calibrated and all that jazz... but sometimes it just seems like the computer farts and the audio will either dropout or drag... it's a mystery...
Serato
Josh 4:35 AM - 9 August, 2004
ok well next time it happens, can you check the colour of the tracking light and also flip to the setup screen and check the scopes?

cheers
ski 7:31 AM - 9 August, 2004
Hey guys,

this happened to me before and it turned out to be dirty control records. So now before I use scratch live, I use some record cleaner and I'm good to go. If you don't ever clean your control records, the drag thing is bound to happen (especially if you are only mixing with the control records and basically always touch the same part of the record. Lephunk, did the audio dropout happen with vbr mp3 files?
DJCQ103 9:00 AM - 9 August, 2004
ski, hmmmm, i wonder if that's true for me because I just got SSL and maybe played with the records on three different occasions. But i'll definetly try to clean it with gruv glide and see if it happens again. Thanks for the tip Ski.
Lephunk 7:38 PM - 9 August, 2004
i clean my vinyls and needles before every gig... and as for vbr... i'm not sure what that is...
DJCQ103 8:12 PM - 9 August, 2004
Hey Lephunk, what's your computer specs?
Lephunk 3:00 AM - 10 August, 2004
it's our company laptop... 512 memory, 2.8 ghz, dell insprion or something like that... and an 80 gig external harddrive usb 2.0
DJCQ103 4:03 AM - 10 August, 2004
hmmm...that is a pretty powerful laptop...i guess that even with a high processor, everyone is still acceptable to serato glitches. Thanks for your input Lephunk, I was about to order a new laptop with a 3.2ghz processor, but I guess I better wait til Rane finds a solution to this weird problem. I hope they do because I still think that Serato is one of the dopest dj products to come out yet.

I really don't want to go back in carrying all my vinyl. :(
Serato
Josh 4:19 AM - 10 August, 2004
Quote:
and an 80 gig external harddrive usb 2.0


You may be saturating the USB bus, does it do the same thing from your internal hard disk?
DJCQ103 5:35 AM - 10 August, 2004
I also use an external drive for my music. I only hook up the serato and the external HD to the USB while using SSL. I hope the problem is not because I'm using an external HD.
That would totally suck!
Serato
Josh 5:47 AM - 10 August, 2004
Check out this thread for the relevant info:

www.scratchlive.net
Lephunk 2:39 AM - 11 August, 2004
josh... the only things connected via USB is the SSL device and the external harddrive... would that saturate the bus??? i use the included usb wire for the SSL device and a 2.0 wire for the harddrive...

as for the internal hard disk, i've had drop outs there as well, so i don't believe it's because of that...
Serato
Josh 3:00 AM - 11 August, 2004
How many USB hostcontrollers are listed in your device manager?

If possible, connect the 2 different devices to different controllers (i.e. different busses).

Also have you tried installing XP service pack 2?
DJCQ103 6:44 AM - 11 August, 2004
Josh, do you think if we hooked up an external HD through the firewire instead of the USB will solve the problem of audio dragging?
DJ 2 Smooth 6:53 AM - 11 August, 2004
Your laptop has more than enough power to run SSL. I would try cleaning you records and your needles. I know because it happened to me. that was my solution. External devices should work well with your setup.
Serato
Josh 7:33 AM - 11 August, 2004
Quote:
Josh, do you think if we hooked up an external HD through the firewire instead of the USB will solve the problem of audio dragging?


Hard to say, give it a try. What do the scopes look like when this is happening? Poor needles, records, headshells or cables could all degrade the signal path, this will show up on the scopes as speckles around the signal, or a malformed circle.
yuri 7:19 PM - 11 August, 2004
I have a specific mp3 it happens to.

I also found another one this week that just wont play period.

I will upload them this weekend.
yuri 7:20 PM - 11 August, 2004
Quote:
I have a specific mp3 it happens to.


I mean audio dragging.. it happens in the middle at the same point everytime
Serato
Josh 8:52 PM - 11 August, 2004
cool, thanks yuri! post when you've upped them.
yuri 2:23 AM - 16 August, 2004
Im uploading a file now... maybe its corrupt?? it plays fine on any other mp3 player. (the uploading of the file itself might quite possibly fix the error.. this happened with some other mp3s before)

The pause occurs between 6:00 min and 6:15 min

_ Sertac Kaya - Boncuk (Jerry Bonham & Dirty Hertz Mix).mp3

thx
DJCQ103 7:28 AM - 16 August, 2004
Josh, while calibrating SL, I've noticed on one of the turntables I did notice sudden bursts of speckles around the circles (circles are in perfect shape) It happened at least every minute or so. Is that normal?
Serato
Josh 7:37 AM - 16 August, 2004
Did thiis seem to have any correlation to the dragging effect?

Also, if possible, record this effect for us and email an mp3 to support@serato.com
radish 9:11 PM - 16 August, 2004
I get similar speckles. When I listen directly to the control signal they correspond to noise on the record, so I assume it's dust, static, whatever. Doesn't seem to cause me any adverse affects though (luckily).
nik39 12:13 PM - 19 August, 2004
Quote:
Did thiis seem to have any correlation to the dragging effect?

Also, if possible, record this effect for us and email an mp3 to support@serato.com


Josh,

I have tested the same mp3 from yuri on my new 2.4GHz machin as well as on my older machine. Both machines stop to play for a few seconds (even on internal mode, so it surely has nothing to do with the records or calibration) at around 6:02, this happens when you play the mp3 for the first time, if you are in absolute mode, and rewind back to 6:00 then it does not happen, you have to rewind back more then the problem will occur again.

I have done a little screen capture vid, check it out at www.playthatfunkymusic.de
Lephunk 5:21 PM - 19 August, 2004
how'd you do that??? capture the video i mean...
nik39 5:33 PM - 19 August, 2004
Quote:
...Even better would be to take a video snapshot, you can do this with snag-it www.techsmith.com (its a screen capture program) that can record your whole screen, no need for any cam recordings. Its easy to use and free to try in the first 30 days. I think if you record that, then this is the best proof that a problem exists and hopefully the SSL team will look after it.


Taken from forums.seratoscratchlive.com
Lephunk 7:20 PM - 19 August, 2004
WERD...
Alexander 3:50 AM - 20 August, 2004
for the Apple peeps check out:

www.ambrosiasw.com
yuri 7:24 PM - 20 August, 2004
Quote:

The pause occurs between 6:00 min and 6:15 min
_ Sertac Kaya - Boncuk (Jerry Bonham & Dirty Hertz Mix).mp3
thx


did you guys get the file? Any info yet??
Lephunk 7:33 PM - 21 August, 2004
Snapz Pro should come with your computer's installed softwares if you own a mac... just found out right now after going to Ambrosiasw.com... thnx alex...
SpinThis! 7:41 PM - 21 August, 2004
as far as I know Snapz Pro has never came bundled with any Mac.
Alexander 11:23 PM - 21 August, 2004
yea Snapz Pro doesn't come with Mac....you might be thinking of Grab which does some of things that Snapz Pro does but grab doesn't allow you to make videos like Snapz does...Grab just lets you take screen shots.
Lephunk 10:19 PM - 22 August, 2004
i believe i got mines along with my panther disc... i never recalled installing Snapz Pro, but there it sits in my Applications folder... how odd...
Alexander 2:23 AM - 23 August, 2004
if this is true I might have to look at my Panther discs once again?