Steve Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 Which DVS have you owned and what are your thoughts on it/them? I first started out with Torq, which I bought because it was considerably cheaper than Serato. I didn't think much of it. It had extra bells and whistles over Serato, but the core functionality wasn't great - there was sticker drift when scratching, for example. That may have been fixed in a newer version though. The hardware broke on me, and it went back to M-Audio. Their customer service was utter wank. It took weeks to get a replacement box and often when I phoned them up to see what was going on, the phone would just ring and ring with nobody picking up. When I finally was sent a replacement box, I sold the Torq package on DJ Forums and the guy I sold it to said that it broke several months later with the exact same issue I'd had with it (one channel not working). Fuck M-Audio! I then bought Serato. Based on my experience with it, it was absolutely rock solid. The only thing that annoyed me about it is that there was no FLAC support, despite it being requested all the time on their forum for a number of years. That has since been added though. Overall, I think it's excellent. When I got my new PC, I wanted an external sound card that I could use for everything, so I switched from Serato to Traktor as selling my Serato package completely covered the cost of a Traktor A6 package. It supports FLAC too, so I thought it would be a good upgrade. I don't have much confidence in the product though, based solely on the software. It's buggy and uses loads of resources even on my high end desktop machine. I also haven't had a good experience with their customer support. So overall for me, it's been Serato > Traktor > Torq. Traktor has more potential than Serato and more functionality, but the software just isn't up there IMO. Hopefully Native Instruments get their shit together and fix things up via updates, but I am very tempted to save up for a Rane Sixty-Two so I can kill 2 birds with one stone and get a nice new high end mixer and switch back to SSL at the same time. I don't need auto-sync or any of the shit that Traktor gives me over SSL (now that SSL has FLAC support anyway). EDIT - Oh yeah, for scratching I would say Traktor > Serato > Torq if you have key lock off, but with key lock on it's Serato > Torq > Traktor as Traktor is just fucking shite when you have key lock on. I wish it would work like Serato, where key lock is automatically turned off when you start cutting, cos that works perfectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dub-Se7en Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Final scratch 1.0 / 1.1 /1.5One of the first UK adopters back in 2003 ish. Ran without fault but sound quality wasn't the best. Fs1.5 brought xp support and a shot load of problems for most people but again mine was perfect. When it finally broke a year out of warranty stanton still sent me a new unit foc. I did a lot of work for them on the forums at the time. Final scratch 2.0.3Again, bought it the day it came out over here. Never once crashed. Great hardware and software interface. Well laid out and uncluttered and imo one of the best sounding dvs systems I've heard. Better than ssl (v1 hardware on latest version software). Still in active service although slowly phasing in ssl due to more features and midi integration. Serato scratch live sl1 on latest software build. Got this a while ago but could never warm to it. Looked far too cluttered and hard to read at a glance compared to fs2. However, returned to it this year after messing about a bit more with it and also setting up my hercules dj console as a mapper to navigate and load tracks as well as set and jump to cue points. Now I love it and it is slowly replacing fs2 as my main dvs system. Fantastic stability and good performance although fs2 has the sound quality edge. Virtual dj 7Use this with a hercules dj console e2 for when I play out and turntables aren't practical. Dvs does work in conjunction with the fs2 sound card and ssl vinyl. But it's terrible. Worse sound quality that fs1.0. However, get rid of vinyl emulation and mix on the hercules and it's great. Good sound quality and performance but don't expect to scratch. Too much lag. Have tried with a superior denon controller and it was the same time. But for mixing on etc its great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I went in to buy Serato when I decided to go DVS and walked out with Final Scratch 2 after being talked up on how much better it was and how basic SL was. It was a total piece of shit. I shoulda gone back and punched that guy in the face. 90% of the time it wouldn't even initialize so was useless. When it did it worked great tho. I sold it and bought Serato v1. Used it ever since. It crashed once on me and that was at a major bad time but also funny... was the first dance of a wedding. But it was people I hardly knew, they expected me to provide PA for their wedding too, move setups twice and only paid me $100. And then I found out they had also hired a +$5k band to play... so fuck those guys and I'm glad it crashed during their dance. Cheap fuckers. Aside from that it's pretty nice. My Mac isn't top notch so I usually don't practice scratching with it altho I can and do some downplayed cuts in a gig setting. I like that stuff like the Dicer is out there and plug and play. The Da Scratch had potential but was a huge disapointment. The video stuff is wicked. I recently started having a little problem with signal form the record. Tried different TTs and needles. Both helped but didn't eliminate. Over the weekend I switched to that PDX and now the signal is clean as fuck. Go figure. I've also messed with Itch a lot. It's pretty awesome. Kinda next level. I would love to get that new Vestax controller that incorporates the twitch features but not paying $1000 for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chee Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Not sure if I'm qualified to comment on this thread as I've only ever used Serato, but basically I've had an SL1 almost since the day they came out, on account of one of my best mates (at the time) being one of 5 employees of Serato back in 2002 (back when Serato Scratch was a ProTools plug-in). As an aside, my one (uncredited) claim to fame was suggesting that they make the grooves on the control record so that you could see them in 1 minute demarcations. Also, I think it was A-Trak's idea to use the inner part of the records as a way to select the tracks from the software. Anyway, I've recently updated to the latest 2.4.3 build, and finally started to play around with the DJ FX plug-in. Considering that had I paid for Serato back in 2003, that in 2012 I am still getting FREE updates that improve the functionality of the product, that says a lot for Serato's (and Rane's) dedication to their customer base. Vinyl emulation-wise, I would agree that it's not 100%, but 95% there, due to sticker-drift issues etc with fast precise cutting. But at the same time I can do so much more with Serato than I can with vinyl, so it's a fair trade off. I still use my good old Scratchy Seal if I need to bust out some Ahhhs or Freshhhs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 i've used serato since 2004 but only actually bought it myself recently. I found the sticker drift was a minor issue before but now ive got sl3 its fine. the only gripe comparing it to vinyl is that it sounds not as good when really slowed down. but as audio formats and computers get better this will gradually go away i imagine. I'm also hoping they figure out a way to send post fader fx out of the aux channel some how.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 I'm also hoping they figure out a way to send post fader fx out of the aux channel some how.... I think you can do that in the fx settings or am I wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 i dont know of a way to make it delay post fader... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wax On Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 You'd have to use a midi fader surely and be able to control the level of each channel output, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chee Posted October 14, 2012 Share Posted October 14, 2012 The onboard software FX can't do post-fader out, with or without a MIDI controller. At least not on the SL1 anyway. This makes sense, as the sound file is being processed before it even leaves the control hardware and goes into the mixer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted October 14, 2012 Share Posted October 14, 2012 yeah but with sl3 its got a aux in and out - i'm just guessing but couldnt this be turned into an fx loop if you have a send/return on your mixer (eg a&h xone02, Rane 56, vestax 07.....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted October 14, 2012 Share Posted October 14, 2012 serato feature request page for aux fx loop: http://serato.com/forum/discussion/576493#reply Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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