Using a DVS for scratching - your experience of different products

[Steve]

Just focussing on scratching, which DVS have you used and what is your opinion of each one?

[djdiggla]

Used Serato. Alright I guess. Not preferred tho.

 

On a side note: That CDX, altho not a DVS, is better that I ever expected but it's also a lot more of a hand workout probably b/c the mat has to be fixed down so more drag and more torque than a tech which has actually been really good for practice as it's harder work.

[Tbtf]

I personally do not like cutting in Serato. When doing fast chirps i dunno if its the latency but i can never catch the backwards chirp. I thought it might be my technique but I can do them on vinyl just fine... It could be my setup or something though because I've seen people bust fast chirps on Serato.

[amatic]

I have a high spec cpu and use traktor and serato both running a minimum latancey and dont find there is much of a difference.. I prefer serato for scratching..but traktor is way more fun with a midi controller for mixing.

i overall do prefer traktor but the convienience of serato in my mixer wins it for me...ideally i would have liked to have traktor teamed up with rane as i love rane mixers..maybe the z1 will be a goodie though.anyone got/used one yet?

[Jimmy]

i've only ever cut on serato. maybe the odd 5mins on traktor of friends' but not enough to remember about it.

after initially gettings the settings wrong, i now love serato for cutting and i'd say 90% of the time i just cut with serato as all the samples i want are more readily available.

[Guest Symatic]

I personally do not like cutting in Serato. When doing fast chirps i dunno if its the latency but i can never catch the backwards chirp. I thought it might be my technique but I can do them on vinyl just fine... It could be my setup or something though because I've seen people bust fast chirps on Serato.

 

 

i had this exact problem too. but it was just latency settings. i first used serato in about 2005 but never had that problem - and at that point i pretty much only did chirps and crabs.

 

then more recently, having not used searto for a couple of years the problem came back - but it was just latency settings like i said.

 

traktor is abot the same id say, but it seems to struggle on lower spec laptops

[Tbtf]

I personally do not like cutting in Serato. When doing fast chirps i dunno if its the latency but i can never catch the backwards chirp. I thought it might be my technique but I can do them on vinyl just fine... It could be my setup or something though because I've seen people bust fast chirps on Serato.

 

 

i had this exact problem too. but it was just latency settings. i first used serato in about 2005 but never had that problem - and at that point i pretty much only did chirps and crabs.

 

then more recently, having not used searto for a couple of years the problem came back - but it was just latency settings like i said.

 

traktor is abot the same id say, but it seems to struggle on lower spec laptops

 

Thanks man im going to look into that... Didnt know they had latency settings and i thought i was just fucked

[motosega]

yeah, if your dvs is set up right, you shouldn't be able to hear the difference. the sweet spot is under 3ms of latency.

 

a couple of tips for when you tuning you latency:

 

different usb ports can vary wildly in their ability to be used with a low latency sound card.(they often share interrupts with other devices, are attached to and internal hub, etc.) try all the different ports on your laptop.

 

network cards can be bad news, (interrupt sharing again)if you have problems getting a decent latency, turn them off.

 

your computer is probably full of evil daemons ( programs that run in the background are really called daemons, i kid you not.) disinstall or disable the fuckers.

 

there are other things you can do but it quickly gets into hardcore nerd territory.

[chile]

on me pc traktor works really well, pretty much same as vinyl. on my laptop it works bad with crackling in the signal.

[motosega]

on me pc traktor works really well, pretty much same as vinyl. on my laptop it works bad with crackling in the signal.

 

sounds you got grounding problems or worse, power suppy noise. does it do them same thing with the laptop on battery power?

 

do you have the ground cables on your decks connected? try adding and removing ground connections between the laptop and the mixer and the decks until you find the culprit (if it is a grounding problem) try adding a cable between the laptops on board audio ground and the mixer

 

some laptops have nasty power issues that can only be cured with isolation transformers,

macs tend to have decent power supplies but other laptops can be hit or miss.

i have one shitty old laptop that always makes a nasty digital hiss whenever i use it for audio and have to use an isolation transformer (aka hum destroyer)

luckily the one i use for dvs is fine.

[chile]

on me pc traktor works really well, pretty much same as vinyl. on my laptop it works bad with crackling in the signal.

 

sounds you got grounding problems or worse, power suppy noise. does it do them same thing with the laptop on battery power?

 

do you have the ground cables on your decks connected? try adding and removing ground connections between the laptop and the mixer and the decks until you find the culprit (if it is a grounding problem) try adding a cable between the laptops on board audio ground and the mixer

 

some laptops have nasty power issues that can only be cured with isolation transformers,

macs tend to have decent power supplies but other laptops can be hit or miss.

i have one shitty old laptop that always makes a nasty digital hiss whenever i use it for audio and have to use an isolation transformer (aka hum destroyer)

luckily the one i use for dvs is fine.

 

nah, its down to cpu spikes from my usb ports as theres software to test for it in real time while its running and ive tried pretty much everything suggested to fix it and it hasnt helped. i can use it on me pc though so i dont mind so much. still poop for gigging but im gonna save for a new laptop soon

[Jacken]

I don't have any problems with latency because I'm usually don't scratch ultra fast, but my main problem is sound itself. So I'm using dvs just for mixing, scratching is vinyl only.

[motosega]

on me pc traktor works really well, pretty much same as vinyl. on my laptop it works bad with crackling in the signal.

 

sounds you got grounding problems or worse, power suppy noise. does it do them same thing with the laptop on battery power?

 

do you have the ground cables on your decks connected? try adding and removing ground connections between the laptop and the mixer and the decks until you find the culprit (if it is a grounding problem) try adding a cable between the laptops on board audio ground and the mixer

 

some laptops have nasty power issues that can only be cured with isolation transformers,

macs tend to have decent power supplies but other laptops can be hit or miss.

i have one shitty old laptop that always makes a nasty digital hiss whenever i use it for audio and have to use an isolation transformer (aka hum destroyer)

luckily the one i use for dvs is fine.

 

nah, its down to cpu spikes from my usb ports as there's software to test for it in real time while its running and ive tried pretty much everything suggested to fix it and it hasnt helped. i can use it on me pc though so i dont mind so much. still poop for gigging but im gonna save for a new laptop soon

 

that sucks, are you sure you tried everything though?

 

here's a good article from avid

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Troubleshooting/en401407?retURL=%2Farticles%2Fen_US%2Ffaq%2Fen389595&popup=true