Played out for my 1st gig, 6.5 hours. Aweseome! Traktor skipping/stalling issues

Had a blast. Being a bedroom DJ, I was a little surprised when a friend asked me to play a party. It was an awesome experience to prepare for and do. The crowd went crazy and had a freaking great time. It was great to test out my QSC K10's and K181 sub as well.

So about 2 hours in my 6.5 hour performance, I started noticing songs randomly nudging out. It started small and then came huge swings. It got to the point where I was feeling nervous having two songs playing at once so I starting shortening up the transitions. Eventually, it got so bad that a song wouldn't play at all. There was complete silence for about 20 seconds. I pressed play like 15 times before it would start playing the track again. It literally, just stopping playing a track for no reason and wouldn't start it again for 20 seconds. All is good though; I got a TON of compliments last night and people of all types and ages where having a crazy good time. What a difference live performance is.

Here is my setup. MBP 17', 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB DDR 3 Ram, standard 5700 RPM Sata drive. I had wireless off and nothing else running. I did a cold boot with my Traktor S4 USB plugged in, and proceeded to turn on Caffiene and then traktor. Traktor Pro 2.6.1 (everything up to date), and running in full screen. I never had more than 2 decks running at once.

The load meter never displayed anything but the lowest blue bar.

All last night and this morning I have been thinking something is up with my Macbook Pro, but now I am wondering if its an issue with my S4. This problem never happened before. I have used my setup for 5 hours in a row before at home. The only thing different this time though was that we had the music blasting and TONS of bass. I wonder if the issues I was having was not a load/traktor issue, but rather an issue with my S4's platters vibrating from the music...

Any ideas/help?

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Originally Posted by ClrCreekRdr

... rather an issue with my S4's platters vibrating from the music...

Any ideas/help?

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From what I recall, the S4 has some sort of magnetic breaking system that holds the platter in place to avoid such a thing happening, same reason you can't do epic CDJ style backspins on it. I use my S4 in a loud club environment and I've not had that issue, just the occasional (every 45-60 minutes) audio lag for 5 seconds or so, which I still haven't got to the bottom of.

I'd say its highly likely that if your S4 was very close to that sub and on a hard flat surface that it was being slowly knocked out of calibration.
It happens. The S4 is a rigid unit and can be easily knocked out of calibration. I have mine on a raised stand with rubber feet and I still have to calibrate it once in a while.

A track not playing after the play button is pressed is often due to calibration issues.
Were the Load Buttons flashing like crazy when play was pressed but the track was not playing? If so you needed to recalibrate.


It may also be possible that you had previously knocked/jolted the S4 and calibration was already off and that the sub simply exacerbated the problem.

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Originally Posted by Karlos Santos

I'd say its highly likely that if your S4 was very close to that sub and on a hard flat surface that it was being slowly knocked out of calibration.
It happens. The S4 is a rigid unit and can be easily knocked out of calibration. I have mine on a raised stand with rubber feet and I still have to calibrate it once in a while.

A track not playing after the play button is pressed is often due to calibration issues.
Were the Load Buttons flashing like crazy when play was pressed but the track was not playing? If so you needed to recalibrate.


It may also be possible that you had previously knocked/jolted the S4 and calibration was already off and that the sub simply exacerbated the problem.

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Yes. That time it would not play any track at all the load buttons where flashing very fast while pressing play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karlos Santos

I'd say its highly likely that if your S4 was very close to that sub and on a hard flat surface that it was being slowly knocked out of calibration.
It happens. The S4 is a rigid unit and can be easily knocked out of calibration. I have mine on a raised stand with rubber feet and I still have to calibrate it once in a while.

A track not playing after the play button is pressed is often due to calibration issues.
Were the Load Buttons flashing like crazy when play was pressed but the track was not playing? If so you needed to recalibrate.


It may also be possible that you had previously knocked/jolted the S4 and calibration was already off and that the sub simply exacerbated the problem.

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Wow, that seems like a horribly unacceptable side effect. Id be ripping my hair out a piece of kit at that price marketed towards "professional" djs.. couldn't handle.. bass... the main prevalent thing inside of a club hehe.. Scary beans.

Glad I stuck to a traditional mixer and some K2s awhile back heh

So, interesting enough I tried to recalibrate the jog wheels. The right one, no problem at all. The left jog wheel (the side I realize now that was causing me all my issues during my gig) won't calibrate. It just keeps saying "Recalibration failed". Guess my S4 is defective.

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Originally Posted by balakoth

Wow, that seems like a horribly unacceptable side effect. Id be ripping my hair out a piece of kit at that price marketed towards "professional" djs.. couldn't handle.. bass... the main prevalent thing inside of a club hehe.. Scary beans.

Glad I stuck to a traditional mixer and some K2s awhile back heh

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It's not as if its a common problem.

@ the OP. Get a PC.:cool:

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Originally Posted by b1sh0p

It's not as if its a common problem.

@ the OP. Get a PC.:cool:

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Bass calibrating the kit? So only certain S4s are that cheeky? SEems like it would be common, I bet a lot of people who own an S4 don't typically play in large sound systems to report this issue anyways.

While id sentiment get a PC.. we cant start that here.. Ive read so many people here that ditch their Windows machine to pay an extra 1 grand for the Mac OS. To each their own, you wont convince them otherwise, a brand is a brand and the logo is what sells anymore, no matter the over inflated price.

(Buddy almost crapped his pants when I showed him what it would cost to build my equivalent studio machine from the Apple store, and that's without the Liquid Cooling I have and Crossfired ATIs hehe.) If it works it works, if you got the cash to burn, whatever.

Classic example of why i will always have analog mixer.

Yeah, for the same reasons I cut meat with stones and I take pictures with this :
Attachment 16843

Fuck the digital, fuck 2013, fuck the people, I'll Dj alone.