My gig last night - need ideas

Hey people

So... long story short, last night I learned I can still manually beatmatch on CDs.

The long story is I showed up to a big gig, one of the first in front of more than my usual crew. I brought out the laptop, Audio8 and VCI-100. Simple set up I've been putting together.

Well, my VCI-100 stayed working for about 15 minutes at a time, if I was lucky to begin with. Kept unplugging and plugging back in. Traded out cables. When I started spinning I was getting tons of visual drop outs (Traktor's screen would freeze). Then about 20 minutes into my set it just froze up. I still had audio (thank god) but this just kept happening. I switched over to CDs.

My second set, I couldn't even get it to work for longer than 30 seconds.

I tried four different USB cables, and every open USB port on my computer. Do you think the USB port could be fucked? My hard drive and audio-interface worked like a charm.

Any ideas?

Also, are there any environmental issues that could cause this (ie: high bass frequencies, shaking rig, etc.)

Oh no! Dude that sucks. One thing that may have happened is you accidentally hit the usb cord to hard and messed up the solder contacts for the the VCI and thus the cut outs. Only one way to figure that out though. Open it up and see if there are any physical damage that you can see. Then I hope you are good at soldering. This is the thing that kept happening to my conectiv. Not fun. Good luck dude.

This happened to me on my Numark Total Control. what it boiled down to was, the USB port was busted on the pc so now i have a very specific port that my controller will work with and only that one. kinda lame ya

Dewd, very shitty on your USB, but cool runnings on your CD act bruuuuuu!

See, it's working fine right now. No blips, no glitches. I tried multiple cables and multiple ports.

I think it was either the way I had it set up or the placement. *shrug* I dunno. If it was still giving me an issue now I'd have a different opinion.

I forgot to ask. Before your second set did you restart you comp? I know that sounds like an insult. But when I'm drunk I forget shit like that.

Dude, I restarted the machine so many times.

No worries on the q, I ask it all the time ;)

Well the fact that its working now is weird but good. It may have been a one time thing. But as you asked before, I do see people complaining about bass and their VCIs. So were you playing hardstyle? lol.

haha nah... the weird thing is as the night went on it just started working for less and less time, progressively. But, as I said, it's been working today. *shrug*

I didn't have a chance to get to the hardstyle cause it locked up first ;)

Thats a mega bummer, my guess would have been the port itself as well, but if you cant recreate it that rules out mechanical damage.

Do you use USB cables with ferrites?

nah, I don't. Can you point me at a good brand?

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Originally Posted by DvlsAdvct

nah, I don't. Can you point me at a good brand?

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Find a clip on ferrite on an old cable lieing around the house and put that on your cable

I was also discussing these types of issues with someone else recently.

It turns out that the USB on the VCI is NOT grounded.

What you say!

Yes, the VCI-100 is not grounded. You could have very possibly had a grounding issue! I'd recommend grounding the VCI-100 to your AC-DC adapter's ground plug on the IEC cable, or on the inhouse mixer.

again, not a guarantee. Anyone else's suggestion is probably just as likely. Just something to keep in mind!

Next to grounding, could it also be the resonance of the surface on which the laptop and VCI were placed?

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Originally Posted by RSDJMoniker

I was also discussing these types of issues with someone else recently.

It turns out that the USB on the VCI is NOT grounded.

What you say!

Yes, the VCI-100 is not grounded. You could have very possibly had a grounding issue! I'd recommend grounding the VCI-100 to your AC-DC adapter's ground plug on the IEC cable, or on the inhouse mixer.

again, not a guarantee. Anyone else's suggestion is probably just as likely. Just something to keep in mind!

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So the grounding pin on the back is there to ground the unit ? i thought it was there to ground turntables onto :\ wtf

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Originally Posted by RSDJMoniker

AC-DC adapter's ground plug on the IEC cable

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could u explain that? r u talking about something u could ground from on your power strip or something?

i'll probably just ground mine to a mixer; but, at some point, i may not have one to ground to.

Hey Devil, Ive had the same problem in the past, with the traktor screen locking up. Did you still have audio? If yes, the problem is with the electricity in the club you were play & as Moniker mentioned the VCI not being ground could have spiked the laptop. What I have do is your a surge protector/conditioner, and the next this is see how the f@ck we ground the VCI.

The grounding issue is tricky as the USB standard specifies that the peripheral device shield (or chassis in this case) is not to be connected to the ground.

Connecting the chassis to an ground or separate earth could actually make the problem worse as it will increase the common mode noise.

I'm really not sure why the Vestax engineers included the gnd screw.

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Originally Posted by midifidler

The grounding issue is tricky as the USB standard specifies that the peripheral device shield (or chassis in this case) is not to be connected to the ground.

Connecting the chassis to an ground or separate earth could actually make the problem worse as it will increase the common mode noise.

I'm really not sure why the Vestax engineers included the gnd screw.

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So it wouldnt be a good idea to hook up the VCI to the GND on the Audio 8, would it?

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Originally Posted by JesC

So it wouldnt be a good idea to hook up the VCI to the GND on the Audio 8, would it?

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That's what I was thinking...

It might have been a combination of problems. It just doesn't happen in my other gigs, so in my mind it has to be something about the environment. I was running my power strip out of a power conditioner, and then my laptop and my external hard drive were plugged into there. Could this have been an issue? I am not that knowledgeable on the power issues.

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Originally Posted by JesC

Hey Devil, Ive had the same problem in the past, with the traktor screen locking up. Did you still have audio? If yes, the problem is with the electricity in the club you were play & as Moniker mentioned the VCI not being ground could have spiked the laptop. What I have do is your a surge protector/conditioner, and the next this is see how the f@ck we ground the VCI.

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So, yeah, does anyone know the best way to ground it, then? If I could ground it to the audio8 I think that would be best.

Do you use an external supply for either your audio 8 or vci?

Nope. Figured that was the next recommendation. Don't want another wall wart if I can avoid it, though (external hard drive and lappy already...)

Id be following midifidlers advice, he it THE MAN when it comes to all this sorta stuff.

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Originally Posted by midifidler

The grounding issue is tricky as the USB standard specifies that the peripheral device shield (or chassis in this case) is not to be connected to the ground.

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Unfortunately, the usb line on the VCI itself is not grounded. so you've got an ungrounded datastream going from the VCI to the laptop.

The usb standard is SUPPOSED to be the part that grounds. but if that doesn't...there can be problems! This is why the USB standard is so unstable, is because it's grounding issues are so volitile.

Useful tip when you experience USB problems on windows (XP) : Sometimes, the USB controller just F*ck up for no reason. I won't explain the whole process (too many language lacks)
But I experienced the problem twice with 2 XP-10 on WinXP SP2.

I fixed the issue by trashing the driver (on the system settings/peripheral window) then reboot - it reinstalls itself automatically when you reboot.
Everything was back to normal after that.

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Originally Posted by midifidler

The grounding issue is tricky as the USB standard specifies that the peripheral device shield (or chassis in this case) is not to be connected to the ground.

Connecting the chassis to an ground or separate earth could actually make the problem worse as it will increase the common mode noise.

I'm really not sure why the Vestax engineers included the gnd screw.

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In the manual it states the grounding screw shall be used to suitably ground the case in a scenario where a laptop has no earth terminal on the socket.

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Originally Posted by Jo3

In the manual it states the grounding screw shall be used to suitably ground the case in a scenario where a laptop has no earth terminal on the socket.

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if that's the case then that makes sense...

I'm assuming a separate power supply with an earth terminal will work as well, correct?

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Originally Posted by DvlsAdvct

if that's the case then that makes sense...

I'm assuming a separate power supply with an earth terminal will work as well, correct?

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It depends on the power supply used for the VCi, some transformers do not have an earth on the secondary winding (SELV) therefor no earth would be present on the side the VCi connects. I simply use my USB to power the unit so I'v never taken a proper look at it. Just don't cut the earth out of your laptop socket and you shouldn't have a problem.

my laptop socket, for my old laptop, doesn't have an earth connection. My new one does so there shouldn't be a problem, but I gotta wait on bringing that one out.

Well, I guess it'll be a week or two of troubleshooting.

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Originally Posted by RSDJMoniker

Unfortunately, the usb line on the VCI itself is not grounded. so you've got an ungrounded datastream going from the VCI to the laptop.

The usb standard is SUPPOSED to be the part that grounds. but if that doesn't...there can be problems! This is why the USB standard is so unstable, is because it's grounding issues are so volitile.

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In a usb plug you have 5 connections, +5V, Data -, Data +, GND, and the shield tab.

The shield is typically a metal foil spiraled around the inner cables and connected to the metal on the outside of the USB connector.

The data stream is grounded, the shield should only be connected to ground on the host ie your computer, not the VCI, if the VCI ground was connected to the USB shield pin this would make matters worse as it would create a ground loop for noise picked up by the shield.

This is different to the hum problem that the earth wire on a turntable will fix, a turntables data stream is at audio frequencies (roughly 20 Hz to 30KHz), as is the mains supply, (50 Hz here and 60 Hzin the US).

A decent turntable has many large metal parts, these will effectivley pick up any mains generated noise at 50 Hz and the first few harmonics, now electrons are homesick in that they all really want to get home, and will take the easiest route home (which is to be at GND or 0V).

Without an earth connection to the metal parts the easiest way home is to jump ship on to the signal wires and cruise through the speakers creating a hum. However if the metal parts are connected to the earth stake on the back of your mixer, or any true earth this provides a very low resistance path to GND or 0V, so rather than cruising through your audio they can slide straight home down the earth wire producing no hum on your system.

However USB data has a frequency in the MHz, providing proper return paths and shielding at these frequencies is a totally different can of worms to the extremely low frequencies of AC and its significant harmonics.

Connecting the shield to ground at the VCI end would actually create/ exacerbate the ground loop problem rather than fix it.

Remember a GND connection does not actually imply an earth connection.
A GND is at 0V, and an earth is a direct connection to the actual earth via a pipe or stake in your basement/backyard. So an earth is a GND, but an GND is not always an earth.

Im by no means an expert on this stuff, so I may get some of the specifics wrong, but I prefer to understand the problem rather than just relying on rule of thumb. I hope you all learn from this discussion, because I certainly am.

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Originally Posted by midifidler

In a usb plug you have 5 connections, +5V, Data -, Data +, GND, and the shield tab.

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Absolutely, unfortunately the GND sometimes isn't soldered down or sometimes isn't even present on the PCB. so just because your cable/wire has a GND doesn't mean the port does. Which means that the system will attempt to ground to the chasis. I have this experience with a single port on my laptop. When I have something plugged into it, and I touch my laptop, I become the ground (I can feel a bit of electricity running through me) It's kinda whacky.

At any rate...I'm not sure how grounding the VCI would effect things. I'm just saying...it's a point of interest that the USB jack on the VCI is GNDless and could be effecting more things that we really realize.

so... in the end, just gotta keep tryin new shit until it doesn't suck? ;)

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Originally Posted by DvlsAdvct

so... in the end, just gotta keep tryin new shit until it doesn't suck? ;)

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Shhhhhh, let us pretend we know what we're doing.

oh right, I forgot

:o

I would still recommend a ferrite, I used to have similar issues, though never that bad when playing in clubs, but not once since I have started using a cable with a ferrite.

absolutely, all my cables have a ferrite on em!

dunno about vci 100 but my vci 300 did same thing, since i bough external power supply i haven't noticed any freezes

As an update...

I started using my new laptop to spin live. I figure that I got it back, it works, loaded all my preferences from my old Traktor 3.4 rig, and my VCI-100.

I was following around on it today and I could only spin for 20 to 30 minutes and the screen would lock up like before, audio would keep going.

I did some google searches (who'd'a'thunk it, right?) and...I found a Native Instruments forum thread that answered my question. I turned off the VCI-100, started Traktor, and then loaded up the VCI-100, loaded the MIDI in and MIDI out. I spun for about 90 minutes with no drop outs. Going to practice a bit again after I eat, but this is a good sign.

After I get this working I start working on more Bome shit :)

So thanks for the all the help. I also ordered 5 USB cables with Ferrites which should be in this week. I'm hoping this all together will make everything work better.

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Originally Posted by DvlsAdvct

As an update...

I started using my new laptop to spin live. I figure that I got it back, it works, loaded all my preferences from my old Traktor 3.4 rig, and my VCI-100.

I was following around on it today and I could only spin for 20 to 30 minutes and the screen would lock up like before, audio would keep going.

I did some google searches (who'd'a'thunk it, right?) and...I found a Native Instruments forum thread that answered my question. I turned off the VCI-100, started Traktor, and then loaded up the VCI-100, loaded the MIDI in and MIDI out. I spun for about 90 minutes with no drop outs. Going to practice a bit again after I eat, but this is a good sign.

After I get this working I start working on more Bome shit :)

So thanks for the all the help. I also ordered 5 USB cables with Ferrites which should be in this week. I'm hoping this all together will make everything work better.

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Yeah, we had a thread many moon's ago here about traktor locking up, and to bypass it, you would turn off the vci & start T3.4 and the start the vci, hot switch is a lifesaver.

it really is.

See, I was always turning the VCI-100 on before Traktor. Guess, now that you can hot swap midi devices, I gotta do it different.