Traktor Scratch Vinyl Control fail

[faeruithir]

Hi everyone,

I was playing a gig on friday. The previous DJ was using serato, and I use traktor. He had turntables set up so I thought I might as well use those. However, I had forgotten the USB cable for my audio 8. So I ask him if I can use his USB cable. I plug in the audio 8 DJ and all the stuff, try it multiple times. Traktor shows there is a (very weak) signal coming from the turntables but the vinyl control will not work at all...

So i end up doing the entire gig with just my laptop...My question is...do you HAVE to use the USB cable that comes with the audio 8? Has anyone else experienced this before?

[BradCee]

it is possible that it requires that specific cable, seen it with a few other usb devices (cameras etc...), or maybe the needles/tone arms/wiring of the decks was a bit 'iffy'?

just a quick o/t(ish) question? as you were on different systems (serato/traktor) was there a pause between the 2 of you playing while he unplugged and you plugged in? and how was this covered? (putting the control fail aside)

[faeruithir]

The turntables were definitely fine so i'm pretty sure it was the cable.

There was a pause but I made sure it was at the end of a song so that it was like signaling a new DJ coming on. Still better to have avoided that but we had no choice. It was a house party so no biggie...

[djmgj]

no, you dont need to use a special usb cable, i use two seperate cables for when i play out and when i play at home. the cable i use at home is actually a spare from my wireless modem.

how did you link the two soundcards together from the turntables? im assuming there was only one rca per table, so how did you connect it to both the audio 8/4 and serato box at the same time? what needles were being used? and have the contacts been cleaned recently.

[Karlos Santos]

Any USB cable works guys. Seems like there was another issue.

Did you re-calibrate between switching cables. You must do any time you change any aspect of the setup a re-cal is needed.

Sounds like USB streaming errors that would need a re-cal. Do you use the Audio 8 Settings Tool to check for errors.

K

[djpbe]

I have found when my USB goes wonky, it tends to switch to lower speed. If your buddy is using the SL1 it is USB 1.1 so the drop out wouldn't affect him, while the Audio 8 is USB 2.0 and needs the extra speed to work properly. The other thing that's a possibility is you accidently bumped the button on the front switching your input method to line, which would drastically reduce the signal from the turntables.

[sarasin]

On a similar note:

I have a pair of PDX 2000 (Vestax) and it works great with the Audio 4 and TC Vinyl.

I then went to a mates place and tried to hook up his Technics SL's.

NO DICE!

The channel lights on the Audio 4 were RED. Then when we connected the Ground wire....it went green for a second then died.

We ended up agreeing that the SL's were not grounded properly with its power (2 prong plug). IN South Africa, the power has three prongs..... one for Ground Earth.

Also, the SL has its own RCA cables coming from it. The PDX 2000 has Audio ports so i can use any RCA cables.

Can anyone confirm my findings?

[faeruithir]

i guess maybe traktor needed a restart...
that happens sometimes...
whatever it was I'll definitely be sure to bring the audio 8 cable every time

[Kupujte_Pytle]

there was article on main site on how to deal with varyous timecode issuses, i 100 percent recommend to go find it and check it... it answers almost all troubleshooting issues i have encountered... i think you will find solution to your problem as well, because there are some ground rules which when followed will dodge almost all possible issues in future.

oh and btw USB cable possibly can't have an impact here... definitely not on signal level... If the cable was "catchy" you would experience whole lot different problems and probably you won't be able to play out at all.

[Hippie]

Sounds like a phono/line issue to me, as u say the signal was weak.
There's a new option in the latest Traktor updates on the Timecode Setup page for inputs, u may have missed, that causes the same symtpoms you're experiencing if set incorrectly (altho I don't have an audio 8 here to test myself)

hth