My VCI-100 kept disconnecting in the club - any ideas?
Really odd problem earlier tonight at the club. Basically, I could not maintain a stable connection between my laptop and VCI. The longest I could keep a connection was about a minute. At first I suspected a physical problem as the USB port on the VCI is rather loose already and I thought I would have to take it apart and solder a lost connection, or something of that sort.
Anyway after coming home I connected my laptop and gear exactly as it would be set up in the club, and go figure I cannot reproduce the problem. I tried jiggling the USB connection on both the laptop end and the VCI end but to no avail, everything remains in working order (which is good!). So I can rule out that suspicion.
The only thing that’s different between my home and the club is:
The bass vibrations. We just got a new booth that has a lot more bass coming through the bottom.
Maybe it has something to do with the power at the club versus the power in my home (FYI my laptop stays plugged in at the club, as well as my USB hub though the VCI is not connected through the hub).
I’m thinking it’s the vibrations. I know for sure my VCI is affected by them which is why I use a heavy-set cloth folded over a couple times and my laptop slipcase to hold my VCI in place. I watch to see if the Data Send light goes off to see how bad the VCI is affected but I wasn’t really having any problems of this sort. As well, I tried connecting the VCI while holding it myself in the air, shielding it from any vibrations of the sort but it still disconnected.
So right now I have no idea why it was disconnecting at the club but behaving just fine at home. Any ideas?
BTW when it would disconnect, it would immediately reconnect. However the quick disconnect would result in a prompt from Bomes etc. meaning it would need to be restarted, and because I use Traktor 3.3 I’d need to restart the whole program to re-recognize the VCI, so clearly this is a rather major problem with more gigs this weekend!
I’m not going to bother posting my laptop specs or anything like that, as I’ve been using the exact same setup for the past 4 months. The only thing that changes are the songs on my external HD. If you’re still curious though, I’m DJing with a Lenovo Thinkpad X61 (Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM) on Windows Vista which has been optimized quite thoroughly (to the point it looks like Win95 .
I should mention, I tried shaking the VCI vigorously at home and it still remains connected. I’m going to take it to the club tonight before they open to see if I can recreate the disconnect again and hopefully work from there.
OK so I just started shaking my laptop and recreated the problem. I suppose there’s something loose in there or something, if anyone has any experience with kind of thing it would be much appreciated.
For the time being I suppose I’ll have to shield it from vibrations as well. Glad I’ve further isolated the problem, and goes to show it’s not always your MIDI gear!
Looks like it’s just that USB port that the VCI is connected to. After googling this seems to be a common problem with computers in general, thankfully it should be rather simple to fix then.
they straight up SNAPLOCK into my mbp’s ports. simply because they’re made to. but still, you have to put some force behind this thing to even get it out of the port. and by being so snug, there’s no room for it to wiggle around.
no, that is a big problem..but i see a bigger one if every cable was like that of the mb’s power cord with it’s magnetic style release.
accidental brushes against these components, not even necessarily a force that would bend a regular non-magnetic connection, would disconnect a vital transfer line. sure, power can be done without for the time it takes to reconnect it..but breaking a usb connection in the middle of a set would just blow
I was wrong in assuming that this would be a quick/simple fix because it’s a common problem, argh, as I spoke with an independent tech. guy today. He basically told me the same thing, the port could be directly connected to the mobo and so on.
I can still play out as long as the laptop does not shake at all but obviously I’d rather not. The next best option is to throw a good number of songs onto my local HD so I don’t have to use my external, therefore freeing up that port.
Hey miyuru do you use a rack/flight case for the laptop and the vci?
A friend of mine had the same problem (vci always disconnected and oftenly didn’t respond), so he put everything into a rack and the problem was solved.
Consider also this as a solution
hey bento you know of any good ones that’s pcmcia and not the express port though? I’m in need of atleast 2 usb ports. If you know any that also come’s with a firewire port too that’ll be awesome!
Nah no ExpressPort. And my current hub won’t work (only the Trigger Finger and External HD are recognized through the hub, whereas my VCI and Audio8 are not)…
The hub is powered as well. I’m not sure why these things happen though I never bothered looking into it as everything was fine when all my ports were working
As for a rack solution, I usually just dump all my stuff onto the DJ booth. What does your friend’s rack dealie look like?
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