Weekend Woes. Something going wrong - Traktor 2.5 S4, F1 and itunes.

DJ Software & Apps Traktor
1

Weekend Woes. Something going wrong - Traktor 2.5 S4, F1 and itunes.

Sorry this is a bit of a long one, but wondered if anyone else is having similar problems.

I DJ a city centre bar every Friday, and this weekend I also got to cover for their Sat DJ. I run Traktor on my S4 (with no mappings apart from a few keyboard fired macros), and use my 6gb windows 7 laptop (which has been De-Crappified and all other superflous programs removed) so it ONLY has traktor, itunes and a web browser to find tracks for various requests when all the punters ‘know’ is a bit of lyrics, and a few windows utilities.

I have itunes running as well as i often buy song requests from there and refresh traktor when they’re downloaded.

I’ve had pretty much no probs with this setup for many months, and happily ran many effects.

Few weeks back, 2.5 landed and I know a lot of people had problems with it. Thankfully mine seemed to be ok, and didn’t have any issues, though as I didn’t have an F1 I wasn’t really using the remix decks at all.

I’d been saving all last month and finally got my F1 which I loved, and at home didn’t seem to have any issues. I put togther a couple of remix sets, but nothing heavy duty.

Last week, I tied using it for the first time at the bar, and after about half an hour my music started dropping out and stuttering for a second horribly. I uplugged the F1, deactivated all effects, switched off the remix decks, quit itunes an dthe web browser and it thankfully stopped.

Was not great, and my manager came up and was asking what the problem was. She wasn’t impressed. But understanding.

So last week, at home tried to figure out the problem and all seemed ok again.

This friday, exactly the same again :confused: Really frustrating as I desperatley wanted to use my F1.

So, for Sat I decided to take in my iMac. I use this when I’m doing occasional gigs at a Uni venue which is very easy to drive to (unlike my bar). This was a very big night for me and really wanted to ue my F1 as had lots of routines I could use this for, and really wanted to make a good impression. So I boxed up my imac and lugged it into the city centre. Was very excited as the massive screen means it’s way easier to use 4 decks in traktor and see all that going on.

about 20 mins in, and exactly the same problem again ??

Sound just dropping out. Had to unplug everything again and just use 2 basic decks.

Again, manager very very unimpressed. She was all set to put the juke box back on. She only trusted me as she knows I’ve dj’d there many times before all fine. But still, I was all set to make as best an impression and this really made me look otherwise.

So…, I’m thinking it could be something nothing to do with Traktor. That it may be a new version itunes hogging processor things, but tbh I was franticly trying to fix the issue and didn’t have time to try out things.

Just wondering has anyone else had these probs?

It only seems to be when am using the F1 as things seemed ok when I upgraded to 2.5, so was wondering if when loading in the samples (pretty much a few film samples and a couple of the usual NI remix packs) this may be the issue. That it’s too much for the processor and that it starts to max things out after a while ?

But as mentioned, I’ve not been able to figure this out or replicate the problem at home.

AT the bar, they seem to have just as strong a broadband signal as home (all the way up and full bars), and whenever I downloaded tracks they seem to download just quick (I know this isn’t a very scientific description!)

I’m running Snow Leopard on my imac, and itunes 10.5.3

The web browser is just a very light chrome derivative (so it’s not something big and extensive like firefox). Hardly use it, and tbh I should have played safe and not fired it up (just a habit).

I really need to figure this out soon as would hate to never use my F1. Buying a new laptop/mac is out of the question (I only got my laptop at xmas as it’s a HP Pavillion g6 with a core i5 and 6gb ram. Not a top notch laptop but not too underpowered either) and funds are low. My imac is a 2.66hz 2 coree with 4 gb RAM and 6mb L2 cache. Its a few years old but never given me any probs before.

Any suggestions ? I love Traktor but if this caries on I think I’m going to have to go down the Pioneer route (which seems a shame as I love the idea of where F1 and remix decks).

2

Well just an update.

I’ve just recorded a practice 1 hour mix at home with my imac with my F1 all plugged in, the NI Percussion remix pack (with all 64 sample slots filled), and used all three decks and remix deck. And not one glitch or stutter/drop off. It’s all performed excellently. I’ve also had open on my itunes and usual SWRIron Chromium browser, and as well as that theres a couple of apps I forgot to close (adobe acrobat, mac email, the mac dvd and VLC media player).

So am really stumped now. I’m going to next weekend use my laptop again, but switch off the wifi connection and open nothing but traktor and see if that still causes a problem with my S4/F1/2.5 set up on there. If not then am guessing it’s wifi/processor overload related.

But if not, it’s a bit of a mystery as can’t think what else may be causing this same problem at the Club on two very different computers/OS.

3

What of the most common known causes of described “crackles” is allowing the WiFi card to remain activated and sending/receiving data.

4

Thanks for the feedback Abide :slight_smile:

The music wasn’t so much ‘crackling’ as totally dropping out for just less than a second, then coming back in fully.

The song was continuing to play, and this would happen again and again a few seconds later. But the music was clear and normal when it did come back in.

Not sure if that’s how other’s had when they described it as ‘crackles’ though.

My wifi is on here too at home so I guess if it is the wifi at the club that’s the issue am gonna have to either never use my F1, or just download any request tracks from itunes using my phone and then get them into my computer via that.

5

You never know for sure, but the fact that it has happened at the club multiple times and never at home suggests its related to the conditions at the club somehow. The fact that it’s happened in two different computers suggests its a hardware issue. You’re using a few different controllers, so see if you can narrow it down to one piece of equipment that might be failing and causing the software to lag and dropout. Could be vibration from the bigger speakers at the club, or heat or something like that.

6

Try running Smitten’s Window’s optimizer. It turns off all unnecessary processes besides the absolute essentials for Windows to run, although I never use this on my studio machine and have only experienced drop-outs when routing audio from Machine to Traktor via VAC and Asio4All. On that note I also never turn off the wireless card either.

7

Thanks for the suggestions guys - and though a PC expert colleague of mine had helped wiht my laptop to optimize it I’ll also give the Smitten’s one a go too.

Sadly - 15 mins into tonight same thing started to happen :confused:

I’ve been using it fine all week, and come to the conclusion it’s something with the broadband which is taking the CPU which must be running harder with the F1 over. My laptop runs fine 100% without the F1 and the broadband on - can stack up fx and run 4 decks (well, it’s mostly three but just an example), so this IS a massive pain as tbh the broadband is essential for the many requests and tracks I get on the night (usually have to buy about 10 or so) - it’s a bar with a huge clientelle coming through it so am always getting requests for new things/classics/oddities etc.

So I really am torn now. I do rather love the F1, but am comepletely unable to use it :confused:

I’m thinking now I may have to go for the RMX 1000 as it’s a standalone, can do some similar things, but also has all the FX (which tbh do look rather good). It’s about 3 times the price though - but am think at least I’ll be able to use it as this is really getting me down with my F1.

Doesn’t seem like anyone else is having similar difficulties, and the 2.5.1 I don’t think is out yet (which I don’t know or not if it’ll have some bug fixes in there which may smooth this out for me).

Am quite torn now. Has anyone used moth the F1 and the RMX1000 and how they might compare ? Must say I do like the look of some of the videos, but… I dunno - am sad about this as been looking forwards to exploring remix kits and that aspect of creativity for months now.

8

PS - should also mention ndiLo that it’s def not heat related (am in rainy Manchester and hasn’t been hot here for months lol), and also I keep the booth area really quiet as I don’t run the booth monitor (I prefer to hear how everything is out in the club and the speakers are the other side of the room). They’re also of the full range variety so there’s no epic subs causing any vibrations (sadly!!). Think lowest they go down to is about 50 or so Hz. Also they’re all early on, so again, it’s a bit quieter and not many people in so again heat’s not really an issue.

But yeh, I never expected this issue to affect moth my mac and pc in the same way. I don;t think the F1 is faulty either as at home it’s been performing fine and still yet to get it to replicate the problem.

Ah well, guess it’s just one of those things, and is running both my computers harder than they can cope with and maybe something about the broadband at the venue is just causing them to overload or something.

9

This is kind of weird and I doubt this is the problem, but are you using a power conditioner or anything before the laptop, maybe the places power isn’t too good and it is cause problems with your audio and whatnot.

10

Are you plugging your S4 into the mains?

Have you tried using a powered USB Hub?

Also, i’ve been having problems with the latest iTunes consuming large amounts of CPU process and hanging - could this be the cause of your problems?

I also had to increase the latency of my S2 in the control panel when I bought my F1 - something to try too - the S2/S4 control panel has a latency checker built in.

Good luck!