Serato Needs to the Fix Needle Tracking Problems

I'm sure anyone who uses the SSL with control vinyl knows what I'm talking about, when you are playing a song and the needle stops tracking the record properly and the music cuts out to this scratchy, distorted noise mid-set. I've tried everything, cleaning my control records, carrying a brush to get the dust off of the vinyl, constantly wiping my needles, I even purchased the digitrack needles. However, none of these seemed to completely fix the problem stated earlier. I know this problem is happening to many DJs, for example Hi-Tek came to Toronto about a month ago and it happened to him mid-set and he caught himself some boos. Second example is the video posted interviewing A-Trak a while back vimeo.com view.

We all love the way SSL has recreated the feel of vinyl, but there needs to be a way to stop this problem from happening. Maybe come out with your own needles. I don't know how you would technically go about fixing this problem, but I know every DJ using the control vinyl would love SSL that much more if there were no more needle tracking issues.

-Do you calibrate properly, including the thingy for background noise interference?

-Check the contacts on the tone arm, I clean them with a cotton bud and isopropol alcohol. I've lost a channel on the deck before and it's done that.

-Dust bunnies.

-Some processors just don't like serato, my bro has a turion and it fucks out from time to time, with all the set up and shit sweet. Could be your laptop.

Yes, I do all of these things and I have a new macbook so that isn't the problem.

But the purpose of this post was to get rid of all this headache, such as checking the contacts on the tone arm. I play in a different club every night of the week, not all of the turntables are going to be perfect, in reality most of them are in bad condition. Also, in a loud club the needles are naturally going to vibrate, especially when the monitors are in the booth. I understand that it's not SSL's job to work with crappy turntables, but if there is a way around this whole headache it should be looked into.

What I am suggesting is not an easy fix, I don't want to use CDJs, I don't want to constantly be replacing/cleaning needles and records and I don't want to be checking my calibration settings every other song I play. What I want is to just plug in my SSL, throw on a pair of records and play out with never having to worry about tracking problems. I know a lot of DJs would agree with me on this one. I don't expect something like this to come out in version 1.9.3, but maybe somewhere down the road (2.0 maybe) us as DJs will never have to worry about tracking problems again.

all you need to do is wipe needle every new song you put on...

i do it by quickly pressin "int"

lift needle, wipe dust off

put needle back near start of record then back into "rel"

i very rarely get this problem but my friends do all the time and thats when were all in my living room using the same setup........keep telling em keep yer needles clean

and thers a meter that goes red to warn you way before it happens anyway so keep an aye on that

that meter on above the virtual deck shows the quality of the signal coming off the control vinyl, will turn red if there's a dust bunny on the needle, the turntable's dropped a channel, the control vinyl's dirty, there's no earth, or too much background noise.

I always flick back to the setup scope any time the signal isn't perfect, to check what the problem is.

check this to diagnose.

scratchlive.net

You gotta put in the time brother, if you ain't gonna do the setup and calibration properly, you're not going to get decent results.

Even if you're just playing actual vinyl, you still need to know how to balance a tonearm and set the weights, clean the contacts on the cart/tonearm, keep your vinyl clean and replace your carts, sounds like you need to show some love to your gear.

I've got a few residencies, over a couple of months I serviced the decks in all of them, calibrated the clock speed (sets the quartz zero in the right place), set the pitch gain (makes sure the pitch does what it says and the decks are matched properly), cleaned and lubed up the pitch faders so they don't wander in the mix, and cleaned the contacts on the tone arms so the contacts onto my carts are sweet.

The only problem I have these days is having a beer to many on the long sets, and pushing a wrong button on my midi controller. ;-)

You only get out what you put in bro.

I completely understand this KaBoom, I take care of all my gear, clean it, and make sure it is always serviced properly. The point I've been trying to make is that SSL has already made the DJs life easier, why not continue this trend and develop a product such as a specialized needle to eliminate any tracking problems that may occur. A product like this would definitely make the DJ's life easier because there would never be any embarrassing needle problems and since SSL already dominates the digital DJ market, introducing a specialized needle or a similar product would in turn allow them to dominate the needle market.

I understand that to many people reading this I just sound like a complainer, those are not my intentions. I just see an area where SSL can better their product and help everyone, including the people on this forum, remove a tedious problem out of their life.

One way to easily fix this issue would be to have an option within SSL to either enable or disable something like If red tracking meter goes above 80% it will automatically go into INT mode...

Nice, so when Jazzy Jeff starts to cutting it up it will go:

abs-int-abs-int-int-rel-rel-int-rel-int - mode?

this sounds like a dust bunny issue for sure...

my first few weeks on SSL this got me a few times.

after some research:

Keeping on record on the platter with felt slip mats & plastic allows for a larger
build up of static. (which we all know)
Groove Glide has a mild anti-static agent in it, and is a quality cleaner.
I hit me CV's once a week with this.
this is PREVENTATIVE maintenance.
during the gig I swipe the Styli after every track, its muscle memory now.
dont even think about it.
also a few times throughout the night I take the groove glide pad (untreated) to
the CVs.

magnetism is something we cant expect technics (panasonic) or Rane to fix for us.
we just have to take the measures to stop it from making us look like a rookie.
Ive still, even after all that, heard the noise starting to creep in and IMMEDIATLY
go into internal mode, clean the record and go back... takes all of 8 seconds.

?

en.wikipedia.org

when the turntable is positively charged it attracts negatively charged things
(IE Dust bunnys)

Im going back to 10th grade here.

Magnetism is to do with metals, you're thinking of static en.wikipedia.org

I've always found that dust build up is more of a problem with ortofon carts. Since I switched to sures I've never had a problem.

are you guys serious?

the platter has a HUGE magnet in it.

(not that its the sole cause of dust bunnies...we ALL know that comes from a static electricity charge....)

when you guys are scratching, does the red line ever go over 80%? shit if thats the case, just make it so that if it goes and stays over 80% for X amount of time it switches to internal...like i said this could be something that is checked on or off...for club mixshow styled djing that I do, this would be perfect...

Ya I think we are starting to get somewhere, this would be a good way to quickly fix tracking problems if the needles stop tracking mid-song.

I don't know what I'm doing right, but this NEVER happens to me eh, occasionally I've had the same symptom from a dirty connection onto the cart, but I never get dust bunnies. Perhaps I got that muscle memory thing that someone said and I just pick em off. Hopefully I ain't pickin or scratchin anything I shouldn't while I'm playin.

I do 5-6 hours at a time when I play, no dramas, I use stanton groovemasters.

The magnet does not attract dust, unless the dust contains metal.

Exactly and most dust is made from clothing fibres, hair and dead skin so no metal there.

I'm not sure if the CVs already use this but, what if they were built like the old battle records that were anti-skip. They used deeper grooves, so even if there is some wear and tear on the CVs the needle would still go over the damaged part of the record without a hiccup.

Dust on the needles and worn out control records. I clean my needles every 30 mins or so when I mix, and buy new control records every 5 to 6 shows to make sure they are not worn out. That really helped me out when I had this issue as well.

Good luck!

Every 5 to 6 shows?! Wow, thats a lot of money unnecessarily spent if you ask me.

I'd agree, especially if you keep a set just for playing live and use different records when you're at home. I always keep a spare set in my bag, if tracking starts to go suspect I just throw new ones on. The old records can be relegated to scratch practice use.

+1

At some point in either the 1.8 or 1.9 series, it seems like SSL became more sensitive to tracking problems. I posted on here when I first noticed it, a control record I'd been using for ages started creating a small glitch in the music due to a extremely small pop on the control vinyl, but the older versions of SSL tracked it with no problem. Even an out-of-the-wrapper control vinyl will do it, I've ran a test by generating a 1khz sine wave audio file and loading it into SSL, then open a new control vinyl and use it to play back the 1khz tone. I record the audio output into the PC and you can see the minor glitches in the waveform. It's not big or a lot but I've never seen a brand-new control vinyl that wouldn't glitch at least one time in the first 5 minutes. It's just so damn sensitive to pops and clicks now and it wasn't always like that.

-E