Need Assistance what does Serato actually do?

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Jiglo

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I was feeling a bit flush recently, and on impulse I bought Traktor Pro Scratch 2 to see what it offered as i'd read the music quality sounded better and low speed record movement sounded clearer. It was probably the worst £500 i've ever spent, as it's the most buggy piece of software i've ever used and i'd never ever ever use that in a live environment, or even just to mess about on and consequently it's been sat doing nothing since the 4 days of headache after headache, crashing and shit customer support and user forums that don't even bother to reply to your problems :mad:

I've also had Serato Scratch for 3 or 4 years and used it both on a pc and a mac and it's been almost flawless in use in all that time. But despite having some nice features like marking up cue points, it doesn't sound as good as real vinyl and for me doesn't replace vinyl. It merely gives me options to play a tune I don't have on vinyl. I love how it doesn't mix the tune for you like some other software packages too, so it doesn't take away your beatmatching ability when you swap back to purely vinyl the old way:thumbsup:

I use a 13'' macbook pro when I use serato and it's a very reliable computer. There will no doubt be other reliable laptops using Windows, but if you leave the antivirus software running then it will take away some of the system resources and i'd never use Windows without antivirus software.

One of the reasons why macbooks are potentially better as a computer too is that they're really well designed - which you'll see if you take one apart - and you can take them apart without invalidating the warranty and add/upgrade ram and hard drives - also without invalidating the warranty.

There's a high premium to pay for known reliability and quality build though, so if you can't afford one then no doubt Tim or Blue Jammer will pop along and provide an alternative :thumbsup:
 
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ilovepiano

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Jiglo said:
One of the reasons why macbooks are potentially better as a computer too is that they're really well designed - which you'll see if you take one apart - and you can take them apart without invalidating the warranty and add/upgrade ram and hard drives - also without invalidating the warranty.
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I have a Toshiba laptop that is 17 years old that allows you you to swap ram and drives without invalidating the warranty. Please tell me that's not a new marketing gimmick is it that Apple have claimed to invented?!?!?



Jiglo said:
There's a high premium to pay for known reliability and quality build though
Click to expand...

You're just paying through the nose for a shiny glowing fruit badge and being locked into Appleland. There's a reason that only around 5% of the entire world use them...
 
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Jiglo

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17 years old = out of warranty anyway;)

Not an Apple selling point as they'd rather you pay extra for the upgrades (as any other manufacturer would;) ), but tell me another manufacturer that gives a how to manual should you wish to do your own upgrades and still cover the rest of the machine? In principle, you can build your own superlaptop for the fraction of the cost of any other laptop by this very noble gesture and still have it covered by it's warranty:thumbsup:

Not at all Tim. I couldn't find a similar spec(ed) machine by any other manufacturer for the same cost as I paid for mine. That's taking into account the speed of the things like ram, fsb, cpu as opposed to just quoting that you only get this much ram etc. It shows lack of understanding by most people that only see things as black or white. Add to the package the extras and the build quality, then it actually starts to seem like good value for money:thumbsup:

If 5% of the world have them, then that doesn't mean it's a bad product. There's lots of factors involved in owning a product and cost is one of the biggest factors. There's probably less than 5% of people that have a similar or higher spec of other types of laptop. There's a reason why less that 0.01% of people own Ferraris too;)

By all means recommend an alternative to an apple product that you think is suitable though as you don't actually need an apple laptop to run serato, but it does somewhat give it a big platform seeing most of the world's artists using them when they can choose any product they wish:thumbsup:
 
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Jiglo

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....And one more thing you mentioned which isn't even true Tim.

You aren't locked into Apple.

Apple provides Bootcamp which allows you to run Windows (or Linux, or whatever) alongside OS X and it's free and easy enough to install. Apple puts more emphasis into it's hardware than it's software, but despite coming from a Windows environment having used it since the early 90's and having had Windows running on my Macbook when I first bought it, i've since deleted Windows and only use OS X these days.

That's my choice though. I'm not slagging Windows off, I just rarely need it anymore.

You can also use Parallels or Fusion etc if you want to instantly switch between Windows and OS X on a macbook, so it's probably fairer to say that you're locked into a Windows machine if you use a Windows laptop.

Just presenting the facts mate:thumbsup:
 
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blue jammer

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I just hate apple fullstop :D hehe

Whatever works best for the end user at the end of the day and whatever they can afford to pay.

This isn't a "pc's are better than macs" answer, just pointing out the value you can get if you shop around...

I bought a new laptop a few months ago for just £306 with 8gig ram 750gb hard drive and the usual intel decent spec - the reason it was so cheap was it didn't come with an operating system and therefore no other bloated software that I'd never use.

I stuck a pirate copy of Win 7 corporate version on it and it does everything I need it to and more.

Shopping around for laptops is always best, the best place I found is ebuyer (nothing at all to do with ebay) - great prices and free next day delivery.

To the original point of the thread:

Using serato or trackor, you can utilise bits of speech from films/tv/spoke word and also play any music that was never previously released on vinyl, great if you ever dabble in music production or re-edits (yawn) as you can then play your own creations in a set...
 
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Benny-Digital

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Ps.. I have a second hand MacBook which I didn't pay through nose for. It's a mid 2007 white model. I owned a HP lappy with similar spec. It was utter shit compared to this mac, often freezing and shutting down!! This thing just gets faster and faster.. It gives me peace of mind when I'm playing out using serato. I simply would never trust a windows run laptop as old as this.
 
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sevenuk

sevenuk

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Jiglo said:
it doesn't sound as good as real vinyl and for me doesn't replace vinyl. It merely gives me options to play a tune I don't have on vinyl. I love how it doesn't mix the tune for you like some other software packages too, so it doesn't take away your beatmatching ability when you swap back to purely vinyl the old way:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Been thinking of giving it ago myself and purely for this reason... been teaching my daughter to mix but she wants to use new choons and i'm a purist when it comes to vinyl... however, i too have been delving more into some new stuff which i wish would appear on vinyl... but unfortunately it wont:cry: so i think based on this thread i will give it a go too....:D
 
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Shooms

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Everywhere & nowhere baby, that's where I'm at...
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Jiglo said:
I've also had Serato Scratch for 3 or 4 years and used it both on a pc and a mac and it's been almost flawless in use in all that time. But despite having some nice features like marking up cue points, it doesn't sound as good as real vinyl and for me doesn't replace vinyl. It merely gives me options to play a tune I don't have on vinyl. I love how it doesn't mix the tune for you like some other software packages too, so it doesn't take away your beatmatching ability when you swap back to purely vinyl the old way:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

blue jammer said:
Using serato or trackor, you can utilise bits of speech from films/tv/spoke word and also play any music that was never previously released on vinyl, great if you ever dabble in music production or re-edits (yawn) as you can then play your own creations in a set...
Click to expand...

sevenuk said:
Been thinking of giving it ago myself and purely for this reason... been teaching my daughter to mix but she wants to use new choons and i'm a purist when it comes to vinyl... however, i too have been delving more into some new stuff which i wish would appear on vinyl... but unfortunately it wont:cry: so i think based on this thread i will give it a go too....:D
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^^^^^ all of this 100%

There's a ton of ace new music that is, unfortunately, digi only these days so in order to play it it's either midi control, cdj or time code.

I've not played on midi control but I imagine if it's like cdj with soul-less jog wheels then I'd hate it... I had cdj & hated it (both pioneer & Denon... although the Denon did at least have a revolving platter).

All said & done cdj just doesn't feel right... it's like fucking your sister... you're still getting a shag... it's just all wrong though.

Serato & Traktor Scratch allow the ability to play new but in a old way :) Plus as Jammer says it broadens your creativity range to play ANYTHING that's recorded or converted to MP3 (speeches / film scores / me farting etc etc).

For my money, having played on both, I'd take Serato over Traktor... it's more of a purist set up... it's simply vinyl emulation, end of.

PS fuck Mac vs Windows... how about Betamax vs VHS :D
 
B

Benny-Digital

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ilovepiano said:
My post you quoted was me replying to oldskoolnick74 when he said "Macs can't get viruses". It wasn't about whether there are any or not. The shiny case a glowing fruit badge doesn't act like some magic forcefield making them immune.

A quick google threw this up:

Mac Virus Database | iAntivirus
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That is a loooong list.. I wonder if it was the windows boys who came up with it :p I can see this really get's to you Tim mate but I'm in no doubt that Macs are better than windows run machines, I've had first hand experience with both. It's not snobbery or a style thing, I didn't buy it for the 'shiny fruit' like some fucking lemming!
 
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Benny-Digital

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If you look up the Wikipedia definition of a computer virus, and you agree with it, then there are no MacOS X viruses. You cannot catch something that doesn't exist and hasn't existed since 2006. There are over 1,000,000 forms of Windows malware including trojans & viruses. There are 8 (yep, 8 total) Mac trojans. They are not viruses. You have to download illegal or fake software (like torrents of Photoshop CS4 or codecs to view porn) and then install them with your admin password. You cannot catch anything on a Mac by visiting a website, opening an email or clicking on an ad like you can on a Windows computer. 99.6% of all malware is written for Windows computers. Less than 1/10 of 1 percent of all malware being written is for Macintosh computers.

(nicked from another site)
 
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I

ilovepiano

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Benny-Digital said:
If you look up the Wikipedia definition of a computer virus, and you agree with it, then there are no MacOS X viruses. You cannot catch something that doesn't exist and hasn't existed since 2006. There are over 1,000,000 forms of Windows malware including trojans & viruses. There are 8 (yep, 8 total) Mac trojans. They are not viruses. You have to download illegal or fake software (like torrents of Photoshop CS4 or codecs to view porn) and then install them with your admin password. You cannot catch anything on a Mac by visiting a website, opening an email or clicking on an ad like you can on a Windows computer. 99.6% of all malware is written for Windows computers. Less than 1/10 of 1 percent of all malware being written is for Macintosh computers.
Click to expand...


Nice copy & paste there ;)
 
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Silky

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blue jammer said:
I just hate apple fullstop :D hehe

Whatever works best for the end user at the end of the day and whatever they can afford to pay.

This isn't a "pc's are better than macs" answer, just pointing out the value you can get if you shop around...

I bought a new laptop a few months ago for just £306 with 8gig ram 750gb hard drive and the usual intel decent spec - the reason it was so cheap was it didn't come with an operating system and therefore no other bloated software that I'd never use.

I stuck a pirate copy of Win 7 corporate version on it and it does everything I need it to and more.

Shopping around for laptops is always best, the best place I found is ebuyer (nothing at all to do with ebay) - great prices and free next day delivery.

To the original point of the thread:

Using serato or trackor, you can utilise bits of speech from films/tv/spoke word and also play any music that was never previously released on vinyl, great if you ever dabble in music production or re-edits (yawn) as you can then play your own creations in a set...
Click to expand...



Nail on the head BJ, totally 100% agree with you.

The one thing I will say about MAC is that, it does what it says on the Tin, I use Skype a lot and I find on an Ipad it works flawlessly but on any windows platform (Just from my own experience Its horrendous)

Just a shame that Tin cost about the same as a small Island. :thumbsup:

I use Serato, best thing for me is being able to play my own productions straight into a set, lots more options and like Shooms says its the closest thing to the way Vinyl is in the digital world.

Tim by the way I hope you got my present????? Never did find out.....
 


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