I updated the software and that seemed to do the trick.

Very strange.

updated which software ? serato or osx ? that's curious

Interesting, what OS / Scratch LIVE version are you currently running now?

Hi guys, I am currently having the same problem with only one of my turntables. I have even tried several different needles that are in good working order. The sound comes out but sounds very garbled. What do you recommend? I am using tiger operating system and have the most current version of scratch live.

Hi Steven,

Can you open your own thread please? - that way we can help you bettter by tracking your discussion. Your issue sounds slightly different.(click here to open a new thread: scratchlive.net )
Cheers

Nick

I've posted same problem, NO updates have fixed this problem for me. Its a major glitch I hope the Serato team and/or Apple is working on as I cannot perform using the new Macbook Pro until its fixed. I have the identical setup with my old Macbook Pro and no problems. I'm sure it has to do with new USB chipset Apple is using...

here is the detailed thread:

scratchlive.net

lets help the Serato team solve this problem!

illuminaty - what software did you update? I am having same problem but I have all updated software (latest OSX and Serato), everything...

I updated my Serato to 1.8.2, it was previously at 1.8.1

It seemed to stopping distorting after I updated. However I haven't had much time to continue using it.

Some people reported it gets better or worse as time goes on. Hopefully I'll have time today to see if this is true.

I have not updated my OSX software because it's brand new, so I had no reason to. The only thing I updated was the Serato software and it seemed to work fine right after I did this. I'll let you know later today if the problem has been fixed.

Either way something must be done. I have a gig this weekend and would hate to experience this then.

I wonder if this is just a "pro" issue, i have the new macbook, $1600 model, and have used it 6-7 times already with no issues, kinda sux in a way because i would love to try and troubleshoot this with u guys

Everybody.. MAYBE my notebook is going to sleep, and then coming back on and this is part of the cause?

I wish I could test... maybe I'll load serato, put to sleep and see if when it wakes it is more distorted..

a good test!

Ok, i tested that. not the problem, I can go in/out of sleep and it sounds ok at first.

The best way to reproduce the problem is to leave the Macbook Pro playing serato for like 8 hours. or play for 5 hours, leave it all connected, then come back and play it later.

It seems to happen most after heavy use or when Serato has been on > 4 hours (even with wifi and no other programs loaded).

never had problem with previous Macbook Pro

I usually leave this computer plugged into the mixer lately and only for Serato, so this is why I encounter the problem so often especially when playing for 4-8 hour sessions.

It's definitely not the sleep problem. When I experienced this Serato was not running nor did my computer go to sleep.

I had been using my computer for a few hours but Serato was not running.

I still haven't had a chance to try it out again so I'm not completely sure if the problem is gone or not. It seemed to disappear immediately after the new version of Serato was installed.

Try updating your software while inside of Serato where it says "check for updates". This is what I did and it seemed to work like magic.

Or if you seem to encounter the problem try restarting Serato. My serato restarted automatically after the update so this may of been why it stopped.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to test it out some more today.

Any updates if trying it out again Illuminatty? i'm going to record the problem tonight and post the audio i hear here

I have noticed that dirty needles (If using TTs) really messes with your sound quality. A little dust makes some odd noises.

I tested it yesterday for over an hour and no distortion whatsoever. Like I said, after updating Serato it seemed to disappear. Let's just hope it doesn't come back.

RRollergod: Dirty needles and dust couldn't even come close to making these distorted noises. It sounded like I was running Serato through a guitar amp with distortion and gain turned all the way up.

We have one of the new ones here now. I left it running all day yesterday and there were no problems with it. We'll keep on trying...

That's probably because you have the latest version of Serato already installed. I had the previous version

I have same problem with my new macbook pro ... i have disabled airport and bluetooth but no effect ... i have setup with different configuration but no effect ... another solutions ?

I'm using CDjs, i recorded what its like.

WOW, this is not good, for the first time ever it started distorting right away AFTER a reboot! usually it takes hours... i recorded it..

very scary, I'm going on tour soon in South America and it looks like I have to xfer everything to old Macbook :(

hardbreaker, can you easily reproduce this? if so, what are the steps you did so the serato team can try the same steps

Val, can u post the recording?

Yes i reproduce the problem systematically ... basicaly i connect serato to macbook on, and start SL, select track on palylist, on strat playing with LP control .. But the sound is cracking and very distorted ...

Do not hesitate to contact me to identify bug and test to resolve.

Here is what my problem sounds like!

www.v-moda.com

not so pretty...

Exactly the same ...

Have you tried both USB ports?

Do you have any other USB devices connected to your Mac?

Do you have any other applications running besides SSL?

1) yes tried both USB ports, has problem in both
2) no
3) no

THE ONLY thing I can think of is that I migrated my old macbook pro settings to the new one, but I cannot possibly see how this bug would be caused by that. I really think its a USB audio problem, or perhaps there are different versions of the Serato box? Or maybe everybody with new Macbook Pros would have same problem if it plays for a long time. Remember the problem usually doesnt show up for 3-6 hours of the computer having Serato loaded.

-val

NickM, do you guys have a macbook, or macbook pro in house to test, It seems that most people with this issue have a pro, Again, I have a Macbook and cannot reproduce this, I have left it running over night and still sounds good, I have used the macbook on about 7 5 hour jobs already and it was flawless, on both ports.

Im running this with a ttm57, what are you guys that are having the issue with using?

here may be some good questions we should all be answering

Having issue using:
1. Sl1, ttm57 or happens with both
2. Late 2008 Macbook or macbook pro
3. Don't know if this matters but Phono or line (tt's or cd players)
4. any other audio programs opened like Itunes, audacity, etc...
5. what version of ssl
6. did you upgrade to that version or you only had 1 version on the mac
7. usb buffer setting, maybe the lowest settings are affecting this vs higher settings

1) SL1, i actually have a TTM57 but havent tried as Im using Pioneer at gigs now
2) absolute newest Macbook Pro that just came out top of the line every option, I have the previous top of the line Macbook Pro configured IDENTICALLY and had 0 problems with Serato
3) Line (cd), but doesnt matter because when using INTernal mode it does same
4) nope
5) latest, 1.8.2
6) upgrade, 1.8
7) 11 is USB latency setting (SHOULD I TRY HIGHER OR LOWER?) dont think it'll matter

THE ONLY thing I can think of, is sometimes i plugin my iPhone and take it out to charge it to the other USB but I dont think it matters. I'll be sure to make sure not to do this and see if it effects it. I don't think this is it, however as it happened yesterday RIGHT after a fresh reboot, it usually takes a few hours to show up...

-val

Here is my settings :

macbook pro 2008
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066Mz DDR3 SDRM-2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
SuperDrive 8X DL
Serato 1.8.2
Mac OS X v10.5.4 Leopard

Serato used with LP and mix without MIDI. Result is the same as Val

I have test with two USB port without positive result
I have test with modifing latency in SERATO
I have test with airport desactivate
I have test with bluetooth desactivate
I have test with battery and with power supply plugged

No result.

Please to help diagnose the problem can you post your tests and Setting ?

Thats weird, I thought all new macbooks had 10.5.5 on them, did u try upgrading to .5 yet, not that that will fix it most likely being that other users with .5 have this issue too

My settings are as follows, again, i can't duplicate this issue,
1. Sl1, ttm57 or happens with both - BOTH TESTED
2. Late 2008 Macbook or macbook pro - MACBOOK $1599 MODEL
3. Don't know if this matters but Phono or line (tt's or cd players) - BOTH TESTED
4. any other audio programs opened like Itunes, audacity, etc... - TESTED ONCE WITH AUDACITY OPEN AND ONCE WITH JUST SSL
5. what version of ssl - 1.8.2
6. did you upgrade to that version or you only had 1 version on the mac - NO UPGRADE, 1.8.2 IS THE ONLY VER EVER ON THIS MAC
7. usb buffer setting, maybe the lowest settings are affecting this vs higher settings - BUFFER AT 5

I wonder what can be differeent between the macbook and macbook pro that would cause this issue?

All of my music is internal, are you guys using externals? firewire or usb?

internal... well Im sure the Macbook Pro uses a few different chips, the Nvidia for one I think for graphix...

:(

im having the same issues with my new macbook pro

another "Pro" added to the list, I really think we need to check the difference between a macbook and the pro that may cause this issue, the only thing I can see that is different really is the video,

is anyone with a Pro not having this problem?

hello
no news about this defect?
I will receive my Serato tomorrow
I give you my views with my Macbook Pro @2.4ghz

I'm very worried

We haven't been able to reproduce this so far on a new Macbook Pro. Stay tuned we are still trying!

I have the same probleme, i just bought new macbook pro and have this distorted sound. It's really annoying, i have upcoming shows and i'm getting worried...

thank you for helping!

I have the same problem, i just bought new macbook pro and have this distorted sound. It's really annoying, i have upcoming shows and i'm getting worried...

thank you for helping!

The only thing I can come up with is that the new late 2008 MacBooks and MacBook Pros have a different USB controller. They both use a NVIDIA 9400M as a base graphics chip and the Northbridge of the chipset. The page below at iFixIt states they found a Cypress CY7C638 USB controller during their MacBook teardown. The same chip isn't mentioned in their Pro teardown.

www.ifixit.com

They both use the same Cypress Programmable System-on-Chip part though.

It would be helpful is someone had both machines and could rip them apart to do a chip by chip comparison -OR- if someone had a utility that could report the exact components used on the machines (rather than System Profiler's descriptions of "Apple USB" which is useless) -OR- if someone had another type of USB soundcard other than an SL1 or TTM57 that they're having the same issue with like an M-Audio Fast Track Pro or an Edirol UA-101.

Two other things for those of you with new Pros:

1. Does this happen when using the integrated graphics (9400M), discrete graphics (9600GT) or both?
2. Has anyone tried running SL on Windows XP or Vista in Boot Camp (not Parallels or Fusion) to see if the problem disappears?

I am having the same problem... I will make another thread.

My spec are thus:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
______________________________________________
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: Display
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0863
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 3327
gMux Version: 1.7.3
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1440 x 900
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Built-In: Yes
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected
____________________________________________
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0647
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3327
gMux Version: 1.7.3
Displays:
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

All of my music is internal, i copied my setting over from my last computer & my problem sounds the same as the clip by Val Kolton ^^

did you try switching to the other vid chip

you guys should all try to change to the 9600m chip to see if it makes a difference for some strange reason

does the off line player distort?

in this thread the user mentions that the offline player sounds fine so it has to be in the usb driver

scratchlive.net

Switching vid cards does nothing.

you cant switch video cards on a notebook? but i have tried with/without 3d and doesnt matter.

this is so frustrating, I cant use a Macbook Pro notebook now for gigs :(

I pray everyday they can solve this...

well,,, chips in the pro, they have the following 2 chips.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and
9600M GT

so if you are on the 9400 now with distortion, switch to the 9600 and vice versa although infiniteloop said it does nothing so you don't have to try now

Yes, you can switch the cards... I have found out how to do it and it has been tried :)

it has to be the USB chipset in the new Macbook Pros.

Any luck Nick, Serato staff on recreating the problem? Do you think we should report the problem to Apple too???

Also of note, maybe different SL1's behave different based on build date. Mine says 10-07 near the serial #. I'm assuming thats the month-year of it being built.

my serial # is 21 00564767

Hi ! I have create a same thread in the french board ... we have test in different configuration and i would like to share with you !! Ok now the problem is identify only on the new macbook @ 2.8ghz (2.4 ghz don't have the distorded issue).
I'll post later if we move on the problem

I just wanted to ad in to the discussion that Im having the same issue on a 2,0Ghz MacBook with 4Gb of RAM. Its also the new unibody mac.

is it aftermarket ram? some people are complaining to that they upgrade the ram from 2 to 4 gb and the performance is horrible, something with faulty slots or some crap, google it, lol

No luck so far really. We are trying to get a hold of another new mac in the next couple of days - it looks like not all are having this problem so we are going to have to do a bit of trial and error here. Thanks for your patience everyone!

Nah, its the RAM available directly from apple. I bought it with 4Gb of ram.
Just to let you know its not only the Pro models that are effected.

thats good and bad that it is not only the pro models, maybe it will be easy to nail down soon. I can't even imagine what it could be, I have the macbook, used it A LOT with ssl and vsl and have no issues

...And I thought Macs were untouchable?!? :) J/k I don't know much about macs but anyone look into upgrading the firmware of the chipset if possible? ...If indeed it is the chipset

there kinda untouchable, lol. It sucks because apple updates the machines and changes stuff like the chipset to make them better and then stuff like this happens with 3rd party software and hardware


theres no updates for the new MB and MBP that would affect the chipset yet

Okay I was having the same problem. I just bought a Macbook Pro 2008 and DJ'd this past Sunday and could not figure out why I was getting distorted audio. I thought it was the cables I was using. I used to Time Machine to back up all my music. I restored it all on to the new MBP and after reading this forum I decided to update the Serato Software again. I had already updated on previous MBP and used time machine to restore on my new MBP. So I updated the Software again to the latest version and it has seemed to do the trick. I have been playing music through Serato and have had no problems after the second update to the same version. Give it a try and see if this helps any of you. Thanks.

DJ Skiy - this COULD be it. when I bought my new macbook pro, I had my old macbook pro backed up on time machine and i restored it to the new macbook pro.

I recently had an issue with the VPN client software, that i had to reinstall to get it to work.

Maybe the trick is to reinstall serato application from scratch!

trying now, cross fingers!

EVERYBODY ELSE WITH DISTORTION - was your computer restored using time machine?


-val

That makes sense too being that my install was a brand new one on a new macbook. No upgrades on mine and I have no issues

I installed SSL from scratch on my brand new MacBook, did not restore anything with timemachine or alike.
Still have the problem after a couple of hours of uptime on the MacBook.

It works at home i guess since I only have to reboot the computer to get it to a normal sound again. But i cant really use this for gigs atm.

Ziqo, did you try running any updates to fix it or to update your sound drivers?

not sure how you would updte sound drivers on a mac though.

most likely any changes done to audio would be all built into the release like 10.5.4, .5, .6 etc.....

ahh damn See I don't know anything about Macs, so that sucks. I guess Macs and Wondows both have their faults. I did hear that you can run XP/Vista on a mac. I forget what program it was, but I read about it on techrepublic.com.

yes you can,

Hey guys thats another idea, did anyone try running serato on xp via boot camp to see if the problem happens, that would narrow it down to a driver or chip issue

brichi - I wish i had the time, but unfortunately i dont right now... I did reinstall serato, so let me check it out if that fixed my issue but I am somehow doubtful.

Im thinking of buying XP only for this reason, but it seems like alot of cash to possibly throw away on nothing.

You can get alot of tracks for those bucks :)

I think im going to do the bootcamp regardless now just in case, I have licenses at my office. but should I do vista or XP??? does audio still have probs with latest vista updates?

I would go XP if you can. Sorry for the lack of updates on out part. We are still very much looking at this closely.

Very interested to see if bootcamp / xp fixes this though...

So I reinstalled Serato, and same problem.

Major gigs and travelling coming up in 2 weeks, any way we may see a solution by then? It's going to be a pain to transfer songs and library etc

Val Koltron, try doing a fresh OSX install.

akiem - why do you think this will help, since mine was restored from time machine? I believe others in here are having same problem. I would try anything at this point, but as you know its time consuming!

Fresh install is often prescribed for xyz problems. But it seams that re-installing software has helped some people. Just reading through the thread Im wondering if the people without problems started fresh, not using time machine.

If you do a completely fresh install of the OS, then SSL, add a several mp3s then test, you eliminate several possibilities.

What Im asking, is are people having this problem out of the box, installing nothing but SSL?

Yes, I have this problem without restoring anything with time machine.
Fresh install of OSX and then serato on that, but still the same problem.

Have anyone had the time to test this in BootCamp yet? I dont want to buy a licence for XP if it doesnt help...

I had the same problem last night. I did not have it during testing at home, then right from the get-go at a gig. Rebooted, then no problem. SSL ran about 5 hours with no issues.

New MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz
4 GB RAM
SSL 1.8.2

neuron132- did you use time machine to restore, or fresh install when it was new?

has anyone tried using an expresscard usb add-on card?

First time Mac user, so I ran OS X 10.5.5 out of the box.

maybe this is the solution? Would some guys from Serato try this and tell us if it works and if we can buy it as well??

I bought the new Macbook Pro, everything was brand new, no installs. I installed the newest most up to date serato (a few weeks ago) and i've been having problems since, with distorted output.
Serato outputs fine in solo mode w/o physical serato, but once it goes live and it's hooked up to the vinyl it falters with mega distortion. I've tried it on multiple systems and it does not work.
Here are specs:

System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.5 (9F2114)
Kernel Version: Darwin 9.5.1
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
Boot Mode: Normal
Computer Name: oprstu’s MacBook Pro
User Name: oprstu (oprstu)
Time since boot: 9 days 19:46

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP51.0073.B02

Intel High Definition Audio:

Device ID: 0x10DECB79
Audio ID: 64
Available Devices:
Headphone:
Connection: Combo
Line In:
Connection: Combo
Speaker:
Connection: Internal
Microphone:
Connection: Internal
Microphone:
Connection: 1/8 inch Jack
S/P-DIF Out:
Connection: Combo
S/P-DIF In:
Connection: Combo

USB Bus:

Host Controller Location: Built In USB
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBOHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x0aa7
PCI Revision ID: 0x00b1
PCI Vendor ID: 0x10de
Bus Number: 0x06

BCM2045B2:

Product ID: 0x4500
Vendor ID: 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.)
Version: 1.00
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Broadcom
Location ID: 0x06100000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0

Bluetooth USB Host Controller:

Product ID: 0x8213
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 0.07
Serial Number: 00236C9C94AD
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple, Inc.
Location ID: 0x06110000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0

From my experience a Fresh installs doesn't work.
How do i do a complete uninstall?

Perhaps it's relevant that I was using MIDI rather than vinyl for playback control. Has anyone been able to reproduce the problem in both internal and external modes?

I have the same issue on my new Macbook (not the pro). Fresh OS X install on a new HD. Tried both USB ports and restarting ScratchLIVE. The updated version of ITCH works okay though. As mentioned before, the offline player plays fine, but the output from the SL1 is distorted.

2.4 GHz Macbook
4 GB of RAM
Music all on internal drive
OS X 10.5.5 with all needed updates as of 12/1/08

Just out of curiosity, I hooked up my M Audio Fast Track Pro to the USB port and played audio through the USB output and it sounds fine. If anyone else can think of something to test using this device, let me know and I'll give it a shot.

Audio is fine after a reboot... this is interesting. I seldom reboot my machine. Usually I just close the lid instead of shutting it down. I *did* have SSL open for a while earlier today and later this evening I connected the SL1 and got the glitch. I'll give it a go for a while to see how it acts after it's running for a while.

Internal and external modes both effected with or without MIDI controllers. But NOT offline mode internal macbook audio works fine always. only distorted audio through the USB-SL1

I really hope Serato can AT LEAST recreate the problem we are plagued with. Macbooks are probably a big part of the users.

This may be a long shot, but I think the best way to re-create the error is to run ScratchLIVE connected with the SL1, disconnect the SL1 and leave ScratchLIVE open, leave it disconnected for a while and run some apps to utilize any resources (especially anything that can eat up free memory), then re-connect the SL1 (preferrably with little free memory available -- the green chunk of the pie chart in Activity Monitor), load a song and play it.

A reboot definitely clears things up, but there was one point where I noticed it slightly when I was starting up a virtual machine in VMware Fusion while playing a song in SSL. I had just rebooted the machine, SSL was playing just fine; I opened Fusion, started up my VM and I could hear a similar glitch to the constant one while it was loading. This VM has 1 GB of RAM allocated to it and my machine has a total of 4 GB. I tried to suck up more of the available resources while spinning (and I did), but I didn't get any dropouts or distortion (pretty impressive, actually).

So, my current guess is that in order to properly replicate the issue, time and resources may be a factor? Possibly power management could play a role in this?? I dunno...

Does this distortion happen when the SL1 is powered with external power (not USB)? Leading on from that, is anyone getting distortion with a 57, because that doesn't get powered from USB.

Val Kolton has a 57. I he has not said if he had problems with it yet, only the SL1.

Yes, it does. My SL1 has been plugged in for a few days (even during testing).

Today when I got home (after my machine being on for a while - same as yesterday), I got distortion. However, I forgot the XP Virtual Machine was running in the background (it is allocated 1 GB of my 4 GB of RAM and *can* be a resource hog at times). I shut down my laptop later on and came back to the SL1 and it worked fine (SL1 plugged in... and after the reboot).

Deeznotes - I agree thats best way to replicate the problem. UNplugging it, having serato running, plugging back in.

HOWEVER I have had it distort right away a couple times right off the bat, but not often.

I havent been using or tried my 57, only the SL1 since Im using Pioneer DJM-800 mixer on tour

Update: I haven't rebooted since yesterday and the machine has been in and out of sleep mode (lid closed). I ran my VM earlier this morning for a short period of time and then shut it down. Later today, I opened SSL to see how it would do and it worked fine. Nothing else was running at the time (or even before I put it to sleep earlier today).

It still leads me to believe the available resources play a role in this, but I'm no software engineer... so... yeah.

Hi Everyone,

We have this issue logged with Apple, and they've come back to us with a couple of questions about it but we don't have a machine that can reproduce the problem, so this is a call out to anyone who has this specific problem with one of the new Aluminium Macbook or Macbook Pro machines:

- Can you please upload your system details (follow the steps below) here: scratchlive.net

To get the right kind of format for your system details, select "About This Mac" from the Apple menu. Click "More Info...", then go to the File menu in System Profiler and select "Save As...". Make sure the file format is set to "System Profiler 4.0 (XML)", then Save the file and upload it.

- Can anybody reproduce this issue with any other type of external (USB) soundcard? Connect the soundcard, and using any playback application other than Scratch LIVE, play sound through it either by selecting it as the output device from your application, or by selecting it as the output device for the whole system (from the System Preferences >> Sound panel). A good test would be to wait until you see the problem with Scratch LIVE, then quit out of Scratch LIVE (without restarting your machine) and swap your SL 1 or TTM 57SL for the other soundcard. Please let us know if you experience the same problem with the alternate USB soundcard

- One last question for people experiencing this annoying problem who haven't already posted this info - how much RAM is installed in your machine? 2Gb? 4Gb? It looks like most of you have 4Gb, so we're extra keen to hear from anyone who has this problem with only 2Gb of RAM.

Thanks for your patience as we work through this issue, we understand how frustrating it can be dealing with a brand new product that doesn't work 100%, and we'll do our absolute best to get a workaround, or a fix from Apple out to you all as soon as possible.

One important thing about the System Profiler output - Apple have requested that you run the Profiler and save the output at a time when the problem is actually happening, so they can check through the system logs and see if there are any errors there...

THIS IS VERY INTERESTING...

today for the first time it happened ONLY on the right deck! its happening right now.

so so so strange...

I'm uploading profile now like this, any other things i should try as its happening like this?!

this is very very interesting now! it proves its software not USB hardware

More breaking and VERY INTERESTING news on the ONE DECK distortion that happened today -

1) ok, the SL1 Serato box was ONLY distorting in right deck. The left deck with same song played fine (tried instant doubles, many songs, etc) it was always the right deck distorted. Same distortion sound as normal.

2) unplugged the SL1, and plugged in the 57 Mixer (that I rarely use). Low and behold, the RIGHT DECK is not distorted! left deck is fine still. but wait, there is a SLIGHT distortion it seems in the right deck. but not near as bad as before. I play a bunch of songs, I hear only a slight distortion, but its not very noticable and isnt there all the time (im using internal mode now).

3) I plug BACK in the SL1. what do I hear, same thing as #2! the right deck ISNT AS DISTORTED as it was in scenerio #1. its still slightly distorted, but not too bad. This is puzzling, as every other time the distortion has been in both decks, as well as when I plug/unplug the SL1 it sounds the same and requires a reboot.

4) I saved the XML file of the system as it is

I'm pretty tired now, so I'll leave the computer on as is, maybe this will help the Apple/Serato team it definitely seems to be software related to the USB/Audio driver.

I have the brand new macbook pro with 4gb ram and have been having the same issue. It is not very often, but it does randomly pop-up. Every time this has happened it is when I first boot serato. It has never randomly got distortion in the middle of a set. If I do boot up and get distortion I just restart my laptop and then it works normally again. The problem is super scary and I hope you guys are coming close to a resolution. Next time it happens I will be sure to record everything and send it in to you.

hey guys, I noticed a new firmware update for the usb ports tonight in my system updates, you guys should try it out, maybe it will help

Updated this morning (and that other update to fix the battery charge light this afternoon)... problem still exists.

weirdd...i dont have this problem...
I have a macbook pro 2.4ghz, 250GB HDD, 2GB RAM, music on internal drive & OSX 10.5.5
then again, i only practised for 30mins...i'll try n practice longer and see if anything happens.

If you're trying to reproduce this problem, straight DJing will not make it happen. Once you reboot or start up the machine from a shut down state, SSL will work.

In my experiences, I rarely reboot my machine. I usually just close the lid and let it sleep. During the day, I'm editing tags and doing a bunch of other tasks in various programs starting early in the AM. Over the course of the day, this continues (so my guess is that you have to actually USE the laptop instead of letting it just sit). Build some overviews or something to make the CPU do some real "work" instead of sitting idle. By the time I get home in the evening and connect my SL1 or 57, its distorted. Since I can open/close SSL with the same problem I don't think it matters if SSL is running during the day when I'm doing misc. tasks, but if you're trying to reproduce it, leave the app open just in case. And like I said, make the computer "work" don't let it just sit idle.

Hi Guys,

Within the Video-SL area, one of our users (jjacinto) posted a way to "switch" between which video cards/drivers OSX is using (see below).

After switching to the 9600M GT, users are reporting better performance with Video-SL and SSL.



Perhaps switching the video cards/driver will help resolve the distortion issues. What do you think?

Could the audio distortion problem be related to the Energy Saver Performance settings?

i had suggested that too, i think in 1 of the other threads, a user tried it and still had distortion

Dang, thought I was on to something :(

lol,,, me too

plus it happens on some macbooks (not the pros) that dont even have the 2 video cards

I have this same problem with a regular Macbook. Someone suggested in another thread that I can't find right now that it has something to do with the RAM. And I have noticed that everyone in this thread who is having issues has 4GB RAM, as do I. My DJ partner and I bought the same computer (IDed below), we both run SSL, mine goes berserk and has screwed up a couple of my gigs, his has been fine. The only difference? He has 2GB RAM.

The problem has been totally sporadic. My tracks will sound fine for an extended period of time, mixing, scratching, whatever. And as a rule, whenever the program starts out sounding fine, it continues to sound fine the whole time that I'm playing. If it opened running normal it's only when I step away and come back (always leaving the program on) that issues will occur. But today (AWFUL AWFUL TIMING--biggest gig of the year) it opened distorted. I plugged in and unplugged my box a bunch of times, each time something would change--distortion would decrease, change sides, go to both, but it never went away entirely.

Nothing new here, just saying it's happening in regular Macbooks too.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.0073.B06
SMC Version: 1.32f6
Serial Number: W8843BQK1AX
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Perhaps someone can try removing ram and see if it has any affect?

I can try removing a stick, but this would be one 2 GB stick instead of (2) 1 GB sticks. I did read that there is an issue with the new macs and 4 GB of RAM, however what I read seemed to be related to bigger issues such as the OS freezing and/or crashing.

There is a debate as to the brand/origin of the RAM being used, but some people have confirmed that booting to Windows seems to run fine where OS X has specific issues which are only cleared up by downgrading to 2 GB of RAM. Personally, my mac was upgraded with the RAM used by the Apple store. They did it in-store and ran the memory test before issuing it to me. It has also been noted that memory tests show no signs of "issues" with the installed RAM... thus pointing back to the OS... again.

Are there any users with 2 GB of RAM that have the distortion issue? If not, that could possibly narrow things down a bit.

Here is a thread about the 4 GB issue: www.jkontherun.com

I had a new experience on this issue tonight. I had only had the distortion issue once, and rebooting solved it. Tonight, my client brought an unopened CD they wanted me to play a song from. Itunes opened automatically (I'd like to know how to turn that feature off). I started to rip the track so I could keep a copy. Distortion. Rebooting solved the issue.

Now I wonder how many people having this issue have the SSL library set to read the Itunes library (I don't). Is this issue related to Itunes?

I do have 4 GB RAM on a new MacBook Pro, 2.53 GHz, using outboard GPU.

So are you saying you had SSL running and while it was running you ripped a CD using iTunes which cased the distortion to start and rebooting fixed it?

Exactamundo.

Open up system prefs, click on cd/dvd and change the prefs around to "ignore"

honestly....im starting to think that its a problem with the RAM...cause i got a new macbook pro, but with only 2GB of ram, and one of my other friends also has the same exact one that i do...and we don't have this distortion problem at all

forgot to mention that we have Two 1gb sticks and not One 2gb stick

No one with 2gb ram is having this problem?

If you have 4gb ram, maybe you should try removing one stick and see if you still have the problem. If not then at least you know you could gig safe with the 2gb until the problem is sorted.

Also Ive heard on other forums that the 4gb problem does not effect Bootcamp, which hopefully would mean that its a OS problem and could be fixed.

Another thing to try would be a 2gb + 1gb configuration for 3gb which Ive heard will work.

And Ive heard you can run 4gb + 1gb and 4gb + 2gb. But I went to newegg and didnt see a 4gb stick for MBP

I have 2gb,,, no problems here

I tried it. Didn't cause distortion for me. My laptop also didn't need a reboot before playing (this time).

updated firmware, problem still exists.

i do have 4gb for record. I didnt have time to switch to my old macbook pro for a huge event for me last night as i opened for oakenfold, and even though it wasnt "distorting" i dont even think it sounds as good as my old macbook pro when its "not distorting". i use ALL wav files uncompressed... the club sound system was slightly messed up too (mono, his way too high).

I am going to AB test tonight my old vs new macbook pro even when its NOT distorting now... can anybody else? lets see how it hears even WHEN the problem isnt happening.


this has been a nightmare of an issue

also, I hate to say it but when are the DAC chips on serato going to be upgraded? I cant live without serato but the sound quality is SOOO important to me at large gigs at the top venues - and I really would hate to switch back to CDRs or use ableton as I love Serato and have been a huge supporter! I bought the new traktor just to try it out in case I want to use 4 decks, and the Cirrus DAC chips sound so crisp in comparison. I have the 57 too, are the DACs higher end and maybe I should use the 57 to route into my pioneer djm-800? can anybody comment?

:(

one other question - does anybody know what the beta version changes are?

Just to keep everyone in the loop, our macbook here only has 2GB, which might explain why we haven't been able to reproduce the distortion. We've just acquired 2 more GB so will test with that.

The macbook that we borrowed (and have since returned) that had one instance of distortion had an unknown amount of memory on it.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think win XP (32bit) has a memory usage limit of about 3GB so it might by immune from any distortion relating to lots of memory. For those keen on some reading, here is a link www.dansdata.com

I've always had a hard time comprehending that whole thing with Windows and the max memory. That's why on my desktop I stuck with 3 GB, but on servers (at work) which have 4+ GB we typically use the /3GB switch... but the applications running on the servers will actually utilize that memory unlike some desktop applications.

I have SSL and a new MacBook Pro with 4G and I am also having the distorted sound issues. The problem only happens when I have my CDJ's hooked up.

I have just ordered the Itch, and wanted to see if anyone has been able to reproduce the problem with it connected? I will report back my findings once it arrives and I get it hooked up.

Also, I used to test equipment for a number of companies and worked on some USB audio issues that were tied to a specific Intel chipset. The problem was almost always eliminated when we hooked a power supply up to the USB audio device. I saw that it was mentioned above, but has anyone had any luck with using a power source for their SSL to eliminate teh problem?

bump

The last time I tested the VCI 300 with the new macbook, it worked fine.

Using a power supply with the SL1 still had distortion. Same with the 57.

Has anyone updated to 10.5.6 continue to have this issue? I haven't had my machine connected to my 57 or SL1 for a few days and I've updated to 10.5.6. Today, no distortion, but I haven't been using my laptop very much since the weekend.

1. Is anyone with 4gb ram NOT having this problem?

2. Is anyone with 2gb ram having this problem?

3. If you have 4gb of ram and remove 2gb, is the problem solved???

Today, I put my laptop through its normal paces and at the end of the day, no distortion on one side (which has happened before). Unplugging the cable and switching ports gets distortion on both decks as usual. The update doesn't fix it.

I pulled one of my 2gb sticks out last Friday during the day. In the meantime I've played three gigs and practiced at home for a solid 10 hours and I've had no distortion. I'm not confident saying that moving down to 2GB solves the problem, but I am confident saying that for now it seems to have made a difference.

I'll keep you all updated.

thats good news (as in a possible solution for gigs in the meantime)

Next I would try adding a 1gb stick for a total of 3gb.
or/and adding a 4gb stick for a total of 6gb (if youve got the cash)


Also, does anyone know how to limit or allocate ram? maybe its possible to limit the ram usage in a way that would also be a good work around.

Personally, I think a reboot is an easier solution.

Interesting... arstechnica.com

Good find Glenn :)

from that forum


worth trying

Last night I took out 2 of my 4 GB or RAM. I totally crushed the available RAM with a ton of apps right after I did that and even then, SSL ran fine at a USB buffer of 2 (it skipped a little at first though).

This morning, no distortion.

This afternoon (when I usually get home from work and there's distortion).... no distortion today. So, this kinda narrows it down a little.

I'll have a read through that article and try some of the extra stuff mentioned. However, one thing stands out (a little). Some people are having issues with RAM upgrades from 3rd parties which causes their laptop to freeze, hang, or whatever. I never had those issues... only the distortion issue. I should also note that I'm using the 4 GB of RAM from Apple which I believe is Samsung RAM.

I have 4g of ram an not having this issue but having others. Like when loading songs it pauses and not on the same songs....I need them to load fast like before but not happing. Also I will share somehting with you I crushed one of my cables while closing the case. This caused distortion as well as the the player going in reverse depending on how I bent the cable. Replaced cable no issues.

As long as I start from a fresh boot, I do not have the problem, but do have 4GB RAM.

oh no!!! Have y'all not figured this out yet....???

just got a new macbook 2.4 ghz with 4 gb ram and the first thing i did was install serato.

distortion on both decks.
everything looks calibrated fine and the distortion sounds the same as the sample someone left above.....

i have some gigs coming up. what's the status?

ok quick update.. the problem seems to have gone away??? but from what I read I suspect it will be coming back...

Also ran the SL-1 through the windows version of ScratchLIVE on my macbook with VMware fusion... works fine, no distortion.

it will come back, its a bit sporatic. Its most prominent under "Stress" or being on for a while. If I work in ableton, other programs a good few hours itll start distrorting. SOMETIMES it happens right away strangely. rebooting is only thing.

I was so scared playing a huge gig last night at Pacha with Paul Oakenfold and praying it wouldnt distort. I had backup CDRs burned in a third CDJ and iPod loaded with all the tracks just in case I had to reboot and I was continuously monitoring the sound quality, as it was a longer than expected gig.

I am at a loss on what to do from here, we need to figure out if its the 2gb or 4gb, I have 4gb from Apple store but Im thinkin this may not be problem.

Regardless, Rane should purchase a new 4GB Macbook Pro to problem solve this issue, I'll pay for it and let them borrow it even if it helps get it fixed quicker!

saying my prayers now its solved

Earlier I suggested that "stress" can cause this issue.. not the case.

Had 2 gigs today... one 4 hour gig early in the daytime (1-5pm) and once done I didn't close SSL. I just closed the lid to my macbook. When I got to the club later that night (10pm), I opened the macbook, re-connected the 57 and it distorted.

This is with all 4 GB (I put the other 2 GB back in).

At the risk of sounding like we are passing the buck, if this is a 2-4GB memory issue, then there is almost no way whatsoever that Rane or Serato or any other software company that writes audio software for mac is going to be able to fix the problem. It may be to do with Macbook firmware or how OSX communicates with the hardware, which means the ball is totally in Apple's court. A google search on macbook distortion issues implies that this is a problem on many new macbooks on many types of software.


I don't follow. Did you get the distortion with 2GB or 4GB?

No distortion with 2 GB. Distortion with 4 GB.

so glennNZ your saying dont buy the new aluminum macbook or macbook pro. because serato will distort and wont work properly. Well what mac laptop will work and be flawless if you wouldnt mind sharing that with us specs model# ram harddrive ect ... . Because i was going to upgrade my hole system to serato scratch live this weekend . But now i having second thoughts. $3000 to $4000 is a lot of money for a computer and software. Thats not going to work properly. Its like buyin for new tires with slow leaks you cant go any where with it , it just looks good at home .Im very interested in this software. but i dont want to waste my money. or be in a middle of a gig with my @#%& in my hand . what computer do i buy that is flawless for serato scratch live ? thanks

mine works flawless and it was only $1600.

I have the new $1600 model of the macbook
2gb ram
added a 320gb drive myself
2.4ghz

runs serato and video flawlessly every weekend, did at least 20 4 hour gigs with it

some more people that have 4gb and the distortion need to take out 2gb and see if it works.

everytime I play now with my macbook I fear the distortion - I hope we put this to bed and solve it. Anybody have a link on how to remove the memory from my macbook?

-v

You can remove the battery cover - the instructions are on there. Or go to www.ifixit.com

No, I am merely stating observations. From our own tests and from research/tests done by other people around the world, it appears that SOME new macbooks are taking exception to having 4GB of RAM. Some users have no issues whereas some do.

Ask around. Any $3000+ investment shouldn't be dived into recklessly. I'm pretty sure that give it 6 months and Apple will have sorted many of its issues. Apparently the latest 10.5.6 has helped some people with their 4GB problems.

Like I said earlier, the issues with the new mac books appear to be hardware based or by the way OSX communicates with the hardware. Therefore ALL audio software is likely to have the same problem. You'll find though, that the prior generation mac book pros are very capable machines and work very well. But then, you might be one of the fortunate people that gets their hands on a well put together new generation macbook pro.

WARNING: Scientific / techical babble. If you're looking for a quick answer ignore this post.

In case you don't want to read the long technical explanation below here is what I am proposing:

I believe this issue might only be occurring when ScratchLive is running in the upper part of memory. That is the part past the 2GB watermark.


Not to chime in late with my 2 cents that nobody wants to hear, but to reiterate / reinforce what GlennNZ is saying this really is starting to sound like a memory addressing / OS X / Only Apple can fix it issue. Here's why:

The jump from 2GB to 4GB of system ram is so much more of a *leap* than from 1GB to 2GB or even 512MB to 1GB. I would correlate this to jumping across a small creek bed (1GB->2GB) as compared to flying across the Grand Canyon (2GB->4GB.)

This is because the real limit of system RAM in a computer has to do with the addressing. Sure you can build the biggest neighborhood in the world, but if the post office runs out of numbers for addresses (as in they can't count past a certain number) then nobody gets any mail.

That said, with 32-bit architecture without doing some kind of funky address translation (which could and most likely would cause performance degradation) you get the following number of addresses:

2^32 = 4,294,967,296 addressable locations.
4,294,967,296 bytes / 1024 bytes in 1Kbyte = 4,194,304 Kbytes
4,194,304 Kbytes / 1024 Kbytes in 1MByte = 4096 Mbytes
4096 MBytes / 1024 MBytes in a GByte = 4GBytes (Giga-Bytes)

Here is an image better describing the calculation (for those interested):
i444.photobucket.com

So with a 32-bit machine you only get 4GB worth of addressing. All of the hardware in your computer uses an address (or several addresses, depending on the hardware.) For example: The Operating System Kernel, The USB Controller, The video card (this can be a huge hog especially if you have one with a large amount of video memory.), Hard Drive controllers, internal sound card / audio related devices, networking devices, etc... The list goes on. Therefore with a 32-bit system your original address space of 4GB gets chopped down fast. When installing 4GB worth of RAM into a 32-bit system, my experience has shown that the system can usually address around 3.12GB or so.

This is what makes the move to 64-bit architecture and operating systems such a critical task. Anytime such a low-level change to an operating system / computer architecture is made you are going to experience these types of problems. It happened in the early 90s when we went from 16-bit ISA to 32-bit EISA / PCI (ask and "old-head" about the Pentium Pro) and it is happening again now in the mid / late 2000s as we move from 32-bit to 64.

While OS X Leopard is reported to be a true 64-bit OS it seems that Apple may be doing something funky under the hood to keep legacy 32-bit applications functioning on a newly released 64-bit OS X.

Forum Admins: Is the Mac version of ScratchLive a 64-bit or 32-bit executable?
I'm guessing 32-bit based on the fact that there is only a single download for the version of ScratchLive that supports both Vista 32-bit and Vista x64.



As mentioned above in the quoted DeezNotes post it appears that this problem only happens when a machine (WITH >2GB / 4GB of ram) is left running or is put through the paces running other memory / resource intensive applications. This leads one to ponder the following: If ScratchLive is minimized and not in use what will the operating system do to it's currently allocated memory space? Most likely it will swap those pages out of precious physical ram and into swap (a file on the hard drive where memory get's copied to while an application is in the background / not really in use.) When you maximize ScratchLive and put it back in the foreground the OS will then copy the pages out of swap back into memory. Hence the "it skipped a little at first though."

Why is this important? I'm theorizing that this issue which sounds like audio buffer under runs only occurs while ScratchLive is running in the higher memory addresses (i.e. past the 2GB watermark.) This would explain why it takes a long time for some to experience the issue and why others would see it right off the bat. Depending on where ScratchLive is loaded into ram would dictate malfunctioning audio (i.e. before the 2GB mark, straddling it, or completely past.) This would also explain one deck functioning normal and the other malfunctioning: If ScratchLive were loaded so it is spanning both below and over the 2GB mark. I wonder if it is possible to restrict an application to run in lower address space on OS X (I have not researched this.)

My theory is that there may possibly be some performance hindering address translation happening at the operating system level to allow OS X to work with system ram greater than 2GB. I realize that the previous statement has the implication that I am suggesting that OS X Leopard 10.5.x is not completely a 64-bit OS or at least a 64-bit OS that is plagued by some 32-bit ghosts that need exorcism.

Has anyone tried going back to OS X 10.4.9 or so? I believe 10.4.9 will only address the 3.12GB or so as mentioned above (not really a solution as I'm not even sure the new MacBooks will support 10.4.9.)

I know that both windows XP and Vista 32-bit editions will exhibit the 3.12GB behavior. Did anyone say whether they had success with XP or Vista on the new Macbook pro? Also, has anyone tried ScratchLive on Vista x64? Does this problem happen in vista x64.

I apologize for the super long post. I hope I haven't hindered the thread as that was not my intention. I am only trying to educate / help. If I have upset anyone I will just cease to post again.

I realize this is really going out on a limb but to me it seems the only logical explanation.

wondering the same thing, but have no clue where or how to search




or switching out one of the 2GB sticks for a 1GB($40) stick, for a total of 3GB.

In a very quick reanalysis of Val Kolton's sample file it appears that the buffer under runs are occurring every 11,025 samples. Assuming a sample rate of 44,100 (44.1khz.) This would imply that ScratchLive is running behind by a magnitude of 4.

44,100 / 11,025 = 4

Just a thought.

Thinking back on this statement. A true 64-bit OS would not run 32-bit code at all. Therefore all 32-bit applications (including ScratchLive if it is 32-bit) would have to be running in a 32-bit emulation. In windows this is called WoW or (Windows On Windows.)

I realize it's easier said than done, but does anyone know if Serato is working on a true 64-bit executable for ScratchLive?

I realize this would be quite a task as the whole project would require an overhaul. i.e. The SL-1 driver, the TTM57 driver, the application itself, etc...

A USB Port Card might solve this problem. I don't know if they are available for Mac.

Refer to this thread to see what I am talking about: www.scratchlive.net

Can we please have a show of hands - who has tried this, and what were the results?

We need to provide ongoing info to Apple so they know whether the problem is addressed by the EFI + SMC updates and 10.5.6, so this information is important to us.

There's a lot of conjecture about the place as to whether the problem is related to third-party RAM as well, can everyone please confirm whether their 4GB RAM is factory installed, or third-party RAM?

My RAM is factory (Apple Store) installed. I believe the brand is Samsung? In any case... they did it. Not me. I've only been in there to remove 2 GB for testing.

The updates which you speak of did not fix the issue. I have not yet done a PRAM reset because I forgot the key combo. I will give that a go and report back tomorrow evening (for time to pass in order to test).

I didn't use my laptop all day like I normally do, and I reset the PRAM late in the day (around 4pm). 3 hours later I have distortion. 4 GB of RAM. SL1. I think that's a new record?

do you get the distortion if you only use 2gb of ram? This may be a big part of it yet no one has confirmed whether or not they pulled a chip to 2gb and it works or not

There is no distortion with 2GB and there is a good chance that 3GB will also be fine. Greg Aluise's post (9 above) has some very useful info you may be interested in.

very interesting, makes sense, Thx Glenn

I have this problem. I have a new MacBook with 4 GB of factory-installed ram and the update was factory installed when I purchased my computer. So to answer your questions... not related to third-party RAM and the update does NOT solve the issue. Got any other ideas because I'm getting ready to buy Torq?

pull a 2gn chip, it may not be the fact of whether or not its "factory installed" ram, it may be the fact that it is 4gb of ram, period

I pulled 2 of my 4 already and reported back on 12/18:

gotcha, I missed your post,sorry, there's like 3-4 threads on this same problem, I'm losing track on which is which and which one I read. lol

If your laptop holds true that the laptop having only 2gb does not cause distortion, then Apple needs to get on this fix, Unless Serato can come up with a way to always keep the memory allocated on the lower end of the 2gb (if possible), I think Greg had mentioned something similar to that earlier in the thread

I (personally) think one possible solution would be a 64-bit/x64 binary of the ScratchLive application for the Mac.

In retrospect (to my previous post) the drivers for the SL-1 / TTM57 hardware (I think) would have to be 64-bit/x64 architecture to work at the kernel level. That leaves only the application's binary to the 32-bit/x86 world.

That said I'm sure it's quite a task to recompile such an application.

Hi Guy's

I have a new unibody macbook pro 4gb ram from apple, os 10.5.5

This is definitely a ram issue and like Greg says, the distortion only occours when the 2nd 2gb ram module is accessed.
When i quit all the apps (which were eating up all the ram) and relaunched serato, the distortion went away, i did not even have to restart the computer.

So stop hating on the serato guy's, this is clearly an apple problem, to be safe if you take out 2gb out until this gets fixed you should be fine. but maybe rane can have a tempory fix by making serato only access the 1st ram module (if this is possible, im no expert) coz it looks like apple may take a lot more time to resolve this issue

Has anyone upgraded to 10.5.6 AND done the EFI/SMC updates AND reset PRAM, and still had distortion problems ?
I might try this tomorrow .

I didnt even know about this problem, I only found this post while browsing the forum, checked my serato and heard the distortion, lucky really as i have a gig next week.


BTW i have not had any other problems with crashing/freezing etc

I have the same model as you, BriChi. 2x1GB of RAM... no issues or distortion.

A friend of mine just bought a top-of-the-line Macbook Pro with 4GB or RAM, so I'll go test the SL1 out on his soon...

OK Guy's , I THINK THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN FIXED

I got the new Serato 1.8.3 last night, then updated the mac OS to 10.5.6 today, (in that order, dont know if that made a difference) filled up the ram, no distortion.

Out of curiosity, i tried Serato 1.8.2 and the distortion was back , then immediately i quit 1.8.2 , ran 1.8.3, distortion was still there again.
Then i restarted the computer, filled up the ram, ran 1.8.3, everything fine again.

So has anyone else got mac OS 10.5.6 , Serato 1.8.3 and still getting problems ?
If not , problem solved.

UPDATE,

I put mac to sleep by closing lid, open again and the distortion comes back.

yo what up guyzzzzzz got my serato today... i luv it cost me 5 bills thou... ive always been interested.. serato's the shit..... but now i have to save up for the macbook pro. virtual dj is for mouse pushers. serato 4 life... i always was proud of rane i owned the ttm 54 a one point. but traded it in and got the vestax o5 that was when they were brand new .and i just upgraded the old fader to the new innofader for $120 and the cuts are flawles and sounds perfect for studio work no static easy way out .. its like a brand new mixer.serato rane mixer is way to much for me right now. im going to upgrade my hole system. then i might get it down the line looks a lot easier and faster when mixing. i have to learn this new system first ... thanks for talkin me in to it homies.. best thing i ever bought i dont know what i was thinking waiting this long. peaCe

Hi Serato folks.

I just spoke with Apple Tech Support and have been referred to an Apple Store for consultation. From what I've read and Googled...

1. This problem exists only on new Macbooks or Macbook Pros with 4GB of RAM installed (also, those using non-Samsung/Apple RAM have been experiencing Freezing)

2. The problem disappears when the machine is restarted, but will return - seemingly once that last gigabyte of RAM is tapped into.

3. Users with the problem that drop their memory level to 3GB or below have reported the problem 'solved.'

I would encourage anyone experiencing this to go and post on the Apple discussion forums, as well as making a call to their Support line. Personally, I've a new Macbook with 4GB and the audio distortion is present even in iTunes - so no, it's not Serato's problem.

Hi Amoth, that's a good summary of what we've seen so far..

What device were you using to output audio when you saw the same problem while running iTunes? Internal soundcard, TTM 57SL, or some other type of interface?

Another point that may be relevant is that the issue seems to occur after (re)connecting the hardware while RAM utilisation is already above the apparent 3GB threshold, this includes putting the laptop to sleep while the hardware is already plugged in as this disconnects/reconnects USB as well.

Any information confirming the exact conditions and steps required to reproduce the problem every time is most welcome, so we can work to solve this more quickly by helping the team at Apple reproduce the issue in their lab...

It's kinda tough to say exactly what the steps are, but this is usually how my days go:

- Charge the battery to full charge
- Run the laptop off of battery power throughout the day (it helps if a few memory intensive apps are run)
- It may be a good idea to start ScratchLIVE early on at this point and do not close it
- After a period of +6 hours (still on battery power + going in and out of sleep mode) connect the SL1 or 57

You should have some distortion in audio at this point. I have not had any distortion using the internal sound card or through the M-Audio Fastrack Pro interface.

This happened on my friend's new macbook (NOT pro) last friday at a bar (don't have specs to hand, sorry). It's the new macbook model, all-in-one aluminium shell etc.

- It was distorted on one turntable and not the other.
- The scope displays were faultless, the vinyls were tracking smoothly, no drop-outs.

- I assumed it was a dodgy turntable, but what puzzled me was that it was distorted even in 'internal' mode.

- The distortion was similar to Val Kolton's mp3 upload, however the distortion was not affecting the playback of the song (ie, no stutters etc).
- Reducing the usb buffer in Serato set-up seemed to make the problem worse (ie, started to stutter, play fractionally slower).

Still twiddling my thumbs with an unusable Serato box and a Macbook...

you can use it, just reboot the mac. there's nothing wrong with the box; its the machine.

Confirmed, distortion on my friend's MBP with 4GB. Gonna convince him to swap one of his 2GB chips with one of my 1GB chips... then we'll both have 3GB until Apple releases a fix. ;-)

ok, i just experience same problem at a big corporate gig this passed weekend... Not cool!! lucky, i'm still taking my cd's......

what I don't understand is rebooting seems to cure the problem to get through a gig, are you guys always putting your macs to sleep when traveling? I always shut down my mac before a gig and then start it up fresh so the memory is cleared, and its a fresh start for the OS, I think more guys should really be doing this until the problem is fixed, as a matter of fact, they really should be doing this anyway just to play it safe before any gig

The only time I would restart my machine is if an install prompted me to or if I needed to update something. I suppose if there was another good reason, I would shut down or restart, but I'm very impressed at how fast the mac "wakes up" from sleep mode. Plus, its very efficient so using it day to day makes it very easy and convenient to just close the lid when I'm not using it. I also got used to just closing the lid after spinning because I don't like to close SSL once I'm done spinning. Sometimes I like to save my review list, edit some crates, songs, etc. and closing the app would prevent me from doing this if I forgot to after a gig, so I close the lid and when I open it back up at home or wherever, I can do these things when it's convenient.

I agree that it's a good idea to restart your machine before a gig, but you know how it is when you get used to *not* doing that and everything just "works." Technically, it should just "work" but that's not the case. When I'm practicing at home, its just more of a hassle than anything else.

You know that it really cuts down the lifetime of your batteries...?

I did not.

(Very simplified: ) During the laptop's lid is closed the memory content needs to kept intact, this means this will suck battery power. Everytime your batter power falls below a certain threshold (I think it's 95%) the next you connect it to power it will reload the battery. This means a new battery cycle has been "used". There are only a certain amount of battery cycles during the life time.

So technically, it's probably VERY bad if you let it drop right below that threshold and continuously connect it right after (while the battery still has a decent amount of charge). I usually use my laptop until I'm alerted that it's going to die, then I plug it in. Hopefully due to my laziness, I'm getting the most out of each cycle... but this is still good info. Thanks!

Yes.


I try to do the same. Yes, I know Li-Io's do not have memory effect, but as said... each cycle reduces the lifetime.

so can these new unibody mbp's function with only 1 stick of 2gb ram in them? or will it not boot at all? or run even slower than if it had 2 sticks of 1gb ram?

yes, they will run perfect, i only have 1 - 2gb stick that came with it and I run serato and mix videos 3 times a week with no problems at all

actually, according to the spec sheet, i have 2-1gb chips. But still, 1-2gb chip will run the same if not better

I thought I might suggest lining up this issue with a general Firmware problem with the new macbook pros. This, I hope, helps put pressure on Apple.

I am experiencing similar problems, all seem to be related to sleep functionality in the new macbook pro late 2008 (I have the 2.53 4 gig model).

Problems have been difficulties in waking from closed lid, such as in my case where the macbook keyboard does not respond but the trackpad does after closing the lid.

Others have had problems with second monitors, USB or Bluetooth devices. Mine seems to be related to a Firewire Bus issue, where if I have my time machine backup drive attached with my audio drive daisychained, I lose keyboard functionality.

With Serato, Unless I do a clean restart, even after a long pause between sets (which is, needless to say, very inconvenient), I get terrible "distortion" or a warbly sound coming from my system. This occurs on Vinyl and internal control.

I have tried the application "Smart Sleep" which apparently helps with some of the other issues (check macfixit.com for this thread), but has not helped serato.

It seems to me that this is a RAM/sleep issue that urgently requires a firmware update, and is beyond just Serato itself. I realize that this may be a little redundant, but perhaps aligning this problem with the general sleep issues will help put pressure.

I have also tried smc reset, as well as many power saving options, including the state it is now, where sleep is turned off completely. However, there seems to be a real bug here with apple, and it is growing. Search "sleep problems late macbook pro" and there are many threads at apple.

Ok, sorry for the long post, but I thought maybe we could gain strength to demand a firmware update if we aligned ourselves with this larger issue.

For now, it is restarts.

When I reboot, it doesnt help me. I get the distortion all the time...

infiniteloop,

Have you tried just taking out one of the 2 gig chips?

This will allow you to use SSL flawlessly until Mac fixes this issue.

Yea its the only option i have. I am debating how desperate I am for Serato ;)

well just keep in mind that this may happen with any audio program like serato, it is an Apple issue, not Serato issue

Is there anything the forum users can do to voice their concern @ apple? Maybe there is an address for complaints? Has anyone posted on the Apple forums? I will go check apple.com and come back with w/e I find.

let us know if u find or start a thread, Im not having the issue but i will voice my opinion as if I am

I searched for 'serato' in the "Late 2008-2009" MBP section and only found one entry with someone describing what they used... I went ahead and created a discussion entry here:

discussions.apple.com

I encourage you all to log on, and voice your support. You only need an apple account.

-Loop

I added to it

I am also having probs. I have a unibody (late 2008) 15" macbook pro 2.53 w/ 4 gb ram.
It usually runs fine, but last night it sounded like the speakers were blown. I noticed that the sound changed a little bit when I shook the wires where the connect to the SL1 from the decks. I thought it was a prob with my decks because the scope showed errors: instead of circles there were just flat lines. But everything was connected fine.
Its working fine after a reboot. I just wanted to note that my scope showed errors, as no one else has mentioned that.
The errors, to be specific, were that the right deck was missing the right wire and that the left deck was missing the left wire.

As a note, has anyone tried resetting PRAM?
support.apple.com

Also, you will find lots of problems with late macbook pro sleep and ram here. Some are issues with USB devices as well.
discussions.apple.com

sorry, failed to embed this.
n-ron

Just so everyone knows, the problem as previously described *does* affect the new 17-inch "unibody" MacBook Pro.

My observation so far is that RAM usage itself seems to have little to do with things. I've been able to run (after rebooting) SSL/Video-SL and a bunch of other things (like two browsers both playing videos among other stuff)...did *not* run into any distortion in that scenario.

But after leaving the computer on for about 36 hours, and subjecting it to several sleep/wake cycles resulted in *immediate* distortion after launching SSL (no video), even though there was still a large chunk of free RAM at the time.

I've always had the habit of traveling with my computer off and starting it "fresh" before any DJ gig (or any other kind of mission-critical work, for that matter). As quickly as modern Macs start up and shut down, it seems like common sense to me. The use of sleep was more of a big deal back when PowerBooks/iBooks took much longer to start/shut off.

Has there been a fix to this yet? Besides taking out one 2gb sitck?

no word yet, the main fix should come from Apple

I'm having distorted sounds come out of my speakers with my serato. I took it over to my friends and he hooked it up to his computer and it worked just fine, so i know it has to do with my computer, can anyone help me? Its a dell HP pavillion entertainment pc. I have a BIG event to do friday so i need to know by than.

mtxtreme,

We can definitely help you out but please post your issue, and as much information as possible as far as what you've done so far to troubleshoot the problem, in a separate thread. Thanks!

i went through all the wires, disconnected them, hooked them back up, and i hooked my friends laptop up the exact same way and it worked fine and didnt crackle, but when i hooked mine back up, it stilled made the crackling noise. i even went to his house, and used his serato and his worked fine, and than mine crackled, so i know its my computer. do you have any suggestions.

and what laptop is most compatable, cause like i said i have that big show tomorrow and if i have to, i will go buy a new one tonight.

mtxtreme, you should start a new help thread so this thread stays on topic

I rebooted the other night when playing a set and the songs sound fine when played. The waveforms looked perfect. But when I took the needle up off one of the decks this grumbling noise comes from the empty deck. Restarting doesn't cure this.
I checked all the wires, everything is fine. I have a unibody (late 2008) 15" macbook pro 2.53 w/ 4 gb ram.

are you calibrating every time you set up? im wondering if this is related to the apple 4 gig issue.

it really doesn't sound like it though.it sounds like a calibration issue or maybe a rca problem on the turntables.

i just purchased a new macbook with 4 gigs and had issues with distortion.i took out one of the 2 gig sticks and the problem went away.

apple will be fixing the 4 gig issue soon.

i hope this helps.

Ok, I am having exact same issue on unibody late-2008 MBP with 4gigs of ram and 10.5.6.

But there is no need to take out the ram. I *hate* rebooting my computer, but it does fix the issue every time and sound goes back to normal, if you start SSL right after the reboot. I guess we will have to wait for someone to fix this issue.

Oh, and my SSL is hooked up through the CDJ's.

Its absolutely an apple issue rather then serato
I get get same type of distortion on some of my other audio apps

Your threshold is set too low. Go in the setup and move the sliders to the left (or click the estimate button). This has nothing to do with the 4gb issue talked about in this thread.

I Have a new Macbook Unibody 4 gig and haven't had yet any problems with that...besides the fact the sometimes the wave forms moves slowly than normal...
I am working with the laptop now for 3 weekends at the club.....

I really cannot believe this issue is solved yet, what do we have to do???

Has anybody seen this happen in other audio apps/USB sound cards?

HELLO TO THIS ALMOST 5 MONTH ISSUE....LOL..... I have the Aluminum 13 inch Macbook 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo MEMORY 4GB 1067 Mhz DDR3. The problem that i have is when i hook up my TTM 57sl to my CDJ 800's I get distortion. I switch my 250GB WD PASSPORT and the USB cord ran from mixer to Laptop. After switching USB's and Turning off Laptop problem seem to be solved. All of my gigs are no less then 4hrs. Havent yet had this happen while I'm at a gig. KNOCK ON WOOD...... ( IF SO PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE ANY MORE GIGS....LOL ) The switch between USB seems to fix it for now..... but no where near secure and I'm unconfident every time i hook up......

make sure to plug in external and 57 after the laptop is powered.

FYI:

From James in this thread scratchlive.net

Fingers crossed...

Pity... I liked the other thread because it has more info. Oh well... if it gets fixed, it really doesn't matter.

i read that apple now has 4gb sticks available in 8gb kits.

which audio apps? and with or without a USB audio interface?

Digital Performer.
It sounds a little different but is the same thing
its kind of like the file loaded into the ram is corrupted because the distortions is "mapped" to the audio - if that makes sense

fresh boot clears it up

has nothing to do with USB, same thing through an interface or not

Not sure if anyone cares, but it does not happen with ITCH using the VCI-300

thats interesting,
you can get distortion in SSl
quit
start ITCH
no distortion?

Before I say yes, I would like to test this again. I did this test when this thread first started a few months ago, but I took the VCI out this past weekend and played with it when my laptop was in the same state it usually is in when I get distortion using SSL. I even did pre and post tests/sets with the VCI and no distortion at all.

Later today, I'll verify distortion in SSL and connect ITCH to see what I find [again] just to be 110% certain.

Good news everyone!

As a result of our collaboration with Apple, we're very pleased to announce that they have identified the cause and will provide a fix for this issue via the next OS X update.

We have already verified the fix in a recent pre-release update from Apple so barring any further incident, 10.5.7 will solve this problem for good.

AWESOME! YOU GUYS ROCK!

KICK ASS!!!! :D

Great news

Nice, just ordered a 4gb kit

SCRATCH LIVE FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!

Great news indeed. The next OSX update should be done soon right?

they just put out another seed to developers so it shouldn'e be to much longer

thank god.....great work everyone

FYI: 10.5.7 was just released

Nice work Andy and Apple :D

Just downloaded it on my test hard drive. no ill effects. doing it on my main machine after a time machine backup

brethren's here are the links


Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update (442 MB) - Requires OS X 10.5.6
support.apple.com

Mac OS X 10.5.7 Combo Update (729 MB) - Upgrade from any version of OS X 10.5 Leopard
support.apple.com

I tried to download it and it says something was wrong wit the signature and it wouldn't let me download it

don't Know Killa Kev

I used the combo link without isssue. I also had the same issue with Garage band update all I did was skip the check. (Just a thought)

10.5.7 update fixed it for me.

Good news!

So...I am looking at this macbook...will I be ok or should expect issues?

MAcbook pro 15
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display

just make sure you are updates to 10.5.7 and you will be fine

I just purchased the MBP 13 with 10.5.8 and 2GB ram and SL3 and am experiencing distortion. I thought that the updates to 10.5.7 fixed the problem???

oh snap

problem solved. i was connecting to Phono not Line (SL3 connects through line)

Thanks for that update!
and keep updating if u experiance this again.

i was wondering....... like not another apple issue >)

thats good you found what was wrong.

To add to this conversation and the fact that it seems to be a wider apple issue than a Serato issue:

I purchased a MBP w/ 8GB RAM (OS X 10.5.8) 2 weeks ago and I agree with the assessment that when any audio device is mapped above the 4GB barrier distortion occurs. I've experienced this both in Traktor Pro and iTunes (wouldn't have expected this for an Apple product).

Just thought I should give you some context from a non-SSL user.

leave it to over priced apple - (


rotten apple !

Just an FYI: i've had 4gb in my 13" uni mac and use serato all the time on 10.5.7 and 10.5.8, no issues for me

i don't have my serato hooked up right now, but i do have an E-MU 0404 USB, and that thing is doing exact same damn thing.

It never got fixed in 10.5.7 nor 10.5.8, and now i installed Snow Leopard (10.6) and the problem is STILL here when i wake the laptop from sleep.

call apple.

yeah i submitted a bug report... calling these guys is useless.