Paz75
This is just some of my opinionations about Hardware and Software used for VDJ. I've seen alot of people complain about stability but I have the experience from work and from using VDJ that there are alot of issues completely outside the quality of this already fantastic software. If you experience stability issues, you need to read this and then ask yourself you really can blame VDJ for these problems or because you dont really know how to maintain a quality setup.
VDJ stability has two main impingent factors:
1) Quality of your laptop
2) Quality of sound card
There is a third which is a bit behind the scenes:
3) Clean and well managed operating system
---The Laptop---
I have used many laptops and many sound card combinations with VDJ and have seen the above pattern very clearly.
I used to have an Acer Aspire 5500 with a M-Audio Audiophile fireware combo. It was fairly stable but did crash on a certain basis. At some point the o/s started to deteriorate with the standard Windows dll-hell paradigm. VDJ crashed every time.
For the last 4 months, I now own an Alienware M9750 with full options. It was about the cost of a car, but it was worth it. VDJ simply does not crash, no matter how i beat it. Additional things is that I use v5 which is a streamlined codeline and IMHO much more stable.
If you want a decent and affordable laptop, dont buy Acer or HP. On the top of the food chain is Toshiba, trust me. Dell is in the middle along with Packard Bell and down the food chain are others. Newcomer LG has won design awards for the look, but it's not know if their hardware is of truely good quality.
---The Soundcard---
M-Audio makes some nice stuff, but they are not a quality manufacturer, never has and never will be. Therefore the quality of the product also directly helps VDJ.
Firewire. There is one extremely important thing to know about firewire products. 4-pin firewire is known not to be stable with audio products. Not only because connector housing can bend and the plug can easily come out, also because there is less grounding across 4-leads as well as harmonic interference. Buy yourself a cardbus 6-pin slot adapter and connect your firewire card through 6-pin only. Trust me, this improves stability greatly.
Now back to the soundcard make. As I said M-Audio is okay but not great. On my old Acer laptop, I managed to get a hold of an EMU 1616 which is cardbus. Even on my crappy Acer laptop, VDJ would simply not crash no matter how crazy i get. FYI, I have been in aerospace manufacturing a number of years in testing, and also computer testing. I know how to soak-test.
The quality of interface (USB, Firewire or Cardbus & ExpressCard) is the root of how a device connects. The quality of the manufacturers circuitry is also important. The EMU 1616M contains Digidesign DACs (Digital Analog Converter) which means it's great sound and great stability, tested by years of top-line DAW manufacturing for full-on studios running 64+ stereo channels simultaneously. (and not our simply 2-stereo channel usage)
---The Operating System---
Look at blaming software less. It's true software is made by humans so it can contain errors and the codeline may not be very clean. But in the PC OEM market there are alot more factors about hardware stability than the hardware or software itself. Use logical deduction to decide if your PC o/s or audio hardware is at fault before you blame software. If you rebuild your operating system and immediatley test VDJ, 9/10 it should be extremely stable. If not, logical deduction tells you it may be more hardware issue than software or O/S if lots of very happy customers exist like me.
Look at the installer size of VDJ 5 and see how it got halved in size. It could be they still have yet to put alot of codeline back into the product, but to me it more looks like they greatly streamlined the code for better performance and stability.
---Support Codex---
It's hard and intensive work to backtrack and source problems but the standard support procedure in any technical industry works like this:
a) What are you trying to do?
b) What were you expecting as the result?
c) What happened instead?
d) What research have you done to inform or solve the problem yourself?
e) What are the steps to reproduce the problem and where else did you reproduce it?
Some steps you can do to check this:
1) Isolate that the o/s is installed properly with recent drivers. Research into this thoroughly. Rebuilding the o/s immediatley sorts alot of confusions. Professional DJs are wise to have machines dedicated to this. Schumaker doesnt drive to the office in his Ferarri, why should you?
2) Start with the actual hardware (sound card). Test it with other software in a rigorous way and test the hardware on other machines. This can isolate if laptop A and soundcard B are not friendly to each other. Using multiple machines can also suggest that laptop A is buggered up or soundcard B is a piece of junk.
3) Lastly goto the software you want to use (VDJ), do the same as step 3 with other hardwares and other laptops and compare the results.
I cannot stress enough, if you cannot reproduce a problem reliably, the problem is not supportable! In which case you should be in discovery mode instead of angry/impatient/blaming-child mode. Support people know alot but they are not gods and cannot reach across the ether into your head and into the hardware.
---Conclusion---
Simply saying “It doesnt work” or “This software sucks” only exposes your own ignorance and unwillingness to figure a problem out. Based on how hairy the PC world is, you can never be 100% sure where things go wrong unless you know alot about hardware manufacturing and software programming on a lowlevel basis.
As an end-user it helps to be patient and to ask alot of questions. It’s okay to be frustrated but keep in mind, no one can help you if you are not willing to help yourself. It’s not other peoples job to fix your problems for you but there are millions of helpful people who would like to assist you with suggestions.
If you intend to use your PC for professional DJing, you need to know how your PC works. Do you think an astronaut goes into space without intimately knowing every subsystem in the shuttle? Absolutely not. Not to be insulting, but you’d be pretty foolish to walk into a club relying on technology you have no idea about or have at least tested. I’m not saying you need to a developer, but you should also not in the club with a PC you have not rigorously tested, and also not have all sorts of cracked software and garbage that could create problems. IF you call yourself a professional, act like one and take responsibility for the fact that software can help you as well as create problems if improperly configured. Take the risk into your own hands and help the VDJ community grow stronger by being objective about all of your issues and gripes.
Long live VDJ, its the best around.
---About the Author---
I am a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I have done tonnes of things which seem unrelated but I believe it's all related, thats life. I've worked in roles of development, testing, support, quality control & documentation for many industries like Aerospace manufacturing, commercial electronic goods manufacturing, client/server software, web-software, content management, multimedia and others.
I learn quick so I’m the guy you bring in when you have problems because i can look at anything in a different and abstract way. I don't claim to know everything because that would be silly. But I do claim to have done alot of research and testing on how VDJ behaves and I am confident that my rig will not fail live (short dropping a beer into it).
VDJ stability has two main impingent factors:
1) Quality of your laptop
2) Quality of sound card
There is a third which is a bit behind the scenes:
3) Clean and well managed operating system
---The Laptop---
I have used many laptops and many sound card combinations with VDJ and have seen the above pattern very clearly.
I used to have an Acer Aspire 5500 with a M-Audio Audiophile fireware combo. It was fairly stable but did crash on a certain basis. At some point the o/s started to deteriorate with the standard Windows dll-hell paradigm. VDJ crashed every time.
For the last 4 months, I now own an Alienware M9750 with full options. It was about the cost of a car, but it was worth it. VDJ simply does not crash, no matter how i beat it. Additional things is that I use v5 which is a streamlined codeline and IMHO much more stable.
If you want a decent and affordable laptop, dont buy Acer or HP. On the top of the food chain is Toshiba, trust me. Dell is in the middle along with Packard Bell and down the food chain are others. Newcomer LG has won design awards for the look, but it's not know if their hardware is of truely good quality.
---The Soundcard---
M-Audio makes some nice stuff, but they are not a quality manufacturer, never has and never will be. Therefore the quality of the product also directly helps VDJ.
Firewire. There is one extremely important thing to know about firewire products. 4-pin firewire is known not to be stable with audio products. Not only because connector housing can bend and the plug can easily come out, also because there is less grounding across 4-leads as well as harmonic interference. Buy yourself a cardbus 6-pin slot adapter and connect your firewire card through 6-pin only. Trust me, this improves stability greatly.
Now back to the soundcard make. As I said M-Audio is okay but not great. On my old Acer laptop, I managed to get a hold of an EMU 1616 which is cardbus. Even on my crappy Acer laptop, VDJ would simply not crash no matter how crazy i get. FYI, I have been in aerospace manufacturing a number of years in testing, and also computer testing. I know how to soak-test.
The quality of interface (USB, Firewire or Cardbus & ExpressCard) is the root of how a device connects. The quality of the manufacturers circuitry is also important. The EMU 1616M contains Digidesign DACs (Digital Analog Converter) which means it's great sound and great stability, tested by years of top-line DAW manufacturing for full-on studios running 64+ stereo channels simultaneously. (and not our simply 2-stereo channel usage)
---The Operating System---
Look at blaming software less. It's true software is made by humans so it can contain errors and the codeline may not be very clean. But in the PC OEM market there are alot more factors about hardware stability than the hardware or software itself. Use logical deduction to decide if your PC o/s or audio hardware is at fault before you blame software. If you rebuild your operating system and immediatley test VDJ, 9/10 it should be extremely stable. If not, logical deduction tells you it may be more hardware issue than software or O/S if lots of very happy customers exist like me.
Look at the installer size of VDJ 5 and see how it got halved in size. It could be they still have yet to put alot of codeline back into the product, but to me it more looks like they greatly streamlined the code for better performance and stability.
---Support Codex---
It's hard and intensive work to backtrack and source problems but the standard support procedure in any technical industry works like this:
a) What are you trying to do?
b) What were you expecting as the result?
c) What happened instead?
d) What research have you done to inform or solve the problem yourself?
e) What are the steps to reproduce the problem and where else did you reproduce it?
Some steps you can do to check this:
1) Isolate that the o/s is installed properly with recent drivers. Research into this thoroughly. Rebuilding the o/s immediatley sorts alot of confusions. Professional DJs are wise to have machines dedicated to this. Schumaker doesnt drive to the office in his Ferarri, why should you?
2) Start with the actual hardware (sound card). Test it with other software in a rigorous way and test the hardware on other machines. This can isolate if laptop A and soundcard B are not friendly to each other. Using multiple machines can also suggest that laptop A is buggered up or soundcard B is a piece of junk.
3) Lastly goto the software you want to use (VDJ), do the same as step 3 with other hardwares and other laptops and compare the results.
I cannot stress enough, if you cannot reproduce a problem reliably, the problem is not supportable! In which case you should be in discovery mode instead of angry/impatient/blaming-child mode. Support people know alot but they are not gods and cannot reach across the ether into your head and into the hardware.
---Conclusion---
Simply saying “It doesnt work” or “This software sucks” only exposes your own ignorance and unwillingness to figure a problem out. Based on how hairy the PC world is, you can never be 100% sure where things go wrong unless you know alot about hardware manufacturing and software programming on a lowlevel basis.
As an end-user it helps to be patient and to ask alot of questions. It’s okay to be frustrated but keep in mind, no one can help you if you are not willing to help yourself. It’s not other peoples job to fix your problems for you but there are millions of helpful people who would like to assist you with suggestions.
If you intend to use your PC for professional DJing, you need to know how your PC works. Do you think an astronaut goes into space without intimately knowing every subsystem in the shuttle? Absolutely not. Not to be insulting, but you’d be pretty foolish to walk into a club relying on technology you have no idea about or have at least tested. I’m not saying you need to a developer, but you should also not in the club with a PC you have not rigorously tested, and also not have all sorts of cracked software and garbage that could create problems. IF you call yourself a professional, act like one and take responsibility for the fact that software can help you as well as create problems if improperly configured. Take the risk into your own hands and help the VDJ community grow stronger by being objective about all of your issues and gripes.
Long live VDJ, its the best around.
---About the Author---
I am a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I have done tonnes of things which seem unrelated but I believe it's all related, thats life. I've worked in roles of development, testing, support, quality control & documentation for many industries like Aerospace manufacturing, commercial electronic goods manufacturing, client/server software, web-software, content management, multimedia and others.
I learn quick so I’m the guy you bring in when you have problems because i can look at anything in a different and abstract way. I don't claim to know everything because that would be silly. But I do claim to have done alot of research and testing on how VDJ behaves and I am confident that my rig will not fail live (short dropping a beer into it).
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 7:32 am
i don't totally agree ......
i do agree about certain things such as the following .... you do have to have reasonable quality computer ....... when you take said reasonable quality computer home you must make it ready for professional use
if you custom assemble a good rig from a la carte components you will have less issues to deal with
where i disagree ..... i have a decent laptop ...... same one for the last 15 months ..... VDJ can experience many issues and (rarely) crash ......
the same cannot be said for my old version ( 2.6 ) Traktor ........
Traktor is rock solid , analyzes faster , the analysis does not cause any problems for the decks , and the analysis WORKS .... it analyzes everything and has no problems analyzing or playing the trax .......VDJ analysis left hundred unanalyzed and usually won't play those tracks ????
Traktor 2.6 which is old has a much better recordcase and database than VDJ 5 which is new ?? if VDJ could fix the recordcase issues , database and other stability issues and implement the 2 deck automix as well as Traktor then i would give it the edge over Traktor , especially with the great filter folders and sample engine ( i am limiting myself to audio only for the moment )
for audio only i still reccomend Traktor , especially for newbies
i wish i could always just unequivocally reccomend VDJ ........
one thing i am noticing as mobile guy who also does strip clubs .......for reasons that apparently escape my feeble comprehension , VDJ starts to get unreliable after 6 or 7 hours .... every monday for years now i have been doing a 14 hour double ..... i recently started doing all the music and video with just VDJ.....previously i had run the audio in Traktor and continuously ran soniques and occasional vids in VDJ..... now that i have been doing all with VDJ for about a month , i am noticing that it definitely gets tired or unstable after awhile .....can't say the same of Traktor .......
the lappy gets used about 39 to 48 hours a week and the full monty mobile rig approximately 4 to 12 hours per week
i do agree about certain things such as the following .... you do have to have reasonable quality computer ....... when you take said reasonable quality computer home you must make it ready for professional use
if you custom assemble a good rig from a la carte components you will have less issues to deal with
where i disagree ..... i have a decent laptop ...... same one for the last 15 months ..... VDJ can experience many issues and (rarely) crash ......
the same cannot be said for my old version ( 2.6 ) Traktor ........
Traktor is rock solid , analyzes faster , the analysis does not cause any problems for the decks , and the analysis WORKS .... it analyzes everything and has no problems analyzing or playing the trax .......VDJ analysis left hundred unanalyzed and usually won't play those tracks ????
Traktor 2.6 which is old has a much better recordcase and database than VDJ 5 which is new ?? if VDJ could fix the recordcase issues , database and other stability issues and implement the 2 deck automix as well as Traktor then i would give it the edge over Traktor , especially with the great filter folders and sample engine ( i am limiting myself to audio only for the moment )
for audio only i still reccomend Traktor , especially for newbies
i wish i could always just unequivocally reccomend VDJ ........
one thing i am noticing as mobile guy who also does strip clubs .......for reasons that apparently escape my feeble comprehension , VDJ starts to get unreliable after 6 or 7 hours .... every monday for years now i have been doing a 14 hour double ..... i recently started doing all the music and video with just VDJ.....previously i had run the audio in Traktor and continuously ran soniques and occasional vids in VDJ..... now that i have been doing all with VDJ for about a month , i am noticing that it definitely gets tired or unstable after awhile .....can't say the same of Traktor .......
the lappy gets used about 39 to 48 hours a week and the full monty mobile rig approximately 4 to 12 hours per week
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 1:09 pm
And this you call a guide?
I'm glad i relly on the technical department with updates on new features and bug fixes.
They always come through, it might take awhile but they always come through.
We just have to be patient.
No Offense.
I'm glad i relly on the technical department with updates on new features and bug fixes.
They always come through, it might take awhile but they always come through.
We just have to be patient.
No Offense.
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 2:06 pm
uuuuuuhhhhhhhhh i thought his advice was good ....... if you don't know squat about computers or digital music , you aren't helping yourself any , and blaming everything on the software isn't fair .....
my point was that even though i have done all of the recommended things ..... still have stability issues ....... won't change the fact that other software is more stable .....
i have an HP with AMD Turion 64 , 2gb ram , ATI radeon express 200, OS is XP media center edition , all music and vids and most apps are on the external hd ( 500 gb WD MyBook , reformatted for NTFS ) soundcard is Presonus Firebox (4 pin) .... i don't think the 4 pin matters one way or another
media center edition is no excuse for anything .... the audio is fine .... no skips , pops etc .......i can download , play and rip at the same time
still , VDJ has issues with losing settings , virtual folders , etc ......analyzing while playing nearly maxes out the cpu , etc ..... not issues with Traktor .....
my point was that even though i have done all of the recommended things ..... still have stability issues ....... won't change the fact that other software is more stable .....
i have an HP with AMD Turion 64 , 2gb ram , ATI radeon express 200, OS is XP media center edition , all music and vids and most apps are on the external hd ( 500 gb WD MyBook , reformatted for NTFS ) soundcard is Presonus Firebox (4 pin) .... i don't think the 4 pin matters one way or another
media center edition is no excuse for anything .... the audio is fine .... no skips , pops etc .......i can download , play and rip at the same time
still , VDJ has issues with losing settings , virtual folders , etc ......analyzing while playing nearly maxes out the cpu , etc ..... not issues with Traktor .....
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 3:06 pm
discjockeydoc
"I cannot stress enough, if you cannot reproduce a problem reliably, the problem is not supportable! In which case you should be in discovery mode instead of angry/impatient/blaming-child mode. Support people know alot but they are not gods and cannot reach across the ether into your head and into the hardware." ~~My favorite part :)
Good advice overall, I think. Nice job :)
Good advice overall, I think. Nice job :)
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 7:52 pm
djcel
@ Paz75
It is a very well description of the real computers world and we really see that you have a good beta-testers experience and mind. Welcome among us.
It is a very well description of the real computers world and we really see that you have a good beta-testers experience and mind. Welcome among us.
geposted Wed 31 Oct 07 @ 10:20 pm
what i said about the features and stability stands ....... if any doubts about my stability comments , see S. Clavels most recent posts .......
geposted Thu 01 Nov 07 @ 3:37 am