Say what you will, but this is one area where I feel like NI should be blamed, as they are the ones who simply let their contract lapse without offering an option, expecting the FS2 Intel Mac users to buy their crossgrade instead of doing their job and releasing a universal binary update...

Hmmmm ...
This sounds like a bloody mess in the making.

This bloody mess was made a long time ago.

Despite the tactful choice of words, that pretty much says it
all. The split between Stanton and NI was not as amicable as
the initial press release lead everyone to believe.

F%$@K FINAL SCRATCH AND F@&K STANTON. They suck balls in my book now and who cares about final scratch anymore. If your smart you would have downloaded traktor 3.2 from a torrent, or if you were even smarter you would have switched to serato by now. I mean how difficult is it to partner up with a company and either make your own new software or license a pre existing software like numark did with cue/virtual dj 4.

In the end I think that the main thing that Stanton can be accused of is not being clear with their customers. NI screwed everyone on the software front-I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the $40 PER PLUGIN upgrade price for NI complete, even if you purchased it about a month before the launch of the Universal Binary versions.

a coincidence that the most intelligently crafted response in the thread also suggests software piracy? i think not. maybe this one should leave the opinions to himself.

i'm standing by my statement before that NI knowningly dropped the ball on FS users. you'd have to be an idiot to not realize that in announcing traktor scratch only a month after ending support for final scratch, they HAD to have developed the new application during the partnership. i believe that once they got into the market and started to see the profit potential, they started looking for the first opportunity to get out of the partnership so that they could sell their own product (using a MAJOR bit of their FS experience as free R&D).

currently i'm not at all impressed by the demos i've seen of the new product, all bias aside. i feel sorry for anyone who bought into it, because i've seen a lot of people hyped about it simply from the NI name...it's obviously not from real world use since it just dropped.

If you're referring to Traktor Scratch, it hasn't dropped yet. It's still in beta. And it's even different now than the alpha was at NAMM.

Unfortunately the whole ordeal between Stanton and NI is more complicated than people are making it out to be. All we can do is hope that each respective company has learned something from thsi experience and go on to make decent products. I think expecting anything more than that is unrealistic.

i am glad i dropped final scratch 1.5 and got ssl. The blame game is fun on the corporate level. Everyone is just covering their asses so they don't get sued. The users lose here.

will it dont look to good for them do it

FS was the first one around, and the first one to die.

IMHO, the combo of Final Scratch + Traktor was never a good thing. In fact, any combo of software with exclusive hardware is not worth it. Yes, even Serato+Rane. Why do you think that these are sold as a package exclusively? So you'd pay shitload of money to both companies, to eventually be left alone, when their co-operation stops for some reason. Just like it was with NI and Stanton. It never surprised me, that when they separated, they 'magically' became open to any kinds of hardware/software, that's because they never were a symbiotic organism. It's just that these companies had put a lock on eachother's products for their benefit.

And although Serato + Rane will be selling their package for as long as they wish, and god bless them for improving their products, I don't think this thing will last forever, and eventually people will be left stuck with what they've got. And I'm not talking about how Serato wrote their soft specifically for Rane's interface, you'll see how 'exclusive' it is once shit starts to happen (due to poor sales, hi price maybe, you can't predict that really), and everyone will bail into open architecture.
IMHO closed systems like SSL will have serious problems with staying on the market, not only because they may have some problems with their partnership, but because the market of vinyl emulation is growing rapidly, and offers more/the same for a lower price. I hate to admit it, but If you spend 1/10 of serato's price, you might get any other timecoded vinyls to work with your existing hardware, and I'm not bullshitting you. If you look around, you'll see that Serato records work with VDJ/Numark Cue (they really do, but no needle drop). Now that Image-Line is in the game with their Deckadance supporting ALL timecodes on the market, it just takes nice sound quality and stability of the soft to compete with SSL. So it's a matter of how much you want to pay. And I'm not even mentioning DjDecks, which works with all vinyls too, plus it's rock solid (so they say).
Open architecture is the future, Stanton+NI - they knew this, and bailed before killing their products. Now that companies decide to go "open" only the best will survive, and that's totally cool with me. We can only benefit from that, believe me.

At the Fashion Mall here in Las Vegas, they had the NBA All-Star event....they had I think a dozen DJs scattered in many booths and stores...

the ones with the laptops were using....SERATO!

open architecture preferable to the rane/serato closed model? are you insane? the reason that SSL destroyed the competition was because IT WORKED, which no-one else could manage, and by the time they could, the focus had shifted to SUPPORT, and SSL had shown that two industry leaders working together had a huge advantage over budget-driven over-reaching legacy-riddled outfits such as stanton

native instruments never really 'got' the DJ market and should have stayed out of it. all they have done is annoy people. anyone who purchases traktor skratch is clearly mad

stanton statement is pitiful squirming nonsense and clearly demonstrates that if you don't plan responsibly and ethically from day one, karma will crush you

First i see Stantons message as a plea to get them out of trouble. I read it as "please dear loyal fans, save our asses by getting software companies to develop software for us". I see two problems with this,
1. They lost nearly all the fans to Serato as Serato gives them everything they wanted that Final didn't.
2. Without the close support from Stanton with the software company i could see the whole package getting less stable.
Stanton have found a fool proof way to say "its not us its the software" and i feel that only a few software companies will allow themselves to fall into that situation given what happend with NI.

Second, Serato is going to be round for a while, Both Serato's and Rane's products are produced for long times becuase they sell at the right rate and consistantly.
Serato can be compared to other industry standard equipment in many ways and therefore it can be devised that Serato will stay at the top, let me explain...
Serato scratch can be compared to Technics and Pioneer CDJ 1000's which are both players for media so are probably the closest equivelent pieces of equipment we have. I think we will all agree that the Technics and 1000's are some if not the most costly equipement in the feild, so is Serato.
Technics started things off for DJ turntables but Pioneer where no where near the first on the scene with CD players, they where the first to produce a pro level unit that works very well. Pioneer have also left the model for a long period of time with only a couple of updates unlike other companies who develop new systems and ways (Stanton) to try to beat the Pioneers. The 1000's have seen updates but only when they where right and when they are usefull, just like Serato do with there development. It can be argues that Serato offer updates a lot quicker then Pioneer has but i see that argument as hollow as software is a lot easier to update, can have no cost to the user assosiated with it and has a good way of getting distributed to the user (internat, CD's etc)
Pioneer and Technics do have cheaper competition that have more features then the Technics and Pioneers but they are still top of the tree due to stability. It can be argued that a Numark Axis 9 is better then a 1000 becuase it has all the funtions and more (well minus MP3 but that is a recent thing) but is cheaper, but we don't, why - becuase we know it does not perform as well, it might be close in many ways but it is still not as good. This relates to the stability of Serato, others at £200 are close but not as good. This is not to say the £200 versions will not sell becuase they will but people will want to upgrade to a truley professional level if they can.
Serato and Rane got big names to use there product in front of thousands and advertised the fact, so did Pioneer (Technics didn't need to as DJs didnt have a choice) and Sony did with the MDRV-700's, this puts the name on peoples lips, shows how proffesional the equipment is and makes people say i want it because xxx uses it.
Lastly, people perfer to buy a proven unit, the Denon 3500 does not sell as well as the Pioneer 1000 as it is not proven (plus has some problems) but is technically the better deck in many areas.
So there is a few strong simularities, it gives no guarentees with Serato but shows the line that Serato already seem to be heading down and what it has done for other products so i think it is fair to say that Serato will probably be around for a long time as it is probably (it is right now) going to be seen as the pro choice so the one that everyone aspires to. It is also stupid for a company to stop making a product if it is sucessfull and making lost of money, even if it involves a partnership (the one between Serato and Rane seems to be working well but i am not supprised as both companies are happy to help out as much as possable with any problem and seem to have a struture in place, anyway it is easier to get along when things are going well, indeed very well for them).
Sorry for the long post with probably many selling and grammer mistakes.

@weaksauce:

I didn't say that open architecture is good for Serato. Right now they're doing fine and it's perfect. This soft is stable, gets the job done, it's good. Period. I agree with Wozza totally about how SSL works its way to the top like Technics 1200's (so to speak), and I'm cool with that. What I'm saying is : look at FS and learn the lesson people.

After all the drama that happened between NI and Stanton all we're left with is Stanton begging "please dear loyal fans, save our asses by getting software companies to develop software for us" (quote by Wozza) and angry FS users, who feel betrayed because something went wrong between NI and Stanton. And all that because FS was a closed system. Thousands of FS users left out of the equation, nobody gave a shit about, they're on their own now.

Serato is similar in a way, apart from the fact that they're doing great, so as their partnership. I haven't heard of any Rane or Serato officials who would be want to stop making the package, so it's all good. But at the same time, this partnership is the weakest link in the chain. It's easy to mess things up with software, simply by updating it, with useless features. New Serato is going to have Video support and a couple of new gizmos that will make it a better software, and I trust that they just don't fuck things up, and everything will be perfectly stable as before. See what I mean? We're not talking about Technics 1200's here, design of which was changed only slightly over last 20 years. It's a good turntable, gets the job done, so it doesn't have to be improved (much), plus it's expensive, but def worth the price.
Serato is software. You can't make software and leave it unchanged for 20 years, no matter how good it is. People will demand updates, new features etc, and all you Serato users must feel uber happy that so far Serato is rock stable as it was from the beginning. But rest assured that at some point - at some 'major software change' point maybe - things may go very VERY wrong. That's just how it is with software. This is of course the worst case scenario, and it doesn't have to be this way, but take that into consideration. And if we're talking about a software company, which suddenly screws up making crappy version of their soft - things start to get hot in the partnership.
It was a long road for Serato to gain the reputation that it has now, but it's extremely easy to loose all the fanbase, users, whatever you call it, simply by making a bad move. And if a bad move has its consequences, (bad software + hi price > losing users FAST, low sales etc...) the partnership can end, leaving all those people with their own little closed system, which no longer can be updated, so they're on their own now. Wouldn't that make you angry? Ask FS users.
That's why I think open architecture, although its main problem is stability and ... well yes - hardware compatibility - has the advantage. Only if all this OPEN architecture software was working stable with every hardware there is - it would be a perfect world, wouldn't it? And I believe it can be done, actually there's a lot of software out there that doesn't make any problems, so I guess they're pretty close to SSL.

i don't think stanton is asking anyone to save their ass. as for the final scratch issue with intel macs, that's an issue that can only be solved by NI since they own the software. stanton will never be able to correct the issue whether or not they know how. as for selling the scratchamp as an open interface product, why not? it's a useful piece of hardware, it's already been developed and produced...there's no reason to trash the existing units.

my opinion regarding serato, great product...but limited. no matter what updates they offer, it will never support more than 2 decks in it's current physical state. in the event that a future version of serato offers additional deck support, the users will be forced to purchase a new interface box. the old box, useless for any other purpose aside from a nifty paperweight.

for this reason, i'm more inclined towards the mixvibes product. at the moment it does not offer osx support, but i'm told it will before the end of the year. i have my choice of interfaces, and i've found one that will support more than i need for a very good price. combined, the total package costs less than serato or traktor scratch. this doesn't mean that i think serato is a bad product in any way, it just illustrates how a proprietary standard can affect a buyer's choice.

I think the blame is on both sides. You don't go halves on a product without negotiating post-contract support.

NI has no obligation to do an update, although I think it would be beneficial for them to maintain some kind of integrity as a brand who supports a product they developed, rather of leaving it high and dry simply because of the expiration of a contract.

Is there not a cheap upgrade option for the new version of Traktor? That seems kind of silly to me. Oh well, not an FS user, so I'm not mad. I think Stanton needs to bite the bullet and halt production on those interfaces though, because there's no reason to spend that kind of money if there isn't a software package involved.

I'll just say this - i bought the first Final Scratch on pre-order, i bought a notebook they said is ok, after 10 days of frustration trying to install FS , thay said on the web that my notebook is not compatible anymore... but it will be allright in version 1.1 which, guess what, i had to buy .... My FS is long gone, thanks god, because the vinyl's were too heavy, software was f*cked up, aaaargh...
I was some years before i bought Serato, and i set it up in 5 minutes, i was juggling ,scratching and enjoying myself instantly..
the crates are easy to browse, user interface is simple, and everything works (on the old notebook i bought for FS!!!
and updates are free and the guys at Rane listen to customers..
highly reccomended!!!!

in answer to Soaked...

its important to recognise that the major extra features that you refer to, video, midi and the like... serato have expressed on every occasion possible that the serato application will remain focussed on scratching, and manual mixing, any other major functionality introduced will be by software plugin.

if someone makes asio drivers for fs1, there is a whole realm of software out there which could benefit from it. ms pinky, for example.

was ham ni und stanton da nur für eine scheisse angezettelt *kopfschüttel*

es hätte alles so schön sein können

Wich software editor would be crazy enough to be "associated" with the name of Stanton now ?
The only way for Stanton is to have 3rd party asio driver developped for these scratchamps that will let all these FS users choose, what is the best for their pockets...

Sinjintek said something that I belive deserver an answer.The discussion about how limited the Hardware is for Serato has been up ever since the product came out, and it does not seem to be going away anytime soon. Rumor (purely rumor, mind you, no official comment either positive or negative on this) has it that a new hardware version could be out sometime next year. I have no reason to doubt that, as there are plenty of things people demand and will be available on future software versions but the box does simply not support. One is Midi. Two is recording options. Three is multiple deck support (in honesty, I think 95% of the people have no use whatsoever for it, but it's something they wish they had for bragging rights special occsions). Now here for the tricky part - How does the 57 (their new mixer) fit into all this? It's built roughly around the SL1 box, but they did find a way to go around some of its limitations. So why sell something that makes their 2 main products for a specific market obsolete? My best bet is that, should a new hardware box come out, it will be a "Pro", top-of-the-line kind of thing, addressed mostly at installations, and will be followed very closely by something like a Digital version of the MP 2016. Either will cost a small fortune, not sell nearly as much as the current product, and, no doubt, most of their customers will be previous SL1 owners. People like their stuff. As far as the ASIO driver goes, it's most likely gonna be out, in some form, this week, so people tell us. Now, not only will their software and hardware be everywhere, but their users will too, by using their hardware with other applications. Now, frankly - we all would like to be a little more like Enferno or Senses overloaded, but how many of us actually would single-handedly use Serato for vinyl emulation and some other software for sound processing / sampling and such?

No, the big plan actually for Serato is to transform their box into an audio device, wich it isn't actually.
If they succed, they can improve the life of all their product line a little more, wich is becoming limited against competitors.

A few comments:

* Rane/Serato's SL1 device is already kind of open in terms that ASIO drivers are just about being released. You will be able to use it with any software you like. The TTM 57SL has already ASIO drivers, so you can use it with any "open" software which you like.

* Soaked, said that NI went the open route as well. Where and when? The successor of Final Scratch is Traktor Scratch, which is again a closed project. No other device except the Audio8 interface will work with vinyl/CD emulation mode.

* sweetL said that video support for SSL will be a plugin, Soaked said it may compromise SSL stability. Both is not true. Serato has confirmed on their forums that video support is a completely separated application. The change for video support in the SSL software is so minimal, it has already been added for a couple of versions, and SSL is still running solid.

* Even if Serato and Rane decide to split... with the upcoming ASIO drivers you still will be able to use for example DJdecks with the SL1 (thats the Scratch LIVE box).

* Besides this, its a real soap opera how NI and Stanton act, pointing fingers to each. Thats baaad for both companies and I hope they both rot in hell for that bitch moves they've put on the most valuable... the costumers.

Are there any other programs out there compatable with the stanton scratch amp and an intel based macbook? If not i am seriously screwed out of like 500 bone here, and that is not cool!!!

there are not many programs out ther accept for traktor scratch 3.2, torq , ssl , miss pinky has a mac release and thats it i think. if you have traktor dj3 i can hook you up with the universal binary update if you need it.

as alternative to fs2 you can use djdecks with your fs vinyls. but its win only so intel mac users must use bootcamp.

http://www.djdecks.be

why is everyone so fuc**ng greedy??? It's only about fuc**ng money nothing else fuc* them all!!!

hey I'would realy appriciate if somebody could hook me up with update for T3, which allow's me 2 use fs2... I was looking on torrents but i couln't find anything for mac...

guys, wait for Ivan, he's in a shower, when he'll come back he will check if his new tratkor 3.2 is gonna work with FS2 or not

Well, what happened man? I would love to know if that worked.

Well I guess its time to sell my FS on ebay

^^As much as high hopes I had for stanton I sold it on craigslist. Im on the serato bandwagon now. I just need the stability. Final scratch worked fine but analyzing a song by accident (double clicking a track on accident) while a song was playing sent it dropping out like a college kid with too much school work on their plate. None the less it was good while it lasted. Somehow I still kind of miss my scratch amp :embarrest time to move on I guess

on the open v.s closed argument.

for the same reason that apple/microsoft/sony insist on a closed system for ipod-iphone/xbox/playstation, it's the only way to keep enough control over a product so it JUST WORKS. which is something that's pretty darn important to a DJ in command of a dancefloor.

i sure as hell wouldn't be playing gigs with with a sound card from xyz, timecode from zyx and software from yzx. it will probably work most of the time, but who do you go to when it doesn't? and do people care if your system has a few more features when the dancefloor goes completely silent?

it's always funny how xyz will blame zyx too, it's never anyone's fault. i work in the it support department during the day, it's always some other vendors fault.

good luck with your open system stanton. i'll stick with my rane/serato solution until they start fighting, which judging by the happy forum and support staff, will be never.

Can anyone please tell me if my Scratch Amp will work with the sarato software? Im guessing not as the scratch amp is fire wire and the Rane device is USB - is there anyway of fooling the sarato software to see a firewire Audio card such as the scratchamp. I am using OSX.....i have always ad an issue with Traktor 3.0 when scratching and fast cueing, the software can not keep up with the movement of vinyl and loses the time code for a second or two, the wave form actually disapears for the screen when backcuing fast. Thanks for your help.

DJ Ollie Clarke
www.chunkygrooveslive.com