Test System Specs
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (DirectX
9.0c)
CPU: AMD Athlon XP, 2166 MHz (13 x 167) 3000+
Motherboard / Chipset:
ASRock K7S8X v3 / SiS 748
Memory: 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter: RADEON 9200 SE
Disk Drive: Maxtor 6Y120L0 (120 GB,
7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Turntables: Technics SL1210mk2
Cartridges: Shure m35x, Shure m44-7
Introduction
Serato
Audio Research, an audio software specialist out of New Zealand,
already have the highly regarded Pitch 'n Time and Scratch
Studio plug-ins under their belt. They turn their attention
to the competitive dj market, in conjunction with
Rane, to
bring us Serato
Scratch Live - a means of manipulating
digital audio files on a PC or Mac by using control signal
vinyl or cds. So where do Rane fit in? They provide the hardware
interface and handle the distribution of the finished product.
With two such highly respected companies in their fields, the
expectations are naturally high. Can they create a meaningful
collaboration and live up to their reputations? Or is it destined
to crash and burn as the meeting of hardware and software often
can?
Scratch Live was originally released in April 2004 and was
the obvious competitor to Stanton's Finalscratch system. However,
more of these style of products have appeared since then and
there are now a handful jostling for position. As we all know,
more choice is good for the consumer, so Skratchworx welcomes
every new entry to the market with open arms. Scratch Live,
like Finalscratch, is hardware dependant - meaning you can
not use the software with any old soundcard you have lying
around. One reason for this is to ensure the software product
can not be pirated, which is an unfortunate reality of software
that runs natively on a PC or Mac. Another more positive outcome
of having dedicated hardware means they should retain maximum
control over communication with the software to ensure high
levels of compatibility and reliability.
The Package
Everything comes in a rather fetching 12" box, and includes
the hardware interface + USB cable (known as the SL 1), software
disc, 4 stereo RCA cables (for the output and thru connections)
plus 2 copies each of the control vinyl and control cd. The
printed paper manual is a welcome sight, but a .pdf is also
included for those who love to stare at a computer monitor
to read manuals (not me!). The software has obviously been
revised since it's initial launch, so it's worth heading over
to the Scratch
Live forums to keep an eye on updates
and to trouble-shoot any problems you might have - as they
may well be known already.
As
you may have guessed, the interface operates via the
USB 1.1 (full Speed) protocol and has two sets of RCA inputs
as well as a 1/4" mic input. On the
other side of the box there are the RCA line outputs,
plus thru outputs for all the respective inputs as
well as a mic gain control. The thru outputs mean you
can effectively bypass the box if you want to use normal
vinyl or cds during your set. However, if you want
to use the thru connections when your computer is switched
off, you will need to purchase an external power supply.
So although the facility is there, it's not nearly
as smart as the Digiscratch box included with Alcatech's
Digiscratch package - which doesn't use up extra channels
on your mixer and has the rather ingenious disconnect
mode, allowing the use of phono pre-amps and virtual
routing totally away from the computer. The box itself
is typical Rane hardware, industrial strength black
casing with white markings. Like most Rane gear, you
get the impression it could take a knock or two.
Installation and Set-Up
There's
not really a whole lot to do in order to get up and running.
The hardware connections you need to make are fairly obvious,
and the software and driver installation was pain-free. The
supplied manual is excellently written, extremely clear and
concise. As with any of these control signal style programs,
you need to calibrate the software to get the best out of it.
In Scratch Live this is done via the Setup screen. The aim
of the game is to get those pretty lines clear and as circular
as possible. You select the audio input level depending on
whether you are using turntables or cd players, and then adjust
the L/R and P/A balances if needed to get to a clear circle.
Unfortunately you can't assign different audio input levels
for each virtual deck, meaning if you are using a turntable
and a cd player in combination you will have to use a separate
phono pre-amp. The threshold is estimated based on the background
noise of your system when not playing the control signal, and
is a good indicator of grounding or other noise problems. The
calibration screen also has a % 'readable signal' indicator,
which gives you a good idea of how well your control signal
is being interpreted.
The other main 'performance' controls are
those of the USB audio buffer size and the maximum screen updates
per second sliders. I had these at the lowest and highest values
respectively, but you may need to adjust these if your system
starts to struggle - but more on the performance later.
Main Software Interface
I
think one of Scratch Live's strongest points is it's simplicity,
there are no overwhelming amount of settings, and it is reasonably
light in terms of features. As such, the main program window
is clean and you could probably guess what all the controls
and icons do. The whole program only really consists of two
different screens - the setup screen which includes the calibration
settings and the main program window.
From here, certain areas can be made to appear temporarily
via program buttons. The program must be run in a resolution
of at least 1024x768, and overall the elements of the interface
are fixed in position in relation to one another.
At the top
there are program reverse and master gain controls, and below
these are the two virtual decks. When a track is first dragged
onto one of the players - a track overview is built up, which
gives the layout of the waveforms and frequency content. Scratch
Live will attempt to do this as quickly as possible, but it
takes up extra processing power. If resources are thin on the
ground you can choose to have Serato to not build them automatically,
so they only appear as the track is played. Once they have
been built, they are saved into the actual audio file so will
never have to be created from scratch again. Things getting
stuffed into existing audio files makes me a bit nervous, and
might confuse some other programs. For example, Sony Soundforge
v8.0 throws up an error reading embedded information once files
have been used in Serato, but happily ignores it. Hopefully
it won't cause any real problems with other software or hardware,
and you can always make your files read-only if you are more
paranoid than me. The virtual deck shows the track name, artist,
length and BPM tags - if available.
Again,
there are 3 modes available for each player; absolute, relative
and internal. Depending what mode you are in, you will have
some extra options appear on the player.
Absolute is the true vinyl emulation mode, skips and all!
The extra controls for relative mode include those for moving
around the audio file, as needle dropping is not possible.
Dragging around the white play marker works just as well
though. Internal mode has a pitch slider and pitch bend buttons,
and I suppose is a last resort if all else fails. Maybe there
are some crazy folks out there who prefer this mode though!
Both relative and internal mode also have a 'censor' button.
This is the same feature as 'dump' on the Denon DN-S5000
- whereby audio is reversed whilst play position progresses
as normal. Good as an effect in it's own right or for protecting
the poor minds of children who could otherwise be bombarded
with swear words. Each mode can also share 5 cue points,
but they have quite a neat visual twist. Wherever you set
a cue point, the stripe on the virtual deck points at 12
O'clock - and you can choose a colour for every marker. But
what it also does is that within each revolution in either
direction the stripe loses a fifth of it's colour - meaning
you can visually see how close you are to your cue point.
A very smart way to visually reference where samples are,
though not quite as useful if your cue points are within
5 revolutions of each other. I think multiple colour changing
stripes could be quite confusing though!
Each virtual
deck also has a gain control, and this software gain is saved
with the file like the track overviews. Potentially it's
a handy way of normalising track volumes by hand, but this
is something I would already have done beforehand when preparing
the files - and would instinctively use the gains on my mixer
instead anyway. The final area of interest is that between
the virtual decks. This has the main track overview, a larger
zoomed in version, and a tempo and beat-matching display.
I think the whole track overview is a bit small, it's a shame
you can't resize it. It can be quite hard to really spot
where track breakdowns or major changes occur. The tempo
and beat-matching display give visual representations of
transients and their spacing. The idea is that you can visually
make sure they are aligned and then you should be in business.
Not something I find immensely useful, but it seemed to corroborate
what I was doing by ear. It's not too instrusive but would
be nice to have the option to use the space for the whole
track overview instead.
File Management & Organisation
Scratch Live works via a virtual crate system, with files
available in as many crates as you want. You can either drag
directly from Windows Explorer or use the Import button to
bring up an in-built file browser. You can then drag files
or folders over to whatever crates you want. This works fine,
but shows a full directory path from left to right - so if
you need to navigate through a lot of folders you then need
to scroll back and forth which feels a little clumsy at first.
Scratch Live will also apparently automatically import iTunes
libraries and playlists, though I have no idea how well this
works as you are more likely to find me sticking a knife in
my eye than using an iPod or iTunes. You can then choose from
a list of tags to display in the track information display
area, and adjust their column width and positioning to suit.
You can also directly edit tags from within this area simply
by double-clicking on the info you want to change. Clicking
any of the column headings will sort that column numerically
/ alphabetically. You can use the browse option to filter your
tracks by genre, BPM, Artist or Album, and is quick and easy
way of finding tracks if your crates are deep. If you still
can't find that rip of a rare funk 45 you desperately need
then there is a search tool included.
There is a 'review' tab
that lists the tracks you have played and a 'prepare' tab which
is a virtual "ready to play" section,
so you can get the next few tracks you want queued up if you
get a spare minute to yourself mid set. Good news for us true
goobers is that Scratch Live now supports Ogg Vorbis as well
as MP3, WAV and AIFF. There is also an option to display album
art if you have included them in your MP3's. Alternatively
you can now just tag all your MP3's with your favourite family
photos and enjoy them whilst you mix and scratch!
Vinyl Control & Performance
The Scratch Live vinyl has one side of 10 mins control signal
and a track/crate select section, whereas the other side is
just 15 mins of control signal. If you run out of signal then
the players switch to internal mode. Worst case scenario and
you still need control of those 20min epic progressive house
anthems, you can drop the needle back on the vinyl and click
into relative mode. The vinyl itself is perhaps a little on
the heavy side in comparison to a lot of scratch vinyl I seem
to use, or maybe it's just not very warped so hasn't got a
'slippery' side!
So, the million dollar question we have all
been waiting for, what's the sound and tracking like? Everyone
knows I am hard to please, but this really is impressive. No
doubt someone will disagree with me, but I really think it
is pretty much indistinguishable from normal vinyl. Yes, it's
not real vinyl - and if you really want to show that it's not,
you can do silly things like putting 10Khz sine waves through
it and move the vinyl as slow as humanly possible (yes, I did
do that). But for 99.9% of the sounds and techniques that your
average scratch dj is going to use, I really can't see anyone
complaining. I definitely think this is the best scratch reproduction
I have heard so far on a digital system. The actual tracking
has been 100% accurate the whole time I have used it so far.
No funny slips, no strange garbled digital noises or other
symptoms that you usually get on these systems. The only comment
I'd make is that if you move the USB buffer size up you do
feel the latency on things like chirps where they just aren't
hitting in the same way your co-ordination usually does. I
had no problems running my system at the lowest buffer size
and CPU usage never went above 30%. Memory use was also quite
light considering the size of the tracks I was using. So, providing
your system is upto the job and you get your calibration right,
the tracking and sound is amazing.
Final Thoughts
Scratch
Live makes something which isn't a trivial task seem easy.
It works so well to the point of being transparent - a good
idea perfectly executed. Part of the attraction of Scratch
Live is that they have kept the software simple and have resisted
the temptation to stuff the program full of extras and endless
options. Personally, I hope the software doesn't start adding
things like virtual mixers, samplers, MP3 encoding etc. At the
moment it's core strength is the effortless way it integrates
into a typical dj setup, with no headaches and practically no
learning curve.
Part of me is a little disappointed that the SL 1 box hasn't
got another input for live set recording, though this might
not be possible using the USB 1.1 protocol. Although I
am not doubting the quality of the box, it does feel a
little like a large hardware dongle at times. However,
Serato have recently announced that v1.5 will include the
ability to record straight into Scratch Live via the SL-1
- meaning users will be able to capture audio directly. It is a step in the
right direction, but some ASIO drivers would be very welcome
- and overall it doesn't feel as useful or slick as the
RME Digiscratch box. But, given the stability and quality
of the software and hardware you definitely won't feel
short-changed if you decide to splash the cash. Probably
the first bit of review kit I've contemplated stealing
(Sorry Mark!).
Rating - 90%
Big thanks to Sennheiser UK for the demo unit.
