I have been using Traktor DJ Studio (not Scratch) for about 5 years, and playing daily for thousands of people using it pretty much exclusively, with
no crashes whatsoever. Yes, my hard drive caught fire once, and my motherboard blew up, or has some power failures, but otherwise all good. I must have special luck?...
I wonder why it is that laptop systems have such bad reputations? Or is it just that people who don't know better figure that the computers should administer themselves, rather than their users taking the time to keep them in tip-top shape, optimized, disks defragmented and everything else? Not sure.
As for Native Instruments having a bad reputation, I am part of the Traktor DJ Studio beta-tester group, and I must say that their commitment to releasing quality products on a stable codebase is
-from my point of view- very impressive. Although it is quite clear that some people are not having a good time with their products, maybe the difference is that they are expecting it to work with 'whatever' audio interface and cheap-ass PC. Just as Digidesign is giving out a very strict 'compatibility list' of approved hardware that is what they have determined will work reliably with their products, I did take the time to study beforehand and bought what I knew would work for well for such a system as Traktor; ymmv™. I am sure that if things were as bad as they say, I would have switched to another system or risk losing gigs a long time ago, seems to be the opposite actually, they keep coming fast and furious. Creatively, it has taken me that long to adapt to the hardware and software, when now playing CD's (or vinyl) I feel really limited and not able to work the gear creatively the way I want to, limited to a linear timeline.
Anyway, I must say that my answer being outside of your choice of options, I feel like the lone dissenting voice. I do not miss shiny circular audio discs, or their emulated time-coded discs or CD players as the sole, unique way of playing music. Any USB MIDI controller can do the same without having the mechanics of these spinning things add complexity and possible snafus to it, IMHO.
Just for kicks, let's re-hash the same things which have been repeated before:
• All digital audio sounds bad. It does make it a lot easier for sound installers to administer their systems (think 'audio processor' and such) so even if you are playing vinyl, chances are that you are not really playing on an analog system, but already through a digital processor. It bears repeating: most people today have not heard the sound of real analog, and wouldn't know it if it hit them over the head. When it does, they usually have a 'moment', which quickly goes away as no one else cares, as common wisdom goes, clubs are places where people go to dance, get high and find sex, not to be audiophiles.
• That being the case, some digital audio sounds worse, and some even worser than worse. The best bet is to find a file format that gives you the resolution which can help your sound files have a better description of what the original waveform was supposed to be like when it was analog.
•Most people (as in the Hydrogen Audio double-blind test crowd) swear that perceptually, MP3 files sound really close to CD, and that you can't hear the difference. Fair enough, I agree with that
when those tests are done at home or with headphones. But
working DJ's don't play at home. Translate this into a 45,000 Watts rig for a large listening space, and I promise to you that you'll certainly hear a huge difference between the two. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, CD's sound like sh*t on a big system. No bass, edgy, shrieky highs... some point of reference you got there.
• As an example,
jmark quotes his files being 320 k encoding using MP3 codec. Mine are 4611 k at 24bit / 96 kHz linear PCM from analog source. The usual argument then is that hard drive space is at such a premium. O RLY ? Yes, 15 years ago, it was probably so. But I just bought a 1 Terabyte disk for $440.00 That drive holds 5,000 songs at that high quality setting. Gee, something I must be missing. Or is it the download speed when purchasing online? Dunno... yes, 15 years ago (again) it would have been a factor with a 56 kB/s modem. With today's broadband speeds, not sure what the issue is. Beatport has their entire catalog in uncompressed .wav format.
• Everyone has different priorities. I spend time encoding most of my library from vinyl using the highest quality A/D I can afford. I figured that way the files I create will still be playable 20 years from now, with better D/A technology. Are you interested in planning for your future, or just for today?
• I find it amazing that 30 years after that standard was created, (Red Book CD digital audio: 16 bit / 44.1 kHz sampling rate) everyone has fallen victim to the marketing hype and considers (and the original question) CD quality the reference, the base point. Serato doesn't even go higher in either sampling rate or bit rate. Go back to basics, take a record, and the CD version of it, and play those two synchronized in a big club, going from A to B back and forth. Please don't send me your doctor bills when you possibly discover the difference. At least playing high bit-rates helps alleviate the problem a bit.
•
Breaking news: Digital audio still really sucks, but now that we've trained a whole generation of new listeners to believe the marketing hype, they wouldn't know the difference, or if they did, happen to care about it. Interesting that digital cameras keep pushing resolution forward (my phone has a 5-Megapixel camera included) and digital audio stays the same for 1/4 of a century. Either we have really bad hearing, or have fallen victims to a colossal hype everyone is too ashamed to admit they fell for.....
••
Commentary on the breaking news: Why am I taking such care in playing ultra-high quality audio files when (as stated above) nobody cares anyway? Well, for one, I think that when I play it does make a bit of a difference and adds extra 'oomph' to the bottom end and clarity to the top. It does feel better (to my admitedly ageing my ears).
•
Disturbing update: (NSFW) There are some formats (such as the 1-bit DSD format) which are supposed to sound much better than all that, but as was proven in the last format war VHS -vs- Betamax, the better product doesn't win, only the one with better marketing. Only a few years after having been introduced, the Super-Audio CD is quietly falling into obsolescence, just as no supersonic jet has replaced the Concorde since it was retired as the only supersonic commercial jetliner.
There is no moral to the story. Everything sucks.... some things a little more, some a little less. As for your choice of system, try them all out, and see what you like. Use your ears, don't believe the hype and follow the audio sheep, and you'll do fine. It'll still all suck, no matter what... just don't kid yourself about it. Hopefully in another quarter-century, people will look at this age as a time of terrible confusion and decaying standards.
It's a sad time for real audio enthusiasts.
30 years on and I'm looking back at systems built 25 years ago as the 'golden age'....
...there was, however, a small escape hatch located to the left of the warp entrance point, which most players failed to notice when they arrived at that level, as it was cleverly disguised as a vintage 1950's Heathkit Tube Amp advertising display. it led to..... (to be continued)
FK