[youtube id=”Pm8OwXefnNw”]
If you’ve waded through the extensive bundle of Serato DJ 1.5 PR in the previous story, you may still be fighting back the tears at hearing the news about the iconic Serato Scratch has been being mothballed and replaced by the young upstart that is Serato DJ 1.5. We at DJWORX feel that it’s a vital move for Serato, but one that has taken a veritable dogs age to achieve. Very tall Serato CEO Sam Gribben talks through the new release, as well as tackling some of the thornier issues.
It’s been almost 10 years since Serato Scratch Live was announced, and we covered it from NAMM 2004. 10 years? Wow. But times have changed, and very rapidly too. And with the rapid growth of Serato, as well as the constantly evolving scene, Serato made some decisions that with hindsight they were ill-equipped to handle. ITCH was their unique response to the controller boom, and with it came an entirely new and separate platform to build and develop, as well as a bunch of new partners on top of the existing and very successful one with Rane.
So Serato found themselves with 2 platforms and a lot of relationships to juggle, no easy task for a small but expanding team clearly gifted in the ways of creating cool DJ software, but perhaps less adept at the business end of things. It didn’t take too long for the Scratch Live faithful to start feeling a wee bit left out as ITCH continued to develop, and then suddenly metamorphosing into Serato DJ. Christ knows how many times I’ve shouted at the my screen at numerous disgruntled forum posts. How I wanted to type a simple “be patient – not long now”, but obviously I couldn’t.
But here’s what you have to understand — it’s not like Serato weren’t listening to your pleas. On the contrary — they’d learned harsh lessons from saying too much in the past, but really didn’t want to speak out of turn about the future. And when they took the obvious but inevitable decision to essentially demolish and rebuild the best part of their product range, changes had to be made to the company to make this happen. Serato raised their game considerably with some very important hires to not only rebuild their product, but also their brand in the market place.
So what you’re witnessing today is the culmination and distillation of lots of success, some harsh lessons learned from mistakes, plus an all new energy that will allow Serato to properly compete in a now crowded marketplace with competitors who are all jockeying for the top spot.
The thorny issue of sync
Knowing that this day was coming, I wondered how Serato would deal with the inevitable introduction of the sync button to their DVS offering. It’s obviously hard to essentially eat your own words and backtrack on your own bold stance of deliberately not having sync. But when the rest of your competitors have it, and are leading the way, it’s hard to not put it in there.
But I personally love the way Serato have approached the issue. Sync has always been a feature that you don’t have to use. I’m not going to get into the circular argument of sync, because as of today it’s totally academic, and my own feelings are well documented anyway. But for some, the very existence of it is enough to cause bad feeling with users. So not only do you not have to use it, there will even be an option to hide it completely. You’re going to have to like it or lump it, but sync is here forever.
Summing Up
So what you’re seeing now is a much leaner and focussed Serato. They’re now operating with a single product, which means a faster development cycle as well as a rapid response to fixing bugs, which in turn frees up resource to work on new ideas. The company itself has over the last 18 months redefined their brand, and now have a solid image, one which will doubtlessly develop as time marches on as well.
I’m sure many will lament the passing of Scratch Live, and indeed it’s not a decision that has been taken lightly. I can 100% relate to archiving a long established and respected brand, and fully appreciate what the Serato team went through with the decision. But it had to be done, and Serato as a company will be much better placed to get themselves focussed on delivering new hotness for the foreseeable future.
Good worth Serato. Now the fun begins… ;)
Aka here’s why we’re doing everything we can to make serato the same as traktor.
The king is dead! Long live the king!
But of course no Bridge support. What a joke.
If it’s stable and pretty much works the same, I don’t see any problem. To be traditionalist about something that didn’t exist 15 years ago (DVS software) seems a bit ironic…
rs
=] level headed view, i like that!!! now lets wait for the trolls…
I’ll save them time
“SERATO SUCKS NOW! HAS SYNC! END OF DJING!”
Alright, now that that’s on the internet we can move on, right?
Everything now has sync. The argument is absolutely dead, especially as you have never been forced to use it, and indeed in Serato DJ can hide it completely. I wonder how many people will actually hide it though?
I might hide it (if I can), but only so I don’t accidentally press it and throw everything out of whack.
rs
Oddly enough, a friend of mine on Traktor recently tried “Beat Grid” Sync and was terribly disappointed so put it back to “Tempo.”
For me, I won’t hide it and I’ll probably use it a lot. After I match the beat, why waste time on keeping pitch if I can do other fun stuff quicker and with more focus, such as ‘loops’ ‘rolls’ and ‘eq’ mixing????
I say bring the future!!! Mark, get your hands on the goodies quick so you can review em! Particularly the Rane 64. I do a lot of duo djing and the upgrade actually might make sense for me! One question I have in particular is would both DJs be able to play at the same time w/o switching knobs and 2, the 2nd USB slot should be able to be activated as a secondary sound card for other fun stuff such as live streaming!
two djs can play simultaneously using separate channels. The sound card is multi-client, meaning you can stream audio from Serato DJ and, as an example, Ableton, at the same time using a single USB port.
I thought ASIO doesn’t allow for multi-client. I know the last time I tried with my 62 I couldn’t stream online. Either way, I would like to get my hands on the 64 to at least try it…
admittedly i had a go of it on my controller. after spending half an hour making sure the grid was properly aligned on a track i thought ‘bollocks to this i could be mixing’ and gave up. i now truly believe that the time spent sorting the grids out you could actually just learn to mix.
@jaredhelfer:disqus LoL…you’re such a caring person!!!
Just lookin out for us all :)
Bravo. Serato is a loved company for great reasons. I wish them continued success.
One would hope, the owners of SL1 boxes and 57’s aren’t too upset by this roll out. Serato very rationally and admirably offered continued support and updates till 2015, and tech support after. Otherwise, owning just about any other current Rane product gets you Serato DJ *free* I’m sure by 2014 after a few month public beta across multiple OS’s and devices they will have it pretty well worked out.
I’m the 1st person to get upset about companies not being upfront or bailing on a customer base thankfully Serato isn’t showing that.
I’m very interested in hearing more about what they plan to do for vinyl purist.
Awesome. Now give us a Z2 contender at $800 to go with it and I’m all in. Seriously. The 62 hardly makes a case for comparison at its price point.
My Rane MP4 and DN-HC4500 will also be no longer upgraded. Serato DJ still crashes on large databases unlike Scratch Live. At least upgrade to 64-bit so it can work out in the field while you spend another year searching for a fix. I hope bringing back the Public Beta is permanent. Waiting 4-6 months for another upgrade to fix a error is getting ridiculous. We still don’t have a way to contract/expand a crate on the VCI-380.
My Rane MP4 and DN-HC4500 will also be no longer upgraded. Serato DJ still crashes on large databases unlike Scratch Live. At least upgrade to 64-bit so it can work out in the field while you spend another year searching for a fix. I hope bringing back the Public Beta is permanent. Waiting 4-6 months for another upgrade to fix a error is getting ridiculous. We still don’t have a way to contract/expand a crate on the VCI-380.
Questions are ScratchLive? Enter the Forum…
http://serato.com/latest/blog/16317/serato-dj-q-and-a-session?utm_source=Serato+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=42c40603c8-Serato_Newsletter_05_09_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e0f5ffb410-42c40603c8-52597933
DJM900SRT ? When was that released ?
wow awesome news – cant see really see any negatives.
(well ok SL1 & 57 users may be disappointed but both those products still use usb1… what could you expect you want high end performance and stability you will need to upgrade… not many products have stayed as relevant and effective for that long).
Look forward to dvs support on my vci380 which has been hinted at else where. that would be fantastic not to have to plug in an extra box for that!
nice work serato!
p.s. Made me laugh about sync, sad though, that there is still the need to clarify its a choice not a nessecity. Sader still that there may be people willing to leave Serato because they have included it.
so my SL1 is old hat, will i have to buy one of these monsterously expensive mixers to use Serato DJ 1.5? Or can i just get another interface and still use my rane empath?
Your SL-1 still works with Scratch Live and will continue to do so for the remainder of Scratch Live’s life, which is supposed to end in 2015.
The SL-2, 3, and 4 will get support for Serato DJ over the coming months with the official release date pegged as February 2014.
So if Scratch Live works for you now, you’ve probably got 2 years to see how the market pans out, and decide if you want to buy a mixer or an interface. There’s no rush, and there will doubtlessly be more choice as well.
I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS.
it’s a logical progression; imagine if NI were keeping traktor and traktor scratch separate… while I understand the purist approach to this discussion, I don’t agree with it because there’s a limit to what you can do with just two records. we haven’t reached that limit yet, but we’re getting so close that DJ battles look like 100m races where 0.01 seconds make a difference.
personally, I live to see and do future shit, so I love that serato are doing this even though I use traktor scratch – this will certainly raise the overall bar and at the same time level the playing field between TSP and SSL in battle categories that allow digital trickery. also, dear purists: you don’t HAVE to use sync and effects just because they’re there. stop whining.
turntablism hasn’t lost any relevance – it’s simply evolving. embrace it!
in case any serato people are reading this: congrats :) if you manage to implement your pitch’n time algorithms for good-sounding live key adjust and don’t mess up the MIDI mapping editor, we may just become friends…
That’s kinda where I’m at too. I’ve been a Traktor user for so long, but I’m starting to really find features that I don’t need, don’t want, and add to the encumbrance of the experience. I just wish that I could add little things here and there for my workflow, but that’s going to rely on the adequacy of the MIDI editor.
Hopefully I can get something to review and really put through its paces.
I’m just curious to know if the Denon SC3900 in hybrid mode will work with Serato Dj.
As far as I’m aware there’d be no reason for it not to work. The mapping would need updating, but the timecode signal is the same.
That is correct, Hybrid mode for SC3900/S3700/S1200 will work just the same.
sc2900
Good job Sam, and congrats to the Serato team.