Just received Rane's Serato in the mail today and believe I have everything hooked up properly. I scared myself into thinking I wasted 500$ though, when the buttons on my MK3's weren't doing the same things they were when I just used normal cd's in them. Fortunately, though, I realized I had Serato in "relative" setting vs. the "absolute" setting which simulates everything like it should be.
Anyway, seems to be working great as of now.
Any Serato users have any settings/tips/techniques about using Serato for a beginner?
Thanks

Make sure you get the newest version from serato's websits (free download). For tech support, call 425-551-1834 and ask for shawn or anyone who can help you w/ serato. they can walk you through any problems you have, give you suggestions, tips/tricks, etc... great tech support! they also save the day when you're at a gig and having problems ~ just call them up and... problem solved. good luck!

Thanks for the response.

I have a new question for Serato users, though. I'm not getting a BPM readout, anywhere. I read through the manual and it said that if a track doesn't have BPM information it won't be displayed, which seems obvious. It's a pain in the ass though, because I'm not getting a bpm readout on my MK3's, or the computer. I am getting a rough bpm readout on my djm 600, but that is only reading out one side. I know experienced DJ's probably don't find this too big of an issue because they're able to hear bpm and get the two tracks close enough to make a fine adjustment.. but as a beginner dj I find it pretty tough to slide the pitch bar up and down and not see how big of an adjustment I'm making via a BPM readout. Prior to Serato I was using the readout on the MK3's quite a bit, and it seemed to work out nicely.
My question is whether there is a program to read a tracks BPM, and assign that track the bpm so that when it is introduced to Serato I can see the bpm adjustments I'm making to the track so that I can get the two tracks fairly close before making fine tune adjustments.

Any help much appreciated, thanks again!

*Sigh* noobies.

You need to build overviews on your tracks to get the BPM. First download and install v1.7.2 if you haven't already. Start SSL with the interface unplugged. You will see the auto BPM box. Check it. Set the BPM range if you want (if you mainly play techno/house/trance select 98-195 range)




Then with the auto BPM box checked, drag your files/folders/crates onto the build overview button. This will analyze your tracks, build the waveform, check for corruption, and get the BPM. This process will take a while, I'm talking hours, possibly even days if you have 1000s of songs to do, so go do something else, or do it at night before you go to bed. Also better if you do them in chunks instead of all at once.

Also if you want to auto gain your tracks, before you start building overviews, check the 'use auto gain' box in the setup menu, and set the dB value (I'd recommend 92dB).

Last edited by Konix on Aug-18-2007 at 17:28

niiiice thank you

I haven't transferred my trance/house music library to Serato mainly because I'm dealing with a very large amount of files. What I've been doing is, when I want to mix a certain song, I grab that one file from Itunes and drag it into the Serato box. I'll mess around with it and see if it works during an actual mix if I try it this way.

Is there anyway to see a more precise bpm display with Serato. Ex. 127.55 vs. 127?

No. While SSL does calculate and store a decimal BPM, it will only display whole numbers in the columns and title box and pitched BPM in the spinning circles. It used to display the decimal in the BPM column in an old beta version, but many people didn't like that and complained as it messed with their order/organization, so it was agreed upon to only show the whole number value. However, there might be an option in a future version to display the decimal BPM.

For what it's worth though, if you double click the BPM in the column, it will show the decimal value.

I would have expected a more accurate BPM readout. Perhaps I'm screwing something up, but, for example, my left CDJ will read 127 BPM, the right CDJ will read 128 BPM, and I'll find myself having to rotate the left cdj counterclockwise (slowing down even further) in order to keep the tracks beat matched.

Any thoughts?