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As the owner of a computing business, I have learned over many years that you will NEVER win the PC versus Mac arguement. It seems that, along with being prepared to spend three times more for the same functionality, Mac users have a stubborn streak that has them believe nothing else of any useable functionality exists anywhere else in the universe.
It’s like trying to get a dyed-in-the-wool Ford driver to consider buying an Oriental buzz-box.
As for the software – it’s a tool like any other program. If it works in your environment, great. I happe to use another DJ program, and have done for at least ten years. It works for me, and I have become so comfortable with it that I would never conider changing, even if Serato paid me to try their product. If I ever found that my "tool of trade" was lacking in any areas I wanted to use, I would then consider an alternative tool.
[quote author=”winsorpd”]Milky,
Could you post the settings you use for OTS and Breakaway DJ?
[/quote]I’ll take screen shots next time I have my gig box cranked up. It is most important to turn off all Ots Dynamics Processor processing, or you will be duplicating it in both programs. Click on the DP icon and unclick AGC, Compressor and Limiter buttons.
In the BADJ setup, click on the "Test" button to show the buffers and the "Jitter" count. The trick is to experiment with different settings, starting with the lowest that will actually play, to reduce this jitter to 10% or less. This will depend on your maqinboard, CPU, amount of RAM etc. If your soundcard has buffer adjustment, it is considered wise to align the buffer count in there with the BADJ buffer count.I may be wrong here, but, typically, an application must have focus for the keystrokes (or mouse clicks) to affect the program. Usually your playout software has focus, with Breakaway doing its job behind the scene.
Breakaway DJ is definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, the number of presets is limited at this time, but I am hopeful thatthis will change in the future.
Whilst I would avoid inflammatory adjectives like "stupid", I tend to endorse camclone’s comments. It’s the same reason why I have steadfastly avoided using laptops for DJing – because everything is crammed into a conveniently portable carry case, but at the expense of expandability, cooling and (in some cases) performance.
Sure, if your studio is a lined packing case, go for miniaturisation, but, if you have the space, think BIG.
I seem to recall Leif saying that video hadn’t been optimised until the release of Breakaway DJ. I could be wrong, but I use BADJ and can watch videos on a three metre square screen without perceptible synch problems.
Having said that, the performance of your PC has a lot to do with latency. Not only the sound card/chip, but also your video card, RAM and CPU performance play a part. Having lots of video memory is less of an issue than the speed of the RAMDAC and numerous other "techie" options. The PC on which I run BADJ is optimised and dedicated to my studio environment.
[quote author=”Leif”]
Also, since you have an M Audio card, how about just using ASIO instead of KS?///Leif[/quote]
That would be my ignorance, because I thought that KS bypassed all the Windoze crap. OK, I’ll try it.
[quote author=”Leif”]
That doesn’t make sense at all 🙂. How high was it when it was high?///Leif[/quote]
As I said elsewhere (didn’t mean to hijack this thread), when I first installed BADJ, I just cranked the buffers all the way to 48/2 and reported perfect sound and video synch. I was tinkering for other reasons, and pressed the TEST button. At 48/2, the jitter reading was 300%. Some experimenting found a sweet spot at 512/2, yielding 10% jitter. However, after a couple of hours playing, I noticed the odd glitch – just a very brief pop, but there nevertheless. I switched back to 48/2 and it was fine for the rest of the night.I haven’t had much time to experiments since, but one thought I had is that the M-Audio 192 card has its own buffer adjustment, which has always been set to the minimum allowable (64). Could there be some over or under-runs being introdced because of this?
Thanks guys.
Any thoughts on my other post about the jitter being high but the audio was stable, and when I lowered the jitter (by increasing the buffers), the audio popped now and then?[quote author=”Leif”]Fewer buffers = less delay, so if 2 buffers works reliably, that’s excellent.
ASIO always uses two buffers — i.e. when the sound card is reading from buffer 1, the audio app is writing to buffer 2, and vice versa.
Kernel Streaming drivers are not usually reliable with less than 3, but since 2 works for you, consider yourself lucky 🙂.
///Leif[/quote]
Now I’m confused. When I first installed BADJ, I just set the buffers to the lowest levels. Everything worked, so I left it that way. I was "tinkering" the other day, and hit the "Test" button in I/O configuration. I noticed that the jitter was running at 300% (!), so I went through the process of trying various buffer combinations. 512 dropped the jitter down to 10%, so I left it set at that. Later that evening, I noticed the odd pop or crackle coming in, so it seems that I get better performance even with 300% jitter.
In a related question, I use an M-Audio audiophile 192 soundcard, and it has it own buffer settings. I have always had it set to the minimum (64). Would there be any advantage in aligning it with whatever buffer count works best in BADJ or is this paramter ignored?[quote="Leif
I thought I did 🙂. What are you missing exactly?Best regards,
///Leif[/quote]You certainly did, and I am not complaining. However, I am more results driven than price driven, and would rather pay more for a product that is dynamic and kept up to date than one which is seen to be stable and therefore "complete".
My "poor cousin" comment was because I had already admitted a liking for the Zenith preset in the thread where JesseG announced it and, if it really is an improvement on its already great predecessor, then I assumed its roll-out would automatically flow on to all products in which it is currently installed.
