RANE/SERATO SCRATCH LIVE
Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM, BY JASON BLUM
Anyone who says that vinyl will never die is right. You don't have to be a DJ to notice that the turntable is an icon of modern music culture — it has been elevated from its original intention as a lowly playback device to a musical instrument that is glorified by pop culture at large. Clearly, there's something special about vinyl, but why do people hang on to this archaic 19th-century technology when modern tools like CD mixers are everywhere?
Questions like these have been at the heart of arguments between vinyl purists and digital devotees for years. Fortunately, enterprising software engineers and savvy hardware companies have brought forth the best of both worlds with digital vinyl systems that allow DJs to control digital audio files with traditional analog vinyl. The latest in this rapidly growing field is a collaboration between premier DJ-mixer manufacturer Rane — purveyor of some of the finest scratch DJ mixers available — and the high-end DSP coders at Serato, best known for its groundbreaking Pitch 'n Time plug-in. Both manufacturers are leaders in their fields of expertise, and both continue that legacy by offering a digital vinyl system with rock-solid performance and unique tools aimed squarely at the turntablist market.
PATCHING IT IN
The Scratch Live hardware is a small, unassuming black box that's slightly larger than a VHS cassette. The unit sports six pairs of RCA jacks for connecting to turntables and a mixer, a USB port to communicate with the host computer and a power jack for a wall-wart power supply. There's also a ¼-inch input for connecting an external microphone. The hardware has an all-metal construction and, like all of Rane's equipment, appears to be built to withstand the apocalypse. It's large enough that it won't be misplaced easily yet compact enough to fit conveniently in a record bag or a laptop carrier. The only glaring omission is the lack of a packaged power supply, a required accessory if you plan to play regular records through the unit without a laptop attached.
Patching in the hardware isn't all that difficult, but it does require a little cable jockeying and free access to the phono and line inputs on the DJ mixer. The unit plays audio from the computer through the mixer's line inputs and acts as a pass-through for phono inputs, so if you need to throw some old-fashioned analog grooves into the mix, it's as simple as switching from line to phono on your mixer.
FUTURE WAX
One look at the vinyl that ships with Scratch Live, and it's clear that Rane has spent a lot of time listening closely to what professional DJs want in a digital vinyl system. The Scratch Live records offer a wealth of information at a glance — thin, visible grooves mark each minute on the vinyl, and thicker grooves indicate five-minute marks. This feature is a serious help when needle-dropping to find a specific spot in a track.
One side of the vinyl is 15 minutes in length and the other is 10. The code on each record is identical (the grooves on the 10-minute side are simply further apart), so if one side becomes scratched or worn, you can flip it over and keep mixing. Because you're not playing music from the records themselves, it doesn't matter how worn the records become. As long as the system can still hear valid code from the coded vinyl, the music played from the Scratch Live system will sound as good as the day you recorded it.
The 10-minute side of the disc also has a special “vinyl select” area that allows you to choose songs without ever touching the laptop. Moving the record back and forth in this area skips forward and backward in the song browser. This very cool feature is great for DJs who would rather spend less time hunting and pecking on a laptop keyboard and more on the decks.
SEEING YOUR MUSIC
Ironically, in an environment in which sound is the end product, Scratch Live is all about translating the act of DJing into a visual experience. The user interface features eight different visual insights on your music, from speed and rotation of the vinyl to beat matching and needle location. Although Scratch Live does share many basic elements in common with competing digital vinyl systems, a number of important differences do — for better or worse — set Scratch Live apart.
The waveform display is presented in a vertical layout with graphics scrolling from bottom to top rather than the industry-standard horizontal orientation scrolling from right to left. To be completely honest, I don't like this configuration at all, and I'm glad other programs have stuck with a more traditional horizontal display. Reading the waves from top to bottom, rather than left to right, seems counterintuitive to me. It also reduces the amount of real estate on the screen available for waveform display; the three available zoom factors couldn't back out far enough for me to be comfortable with the amount of data I was seeing. An option to display wave data horizontally would resolve this problem.
On the upside, once I became a bit more accustomed to the unusual vertical layout, I found Scratch Live's waveform display to be the most comprehensive and informative of all the digital vinyl systems out there. Each section of the main waveform is color-coded based on the frequencies present in the song: red for bass-heavy sounds like bass lines and kick drums and blue/green for higher frequencies like snares. This handy feature is great for keeping an eye on what's happening next in your music and is somewhat akin to the experience of reading the grooves on real vinyl.
Also useful — and somewhat more controversial — are the two extra beat-matching displays flanking the main waveform readouts. The Tempo window is the thin horizontal strip right above the main waveform display, providing a sort of general overview for synchronizing the two tracks. Match up the blue peaks with the red peaks, and your songs are synched. From there, the focus shifts to the Beat Matching window between the two waveform displays, in which kicks and snares in each track are highlighted, making it a simple affair to visually beat-mix your music.
The Tempo and Beat Matching windows aren't quite perfect, and tight mixes still require headphone cueing, but in theory, an intrepid DJ using Scratch Live could mix an entire set visually. Some might say that tools like these undermine the art of DJing. That's certainly up for debate, but one thing is certain: Less time beat matching means more time mixing, and scratch DJs will benefit from combining audio cues with Scratch Live's visual tools to make their performances faster and smother.
RECORD LABEL AND MARKERS
One of the most unique visual features in Scratch Live is the Label view, a customizable one-stop shop for information about the decks and loaded tracks. At a glance, it shows time remaining, which direction the record is moving, precise location in the record's rotation, percentage of pitch shift and proximity to any markers. The label can be further customized by color, and all color information is stored along with your music files, so visual categorization (for example, blue for house, red for breaks) is quick and easy.
Each music file can contain as many as five markers, which can also be color-coded and are quite useful for cueing points in songs. Scratch DJs who routinely use stickers to mark their records will find this feature absolutely invaluable. Each marker is indicated by a colored triangle in the waveform overview, and the colored line on the Label view grows as it nears a track marker and shortens as it moves away. Using this facility along with the one- and five-minute indicators on the coded vinyl makes it easy to quickly locate commonly used passages in your music.
WALL OF VINYL
One of the primary reasons for switching from old-fashioned vinyl to a digital system like Scratch Live is the convenience of having thousands of records at your fingertips without the back-breaking work associated with carrying around an entire room's worth of vinyl. There's nothing quite like having the perfect record for the perfect moment, and Scratch Live gives you that power and flexibility. Of course, with heaps and heaps of music comes the inevitable task of sorting through it all. Scratch Live gives you a number of tools that make finding that specific track remarkably easy.
The Song Browser is a standard Explorer-like display with virtual “record crates” in the left pane and file information in the larger right pane. The Browser can be configured to display a max of 11 ID3 tag properties, including useful search fields like bpm and genre, and the entire catalog can be sorted by field in either ascending or descending order by clicking on the desired header. It's worth noting that although Scratch Live has a field for bpm, it will not extract bpm information from files after analyzing them. If you want to sort your tracks by tempo, you'll have to figure out the tempo yourself and enter the value manually.
Scratch Live uses virtual record crates to organize music into smaller collections. An unlimited number of crates can be created, and these ordered playlists are a lot like the real thing: Songs can be moved forward or backward in the list, making it easy to work out the programming of a set ahead of time. At the bottom of the screen, there's even a spot for album art that will read graphics from ID3 tags, a nice bonus for DJs who associate their music with sleeve artwork.
STABILITY AND RESPONSE
All of this tech wizardry is useless if the system does not perform like real vinyl. And Scratch Live simply steals the show when it comes to delivering flawless music with low latency. Cueing and scratching with Scratch Live is literally just like working with real vinyl. The system is so stable and responsive that it's easy to completely forget that you're working with MP3s streamed off of a computer and not analog music stamped on wax.
Scratch Live's sample-rate conversion algorithm is by far one of the smoothest and most realistic-sounding that I've heard in a digital vinyl system. Scratching sounds absolutely authentic, and vinyl played at low speeds doesn't exhibit any of the unpleasant grungy, gritty artifacts that are commonly associated with down-sampling digital music.
Scratch Live runs flawlessly in the background, as well. On my 2GHz Toshiba laptop, I minimized the Scratch Live program and was able to write this document, transfer files over the network and play back two tracks simultaneously without any audible dropouts! Serato's engineers have done a great job of designing an audio driver that can take a beating and still deliver a solid stream of music.
COOL FEATURES
Perhaps the most innovative and unique feature offered by Scratch Live — and certainly one of the most useful for turntablists working with MCs — is the live microphone input on the Scratch Live interface. This handy feature is unmatched by rival systems, and it turns your Scratch Live setup into a basic sampling rig with complete control of live recordings at your fingertips. If you routinely integrate an MC or other live music source, like a drummer, into your performance, Scratch Live's mic input will be a major selling point for you.
Another cool feature is the Input Reverse switch, a software function that swaps decks on the fly. This inconspicuous little tool enables some pretty amazing advanced features, like single turntable mixing and swapping turntables in the middle of a mix. These advanced features require quite a few steps and are for dedicated users willing to practice, but it's nice to know that these options are available.
One of the nicest things about Scratch Live isn't part of the program at all, but I'd be doing the folks at Rane and Serato a disservice if I didn't mention it anyway. As I was writing this review, I happened across a small but lively forum of Scratch Live users at www.scratchlive.net. The developers from Serato regularly participate in discussions, offering support tips and information about future versions of the software.
RIGHT 'ROUND
Scratch Live is a robust digital vinyl system that easily holds its own against competing products. The system's unusual interface takes some getting used to, but many DJs will find the unique features — such as frequency-colored waveforms, beat-matching tools and marker points — well worth the effort. The hardware is built like a tank and leaves little to be desired, aside from a built-in power supply, and the sound and responsiveness of the system is second to none.
For a version-1.0 product, Scratch Live is remarkably stable and shows great promise — Rane and Serato have certainly raised the bar. I'd like to see Serato extend the software capabilities with support for VST plug-ins, MIDI Clock output and a more capable search interface, but even without these extra frills, there really isn't much to dislike about Scratch Live. If you're looking for a solid, reliable digital vinyl system from a company with an intimate understanding of the turntablist's needs, Scratch Live could be the one for you.
Product Summary
RANE/SERATO
SCRATCH LIVE > $725
Pros: Incredibly low latency. Excellent sonic quality. Small, durable audio interface. Frequency-based waveform coloring. Five cueing markers per track. Microphone input. Visual beat-matching tools.
Cons: No DSP. Nonstandard waveform display. Optional power supply sold separately.
Contact: e-mail info@rane.com; Web www.scratchlive.net
System Requirements
MAC: G4/500; 512 MB RAM; Mac OS 10.2.8; free USB port
PC: Intel-compatible/700; 512 MB RAM; Windows XP; free USB port
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