MIXVIBES Dj Community old forum

Hi to all,

I have downloaded the demo version of Mixvibes Cross and am hesitant about buying the software, which in principle appeals a lot to me. I have used Traktor and Virtual DJ and the native Mac software djay before, and either way I have been missing one or several features as far as compatibility and/or usability with my MacBook is concerned. I wonder whether Cross could be just what I need, were it not for the following open questions:

1. I cannot manage to set up the program with the audio interface DJ i/o, even though it is recognized in the audio preferences, it will not play (not even no sound but really no play); using a on-line soundcard works, however. Is that a demo restriction or a permanent one?

2. Is there no search function outside the i-Tunes folder or the collection/playlist view? How can I search within the explorer function?

3. Where and what parameters need to be set before being able to pre-cue via headphones? So far the pre-cue output is running on the one master output only. Question related to 1, I guess...

4. Is Cross really fully compatible with the Vestax VCI 100 controller? Anybody who has experience using the two together?

Many Thanks for your help & greetz from Cologne, Germany,

redM.

Hello RedM and thanks for your interest in MixVibes Cross !

1. There are no restrictions regarding audio setup in the Cross Demo. Your soundcard should work. Since you are running Cross on a MacBook, you're using CoreAudio. Do other low-latency audio applications perform correctly with your DJ I/O ? Have you tried to raise the buffer size in Cross Audio Settings?
This "not playing at all" issue is really strange. Unfortunately we don't have a DJ I/O here in order to test your setup. I'll see if we can get ahold of one shortly and let you know.

2. Touché. This one hurts. We are well aware of this issue. The explorer pane will be fully reworked in upcoming releases. In the meantime, there is no way (other than importing the tracks to the collection first) to perform database operations directly in the file browser.

3. In the audio settings pane, there is a routing selector that allows you to choose between several pre-wired routings that should cover most use cases. Please tell us if none fit yours.

4. MIDI control is disabled in the demo version so unfortunately, you cannot test it, but yes, the VCI 100 is one of the MIDI controllers supported in Cross. Please note that right now, only MIDI IN is implemented, so Cross won't light and blink the LEDS on the VCI just yet.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your quick reaction!

1. & 3. I managed to get the decks playing with DJ i/o plugged in, yet no pre-cueing was possible and via the master output there is only a very remote scratching audible. Also, the software only recognizes two out of the four output channels in green, the other two remain red as do all input channels. As soon as I touch the buffer settings, however, playing stops completely, the settings drop to no audio device and that's it, nothing can be changed anymore. Closing and opening the program again, I can start anew, but the same will happen over and over again, regardless of how I set he routing mode.
As far as other software is concerned, the audio interface runs smoothly on Windows and Virtual DJ, with Traktor on a Mac it works less stable (even after re-installing drivers). I also have an iMic available, but since that only has one channel, I would need to pre-cue via the internal soundcard, but I cannot set Cross to adress two devices, as far as I can see.

2. I see. Meanwhile, can I access a second library of iTunes located on an external drive directly or will the software only get hold of the main, internal iTunes library?

4. "Yet" = will be there in the future? The lights are pretty essential in a dark booth...

Thanks for your help, again, and congratulations on designing such a competitive software! I really hope that I will get the things working somehow...

Best,

redM.

Hi again,

I'll try to answer your questions one by one.

* Routing issues:

Have you tried to enable the disabled (red colored) output channels by clicking on them ?


* Audio buffer size issue:

Changing the soundcard's buffer size should of course not stop completely the playback! I'm suspecting a problem with the audio driver here.

Is the DJ I/O supported by default by MacOs X? If not, did you install the latest drivers from Numark?
As soon as we get a DJ I/O here, we'll give it a try. Without the device, our hands are tied, unfortunately.

Have you tried to use your DJ I/O with professional software synths or DAWS like Reason or Ableton Live? The demos are available online and would be a good way to test your device on the mac.


* Multiple audio devices

Cross cannot synchronize multiple soundcards. On MacOSX, you can setup and use an aggregate audio device by using the Audio MIDI Setup application if you wish to merge several soundcards into one.
On windows, well... you have to have a multi-IO soundcard, or mix without monitoring (this, by the way, is a user-scenario that's always been taken into account in Cross objectives, from the very beginning).


* iTunes

Cross currently only imports the XML library of the current user.
In the near future, we may propose a setting allowing to change the location of the imported iTunes library.
However, enabling multiple iTunes panes that can be configured with distinct iTunes library paths is not on the radar, yet. I first need to be convinced that this feature matches a very common use case. How would you use such a "multiple iTunes libraries" feature?


* MIDI out

Yet == not now, but on the ever-growing todo-list.
For the record, I'm also using Cross in dark rooms, and craving for MIDI out.
;-)

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

Nicolas, on behalf of the MixVibes development team.

Hey, at least the communication within the Mixvibes forum works really well ;-)

Unfortunately, I still cannot say that for Cross with my settings...


* Routing issues:

"Have you tried to enable the disabled (red colored) output channels by clicking on them ?"

Yep, and they become indeed green. Which enables me to hear something via headphones when I click on the sign, but besides the fact that the sound is worst-latency (I suspect) scratchy, the tracks than also play on the master channel. Whatever configuration I choose, it's either that or no headphone sound.


* Audio buffer size issue:

"Changing the soundcard's buffer size should of course not stop completely the playback! I'm suspecting a problem with the audio driver here. Is the DJ I/O supported by default by MacOs X? If not, did you install the latest drivers from Numark?"

The driver instaled is the one that came with the device. There is an updated one, which does not run on my computer and Numark is apparently aware of that, since it refers on the website to using the older version if the newest won't play.

"Have you tried to use your DJ I/O with professional software synths or DAWS like Reason or Ableton Live? The demos are available online and would be a good way to test your device on the mac."

Maybe I should try that out. In case it shows that there is a problem with my driver, I would even consider selling the Numark. I suppose Maya would work smoothly with Cross? Yet, with the configuration issue I am not sure, since you cannot choose your own configuration but have to do with the offered pre-sets...

* Multiple audio devices

"Cross cannot synchronize multiple soundcards. On MacOSX, you can setup and use an aggregate audio device by using the Audio MIDI Setup application if you wish to merge several soundcards into one.
On windows, well... you have to have a multi-IO soundcard, or mix without monitoring (this, by the way, is a user-scenario that's always been taken into account in Cross objectives, from the very beginning)."

I haven't tried this merging yet, will check that out.
I only ever ran once through a gig without pre-cueing since my headphones broke that night, and frankly, I felt pretty insecure and it only worked because I played a set which I was really familiar with. Mostly, I need to incorporae CDs or individual whishes, and often I djay with others, and there I really would not want to miss it, despite BPM sync possibilities...


* iTunes

"Cross currently only imports the XML library of the current user.
In the near future, we may propose a setting allowing to change the location of the imported iTunes library.
However, enabling multiple iTunes panes that can be configured with distinct iTunes library paths is not on the radar, yet. I first need to be convinced that this feature matches a very common use case. How would you use such a "multiple iTunes libraries" feature?"

You can have two libraries under the same user in iTunes, one on the internal hard drive and one on an external one. You can switch between the two when you start iTunes. Alternatively, you can use a program that organizes several libraries with their respective playlists for the same user, such as libra. Most of my music is stored externally, and for instance within the software djay, that fully (but unfortunately only) integrates with iTunes, you can choose between two libraries.The asset of that is that you create virtual playlists that will run on any computer with any software that integrates with iTunes, and not just playlists within the individual software, that are not transferable and use up internal space (I have 250 GB inside and 1 TB outside...). When my Mac drive crashed and I was forced to use a colleague's Windows computer, I would have really appreciated that platform-overarching possibility...


* MIDI out

"Yet == not now, but on the ever-growing todo-list.
For the record, I'm also using Cross in dark rooms, and craving for MIDI out.
;-)"

So, that means you have to take along these ugly snake-like 80s-style lamps ;-)

Well, I still hope "we" can brake the Traktor and Virtual DJ-monopoly - the first is ok, bit boring and kind of (personal)computer-nerd-appealing (guess they regard themselves as too settled on the market) and the latter is really not made for Macs and too expensive for what it offers (it's a bit like running MS Office on a Mac - it works, but suddenly you miss features and it never quite runs the way you knew from a PC). Either way, I have never understood why DJ-software is so Windows-prone, since music production on the other end is so Mac-tied. I personally only moved fom CD-djaying to computer only when I moved from Windows to Tiger (now Leopard)...

Thanks for keeping in touch,

Miriam

Hi Miriam,

Good news: I'll have a DJ/IO on my desk this afternoon, so hopefully I will be able to reproduce and correct the issues you are mentioning.
The "new-driver-version-does-not-quite-work-so-use-the-old-one-if-you-encounter-any-problems" statement scares me a little bit, though. We'll see.

The Maya works fine with Cross, AFAIK. I use the one built in the VCM-100 on a daily basis, without problems.

Regarding the multiple-iTunes-collection request, I'd be curious to know how you actually switch between collections.
In the advanced iTunes preferences, you can change the location of the music folder, but the location of the XML and binary files that store the track references does not seem to be user-modifiable. Does Libra address this?

If Cross featured a setting for the iTunes library location, that would solve your problem, right? That would be the quickest to implement, for now.

redM. wrote:So, that means you have to take along these ugly snake-like 80s-style lamps ;-)

Nah... the LCD glow is kinda ok for most of my purposes :-)

redM. wrote:Well, I still hope "we" can brake the Traktor and Virtual DJ-monopoly

Don't even get me started on the SSL one... ;-)
More seriously, our goal is simply to provide creative, reliable and user-friendly cross-platform DJ solutions.
The road is still long, but we'll get there.

redM. wrote: - the first is ok, bit boring and kind of (personal)computer-nerd-appealing (guess they regard themselves as too settled on the market) and the latter is really not made for Macs and too expensive for what it offers (it's a bit like running MS Office on a Mac - it works, but suddenly you miss features and it never quite runs the way you knew from a PC). Either way, I have never understood why DJ-software is so Windows-prone, since music production on the other end is so Mac-tied. I personally only moved fom CD-djaying to computer only when I moved from Windows to Tiger (now Leopard)...

Yeah. Well. Possible explanations for the windows-centric attitude of most DJ software:

* Cross-platform software development is hard ball, and is not easily retrofitted in a legacy win32 application.
* The Mac market share has exploded over the last years but was very marginal before.


I'll keep you posted of our findings with the DJ/IO.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Hi !
My english isn't as wonderful as grossebete's, but I'll do my best!


Audio buffer size issue :

I have been testing the DJ | IO on an iMac running Tiger (10.4.11), with the drivers that came with the device (v1.33) and with the latest ones available on Numark's website (v1.50)

v1.33 : The interface goes in a very unstable state as soon as you choose any other buffer size than 256s, 512s, 1024s, or 2048s. (I had the similar unstable behaviour under Ableton Live & Logic Pro) The consequence in Cross is an auto-disablement of the soundcard. Trying then to reselect the DJ io as the active soundcard is impossible because Cross still can't activate the interface with the unsupported latency previously selected. (this misfeature will be fixed in the next release)

v1.50 : These latest drivers are running fine on my machine and they fix every problems encountered with the older drivers (v1.33).

If you can't install the latest DJ io drivers on your machine (which may depend on the OSX version you are running), I would recommend to use your interface only with one of the specific latencies listed above, and keep an eye on Numark's drivers update.


Routing issue :

I couldn't find any specific issue in audio routing, and got the DJ|io working with the Master signal in out1&2 and the Cue signal in out3&4 (routing mode : Dual Stereo).

In the audio preferences, make sure that :
- outputs 1,2,3 & 4 are enabled (green).
- routing mode is set to "Dual Stereo"

You shouldn't hear anything in your headphones as long as the "cue monitor" buttons on the mixer are disabled (one per player).
Toggling this buttons shouldn't add anything to the master output as long as you are in "Dual Stereo" routing mode.

Thanks for your feedback


Another Nicolas, on behalf of the same MixVibes development team.

Hey,

Thanks, your English is perfectly fine

Well, maybe it's a Leopard thing then, because neither does the updated driver run on my Mac OS X nor do I get the possibility In Cross of setting any other latency than the pre-set 512s that has this awful scratching included. Whatever I choose and regardless of choosing it before or after choosing the selected soundcard, Cross auto-disables the soundcard.
Therefore, I didn't get to the routing thing, where the problems also persist.
I only recently switched to Leopard and I would'nt want to move back to Tiger only because of that...

I guess I will try out another soundcard with the Cross Demo in a local musicstore. My next gig is this coming Friday, and time is running...

Many thanks for keeping me posted on any further issues; I'll let you know how things worked with an alternative soundcard, then.

Best,

redM.

Alright, keep us in touch, we always need more feedback !

Best,
Nicolas

redM. wrote:I guess I will try out another soundcard with the Cross Demo in a local musicstore. My next gig is this coming Friday, and time is running...

Hi redM,

You should take a look at the U46MK2 soundcard. The latest driver is more than reliable. Moreover its sound quality is very good (we used it live). Last but not least its value for money is one of the best among the market of audio cards.

More info: http://mixvibes.com/site/pageeng/page.php?x=mv7u46