"Rub" scratch = distortion.

[Hertz]

First off, awesome piece of software and coming from SSL I find MixVibes to be just as good if not better vinyl feel wise, and the sound quality I do believe is definitely (possibly even far) better.


So doing my part here to try and help make this already overall excellent product even better.

There's one problem I've come across so far though:

When doing this scratch as shown in this video here at 2:35 (forgot the name of the scratch) but it's where he moves the record forward and puts his other finger on the record to go against the fingers friction and get the *brrrrrt* sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqMcv_i_hjo

When I do that on the side opposite of the tone-arm/on the other side of the needle it's mostly fine, but when I do it backwards with my finger close to the needle, Cross distorts and the audio becomes distorted, doesn't really track, and kind of messes up.


I made a sound file to demonstrate what I'm talking about: http://www.zshare.net/audio/86542233f44c8bb3/


(any slight popping in the recording is due to some changes I made while running Cross, I have it set on 0.7ms w/ the U46MKII running on a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo w/ 2 GBs of RAM, no other processes, works flawlessly)

I do some scratching to show everything else is A-OK, but I start the "better sounding" but still somewhat distorted "rubs"' at around 00:31, and the backwards-finger close to the needle at 00:38.



Besides this one and only "issue" if you will, Cross has been only just phenomenal, as low if not lower latency than SSL and better to *far* better sound quality. This is an issue I have, is this really an issue or could it be more of my needle setup? I tried different threshold settings, no difference, however w/ my Shure M-44G I think it may not be as pronounced, so maybe it's my cart, but I don't recall whether or not this happened w/ Serato.

[Support@MixVibes]

If you had touch the threshold and nothing better had come, do you have the same behavior with different input setting.

In mean if you put the U46 in phono and Cross into line (opposite as regular setting). or reverse if was still in that mode.
Still the same ?

[Hertz]

Ironically my inputs were set to Line the whole (2-3) days I've been using it, switching them to Phono seemed to help like 10%, but still a bit of distortion when finger is close to needle, but most the time the "rubs" are pretty clear like in the video when my finger is on the left side of the vinyl when my turntable is in battle position.

I don't notice really much a difference between Line and Phono settings on Cross, does it really make a difference to the software as long as the U46MKII is set to Phono? I mean Cross is set to phono now and it could just be me, but it at least feels a bit cleaner, only during the "rubs", otherwise it sounds the same if they're set to Line if that makes sense. Does it make a diff. for the software?

I do still get a bit of distortion when my finger is near the needle. Is this simply not avoidable or "normal" behavior due to it being a DVS system? Everything else feels nearly if not completely indistinguishable from vinyl, except for this one "issue", so it's *far* from a buzz kill if isn't avoidable, but I imagine it would be solvable by either some tuned rumble threshold filter or higher resolution timecode, like Traktor Scratch? This small "issue" is, again, far from having me switch over, all else is more or less perfect; a few really small distortions (maybe) when doing fast baby scratches but I think that's possibly my needle wobbling too much as it only happens really rarely.

Possibly this is because of my needle? Anyone else out there w/ MixVibes Cross that can test what I'm doing to see if they get any distortion?

This is on a Shure M44-7

Nice on the quick response btw, are you going to forward this to the dev team?

[sylMV]

The dev team reads you too

[Hertz]

Word, the support here is great, big ups!

Ok, so after setting my inputs to Phono the "rubs" seem to be almost perfectly clear, possibly a little bit of distortion if my finger is next to the needle on the backwards rubs or possibly a little sometimes on the forwards, but overall it's to be better, possibly pretty much solved, but still sometimes prevalent on the backwards, so I think it would be good if someone else could try it, maybe someone at the dev team, and see if they could make such an action be perfect always, instead of seemingly nearly perfect just most of the time and, again, pulling off even the most demanding scratches in other cases is basically flawless. Could someone tell me if it's possible to fix this now what appears to be a pretty much "non issue", and I'll update if I notice any more artifacts.

So does changing the software settings from Line to Phono even when the sound card is set to Phono help, I mean I it "seems" to have helped me, but could that have been what was wrong, even though an other stuff it seems there's no diff. between line and Phono settings in the software?

EDIT UPDATE: Yeah, there's still some distortion on the back pull like in 00:38 of the audio file I uploaded, but doesn't seem as bad, and the forwards seem pretty much perfect, a lil distortion maybe here and there, but besides that, nothing, and again, everything else is perfect, even very demanding scratches, it's just this "rub" that's somewhat of an "issue". It could be my needle however not giving a clear enough TC readout possibly? So I'm curious can anyone else test this as well.?

[Support@MixVibes]

I'll make it clearer :

U46 phono -> Cross line
U46 line -> Cross phono

and this is where you set the input type into Cross

Cross U46-01.jpg

[Hertz]

I know which is what I've been referring to in my posts, so let me get this clear, if the U46MKII is set to Phono, then Cross should be set to Line, correct, as the sound card is doing the pre-amping?

[sylMV]

Correct!

[Hertz]

SOLVED! At least that's how it seems so far, ok so it seems Cross works overall far better (worked great still) but in terms of the rub scratch and all when I have -

U46MKII set to Line and -> Cross set to Phono, it reads the timecode more clearly and I can pull of the rub w/ absolutely *no* distortion as opposed to-

U46MKII set to Phono -> set to Line.

So, sorry of this is mentioned somewhere in the setup, but that should be mentioned somewhere in the boot screen when you first start Cross for the first time or in the manual, to include that when using turntables, set the U46MKII to *Line* and not phono like wouldn't everybody do?

I'll update again if I notice artifacts, but my TC read out looks different, as well, and I think Cross is tracking it better, haven't noticed any distortion at all yet now

EDIT UPDATE: No distortion *at all* , it's 99.9999% perfection!! I mean, basically 100% but there's always something to be improved, but it is 100% perfect now overall, no distortion, and when doing fast baby scratches it tracks perfectly.

So setting up the U46 for Line for turntables and Phono for Cross seems to be the far better setup, the MixVibes team should seriously like make a disclaimer or something regarding this

Is this not the usual setup? So far so good, I'll update if any artifacts come up but right, sounds like the problems are gone, literally.

[Support@MixVibes]

So setting up the U46 for Line for turntables and Phono for Cross seems to be the far better setup, the MixVibes team should seriously like make a disclaimer or something regarding this

This is the default setup in Cross since v1.3