Rane Serato Scratch Live DJ Solution with Audio Interface

by Rane

Product Details

• Item Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 pounds
• ASIN: B0007CQY4C
• Item model number: SSL
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,452 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 13, 2004

Product Description

Scratch Live supports all these file formats: Fixed and Variable Bit Rate MP3, AIFF, AAC, WAV, OGG Vorbis, CD Audio and direct from the mixer. Record from your Mic and immediately scratch as if it was on vinyl. Record direct from vinyl or CD and save as 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo file. Easily import your playlists and iTunes library. You can drag from Explorer (Windows) or the Finder (Mac) into the Scratch Live library. The crate and subcrate system helps organize your library and sets. Hot-swap external drives with fast automatic library merging and retention of crates. Browse your music collection by album, artist, BPM, or genre, with optional album art display. Intuitive search function can be applied to any field to find things quickly. Edit ID3 tags with full Unicode support. Preprocessing of MP3 files is not required except to detect corrupt files or use the auto-BPM and auto-gain functions. Auto-BPM detects tempo information for tracks without it, saving it with each file. A tap tempo button allows you to enter your own. Auto-gain lets you set a target gain on any or all songs in your library. You can also manually adjust individual gain, remembered in each song file. Different operating modes can be assigned to each Virtual Deck: Absolute Mode - exact reproduction of record movement, needle drop through tracks - just like normal vinyl. The beginning of the track is mapped to the start of the record. Relative Mode - skip-free scratching, jump to cue points, and pitch bend buttons combined with turntable control. This mode observes the relative forward and backward movement of the record, but does not regard the position within the record. Internal Mode - mix with just your laptop using features modeled on DJ CD players. Rewind, Bend down, Play / pause reverse, Play / pause forward, Bend up, Fast forward. Auto mode - play a sequence of tracks automatically.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing product, January 12, 2007

By 

Thom74 (OC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rane Serato Scratch Live DJ Solution with Audio Interface (Personal Computers)

The first concern about this product is whether there is any lag during scratching, and amazingly, there is absolutely none. It works just as you'd want it to, completely naturally. It's hard to believe that you're actually manipulating a digital file when you scratch or speed up or stop the control record. You can even put the stylus down a little way into the control record and the song will start at whatever point that represents. Plus, you can use your turntable to scroll through your songlists.

The software interface is classy and well-designed, and the actual control box is solid. It's a pretty amazing product - a great idea, so simple, yet so effective. My only concern is that it encourages the move away from vinyl, and frankly, the sound quality hit you take with MP3 is pretty big. But not everybody can lug cases of vinyl around and so, I really wouldn't hesitate about buying one of these.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great DVS, December 25, 2007

By 

DIRTYROTTEN (Queens, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rane Serato Scratch Live DJ Solution with Audio Interface (Personal Computers)

Ok I'm rating this as compared to other digital vinyl solutions. I'm among the few that have owned and used 3 different DVSs (Final Scratch 2, Serato Scratch Live and Traktor Scratch). I currently own both SSL and TS.

First off, I do use vinyl and none of the DVS can truly compare to actual vinyl. High quality mp3s, they still fall short.

But Serato is the best of all the ones I've used for 2 simple reasons: 1) Customer support (their forums are great and they are always coming out with FREE updates) and 2) user interface (not alot of features but clean and simple; just what I need).

Pros:
Best customer support for DJs
Simple intuitive user interface
Great low latency, great for scratching

Cons:
No recording input on box
ASIO support is not great

Traktor Scratch wins on scratching though. TS sounds better when scratching. The Audio8 DJ that comes with TS is great. The multicore cables are great (I use it with my Serato actually).

Pros:
Great sounding scratches, closest sounding to real vinyl
Beautiful looking and functioning hardware (Audio8DJ & cables)
Software offers many more features than SSL

Cons:
Ugly looking software interface
Customer support has not been great (not just for me; check their forums for proof)

SSL has been around for a while and you can say that the hardware is outdated but it works the way it needs to. I'm a scratch DJ / turntablist and SSL does the job for me. I've shelved Traktor Scratch for now, only using the A8DJ to record my mixes from Serato and the cables.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!, July 16, 2007

By 

DJScar (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rane Serato Scratch Live DJ Solution with Audio Interface (Personal Computers)

I use this software everytime i DJ - either at a wedding or a club - Serato will never let you down - Its response to what you do is instant. I HIGHLY reccomend this product to any other DJ out there!