Final Solution To Audio Drop Outs Crackles Etc Using Traktor S4

Im not sure if you're reffering to your own situation (seems like it), but to all those tuning into this thread and skipping to the end.......The Problem still exists. Please think twice about buying an S4 if you have a windows based PC. You've been warned.

 

I ran into issues with drops and pops/crackles when I first purchased my s4. It was running on a Dell XPS with 4gb mem, 1.6ghz dual core. I could get that to stop by disabling services (as mentioned previously), turning off LAN and wireless (disable), and turning off AV. I also noticed though that there was an issue with my power as well. When I separated out the S4 and plugged it into a separate circuit from my laptop and other dj stuff it was noticeably better. I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 17r (2.8GHz), i7 processor, 750mb hd, 8gb ram... It works (obviously) awesome now. However, I still get some drops/hesitations when/if I'm scratching and haven't shut off wireless. Once I shut off wireless...It's solid. For the power item - I purchased a battery backup that evens out the power input.

Hang in there...I was bummed as well. Sometimes the thing would work perfectly...other days I would get the issues in this thread. Overall I couldn't be happier with the unit now that I have a handle on the issue.

 

I'd have to agree with you Scamo and say it's probably in the minority as well. It's still an unacceptable % though. It was at an unacceptable % when it was released, and over a year later it still remains so. This thread was started a year ago, and really not too much has changed.

For those of you who wonder if anyone from NI reads these threads; I remember a thread not too long ago, I think it was about people having issues recieving products and what not, anyways after the thread had blown up with a bunch of people having similar problems someone from the support staff of NI did respond. I don't think they're super involved with this forum, but they probably check from time to time.

 

Well, I'm windows based laptop, and I don't have ANY problem
It's just a matter of settings I guess.

 

Thanks, that is an excellent question I hope SpeedFan logging will clarify. I've never had a problem before but perhaps my uniquely perfect mix was on a cold day, and disabling MS ACPI-Compliant Battery has caused the problem, (even though everything was set for max performance, maybe there are hidden efficiencies I lost). Coming to the conclusion I need to roll back my last changes and maybe tolerate the playlist glitches.


If I thought anyone were reading this before deciding whether to buy an S4, I'd say it works perfectly and is pretty much defect free, (if you accept that the S4's internal soundcards lean very heavily on the CPU - my dual 2GHz processor shoots from 35% to 80% when I switch to using the S4 soundcards instead of external). The S4 setup is incredible, as it offers complex functionality unlike any other DJ software. As a result though, it is extremely demanding of many aspects of the hardware - USB buses, disks, audio, graphics, cooling, etc - so on anything other than a dedicated and very high performance machine - much, much higher than the official minimum - this is a balancing act that requires a lot of risky trial and error configuration and fiddling with buried OS settings. My machine is Pentium T4200 (dual 2GHz), 4GB RAM, 4GB ReadyBoost, I've been in touch with support for weeks and been optimizing and tweaking my machine since September, (having optimized it for two years for DAW work), and I think it is physically just not capable.

 

Well in my opinion it should not in a million years be allowed to claim to be compatible with Win7. The drivers simply are not robust enough. Other manufacturers manage it with their soundcards. Not all granted, I had issues with an M-Audio card as well. But it just is not part of the deal that you should have to spend weeks or more troubleshooting, disabling all sorts of things, just to get it working at it's basic function. Or even never like me, I'm using a focusrite saffire, never one glitch or pop. And never had to change any settings at all. Feel I've been had a little.

 

I don't have this problem neither on my laptop not on my desktop.

 

Agreed. For best performance on Windows, use an interface that's designed from the ground up to run well on Windows. The difference is like night and day.

If your NI hardware works on your PC without a problem that's great. But don't presume everyone else's does, or presume that it's just affecting an insignificant minority. I suspect even working systems are possibly having CPU and other resources taxed unnecessarily and could also benefit from a firmware/driver makeover. It's good to hear they're working on it.

 

Well i am in the same boat it seems got an S2 because i wanted to move from simple home mixes to live web radio and club sets....what a mistake!
Since getting my S2 days ago i have had NOTHING but problems with the soundcard built in. I have used many audio products on my laptop ableton with komplete, FL studio and NEVER had any issues whatsoever.
I was just using a bottom of the barrel controller with a built in sound card and i kid you not for $200 i was up and running in minutes for $599 i got a big shiny piece....
My laptop meets the spec to run this but the dropouts and freezes are UNACCEPTABLE. I tried every trick to optimize my system with no improvement whatsoever so i broke down and formatted twice!
Windows 7 clean install with just the traktor kontrol S2 soft installed and i cant play a 30 seconds sample without it sounding like garbage and freezing
Windows XP same thing exactly CPU load is slightly lower but the freezing is a regular thing.

To use another soundcard is NOT a fix nor is Hacking your laptop just to reduce CPU load.

I paid good money for this and sold my old equipment because i thought it would be a good investment.
I already pushed back a gig because of this crap and now i had to back out because im left with no other equipment to use and a controller that works worse than my 2 year old $200 controller.
I was a big supporter of N.I. but i will never buy anything N.I. again after this.
Why hasn't this been fixed yet?

 

..

 

Thanks to the 2 of you that have come in and told us how you don't have problems. Forget about the 35 pages this thread has expanded to, if you 2 don't have problems then the problem must not exist. We should just close the thread now.
In all seriousness, I think most people agree that the issues probably only happen to the minority of users, but the % still experiencing problems is still way too high.

 

I've got an S2 and I suffer the same problems that so many of the posters in this thread suffer. I'm starting to think it's been a big waste of money.

 

The issue is still there but it seems no matter how much we try to explain that it's a Win 7 driver issues people don't get it. There is no tweek or fix if you have Win 7 machine ! Only solution buy an external card period. Seriously though 35 pages and you think someone would look at this and say holy crap this is bad let's give a heads up to the head office. But, everyone from NI is playing this thread as if nothing is wrong and we are all delusional.

 

Here's something else to consider, not everyone who is having this problem is ending up on this thread. A lot of people probably have the problem and take the s4 back or they have the problem and do some maintenance to get them by even if there's still driver conflicts they let it go and suffice with the functionality they were able to acquire with their tweaks, maybe they just thought their computer was out dated so they bout a new one not realizing that they were within the specs but just assumed that was the problem. There is a whole slue of reasons why there could be tons more people out there with these issues and it's not just the people on this thread. My opinion is this. I have serato, have had it for years. I open it and it runs like a beast. I open Traktor and almost instantly you can tell that it's not performing nearly as well as serato even without having the glitches. CPU usage is all over the place. It's already been stated countless times that using a different soundcard causes enormous gains in stability and cpu usage savings. so if it's not the software environment and it's not the computer having the right specs well then where does that leave us..? oh yeah..... Drivers. The problem is Driver incompatibility within certain windows environments. It is down right irresponsible and flat out inconsiderate for Traktor to release The S4 for Windows machines knowing these issues existed and I don't buy for a moment that they didn't know. that would be a flat out lie. they have released updated drivers a couple times now and it's improving but it's still not all the way there. I WILL be returning my S4 and I will be waiting for the right controller to come out for ITCH. I will not deal with a company that does business this way, no matter what their product is like. I'm in Serato's corner

 

I hear ya. It can be frustrating, especially when you see all the time, money and resources put into their marketing. I can't do a youtube search without some stinking NI advertisement showing up haha. Maybe they should spend a little more time and money on their current customers instead of their potential customers

 

And even more people who don't have a problem at all are in here either.

 

Right! every single ad i receive on facebook or youtube is NI and for the S4 most of all. SELL SELL SELL,... fix.... ehh we'll get to that but for now SELL SELL SELL! I feel like writing them and telling them to quit suffocating me with ads already.

Rane doesn't pull this crap.
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If you're gonna have a come back try and have the sentence make sense before you post it.

 

In all fairness that'll just be one of those auto ads because youi've been looking at NI stuff. Blame google.

 

Right ... It's Google's fault that NI spends small fortunes on advertising?

And today we all receive the latest 'future of dj'ing' installment frrom NI ... .'lighting the way' of the 'dj revolution' .... better get me a bucket.