Traktor Duo + Hercules RMX not working after power down and reboot

The obligatories:

- Macbook Pro, Core 2 Duo, 2.4GHz
- 3GB of RAM
- 160GB hard drive with ~70GB free
- Traktor Duo, v 1.2.6 (R8491)
- Targus powered USB hub w/ protection for devices that draw too much power
- Hercules dj Console RMX (plugged in via the Targus hub)
- plugged into some old Yamaha powered speakers (for your PC)

After installing Traktor Duo, I followed a set of instructions on the Hercules website for how to properly configure the software for using the Hercules RMX. It went fine and the RMX worked OK. The .tsi file supplied by Hercules mostly worked; you could navigate the tracks, load decks, play, pause, use the jog wheels to position the track for play, adjust tone controls, etc. but didn't have a control assigned to adjust wet/dry for deck B. It was pretty close though.

I was able to pre-listen to tracks in the phones, you could hear the tracks playing over the speakers. Life was good! Things were working well enough to invest the time to tweak everything. That was Saturday and I had a wedding to do that evening.

So, I shut down the Macbook Pro, gathered my stuff and headed off to the wedding. After setting up the PA gear, I plugged in the Mac, the hub, the RMX and fired up Traktor. To my horror, it pops up the Preferences panel which is showing a message in bright red: "Please connect and select an audio device". Trying to choose the RMX as the audio device fails, Traktor reads no MIDI commands, I have a lump of inert software and something approximating a boat anchor. Oh yay! The bride and groom are to come thru the door in 5 minutes... AAAAAHHHH!

I punt and use iTunes to make some music. Luckily it was hot outside and everybody hit the bar hard as they walked in.

Sunday evening, I start tinkering around and find through the MIDI Monitor program that the RMX is "alive" and the Mac is seeing MIDI commands. But why is Traktor not seeing anything?

Monday evening I decided to uninstall Traktor using the uninstall utility from the NI website. I reinstalled Traktor, reconfigured per the Hercules instructions and we were off and running again. I decided to exit Traktor and restart it. Things were fine; it recognized the Hercules, read the MIDI commands, played the music, no problem. I figure we're good. But I figured wrong...

I then shut down Traktor and shut down the Mac. After rebooting, Traktor pops up the preferences panel and the "connect an audio device" message. If you try to choose the Hercules RMX device, it fails (you get no sampling rate info or latency info after choosing). Traktor is basically useless at this point; it won't see MIDI commands and it you get no audio because you can't play a track.

I am more than a bit confused at this point. I have no idea where to go or how to solve this. Anybody got any ideas? Reinstalling Traktor every time and having to reconfigure it every time is just not going to work and, well, sometimes you just have to power down your computer.

Help?

dennis
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Oh. Never Mind.

I may have 30+ years of computer experience (I wrote FORTRAN when it was Cool) but I am a newbie at MIDI and these completely FIDDLY MIDI consoles....

1) NEVER restart your computer with the MIDI console plugged in.

Your computer will simply not notice it. Wow. Those are some completely useless drivers, huh?

Solution to my problem:

1) turn on the computer
2) connect the console after computer is fully booted up
3) start Traktor
4) Profit!

Now we're getting someplace... I can go figure out the nits and grits in the MIDI mapping....

Hope this helps somebody else...

Dennis' 1st Rule of MIDI DJing: connect the console AFTER the computer is fully booted up and not until. It will actually work that way.

Enjoy all!

dennis

 

Hello Dennis,

1) Please detail the complete versions of:
- operating system (for example Mac OS 10.5.8, or 10.6.25)
- DJ Console Rmx drivers (it is written in the About tab in DJ Console Rmx control panel)

2) Can you check in the DJ Console Rmx control panel that its MIDI channel is on channel 1?

3) Did you try re-loading the TSI file in case it changes anything?

4) Do you keep the DJ Console Rmx connected on the same USB port?
(Why do you connect the Rmx after the computer has booted rather than before? I don't mean it should change anything, but I always connect my DJ Console Rmx on my MacBook before pressing on the power button)

5) Did you try connecting DJ Console Rmx directly on your Mac (if you have a USB plug available for it)? I don't mean it should change anything, but maybe the USB hub changes the rank in which USB devices are declared. Have you other USB devices connected on the USB hub? I have had strange detection issues once on a hub, and I found a USB travel mouse was causing all the trouble the day I removed it.

Made In Breizh
Team Member of Hercules DJ Mix Room

 

It was late, sorry... I'm running Snow Leopard with all the current patches/updates

Offhand, I do not know the version of the drivers for the RMX. On Sunday night I downloaded and installed the latest version of the drivers from the "old" Hercules website (hercules.com rather than from herculesmixroom.com).

One of the things I was doing was checking/rechecking that using the RMX control panel tool. It was never on any other channel than 1.

Interestingly enough, through all of these exercises, the Mac was able to "see" the MIDI commands coming back from the RMX. I verified that through the MIDI Monitor tool. Most of the time I was able to spin the wheels or twiddle a know or press buttons and see that it was sending MIDI command data back to the Mac.

Yes I did. I tried that as a "saving throw" at the gig. It didn't work but I also did not unplug the RMX from the hub before I tried it.

Yes. There are two ports on the Targus hub I use that can handle USB devices that try to draw too much power (as the RMX tends to do). So it is usually connected to the 1st overpower-capable port.

Now this is an INTERESTING question! I really can't answer it *except* to say that when I attached the RMX and booted, Traktor fails to see the console, it won't read MIDI commands, it can't use the soundcard in the RMX, and I get the dreaded "connect an audio device" message.

When I wait until after the Mac is *completely* booted and then plug in the RMX, it works just fine (for some value of fine constrained by the fact that I don't like all of the MIDI mappings but that we can fix...).

My RMX is a couple of years old. Is your newer? Perhaps later models consume less power and work better on the USB bus?

Yes, I tried to connect the RMX directly to the Mac. You *ALWAYS* get an alert box screaming about the RMX consuming too much power. I am reasonably sure that you can never see the RMX from any application on the Mac when that happens. (I am not 100% sure, I'd have to retest it.)

No, there were no other devices hooked up to that hub, either at the gig or at home in the office where I'm doing my testing/configuration work. I do have a Bluetooth mouse dongle plugged into an *unpowered* hub attached to port on an Expresscard that has 4 USB ports. It seems to be causing no issues AS LONG AS I power up the computer and then plug in the RMX.

The Good News is that this problem is solved for a strange value of "solved". I have a way to repeatably get things working. As long as I do things in this specific order, it works. Deviate from that plan and you get "huh? RMX what?" from Traktor.

The question I have is WHY does this happen? You are telling me that you can just leave your RMX plugged in all the time, no problem. Why is it that your rig will work and if I do the same, my rig won't?

Since I have a way to make things work, I can carry on. If there were other diagnostics I could run that would at least point us in the direction of understanding "why", I'd be happy to take the time to run them. I figure I can chalk it up to "climbing the learning curve".

Thanks for your interest in this!

dennis

 

You have tried all the USB ports on the Macbook, correct ?

There was a know issue that some USB ports were giving less power than other. This was mentionned on teh NI support site, as well as Hercules:

http://ts.hercules.com/faqs/eng/her_eng_00362.pdf

 

What I've Learned So Far...

Honestly, this is like the 4th time I've tried to submit a reply to DJ Phatso's post. It looks like the gremlins have multiplied and migrated to the NI forum... :angry:

Yes, I did try all of the USB ports on the Macbook Pro. The RMX will *reliably* cause each one to throw up the "you've drawn too much power" alert box. My RMX has done this since the day I bought it. When I called the guy at DJ Supply Co. here in Michigan he said he hadn't seen anything like that. I took the Macbook Pro and my RMX in to show him.

The only way I've been able to use the RMX is by plugging it into a powered hub. BUT not just any old powered hub. I tested against several hubs I've got and every port would "die" from attempting to deliver more power than the USB calls for a port to deliver.

What I found is that there are a very precious few USB hubs out there that will deliver more power at a single USB port than the USB spec requires. Targus used to make a laptop docking station that had 2 USB ports that would allow you to exceed the power spec. It cost $100 and Best Buy carried it. There were one or two others but I forget who made them.

I know that Hercules (and others) have said that their gear should work on my Macbook Pro. My testing and experimenting shows that "your mileage can and will vary" with these console devices -- I've been reading a lot of forum posts the last few days and it seems that ANY console you pick has more than a few folks who are bumming because the console won't "play nice" with their particular laptop.

So that everyone understands, I have a "resolution" to the issues that caused me to start this thread.

My Problem Was:
I packed a rig that was working just fine, went to a gig and NOTHING would work! Absolutely nothing. My RMX might as well have been a brick. This is bad when the bride is 5 minutes from arrival and expects special music to make her entrance to!

How I "Resolved" the Problem:
I uninstalled Traktor Duo from my Mac (be sure to use the NI-supplied uninstaller program from their downloads page!). I reinstalled Traktor. I plugged in the RMX. I reconfigured Traktor (more or less) per the instructions Hercules supplied on their tech support site (the version of Traktor shown differs from the version I have). And viola! It was working again.

I could use the RMX with Traktor and everything was happy again. Well, until I shut down the Macbook Pro anyway... that led to the second problem.

The 2nd Problem Was:
After getting everything working again, I decided to test what happens after you power down the Macbook (to simulate what happened with the gig).

Shut it down. Powered it up. Hey, looky looky! The RMX no longer works. Hmmmm. Now I am ticked off... WHY does it not work NOW?

So I shut down the Macbook Pro and unplugged everything from the computer; my USB drive, the Targus hub, the ExpressCard USB card I use, I even unplugged the RMX from the Targus hub.

And then I powered up the Macbook Pro. Plugged in all my stuff. Plugged the RMX into the Targus hub LAST. Fired up the MIDI Monitor program and it saw that the RMX was sending MIDI commands. Fired up the RMX Console applet and made sure it was on channel 1 to match the .tsi file from Hercules.

Then I started Traktor. It came up, I selected the RMX and everything was Just Fine again.

Hmmm.

Lessons Learned:
1) Even though you are supposed to be able to plug the RMX directly into a computer's USB port, it may or may not work for you.

2) Powered hubs DO NOT supply more power at a single port than the USB spec requires. Just because the wall wart for some hub says that it supplied 5V @ 3A does not mean that any individual port can exceed the power draws as specified in the USB spec.

3) Powered USB hubs that will allow a port to exceed the power draw are pretty rare. Right now if my Targus docking station blows up, I am pretty screwed.

4) You may experience problems when you connect the RMX (and probably any console) before you boot up your computer. It seems that this can cause issues with the MIDI drivers and it is likely that your computer will fail to "see" the console.

CONNECT YOUR CONSOLE LAST! After you have booted up and the computer is "stable" (no longer doing whatever it does to boot up).

I fully realize that there are people out there who will tell me that I do not have to connect my console last, that I should not need a special hub, etc. To them I say, come on over and show me. I've tried to connect things just like they say and it just does not work for me. Clumsy as my method now is, it does work and it seems that, at this point, it will work reliably.

Since I had recently stopped in at DJ Supply Co. to whine about my problem and, hopefully, get some insight so I can fix it, I went back to share my experiences. A different guy was there and he said that he sees this sort of issue with all sorts of MIDI equipment. He said that there were people who found that they had to unplug and replug things to get them to come up correctly in their systems, that leaving them plugged in was simply not a reliable option.

I hope this helps somebody else regardless of what DJ software they use or what MIDI DJ console they use.

What I fail to understand is why Hercules and the other MIDI console manufacturers do not have an external power input on their hardware. A proper wall wart and an input connector can't raise the cost of an RMX that much can it? It would make this piece far more robust.

The other thing I see is a need for changes to the USB MIDI drivers used in these devices. Do you have to unplug and replug USB hard drives every time you reboot your computer? OF COURSE NOT! Why do we find that we have to mess with MIDI devices over USB like this? The industry would be well-served to spend a few bucks to get better drivers so that this sort of thing became a dim memory instead of an everyday frustration.

I am personally considering the cannibalization of a USB cable and an old 5V wall wart to see if I can supply external power (ie, not from the hub) via the USB cable itself. I have bins full of old black USB spaghetti and many old wall warts for devices that no longer work. If this were to work, it could simplify things a bit.
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To DJ Phatso and Made In Breizh -

Thanks for your interest in the problem. I hope I can repay that favor some day.

Hopefully, what I've documented here will be of use to somebody else...

Thanks all!

dennis
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To DJ Phatso and Made In Breizh -

Thanks for your interest in the problem. I hope I can repay that favor some day.

Hopefully, what I've documented here will be of use to somebody else...

Thanks all!

dennis

 

Hello dennis,

I have sent you a mail as I think your DJ Console Rmx may be improved to consume less power.

There are many reasons to design MIDI controler for use without any power supply: it is more mobile (no need of a dedicated power plug), it can be used even in country with unusual power plugs, the device cannot be damaged by a pbad power installation in a house, you reduce the after sales support from customers who say they have not found the power plug in the box,....
The issue you have is just no a standard issue.

Made In Breizh
Team Member of Hercules DJ Mix Room