Traktor Scratch Pro on Netbook

900mhz Asus EEE. Aw, yeah. I'm running it at 48khz with the latency set fairly high, but definitely usable. Analyzing takes awhile, but it's worth to carry this ridiculously tiny thing around to gigs. 2.5 pounds!

http://www.letsgooutside.com/files/pinkeee.jpg

 

Wow. Pretty awesome dude!

 

What about playing and recording your mix simultaneously?

 

Good question. I'm guessing no. I only use TSP with vinyl control on an external mixer so it doesn't matter for me. But I'll try it out to see if this is a viable way to get my laptopless homies into digital DJing on the cheap.

 

i have MSI WInd U100 - but for me, this laptop seems to be too slowly for Traktor Scratch Pro ))

 

How are the latencies (since what you said, "fairly high", can mean anything from 10ms to 100ms), are you able to use keylock and FX, is there anything else worth commenting?

As I've previously posted, I've been looking for a netbook suitable of running Traktor Scratch Pro (or, more likely, Duo) for equipping a team of bar DJs with such setup. It is nice to know that someone has actually tested this...

My idea is that a lot of things would be greatly eased by this - mainly the problem that currently all the DJs go to a recordstore themselves and buy the same songs (more or less) which, admittedly, is a bottomless hole to throw money at. The way I've figured it, it'd be better if there was some centralised "buyer", who then distributes the necessary songs for the jocks (in Finland, this is possible as long as the DJ has a license from the copyright agencies and the songs originate from a legal source).

Edit: Oh yes... and have you tried 96kHz to see how it affects the latency (or if it's even possible)?

 

70ms. Keylock only really works with with latency at 90ms. FX work fine.

Yeah, I really want to try DUO, but the damn demo link goes to TSP. I'm assuming it has a tad less overhead than PRO? Plus it'd just be an extra portable setup.

It turns to total crap at 96khz. I really want to see if the light(er)weight DUO will let me get the sample rate up. I always play at 96khz on my Vaio and it makes a *massive* difference, as I'm sure you know.

48khz sounds about like the new Serato and way better than Live (even with a really nice mastering FX chain). Fortunately for me, the primary purpose of this netbook running Traktor is to DJ while running Live on my Vaio, which I run at 48khz. I've found that keeping Traktor's quality too high while playing with Live makes the Live bits sound like trash. Matching sample rates makes for a more even sounding performance. The rest can be made up with EQ on the mixer.

All that said, 48khz is well beyond "good enough" for this specialized type of performance. Though it would be absolutely wicked to be able to run it all at 96khz.

 

If size is the real advantage someone is looking for, try the HP ultra portable line. It's a bit bigger with a 12" screen and more processing power. I can run at 7ms @ 44.1khz. It's not that much more money either. I have the multitouch screen which you can omit to save $.

 

Just an update. I'm now running TSP at 88.2khz with vinyl control on this netbook. I have my latency set at 31.5ms, which allows me to use FX, key locking *and* analyze new tracks while playing two records. The longer latency times reported earlier were on my internal card. The Audio 8 does much better. If I forego the FX and key locking, I can get the latency under 16ms @ 88.2khz.

I'm now confident in making this my primary gig machine. I use my Vaio for production and performing live.

http://www.letsgooutside.com/files/netbook_tsp_882_vinyl.jpg

 

11.5ms latency @ 88.2khz. This is with key locking and FX (Delay + Reverb) on both decks, which are being played through vinyl control, while analyzing a track and browsing for another. My USB latency is set to 4ms and audio is set to 12ms. With the exception of really intense scratching, the latency is unnoticeable.

I was able to get it down to 8.5ms at this sample rate without glitches, but the UI started to slow down to an acceptable rate. Under 8.5ms introduced glitches. I'm not even going to test below 88.2khz sample rate because because audio quality is my top priority here., but I'm sure I could get half the latency at half the sample rate.

I have anti-virus software running in the background, but no drives (not even CD/DVD) hooked up and all the XP theme stuff turned off.

 

I have Pro 1.2 running not a netbook but a Mini ITX. The case is 8in wide 20 Cm X 2.5 inches high 62 mm x 10 inches long it has 2 X 2.5 inch drives internal. 1 is SSD the other a 500GB Sata. CPU is 2.2GHz Core 2 DUO w/ 2GB of RAM (system overheats with 4GB at present). Max Screen res is 1600 X 1050 on DVI at present and 1920 on HDMI. Audio 4 latency is clean at 3.5 Msec. O/S is Windows 7.

I could have gone to an even smaller case but it mean a move down to an ATOM class processor and a hard requirement for this systembuild is clean Full screen 1080P Video, something the ATOM class procs can't do reliably at present.

Very pleased with Traktor performance on this system, although its likely to never run Traktor again once the build and test is done...

Phil

 

I installed tsp 1.2 beta 2 on my netbook just for the hell of it earlier this week. It runs @31.5ms, uses 30% cpu with spikes up to 85%. It runs good with no audio drop outs even when it spikes. I used 2 tc decks with fx, no keylock.