Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The New Rane|Serato SL 2: Review




An industry standard in vinyl emulation returns with 24-bit converters, 

44.1/48kHz sampe rates, and more.

The Rane SL 2 gives you the freedom to take your entire digital music collection on the road with advanced features that add extra creativity to your DJing. This intuitive system replicates the traditional DJing experience for "real feel" usability. Low latency means the response time from touching the decks to hearing an audio signal is extremely fast. Serato engineers developed system level audio drivers that allow accurate and reliable operation at faster speeds than any other similar package.

The Rane SL 2 USB interface connects one or two standard vinyl or CD turntables to your computer using a single USB cable and audio connections to line inputs on your DJ mixer. Some of the advances in technology over the original SL1 you'll find in the SL2 include:
CD / Phono input switch on the SL 2 box
Superior sounding 24-bit converters
Hotter 3 Vrms input and output
44.1 or 48 kHz sample rate selected in software
ASIO / Core Audio drivers for 3rd-party support
Smaller and more compact die-cast design

Scratch Live SoftwareScratch Live supports all these file formats: Fixed and Variable Bit Rate MP3, AIFF, AAC, ALAC, WAV, OGG Vorbis, CD Audio and direct from the mixer. You can record direct from vinyl or CD and save as a 16-bit or 24-bit 48 kHz stereo file.

Scratch Live lets you 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.

With Scratch Live, 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.

The Virtual Deck shows everything about the speed and position of a track. As the vinyl rotates, so does the line on the label. The circular progress bar around the edge is a visual representation of the position within the song. The time and remaining time are displayed in minutes and seconds. The turntable speed as a percentage of pitch shift is on the left, and the pitched BPM is on the right.

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.

With Key Lock on, the key or pitch of the song stays locked at what it would be if the track was playing at normal speed, regardless of the platter speed of the turntable or CD player. Key Lock has scratch detection, so it automatically turns off when scratching for a natural scratching sound.

Variable zoom waveforms centered around current position display horizontally or vertically. Waveforms are colored by frequency so you can distinguish instruments visually. Full-track overview lets you quickly find where the beat drops, find breakdowns and choruses, and jump to any part of the song. The tempo display assists with rapid tempo matching of tracks. When the two tracks are matched to the same tempo, the peaks will line up. Beat display emphasizes the transients in tracks - these are matched up when the two tracks are beat matched. Visual markers can be set for up to 5 cue points per song and triggered from the keyboard. Save up to 9 loops per track - these loops are saved in the file, and will be present when you reload. Censor expletives on the fly with an instant quick-reverse and catch-up with no loss of timing or pitch.

MIDI control can interface USB controllers with Scratch Live. DJ controller support will vary. Check the latest notes at serato.com for supported controllers.

Built-in help and tips in multiple languages are accessible anytime. There is even a low power warning when running off a laptop battery.

Control Vinyl Spares
Continuous control signal on vinyl allows smooth accurate scratching. Scratch Live has an incredibly low latency vinyl emulation system and an advanced vinyl groove and stylus modeling algorithm for a sound indistinguishable from the real thing.

Innovative positioning system allows fast-and-accurate needle dropping. The record has thin marks every minute, and a thicker mark every 5 minutes (played at 33 RPM). These marks assist you when using needle dropping to move through the track.

The Vinyl Scroll track allows you use your turntable or CD to scroll through your crate and pick the next song without touching your laptop.

Two copies of black vinyl are included with the SL 2. Side A has 10 minutes plus Vinyl Scroll track and Side B is 15 minutes.

Control CD
Two 15-minute control CDs are included with the SL 2.

SL 2 Core Audio & ASIO DriversThe SL 2 is a dual personality device. When using Serato Scratch Live, proprietary Serato Audio Research drivers are used in place of Rane ASIO (Windows) and Core Audio (Mac) drivers. These Rane drivers are used when Scratch Live is not running. The Control Panel for the installed driver is shown above.

Rane ASIO and Core Audio drivers allow the SL 2 to act as a 4-in 4-out external USB sound card for use with multiple third-party software applications that support Core Audio or ASIO. ASIO and Core Audio drivers are multi-client, meaning they allow multiple applications on a computer to share the device at the same time. ASIO and Core Audio drivers are not available on a machine when Scratch Live is running.

The ASIO and Core Audio drivers are included in the Scratch Live installer as an option.

* I just upgraded from SL 1 to SL 2 on aug 14, 2011, im like a kid in a candy store with the new features,
  SP-6 Sample Player: has some new features like a pitch control for each sample player,play from your cue points or loop,track overviews (waveform),  volume controls on each sample slot.
This is my favorite feature DJ FX Plugin you  have 2 sets of  effects  for the left (turntable or cdj)  Right (turntable or cdj) flanger,echo,reverb,etc. just like the Rane tt 57 mixer 
this is great for my Traktor Kontrol X1, i can control all the effects with the touch of a button (loops,cue points,effects), another cool feature on the SL 2 its albeton live friendly i haven't played with that feature yet, i will let you know how it that works.........Ghost Dogg
   

2 comments:

  1. i already notice the sound of SL 2 is more punchy, my cuts & scratches are more crisps & clear

    ReplyDelete
  2. if you have any questions, or need help installing or you are new to the world of serato and you want to learn tricks, email me 615wutangsouth@gmail.com thx Ghost Dogg

    ReplyDelete