I recently had the chance to play with the Rane Serato SL1 mixing controller, so thought I'd share my experience:
I purchased the kit for approximately 400 GBP and it consisted of the main hardware controller, two timecoded vinyls, two timecoded audio CDs, all the audio and USB cables, detailed instruction manual and a few record box stickers.
Before I go further, I should explain the setup. I have two Technics SL1210 mk2 turntables, Pioneer DJM600 mixer and a Toshiba laptop (Dual Core, 2GB RAM) running Windows XP SP3 connected via USB to the SL1 controller.
The wiring is relatively simple in that you connect each turntables output to the controller. The controller provides two outputs for each turntable, for the 'phono' and 'line' inputs of the mixer. This means you can seamlessly switch from mixing using the timecoded vinyls (line input) to playing traditional vinyls (phone input) just by changing your 'channel input' on your mixer.
Once the hardware is installed, the Scratch Live software needs to be installed. As a Linux user, I was disappointed to find that the software only worked on Windows or Mac OSX systems. Although, there are Linux alternatives available such as Mixxx that support the Rane Serato SL1 controller, however, I have not tried these yet.
Once the software is installed, you will need to calibrate your turntable configuration so that the system can extract and extrapolate the timecode information as accurately as possible. A poorly calibrated system will result in your tracks jumping around or stuttering.
The basic calibration process involves placing the needle on the turntable when not in motion and then configuring the cut-off level for background noise and vibrations. Once this has been done, you play any of the timecoded vinyls and use the on-screen calibration dials to manipulate the calibration pattern into as best a circle shape as possible. The printed instruction manual includes some excellent reference diagrams explaining most common troubleshooting scenarios.
So now calibration is completed, we can finally start. The first thing I did was to navigate to my USB drive (full of music) which appeared in the media browser area at the bottom of the screen. To load up a track onto each turntable was as simple as dragging the file from the media browser to the graphical representation of each turntable on the screen.
I turned on the deck, cued up to the beginning of the timecoded vinyl, and it worked. The track started playing and the visualisations of the track structure, beat timing and frequency analysis rolled past on the screen.
My first reaction was to test how quick it was to respond compared to traditional vinyl. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. Admittedly, I cannot scratch very well, but as a traditional beat mix DJ, I cannot fault the reliability or latency of the timecode processing.
One nice feature is that it is possible to configure the Scratch Live software to enable seamless mixing between virtual turntables using only one physical turntable. It is hard to explain, but I can guarantee that it works very well. With only a minor crossfader action between mixes, you can perform seamless mixes with only half of the hardware.
To summarise, I really like the Rane Serato SL1. As a former non-professional DJ, I know how mixing on real vinyl felt, and although not perfect, this digital form of vinyl mixing is not far from it. Also, as an added bonus, you can always load up your favourite CDs, MP3s or other weird audio sources, and mix them on your vinyl turntables.
