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Forum: VirtualDJ Technical Support

Topic: Huge problems on new 2016 MacBook Pro w/TouchBar

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Hi all,

Upgraded my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina to the completely maxed-out 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. This new thing is a beast, it's got a 2TB SSD but the downside is it's all USB-C ports.

Anyhow, I've been using VDJ8 4+ nights a week for over a year with my old MBP and a Numark NS7-III, never had a single crash or any show-stopping technical problems. But man-oh-man did I have issues my first time out with the new MBP.

A bit of the tech background: I bought a cable that goes from USB-C to USB-B to go directly from the MacBook Pro to the NS7 without a hub. I also copied the "Virtual DJ" folder from my old Mac to the new Mac (the one in Documents) so that all my plugins and custom button mappings would seamlessly transfer over, which for the most part they did. But a few things aren't working right (the third one is by far the worst):

1) Deck 1 has no hardware level-meters. Next to the each channel's volume fader on the NS7-III there's a meter that shows how loud the level of that channel is and if you're clipping. Deck 2's works fine on the new Mac, Deck 1's doesn't show anything despite audio passing through it.

2) Once I've plugged in the NS7 to the Mac, if I unplug it for any reason or put the Mac to sleep, it is not recognized again until the Mac is powered-down and restarted (reboot doesn't do it, you have to power down completely).

3) About 4½ hours into my first set with the new Mac, audio STOPPED in the middle of a song. The platter on the NS7 kept spinning while the hardware screens showed the Numark logo as if they had just been powered on but not connected. About 15 seconds later, audio suddenly started again, and "caught up" to where it should have been (it sounded like I was scrubbing the platter really fast to catch back up. Once it came back, I lost fader control. No matter where the volume level was set on the faders, audio would bleed through at 100% volume on the master. The screens on the NS7 never came back. Is there a technical log file I can examine to find a cause?

All in all, this new MacBook was a disaster it's first night out. I spent $3800 on this thing plus another $400 on adapters and extra power bricks for it, and it failed me on the first night. Are any of these known problems? I need to decide if I am going to try to work this out or return it while I'm still in my return window.

Thanks in advance for any insight.
 

Posted Sun 14 May 17 @ 5:53 pm
Oh my lord! Gonna be watching this thread.

Been thinking of updating from my MBP 15" i7 mid 2010. It's currently working fine, it had a new motherboard 4 or 5 years ago, I replaced the original 512gb HD when it failed with 750gb HD. Last year that showed signs of impending doom so I replaced it with a 512gb SSD. Last November the battery was complaining, but, I had 23 Christmas parties to DJ and couldn't afford the downtime to replace the battery. I am always connected to the mains when DJing anyway, so, I was able to hang on til January at a more convenient time to replace the battery.

I'm now thinking it's time to update to a newer Mac. Must admit I don't care for the new TouchBar Macs. I'm intending to get a 2015 MBP 13" instead. Just been mulling it over for weeks looking at various options, configurations, etc.

I don't know of anyone using the new TouchBar Macs and interested to see how well they work with VDJ.
 

Posted Mon 15 May 17 @ 3:19 am
Issues 2 & 3 sound like USB disconnection issues.
I would first suspect this USB-C to USB-B adapter/cable and I would try to use an intermediate USB hub instead (preferably with it's own power supply just to be safe)
If that fails, then I would ask Numark about compatibility of their device with USB-C ports...
Also If your old MBP has a USB C port then I would check NS7III against older MBP with the new cable.
If it shows the same symptoms on a system that's known to be working properly then the issue is USB-C port or USB-C to USB-B cable.

Issue Nr1 may be due to USB issues, or due to wrong MIDI channels assignment on your NS7III
I would consult the unit's manual to check if there's a way to change the MIDI channel, and I would make sure it's set on MIDI ch 1
 

Posted Mon 15 May 17 @ 8:38 am


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