djderricke
First thing I would like to say is a big THANKS to the development team on this project. A lot of hard work has been put into it, and I am grateful. I expect this version to be a better experience for our customers out on the dancefoor, or wherever you DJ. For all the veteran users of VDJ 3.x be warned that 4.x is not your old hometown, you are not in Kansas anymore. :) Some of the buildings may look the same, but all the street signs have changed. I recommend spending a lot of private time getting to know this new version before you take it on the road with you. (Or use the old skin until you are used to everything.) Okay now onto my impressions.
Audio
Even in my headphones (as my wife is alseep right now) I can already notice the increased quality in sound. I immediately loaded up a 48khz VOB file and it sounds wonderful. Timestretch is much improved, but still a drain on your system if it isn't powerful enough to handle it. Although you can still get great results with some of the settings dialed down a bit. A lot of users got their wish with the keylock feature. This feature replaces the Timestrech feature and will be a godsend to some users and a bane to others. If you've never owned a newer Numark turntable or CD player, the feature may drive you nuts at first. Play with it, and get used to it. The pitch bend buttons on the skin are a welcome addition as well. The beat looping feature is another thing that has changed a bit. You now have the added ability of putting your loop 'in' point wherever you want during a mix instead of it 'snapping' to the beat. Overall, the audio portion seems to have the most work done to it, and a lot of the users' issues have been addressed.
Video
The video quality still looks pretty good. Without being able to do an A/B test I would say it is about the same as 3.x. You can now load your AC-3 encoded MPGS and VOBS without hassle. The major difference however is where all the videos setting are placed. Now everything is in one place and it isn't in the config menu. Everything is under the effects tab where it should've been in the first place. I like the option to display an external video source. (such as a webcam) This could be a good tool for weddings and clubs. I tried using the feature with my TV Tuner card, but it didn't display the video properly. So that new feature may still need some tweaking. Even the slideshow portion has gotten an upgrade with smooth fades and an adjustable delay between pictures. Something that really got looked over however is the text plug-in. Nothing has been changed with it, and it remains the red-headed stepchild of the family.
User Interface
I expect a LOT of knashing of teeth over the new skin. Depending on what type of DJ you are, you will love it or hate it once you start to use it. (You may even go back to the old skin!) It seems the developers tried to simplify things a bit and give you a choice of skin based on your DJ setup and style, rather than throw everything in one skin. However this is going to cause a lot of confusion with older users. Options that I thought were gone simply were not in the skin I had choosen. I tend to play videos a lot where I work, but using the video skin sacrifices my audio-eqing options which kinda pissed me off. It also gives me a microscopic fader which doesn't work for me since my main audio comes out of one channel and I cue on another. I can get the big fader in the 'Internal Mixer' skin, but I lose my video preview windows. Of course this leaves more holes for the pro-skinners to fill in, so I expect to see a whole new crop of skins to satisfy people like myself. (I may even get into skinning!)
Overall I like the new upgrade. Even though it has gone up a major release point, it still kinda feels like a point release to me. A lot of things have been fixed since 3.4 but there is nothing ground breaking in this release. Let's see what 4.1 has to offer when it comes out.
Audio
Even in my headphones (as my wife is alseep right now) I can already notice the increased quality in sound. I immediately loaded up a 48khz VOB file and it sounds wonderful. Timestretch is much improved, but still a drain on your system if it isn't powerful enough to handle it. Although you can still get great results with some of the settings dialed down a bit. A lot of users got their wish with the keylock feature. This feature replaces the Timestrech feature and will be a godsend to some users and a bane to others. If you've never owned a newer Numark turntable or CD player, the feature may drive you nuts at first. Play with it, and get used to it. The pitch bend buttons on the skin are a welcome addition as well. The beat looping feature is another thing that has changed a bit. You now have the added ability of putting your loop 'in' point wherever you want during a mix instead of it 'snapping' to the beat. Overall, the audio portion seems to have the most work done to it, and a lot of the users' issues have been addressed.
Video
The video quality still looks pretty good. Without being able to do an A/B test I would say it is about the same as 3.x. You can now load your AC-3 encoded MPGS and VOBS without hassle. The major difference however is where all the videos setting are placed. Now everything is in one place and it isn't in the config menu. Everything is under the effects tab where it should've been in the first place. I like the option to display an external video source. (such as a webcam) This could be a good tool for weddings and clubs. I tried using the feature with my TV Tuner card, but it didn't display the video properly. So that new feature may still need some tweaking. Even the slideshow portion has gotten an upgrade with smooth fades and an adjustable delay between pictures. Something that really got looked over however is the text plug-in. Nothing has been changed with it, and it remains the red-headed stepchild of the family.
User Interface
I expect a LOT of knashing of teeth over the new skin. Depending on what type of DJ you are, you will love it or hate it once you start to use it. (You may even go back to the old skin!) It seems the developers tried to simplify things a bit and give you a choice of skin based on your DJ setup and style, rather than throw everything in one skin. However this is going to cause a lot of confusion with older users. Options that I thought were gone simply were not in the skin I had choosen. I tend to play videos a lot where I work, but using the video skin sacrifices my audio-eqing options which kinda pissed me off. It also gives me a microscopic fader which doesn't work for me since my main audio comes out of one channel and I cue on another. I can get the big fader in the 'Internal Mixer' skin, but I lose my video preview windows. Of course this leaves more holes for the pro-skinners to fill in, so I expect to see a whole new crop of skins to satisfy people like myself. (I may even get into skinning!)
Overall I like the new upgrade. Even though it has gone up a major release point, it still kinda feels like a point release to me. A lot of things have been fixed since 3.4 but there is nothing ground breaking in this release. Let's see what 4.1 has to offer when it comes out.
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 5:52 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
Thanx for the very adult and reflective feedback :)
4.0 is first of all a completely rewritten soundengine, so yeah.. Might not be felt as the huge upgrade by some, but trust me, rewriting the whole program, and make all the (old) features work + add a few new ones takes time ;)
text plug-in and lots more will be worked on for 4.1.
A lot of planned features did not make it to 4.0 because of pressed time, and text plug-in, idtags, new browser etc etc etc etc are in the progress, and will come for 4.1
In fact, many will actually feel 4.1 to be the huge release, if you are only looking for fancy new features, and overlook the core improvements in the new audio engine :)
4.0 is first of all a completely rewritten soundengine, so yeah.. Might not be felt as the huge upgrade by some, but trust me, rewriting the whole program, and make all the (old) features work + add a few new ones takes time ;)
text plug-in and lots more will be worked on for 4.1.
A lot of planned features did not make it to 4.0 because of pressed time, and text plug-in, idtags, new browser etc etc etc etc are in the progress, and will come for 4.1
In fact, many will actually feel 4.1 to be the huge release, if you are only looking for fancy new features, and overlook the core improvements in the new audio engine :)
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 6:06 pm
nickgoodman
The text messaging has changed - you can have text on multiple lines, which was my only complaint with it in the past, thought it was too small an issue to be fixed, yet the VDJ team have ! :) :)
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 6:08 pm
djderricke
Actually if you use CTRL-Enter instead of just ENTER, you can make a line break in 3.4. As a side note, I've been on and off the forums all day, and I have to say after all the bellyaching people made about getting the software, some users are coming off as extreamly ungrateful.
[Soapbox ON]
Some people are complaining after only using the software for a few minutes. People, it is a major upgrade and needs to be tweaked for your system. The developers gave you the ability to tune the program to your specific hardware which is a great thing! But at the same time you need to look at your system and make sure that YOU are not at fault before blaming the software. DJ Norway and some others have already given some great tips on how to get around a few issues. Read the forums before you bitch and moan.
[Soapbox OFF]
[Soapbox ON]
Some people are complaining after only using the software for a few minutes. People, it is a major upgrade and needs to be tweaked for your system. The developers gave you the ability to tune the program to your specific hardware which is a great thing! But at the same time you need to look at your system and make sure that YOU are not at fault before blaming the software. DJ Norway and some others have already given some great tips on how to get around a few issues. Read the forums before you bitch and moan.
[Soapbox OFF]
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 9:27 pm
VanStino
djderricke wrote :
Actually if you use CTRL-Enter instead of just ENTER, you can make a line break in 3.4. As a side note, I've been on and off the forums all day, and I have to say after all the bellyaching people made about getting the software, some users are coming off as extreamly ungrateful.
[Soapbox ON]
Some people are complaining after only using the software for a few minutes. People, it is a major upgrade and needs to be tweaked for your system. The developers gave you the ability to tune the program to your specific hardware which is a great thing! But at the same time you need to look at your system and make sure that YOU are not at fault before blaming the software. DJ Norway and some others have already given some great tips on how to get around a few issues. Read the forums before you bitch and moan.
[Soapbox OFF]
[Soapbox ON]
Some people are complaining after only using the software for a few minutes. People, it is a major upgrade and needs to be tweaked for your system. The developers gave you the ability to tune the program to your specific hardware which is a great thing! But at the same time you need to look at your system and make sure that YOU are not at fault before blaming the software. DJ Norway and some others have already given some great tips on how to get around a few issues. Read the forums before you bitch and moan.
[Soapbox OFF]
I could not agree more. And complaining about the "not so big" upgrade is just crap... Real DJ's hear instantly that the sound quality is way better than on any other previous version, too. No offence to people that don't hear it at once, but as a professional DJ, you need to pay attention to sound quality. In the region that i'm active in, many competitors think of sound quality as "not so important" because "no one notices it"... WRONG!
I love this upgrade! Gadget freaks: wait a bit for VDJ 4.1... (maybe Norway can setup a countdown for that version already :P)
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:01 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
No more countdowns for estimated times of arrival.. EVER;) hehe... Got burned, and Steve made fun of me ;) hehe
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:03 pm
VanStino
dj-in-norway wrote :
and Steve made fun of me ;) hehe
He had a good reason too :P
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:08 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
true... havent laughed that hard in ages!;) Well made joke from Steve, on a far too easy target;) hehe
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:13 pm
erxon
I had some time to play with the new version today, so I'll share my experience with you.
The sound has definately been improved, and it's great to have the ability to fine tune the performance, but I did encounter quite a few problems and some solutions on the way to set it up and adjusting to new interface:
Sound setup issue encounter with Audigy 2
Since I'm only using an external mixer at home, I've tried the "External mixer" setting with the Primary Sound Card (4.1) driver, which worked fine, but the latency was unacceptable, so I tried the ASIO mode (with my Audigy 2) which created a problem: Left deck plays both on channels 1&2 and 3&4, while right deck plays ok only on one channel. Naturally the problem remains with the reverse L/R deck option, just for the other deck. So I tried different settings in my drivers (from 7.1, 5.1, 4.1) with the same result in VDj 4. But luckily I found a work-around: with only a 2-lines mixer I gave up using samples, and selected the "3-lines mixer" mode, and selected the "1&2 Samples / 3&4 Left deck / 5&6 Right deck" option which works as it should, but I don't understand why the output order has been switched since 1&2 + 3&4 should work as a front/rear channels? Samples of course play on both 3&4 and 5&6 channels (which they shouldn't) if I use them.
This is probably my hardware (drivers?) issue, but would love to get some pointers what the problem could be.
Working with multiple effects
An efficient way to handle more effects requiers keyboard shortcuts / midi control. I use only the first option at home, but I can't figure it out: function select_effect pops a list of effects as it should, but selecting any of them deactivates any used effects. Using only mouse (clicking on the effect name on effect pannel) however works. Function effect_activate disables only the last enabled effect, and does not correspond with the newly selected effect by mouse, only to function select_effect.
Am I the only one with this issue? Or is there a function I'm missing, because there are no macros on the assigned key which would explain such behaviour (for example reset function).
Small issue with Tk Filter plug-in
When moving the mouse outside the effects' area where you manipulate the frequency & resonance paramters and releasing it, the mouse gets stuck to the manipulator (red dot), so when you pass through that area without holding any mouse buttons it affects the parameters. It makes it hard to reset the filter to it's top-right or bottom-left position with this issue present, and takes valuable time while mixing.
A nice improvement to the plug-in would be the ability to also use the filter with direct parameters on skin interface (for example param1: low pass, param 2: resonance).
Small issue with browser
When clicking anywhere on skin's buttons and then directly choosing a song in browser, it instantly unselects it. It's slightly annoying that one has to click again to be sure of which song was selected (in case you want to analyze it or just to browse throgh database).
Improvement suggestion: keylock position indicator
Would love to see an indicator on the pitch slider, where the key was locked, so it's possible to return to that position and disengage keylock (in case one doesn't change the pitch seperately).
That covers my basic problems of today's test :) Feel free to give some feedback regarding these issues (if you're having similar problems or no problems at all), and I would be very greatful to recieve support on the effects & sound setting issue.
Best regards,
erXon
The sound has definately been improved, and it's great to have the ability to fine tune the performance, but I did encounter quite a few problems and some solutions on the way to set it up and adjusting to new interface:
Sound setup issue encounter with Audigy 2
Since I'm only using an external mixer at home, I've tried the "External mixer" setting with the Primary Sound Card (4.1) driver, which worked fine, but the latency was unacceptable, so I tried the ASIO mode (with my Audigy 2) which created a problem: Left deck plays both on channels 1&2 and 3&4, while right deck plays ok only on one channel. Naturally the problem remains with the reverse L/R deck option, just for the other deck. So I tried different settings in my drivers (from 7.1, 5.1, 4.1) with the same result in VDj 4. But luckily I found a work-around: with only a 2-lines mixer I gave up using samples, and selected the "3-lines mixer" mode, and selected the "1&2 Samples / 3&4 Left deck / 5&6 Right deck" option which works as it should, but I don't understand why the output order has been switched since 1&2 + 3&4 should work as a front/rear channels? Samples of course play on both 3&4 and 5&6 channels (which they shouldn't) if I use them.
This is probably my hardware (drivers?) issue, but would love to get some pointers what the problem could be.
Working with multiple effects
An efficient way to handle more effects requiers keyboard shortcuts / midi control. I use only the first option at home, but I can't figure it out: function select_effect pops a list of effects as it should, but selecting any of them deactivates any used effects. Using only mouse (clicking on the effect name on effect pannel) however works. Function effect_activate disables only the last enabled effect, and does not correspond with the newly selected effect by mouse, only to function select_effect.
Am I the only one with this issue? Or is there a function I'm missing, because there are no macros on the assigned key which would explain such behaviour (for example reset function).
Small issue with Tk Filter plug-in
When moving the mouse outside the effects' area where you manipulate the frequency & resonance paramters and releasing it, the mouse gets stuck to the manipulator (red dot), so when you pass through that area without holding any mouse buttons it affects the parameters. It makes it hard to reset the filter to it's top-right or bottom-left position with this issue present, and takes valuable time while mixing.
A nice improvement to the plug-in would be the ability to also use the filter with direct parameters on skin interface (for example param1: low pass, param 2: resonance).
Small issue with browser
When clicking anywhere on skin's buttons and then directly choosing a song in browser, it instantly unselects it. It's slightly annoying that one has to click again to be sure of which song was selected (in case you want to analyze it or just to browse throgh database).
Improvement suggestion: keylock position indicator
Would love to see an indicator on the pitch slider, where the key was locked, so it's possible to return to that position and disengage keylock (in case one doesn't change the pitch seperately).
That covers my basic problems of today's test :) Feel free to give some feedback regarding these issues (if you're having similar problems or no problems at all), and I would be very greatful to recieve support on the effects & sound setting issue.
Best regards,
erXon
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:31 pm
Steven725
People are talking about me on the forums!!! That means I'm cool now!!!!! :D
I'm really glad the release came out before I have to go (By the way, I'll be leaving for southern England October 17th, so I won't be knocking on your door ;P )
At first look of 4.0 I was shocked with the way it looked. Very different, almost like a completely new program (actually with the new engine, it basically is...) I haven't played with it much yet, just downloaded it half an hour ago, but the sound is definately better :D Personally, I don't like the skin much, but I think I'll stick with it for now because I'm too lazy to add the new stuff to my old skin right now. I'm not worried though, it will only be a short while before the master skinners fill in all the voids.
One question: It says that 4.0 is made with multiple users in mind and that it has its own database for each Windows account on the computer that it is used on. I can't seem to find a way to turn this off. I have a seperate account on my computer that I use just for gigs so I can have other programs turned off, a clean desktop, etc :P for my gigs, but I don't want to have to copy/paste my database every time I have a gig in order to have everything the way I like it.
Anyways.... GREAT WORK!!! Can't wait to play around with it more and see what it can really do ;D
I'm really glad the release came out before I have to go (By the way, I'll be leaving for southern England October 17th, so I won't be knocking on your door ;P )
At first look of 4.0 I was shocked with the way it looked. Very different, almost like a completely new program (actually with the new engine, it basically is...) I haven't played with it much yet, just downloaded it half an hour ago, but the sound is definately better :D Personally, I don't like the skin much, but I think I'll stick with it for now because I'm too lazy to add the new stuff to my old skin right now. I'm not worried though, it will only be a short while before the master skinners fill in all the voids.
One question: It says that 4.0 is made with multiple users in mind and that it has its own database for each Windows account on the computer that it is used on. I can't seem to find a way to turn this off. I have a seperate account on my computer that I use just for gigs so I can have other programs turned off, a clean desktop, etc :P for my gigs, but I don't want to have to copy/paste my database every time I have a gig in order to have everything the way I like it.
Anyways.... GREAT WORK!!! Can't wait to play around with it more and see what it can really do ;D
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:31 pm
GargantulaKon
I can't wait for the Official Version 4.0 Manual to come out! I am going to read it from virtual cover to virtual cover. :-)
I am probably one of the few people who do that with everything they buy that comes with a manual. I think it's respectful to the people who spent lots of time writing it and re-reading to make sure it sounds right. I've done them before; it takes a long time to perfect, I know.
I am probably one of the few people who do that with everything they buy that comes with a manual. I think it's respectful to the people who spent lots of time writing it and re-reading to make sure it sounds right. I've done them before; it takes a long time to perfect, I know.
Posted Thu 24 Aug 06 @ 10:54 pm