Hi everyone,
This time we decided to go for something different than Pioneer and picked up the Numark Mixstream Pro Plus. In standalone mode, it works just fine.
However, one of the main selling points was its advertised compatibility with Virtual DJ and Serato DJ. Unfortunately, when using it with either software, we’re getting crackling and popping sounds during playback — regardless of the buffer size settings.
This issue doesn’t happen at all with our Pioneer controllers, using the same computer and software environment.
Even regular system audio, like YouTube playback, occasionally produces noise when the Mixstream is connected.
Considering the price and the professional branding of the device, we expected better performance.
Has anyone else run into this and found a fix? Any advice would be much appreciated!
When posting issues like this, you need to give as much detail as possible. Are you on Mac or PC? You mention buffer size - but what is it? VirtualDJ also has various settings that can be tweaked - what are those set to?
It’s not advisable to run your OS audio through your DJ controller. Keep that dedicated to the audio from the DJ software and nothing else. Set the OS to use the onboard audio.
I’m on a high-end Windows laptop (i7 11th Gen, RTX 3080, 64GB RAM), so hardware shouldn’t be the bottleneck. LatencyMon doesn’t show any critical issues either, which makes this even more puzzling.
I’ve tried various tweaks in VirtualDJ. I experimented with turning “ultra-latency” mode on and off, but that made no difference. Buffer size was set to 512, then 1024, even 2048 — no change at all. The crackling and popping remains the same.
When it happens, the track in VirtualDJ stops playing properly, and the controller doesn’t even register button presses anymore. It feels like the Mixstream Pro’s internal CPU is either overwhelmed or freezing up entirely.
Also, I’m not using the Mixstream Pro as the default Windows audio device. I’ve tested with WASAPI, ASIO4ALL, and Numark’s native drivers — the issue persists across all of them.
Any further ideas would be greatly appreciated! Its a great device and we love it but, we cant use it like this.
Not yet. I’ve only been using the included USB cable so far. But that’s a good point! I’m planning to grab a new one from the electronics store later today and will test it to see if that makes any difference. Thanks for the suggestion!
Yes, now you mention the info about the buttons not working, that does sound more like a connection issue. How is it connected? Directly from Mixstream to computer’s USB port or are going via a USB hub? Direct is best. Also it’s worth trying different ports.
Swap the cable with one from the working Pioneer units…
IMO get rid of ASIO4ALL. It’s not an ASIO driver, it’s antiquated and unneccessary. Always use the supplied drivers.
If you’ve not done so already, the VDJ forum has lots of posts about solving buffer/crackle issues.
Good point on the drivers, that definitely could be causing the issue, even with dedicated drivers installed, if they are still running in the background it might be conflicting.
My old Macbook Pro had old style USB A ports and the right hand side one wasnt the same spec as the left hand side, apparently its quite common for hardware companies to use better quality ports one one port to the rest.
Thanks for the suggestions! I actually just reinstalled the system completely and am only using the official Numark drivers no ASIO4ALL or anything else. I also bought two brand-new USB cables and even tested with the cable from one of my working Pioneer units, just to rule that out.
Unfortunately, the issue persists I still get the crackling and glitches.
Any last tips before I consider returning the unit? At this point, I’m leaning towards sending it back.
For our purposes, yes it is kind of a big issue. But you’re probably right: I think we just bought the wrong device for what we need. Oh well… lesson learned
Can you post a screenshot of the “processes” and “drivers” tabs in latencyMon, sorted by “hightest executions.”
It’s likely that one or more processes/drivers are creating some sort of conflict causing high DPC latency with the Numark audio driver, while this may not occur with the Pioneer driver.
Nvidia drivers, in particular, are known to cause DPC latency, as are ACPI drivers on some laptops.
Here are some things you can try to test:
Disable your Wi-Fi connection or switch to airplane mode on your computer and see if the crackling continues. Some Wi-Fi chipsets are known to cause a lot of DPC calls.
Check that you’re using a maximum performance/gaming mode and not a power-saving/entertainment/quiet mode in your laptop’s manufacturer’s utility.
Might also be worth numbering your laptops usb ports and rebooting between swapping which usb port the controller is plugged into - eg the problem might affect usb ports 3 and 4 but not ports 1 and 2
Not all laptops give the same preferences/bandwidth to all usb ports
