So you are the one to judge what‘s silly or not? Different people have different opinions and needs. And I find it nice to have a forum like this to express those - ideally without being confronted with harshness and being ridiculed and title as crying like a baby. My view only, maybe …
It is perfectly clear for users who have owned a Denon unit prior to Ventura to do their research before updating to Ventura.
But what about the customers who have purchased the new devices such as SC Live 2/4 and have Macs who already have Ventura consciously or unconsciously (automatic update was switched on)?
Or those who bought a new Mac with Ventura already installed? (not everyone has the expertise to go back to Monteray)
I think Denon had enough time to provide the update for Ventura in time - especially since we’re not talking about a feature that you might have liked to see.
SC Live 2/4 buyers cannot use their devices standalone under Venture at all. If I had spent $1300 on this I would be ■■■■■■ off
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Silly or not, blaming Apple for keeping their OS up2date and change things is not the way. Remember that the OS is the core for each software or driver, the developers have to follow the rules of the operating system. And it can happen that certain functions change entirely and require updates. This happened in the past on every OS and this is why the pre-release version of the OS is distributed among developers months in advance, so they can adapt to the changes and be ready for the release. Remember that newer devices come with Ventura preinstalled, so if someone goes and grabs an M2 macbook, the chances are high that this user will have the Ventura update. Do you want to force people to downgrade a new machine to get compatibility for something?
There is nothing silly about pointing out that a critical issue exists and it has not been fixed for months, not hours or days. And this is not some fun 1-man project here, it is a huge company selling expensive professional gear, so updates and compatibility are highest priority, but we do not see this priority. What is silly - to tell people to hold off crucial updates to their OS because the software developers are not willing to hotfix issues at release or shortly after.
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Sidenote: If you were developing a product, what would you prefer, clients telling you all good, we can live with some shortcomings, or clients giving you open feedback about what would really help to improve their experience (for them and maybe potential clients, who are not convinced yet)?
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That is a fair point. I was just discussing this exact thing yesterday with someone in the industry and we basically agreed you’re better off having a ‘DJ only’ machine running on an older, stable OS with stable versions of software installed, given the amount of issues being caused by these chip changes, OS updates etc.
Me personally, i have a 2015 Macbook Pro on Catalina, running Serato 2.5.5 and the last version of Engine Desktop, i have no other software on there (apart from Audacity for cleaning up vinyl rips) and i dont plan on ever changing it.
My normal machine is an M1 with Monteray installed, and some photo editing software.
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Given they have put an article out asking for people to avoid using the OS, i think they are way past the point of needing feedback from people, that tells me they are fully aware of the problem and are working to fix it (as per the article)… what does repeating to them what they already know achieve?
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Given the point that the warning is 37 days old and no update has been published (even as beta for people who want to help test it) tells us that the feedback is needed since the issue is not seen as critical and the priority was not set correctly. Every developer has a list of bugs and issues to fix and they range from critical (fix yesterday!) to midrange (affects only a handful of users and does not impact stability very much) to very rare and weird bugs that might show up only for a few users in very specific combinations of hardware and software and get the lowest priority. But here we are talking about the core feature not working at all, making the software useless in combination with the hardware (can’t import/export anything on Ventura, no playlists, no files, no settings and it does affect all external drives, be it integrated into the unit like the Prime 4 internal drive if installed or just USB drives). This is as critical as it gets pretty much.
So yes, pointing out that the issue is massive and requires a hotfix and not just an update down the road after a few months is very important. Denon needs to see how big the problem is to get the priority right, every developer needs to rely on feedback and data from the users who are affected. If the users do not help, the issue can sit there without a fix for a long time because it is not seen as important enough. We are not here to rant about the issue, we are here to show Denon DJ that the issue is critical and requires a hotfix instead of a regular update down the roadmap somewhere after a few months.
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Wrong
SC live users can use the device standalone. They manually copy files to a usb drive then connect that to the SC live. Once the usb drive is connected to the SC live they can create an playlists on the device.
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Well - not exactly the best way - more of an auxiliary crutch
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Can still use them though which is the opposite of what you stated.
I’m not suggesting it’s perfect but ….
No, @Thomas_Wald is correct, and “Im just amazed Denon haven’t offered you and all the other forum warriors a job, given how superior you claim to be over their in house support teams. Criticising from the outside is the easiest job on earth, and you are doing it beautifully.” is classic trolling, not to mention the grammar and spelling errors. Whether he is correct or not in his original assesment is another matter. The fact of the matter is that many people don’t have the luxury of a separate laptop for each application, and often circumstances force upgrade, or make it difficult to avoid.
In the case of EDJ the choice was, for me, to accept the problems, because I wanted VDJ’s new stems, and can work around the problem easilly enough for now by bypassing Sync Manager and dragging and dropping to my USB drive, which SEEMS to be working OK.
Still, Denon’s problem with this upgrade beats the pants off of Rekordbox’s typically glacial path to making their software work at all after MacOS upgrades.
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This is what I take issue with:
“specially with less units on the market (Pioneer has to support more devices that are out there and still get updates)”
“While the Denon DJ hardware is amazing, the software is behind and is not getting updates in time, critical bugfixes are missing for a long time. This is not the way to take over the market and move Pioneer out of the clubs.”
Using a widespread issue with Apple’s OS upgrade as a stick to beat a specific company with, whilst also dropping in some unrelated waffle about ‘taking over the market’. There is absolutely zero need or excuse to bash one company for this and the reasons quoted above perfectly demonstrate how poor of a stance this is to take.
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Can you also point me to the ‘Spelling and grammar errors’ please? Id like to know where ive gone wrong here.
There is no bashing one company. Everyone knew that the way to load drives will change, Apple has announced that together with the pre-release of Ventura to any developer out there who has software running on MacOS. The stick is: developers knew what was coming and have ignored it so far. Denon is not the only company to do it, but I would not go yell at Pioneer for Recordbox since I do not use BlackMagic/Adobe/enter whatever company because I do not own their software or hardware and I am not affected by it. They have their own userbase to report bugs and help developers get the priority straight for critical issues. This would be indeed trolling, yelling at clouds without any proof since I just do not have the software to begin with. With Engine DJ I do, combined with the hardware and currently the hardware can’t communicate with the software because the only way that it does was not updated to meet the new standards from the OS. It does not matter how widespread the issue is (aka how many different developers have not updated the software yet), what matters is that the company takes care of critical bugs with the software for their own customers and potential new customers. Without taking a look at something like Adobe and be like them - yeah who cares that Premiere is crashing 10x per week for years now, people still buy it. Set the bar a bit higher, this is not a fun project but a massive company providing professional equipment bundled with software and it has to work on the latest releases. Nobody asks for a day1 patch pretty much, but over a month without even an open beta client - that’s not OK.
There is a thread to apply for being a beta tester… given how much you have to say on the subject, you should dive in and apply for it. Im sure the quality of their output will vastly improve with you on board.
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and great what you are saying now !! I wouldn’t scold pioneer because I don’t use rekordbox. ! pity that you said you wanted to go back to pioneer in a higher post III maybe you don’t remember?
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Coupled with the one day old account, no introductions, no posting pics of setup, no links to mixes, no engagement, just straight in with the complaints about the OS and comparisons to other brands… its almost as if we have seen this type of behaviour before 
.
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And I did apply. The beta is under NDA, so I would not be able to tell anyone anything anyway. And considering this is a closed beta behind an NDA and not an open beta and we are 5 weeks deep, my point still stands.
Let me tell you why my profile is new - I got the prime 4 recently, was using other hardware before - mostly the NS6II with Serato, so I feel more at home with the InMusic hardware, layouts and jog sizes. And never really supported Pioneer for the monopoly they have created since you were riding that Pioneer wave here. They have plenty of money anyway and I kinda like having some alternatives. I got tired of the same state of monopoly in the PC space with Intel dominating the CPU market for nearly a decade and Nvidia dominating the GPU market for god knows how long. Getting some more money and feedback to other players in the market does not hurt, it helps. I knew that Denon had something cooking, but the SC-2&4 did not impress me, so I went for the Prime 4 as a step up. And guess what, as a main Serato user who is used to slow updates (and scolding Serato for it) I expected better here, specially with hardware&software bundles where both the hard&software is developed in-house and not with a third party like Serato does with all controllers. So excuse me for not buying the Prime 4 earlier and doing the legwork of making my profile shiny here. The point still stands - I want to see functional hardware that is running on the latest OS updates. And remember that this is not an OS upgrade like jumping from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was (or WinXP to Win7 which was an even bigger change). Monterrey to Ventura is a simple OS update with a few features, no major changes. And this does not require months of work to be compatible. If I get accepted into the Beta - will help as far as I can with different hardware and software to test things. If not - I will still be able to provide feedback on every new release and guess what - I like keeping my software up2date not just for security but also for new features and compatibility so I can help other users with their issues and help test it internally to give my colleague from the QA department more information about what is broken and what needs fixing. DJing is a nice hobby for me, not my main income, so I can afford to mess around with less than 100% stable hardware and software. And take my time to report all issues to get a quick fix. If the fix would have been pushed 5-7 days after the release of Ventura - I would not be here, but after a month and not even an open beta - time to speak up.
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My only advice to you is to not use this single example as a benchmark for Denon providing updates, ive found their update path so far to be very good, including adding new functionality.
It is clear however that there is some struggle to get Ventura working with the desktop software. Ive just read the Pioneer statement and they have 4 products that still won’t work with it, including both iterations of the DJM-900 mixer, their supposed flagship club mixer. I don’t know what Apple have done but whatever it is, it has messed up a lot of software.
Whatever it is, I can hardly imagine they are purposefully dragging their feet with releasing an update, so I also imagine complaining to them is fruitless as its not going to make them push it out any faster.
While the feedback might not help with that specific issue with Ventura now, this can help them in the future to focus more on stability and less on new features for example. Allocating developer time towards different projects or bugfixes is something that is done pretty much weekly in my company and sometimes critical issues squeeze itself right into the weekend at night. And compared to Apple the platforms that we work with - they do not tell us anything in advance, we see the changes when they go live, so we have 0 time to prepare and almost always get contacted by customers with broken tools. It is rarely critical, but often enough a major issue.
I know this is broken for others too, Serato is currently running an open beta in the 4th version that is supposed to bring compatibility - but the software runs without major issues on Ventura in the current release. There are a few glitches that exist with Serato for a while, but they are not related to Ventura and been around much longer and also on Windows.
So what we can do as users is to actually update, confirm the issue and then help testing the update, those of us who are capable of dealing with such issues (aka do not depend on a 100% stable single machine every weekend) - why not. But we hope that our feedback actually turns into a quick hotfix for critical bugs. Who ever has to have a super stable platform is of course best of without any major updates at release or until everything is confirmed to be stable and solid, specially those people who only have just one device they can work with. Some of us are lucky and have multiple devices, so even with an upcoming gig we will not be out if some software or hardware breaks, so we can afford to provide more feedback and testing. Do not be negative about it, but I wish we would see more results and more communication around critical issues. Not just a simple warning is getting reused for every major release (the same warning hangs around here for Monterrey and it has a minor update - yo we can confirm that it works). More details will not hurt, specially if there is a critical bug. Why not send people a warning to not update because it breaks specifically that? Because usually what happens: people get minor glitches, a few crashes, maybe some random part of the software is not working correctly but it is useable in general. Outright bricking the import/export function is exceptionally rare.
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