I’ve absolutely loved the Prime decks since the SC5000’s came out (purchased 2), and when the 6000 series came out, I purchased 4 M models.
The idea that the platform has been improving with software is amazing, but I have to say that the stability of these decks have been suffering as the features have been added.
I have 4 Decks connected using 3 foot Cat6 cables to a 1GBe switch. One deck (#2) is the Primary, serving Decks 1, 3 and 4 via the network connections. Internally, I have a 1TB Samsung EVO 850 SSD with about 300GB used.
Here are the issues I’ve been seeing with 3.0+:
Long loading times for playlists on remote decks
Random stutters in the waveform (All decks do this)
Primary Deck waveform will stutter & loses sync often
Primary Deck waveform will stutter AND audio will pitch down as if start/stop was pressed quickly - the platter doesn’t seem to change speed
When 3.0 came out, I started out fresh by removing the SSD, reformatting it and then reloading it through Engine DJ
I went through my recent performance and counted nearly a dozen times problems happened in the first 20 minutes. Some are just visible (waveform dropping frames), but the audible bits just are not good at all. I put together a full-4K video where you see the issues after the 9 minute mark: Engine OS 3.0 issues - YouTube
If there are any debugging tools, please count me in. I love these decks and really am heart broken about how things have gone south with them.
Thank you for your reply. I imagine the DB size has something to do with it, though this issue wasn’t present in the 1.x and 2.x versions of Engine OS, IIRC.
My DB folder size is about 350MB on disk; and does include auto analysis. Suggesting that I don’t use that feature means that loading tracks initially will take a long time, as the devices now do the heavy lifting of analyzing the files — please check me on this.
Let’s be honest. It’s kind of ridiculous to only have a library that’s partially analyzed just because of the poor design of the database. I’ve never had to do that with Traktor or Rekordbox.
Hello, I have used only two sc6000 over network. The overall long loading times and issues like freezes were gone when I installed a ssd with 3d nand. Iam not into all the specs but it was a gamer changer for me. And my collection is not even big…
It’s always been like that, though, but it’s better than it was in the early days of Prime. In the early days, there were limitations on the size of the Engine database, too. I’m spoiled, though, because I don’t usually set cue points & loops ahead of time and don’t bother with manual gridding, so I just leave tracks UNanalyzed and only use the Engine DB for track searching. As a result, I don’t have to deal with many of the remaining db issues, though it does seem like the loading of lists is at least slightly slower on Prime than it was a few months ago, especially over the link. That might be my imagination, though.
I read somewhere that a factory reset of the SCs helped to cut some of the slow performance issues. I do have to do it on my own to confirm it, but maybe worth a shot. Some clean reinstall made some difference on other devices so maybe here to, after all these heavy updates
I had not yet done a factory reset, but I thought to try something different, and had performance issues yesterday, where a client deck stuttered/slowed down.
I configured things this way:
________
---------------->| 1GbE |<------------
| --->| Switch |<-- |
| | | |
| | | |
1 2 3 4
Client Primary Primary Client
to with with to
Deck 2 internal internal Deck 3
SSD SSD
And I had a client have performance issues with playback, telling me this is likely something internal to the OS, where there is another task taking higher priority. I should mention that ALL decks have wifi and other non-essential services like Tidal/Beatport/etc. turned off.
I’ve had dropping frames since 2.0 and I believe the guys at Denon DJ are aware of it. It’s just cosmetic but I can understand it doesn’t look great.
I also like to drop a factory reset on my players and consoles whenever I update to get that ‘factory fresh’ feel. It clears some gunk out that can build up.
I played for 1.5 hrs with one deck as the Primary, serving 3 clients and no timing drops occurred. I’ll give 3.1.0 a longer test tonight on my Centreforce Radio show and report back.
