What Are Your Initial Thoughts About Esperance??

[mel garland]

Thanks Jumpin Jeff and Ken for for scripts for cats buttons.  Getting use to new search in 1.90 but having the fallback of cat select is a god send.  Even Jeff W. might like it

Now can you do a script so I can have the ability to import a cd into OTSAV.  I don't care what OTS Adam says this to me is a major oversight.  Someone suggested using free turntables but 1) why should I need ANOTHER programme running and 2) every third track it plays OTS signature tune.

[JohnnyTheFox]

Thanks Jumpin Jeff and Ken for for scripts for cats buttons.  Getting use to new search in 1.90 but having the fallback of cat select is a god send.  Even Jeff W. might like it

Now can you do a script so I can have the ability to import a cd into OTSAV.  I don't care what OTS Adam says this to me is a major oversight.  Someone suggested using free turntables but 1) why should I need ANOTHER programme running and 2) every third track it plays OTS signature tune.

I sympathise there Mel. CD import and the ability to auto mix one track to another with that single CD in the drive was the first thing in OtsDJ that really blew me away, and sold me on the program straight away back in 2004. How OtsDJ did that seemed like some sort of black magic to me  and whilst I didn't the feature latterly, I can see it is really important at a live gig to be able to play a CD on the fly. I am sorry to see it go.

[Darryl]

I've ripped many a disk in Ots Studio at a gig - I don't see it as a problem personally, but I can appreciate how annoying it is when when something you've got used to is taken away.  I think this was a poor decision on Ots Labs part too.

[mel garland]

Darryl I am always a bit worried about ripping whilst doing a gig and also 1) I don't or won't want the tracks in my libray (ie songs that got swearing in it) and 2) how would you stand on copywrite?

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I never used the CD feature in Ots primarily because unless the drive was rigoruosly tested, I couldn't trust it to work as desired. If the SATA bus stumbled, or another drive on the SATA cable wanted attention, it would cause me glitches, so I opted to never use it for CD playback. I always riped to Ots, and imported on the fly, as that was always more work, but much more reliable. To me, it's no great loss, and I've never recommended it's use anyhow.

Sorry Mel, No way to script the missing code back in.

[DJMartin]

Quite often I rip a few CD during the gig. Most likely these were last minute bought to fill the gap with brand new hits everyone is asking for. Since the big console is having the song repository on a NAS, it's no problem to copy the new albums from another notebook to that place. Just refresh the prod system and there you go with the hits. No glitch, not much of disturbance for the DJ besides the refresh.

Having an extra CD player on a gig is generally a good idea. It will act as a backup solution, in case your computer or soundcard has a problem. Loss of electricity might crash your computer in case it isn't a notebook with a good battery or UPS backed up.

Personally I wouldn't rely on the computer CDRom as a CD player during the gig. You never know what the OS sudddenly does.

[John Quincy]

I've never used Ots to play a CD live. I always bring two laptops to a gig. Both have OtsAV on the them. I use one as the primary system, while the other has Ots loaded up and ready to go in case there's a problem with the primary. Should somebody bring me a CD -- and I know what's on it -- I rip it in the backup machine and then use a thumb drive to shuttle it between the two laptops, then import it into the primary Ots system. Takes just a few minutes. Of course, if you don't know what's on a CD you should audition the track(s) first in case the song contains profanity or there's a physical problem with the disc.

[krzyd]

I'll rip during a gig, the trick is to do it in a group where no one knows it's you.























I kill me!

[Ots_Adam]

I've ripped many a disk in Ots Studio at a gig - I don't see it as a problem personally, but I can appreciate how annoying it is when when something you've got used to is taken away.  I think this was a poor decision on Ots Labs part too.

There are sound reasons why we made this decision and if you were privy to them you wouldn't think it a poor decision at all Sure, for the very few (our research indicates less than 0.1%) who were actively using this specific feature, they will have to adapt. But actually, that's a good thing because as Jeff said, stability and reliability can not be guaranteed due to the mechanical nature of CDs and the SATA bus. It certainly was an incredible feature for its time and in the vast majority of cases worked extrememly well indeed. But it has outlived its time. No one virtually is using it.

Some people tend to mourn the loss of anything at all, even if it's merely a perceived loss. But they will be fine All relatively recent versions of Windows; 2000, XP, Vista, 7 have progressively removed legacy functionality that just wasn't feasible to support any longer, nor was there any significant demand for. Windows 8 will be no exception. Sure, a minority usually jumps up and down, but do you really expect Microsoft to keep supporting legacy DOS games in all modern versions of Windows? Just run a DOS box emulator! Simple. Same with Ots and our CD-DA functionality. The cost of maintaining/re-implementing it in our new code base would have far outweighed any perceived value to 0.1% of customers. Would that be a wise decision? Anyone who really wishes to play CDs live at a gig via their PC still has options, even using Ots software. So it's no deal breaker, really. Also remember that no one is forcing anyone to upgrade. You can keep running an earlier OtsAV version if that is your preference just as you can continue to run Windows 98. We're not stoppin' ya!

Even some of those lamenting the loss here readily admit they never used it... Kind of makes you wonder!

Cheers,
Adam

[mel garland]

Thanks Adam for your reply so I'm the 0.01 who uses this function .  So what you are saying is use another ots product (free turntables) to play a cd whilst using OTSAV at a gig. 1) the free turntables play the OTS signature tune every 3 third play so not what I want and sorry I'm not buying it (would accept a free paid copy mind ) 2) If ripped in studio can I play the track in OTSAV without important it to the media libray? The reason I ask is some of the tracks I'm asked to play is not suitable for main gigs.

[arsenal1]

have to say that i'm also struggling with the Cat's, maybe it is one of those things that in time becomes easier....but scrolling through that long list to enter something that could have been on a button previously seems daft ( initial impressions ). Being a muppet i tried to load Kens .exe but ended up with 16 boxes saying ERROR....no idea what went wrong with that !

anyway, not sure if here is as good as anywhere to ask this question.....
if i pull up any Cat withgin that now as well as individual items there are albums. Is there a way of disabling that function? in the past i might bring up a Cat like 'party' and throw the whole lot (drag ) into a playlist, now if i do that i end up with stuff that isn't relevant to that Category - because it's dumped the rest of the album in there? Example Abba. Shows up with about 7 items in 'party' as does the album greatest hits - so when i drag 'abba' across i end up with a load of tracks not pertinent to 'party'......
cheers
mark

[Jumpin' Jeff]

TBO, you could compensate several ways. Before Ots had video, I ran Media player to play videos. and I'd simply place a stop and recue in Ots playlist, and manually mix the video with media player. Nothing stoping you from using Media player or itunes to play an occassional disk track. If you're playing more than one track at a time, then a paid version of turntables might be more in line with your needs.
Just some thoughts.

[scott hanna]

Used 1.90 at a gig last night.

Yeah, it's pretty darn good for the way I use it.

and I haven't even gotten used to most of the keyboard short cuts yet.  I wasn't using the old existing keyboard short cuts as much as I should, but certainly see the benefits of using them, plus with the additional ones, it's great.

found myself using the ^key, the DEL key a lot...those things are huge!

[DJ Postie]

Well after all my testing and playing around with the new version I still love the old version for simplicity and practicality. It seems more like it was made for radio jockeys. As you know I have 2 x HC-4500 consoles and have noticed that the new OTS OHML version does not have the sync buttons enabled. Do any other HC-4500 owners notice this? Is this right? or am I doing something wrong here. I suppose I could drop my own file in there but it does not have the looping codes.

[Taralocke]

used it for two gigs now and I absolutely love it. Mind you I also read up on everything first to make sure I understood what was going on. The search features are so so much better. I read the first two pages on here and skipped to the end but I saw several complaints were because they didn't read the update manual yet. There is no need to look for the categories because you just type them in the first section and then you can search or just look under that category. No need to click around. I was upset about that at first. Once I read and understood it I was like ..... oh that does make more sense than before haha.

Also if those who read will understand that the loop buttons were never intended to be clicked but for your controller to use. But, until then obviously we do have to click them. But yeah they work good. Basically it looks like an interface overhaul, a search and organization overhaul with a sneak peak at the looping. Nothing huge and nothing that I think we should have waited an extra year for. However, it looks like all the back end work is being laid out that we can't see yet. So I'm very happy it is out, and I like it a lot, can't wait to see what other updates they have planned. So far this was worth the wait. Would much rather have 1.9 than 1.85