Mixxx 2.2.0 Beta

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Well, I still remain extremely impressed with Mixxx - both of them!!

Since Mixvibes has failed to update Cross Dj (almost three years now), I've been looking for a good replacement. I continue to have a love/hate relationship with Serato, and I have never really warmed up to Traktor or VDJ. Screen shot -

Mixxx.jpg

I categorize songs by genre, and within that are "mixable songs" alphabetized by groups (depending upon how they mix) as A, B, etc.. Here is are two songs that mix well, A1 and A2. It is going to be a slow transition, and I've cheated this time - both are already fully Sync'd (both in Beat and BPM). The first song is at the play marker position (vertical green line), time to move the crossfader, and then slowly bring it back up to 133 BPM.

Nothing unique here except the location of the "play marker position", which is fully adjustable left and right, and the ability to "label" hot cues right in the waveform - both are very helpful. Having the play marker to the left gives you extra time to "see what's coming"!

Even though it's a "Beta", it's been dead nuts reliable (on my back-up laptop which is nothing special). I'm going to do a lot more testing, but my next gig is in two weeks, and I'll probably use it.
 
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Well, I still remain extremely impressed with Mixxx - both of them!!

Since Mixvibes has failed to update Cross Dj (almost three years now), I've been looking for a good replacement. I continue to have a love/hate relationship with Serato, and I have never really warmed up to Traktor or VDJ. Screen shot -

View attachment 35178

I categorize songs by genre, and within that are "mixable songs" alphabetized by groups (depending upon how they mix) as A, B, etc.. Here is are two songs that mix well, A1 and A2. It is going to be a slow transition, and I've cheated this time - both are already fully Sync'd (both in Beat and BPM). The first song is at the play marker position (vertical green line), time to move the crossfader, and then slowly bring it back up to 133 BPM.

Nothing unique here except the location of the "play marker position", which is fully adjustable left and right, and the ability to "label" hot cues right in the waveform - both are very helpful. Having the play marker to the left gives you extra time to "see what's coming"!

Even though it's a "Beta", it's been dead nuts reliable (on my back-up laptop which is nothing special). I'm going to do a lot more testing, but my next gig is in two weeks, and I'll probably use it.

Looks pretty intriguing... I downloaded it and will install it on my old backup laptop and give it a try... next week I should have a little time.

I’ll be interested to hear how it works out for you at a gig. Can you please describe what other gear you’re gonna use with it (mixer, controller, sound card, etc)?
 
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MIxx is a solid program. As an open source project it gets consisent attention and is always moving forward. I added it a while back to all my machines - installing different versions to match the age and type of the PC.
 
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Better late than never; right? I decided to give Mixxx a try, so I loaded it onto an old Acer Aspire on which I had recently installed Zorin Linux. I copied a folder full of modern swing tracks from my server to use as test tracks. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until I tried to play music that the Zorin distribution failed to recognize the built-in Realtek HD Audio, so I got NO sound. After failing to find a quick solution, I plugged in an external USB sound card (Behringer U-Control UCA202) and plugged the output into my home stereo, and that resolved that problem.

At first I found the interface a little hard to see on my 15” laptop screen, but I changed the skin to a different one, and it looks much better. Then it was just a matter of playing with it a little to figure out how things work. I can’t say if it’s better or worse than Traktor because it’s different, and I’m really used to how Traktor works. Mixxx seems to have all the functions you need though. One observation; analyzing tracks takes a lot longer than my primary DJ computer with Traktor, but that could be because of the differences between the two computers, so I can’t draw any conclusions from that. And I’ve also had a couple of audible blips while playing tracks with the Auto DJ feature. Again, that could be caused by any number of things... Since none of the tracks have been analyzed, the next track is being analyzed during the playing of the previous track. I’ll see what it does tomorrow when all the tracks have been analyzed.

The other thing I haven’t tried yet is using it with a controller. I have several to choose from, so I’ll try one of them with this Zorin laptop and Mixxx tomorrow. That should be fun. If this thing works well, it would make a nice little system for small house parties and such... AND no Microsoft or Apple software whatsoever... unless I want to use iTunes, which Mixxx does support. Not likely I’ll use it though.[emoji4]
 
UPDATE: Mixxx ran ALL night in Auto DJ mode, and it’s still running this morning. Didn’t CRASH, which is good, and it got a pretty good stress test. It also analyzed a large part of the 800 songs I copied to the library. I’m just gonna let it keep running until it analyzes and plays every song in the library. Of course, it played all those songs while I was sleeping and the sound was turned off, so I have NO idea if there were any blips, so we’re gonna have to do a lot more testing and listening before we can say if this thing is a keeper or not.

When I installed Mixxx on my laptop, I also installed “Transitions DJ”. I never heard of this app before, but I thought I’d take a look at it when I’m done playing with Mixxx. Anybody ever use this app?
 
Zorin Linux, eh? I had never heard of it, but there are so many distros it doesn't surprise me.

I used Ubuntu for a long time, but got burned once by an update, so I switched to Lunux Mint which is basically the same thing, except one releases behind - and Mint was basically plug'n play with the Realtek HD Audio.

That laptop has Mixxx installed on it, plus OpenKJ for playing around with Karaoke...and your correct - you can put together an EXCELLENT gig laptop without spending one cent on software.

Could you imagine where we'd be today if theses nuckle-heads had agreed to only three distros - a powerful graphics distro for photographers, a business distro running OpenOffice, etc., and an audio heavy distro for us, instead of the self competing mess that currently exists?
 
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Zorin Linux, eh? I had never heard of it, but there are so many distros it doesn't surprise me.

I used Ubuntu for a long time, but got burned once by an update, so I switched to Lunux Mint which is basically the same thing, except one releases behind - and Mint was basically plug'n play with the Realtek HD Audio.

That laptop has Mixxx installed on it, plus OpenKJ for playing around with Karaoke...and your correct - you can put together an EXCELLENT gig laptop without spending one cent on software.

Could you imagine where we'd be today if theses nuckle-heads had agreed to only three distros - a powerful graphics distro for photographers, a business distro running OpenOffice, etc., and an audio heavy distro for us, instead of the self competing mess that currently exists?

Zorin, like Mint is based on Ubuntu. Just a slightly different twist on the GUI. I like both, but Zorin is just a little more intuitive for me.[emoji4] Unfortunately, my Linux skills are a little rusty. If you don’t use it, you lose it... especially at my age.[emoji1] I hate having to RELEARN stuff I know I used to know, but that’s what I’m doing.
 
It’s 8:00 PM, and this Mixxx Auto DJ is still going. Not sure how many tracks it has played and how many are left, but it has been playing non-stop for about 30 hours, so it’s gotta be more than halfway through. I’m still getting the occasional little blip... not bad, but just enough to be annoying. Not sure I’d ever use something like this if I couldn’t resolve that problem, even as infrequent as they are. This computer only has 4GB of RAM; that might be the problem. I’m just not sure if I’m willing to buy more memory for an old computer I don’t really need. I’ll think about it.

The parts I ordered to upgrade my wife’s old Lenovo laptop are due to arrive tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll upgrade that laptop and put Mixxx on it to see how it performs. It will have 16GB of RAM and a 2TB SSHD after the upgrade. It will still only have a dual core i3, but it’s a better processor than the one in this Zorin laptop. Should be fun to see what happens, but it will still have Windows 10. Not necessarily a good thing.[emoji1]
 
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Well... Mixxx is still running, so the good news is NO crashes after more than two days running on Auto DJ non-stop. With that said, I’m probably gonna stop it soon. After listening to it last night, the blips would prevent me from EVER using this setup for anything more than playing with it at home. The blips definitely happen when playing a track on one deck while analyzing another track on the second deck. I haven’t tried playing only tracks that have already been analyzed, but I suspect there will still be blips when transitioning between tracks, because I’ve had some of those too.

Now... I have doubts that the software (Mixxx) is the problem. It’s more likely to be a computer hardware problem; or more specifically inadequate computer resources. According to the documentation, they recommend a 2GHz or faster CPU. This Acer Laptop I’m running is a dual core 1.5GHz. It has 4GB of RAM, which is likely OK, since they recommend only 1GB or more. I wish it was a memory problem, because that’s upgradable; the CPU is NOT.

So, conclusions???... I like the software. It has all the features you need as far as I can tell in my limited time testing it. It’s stable. The GUI is pretty good if you load the right skin. But if you’re gonna use it, make sure you have a computer that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements. I’ve run Traktor on a stick PC, which falls far short of NI’s stated minimum hardware requirements, and never had a single blip, so they’re probably overestimating their required resources. Apparently, Mixxx is not overstating theirs.

I LOVE the idea of having a Linux based system that doesn’t depend on ANY Apple or Microsoft software, but I don’t have another spare laptop PC that meets the minimum specs to run Linux and Mixxx on. I suppose I could buy one, but my wife would freak out if I bought another computer.[emoji1]
 
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Well... Mixxx is still running, so the good news is NO crashes after more than two days running on Auto DJ non-stop. With that said, I’m probably gonna stop it soon. After listening to it last night, the blips would prevent me from EVER using this setup for anything more than playing with it at home. The blips definitely happen when playing a track on one deck while analyzing another track on the second deck. I haven’t tried playing only tracks that have already been analyzed, but I suspect there will still be blips when transitioning between tracks, because I’ve had some of those too.

Now... I have doubts that the software (Mixxx) is the problem. It’s more likely to be a computer hardware problem; or more specifically inadequate computer resources. According to the documentation, they recommend a 2GHz or faster CPU. This Acer Laptop I’m running is a dual core 1.5GHz. It has 4GB of RAM, which is likely OK, since they recommend only 1GB or more. I wish it was a memory problem, because that’s upgradable; the CPU is NOT.

So, conclusions???... I like the software. It has all the features you need as far as I can tell in my limited time testing it. It’s stable. The GUI is pretty good if you load the right skin. But if you’re gonna use it, make sure you have a computer that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements. I’ve run Traktor on a stick PC, which falls far short of NI’s stated minimum hardware requirements, and never had a single blip, so they’re probably overestimating their required resources. Apparently, Mixxx is not overstating theirs.
Have you run it on a beefier machine to see if there is an issue? An i3 with 4Gb RAM is REALLY tight.
 
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Have you run it on a beefier machine to see if there is an issue? An i3 with 4Gb RAM is REALLY tight.

Nope... I have not run it on ANY other PC. I have plenty of “beefier” WINDOWS PC’s I could load the Windows version on, and I’ll probably do that, but then we’re doing an apples to oranges comparison. I DO have a Zorin desktop PC that I’ll try it on next.


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Not sure I’d ever use something like this if I couldn’t resolve that problem, even as infrequent as they are. This computer only has 4GB of RAM; that might be the problem. I’m just not sure if I’m willing to buy more memory for an old computer I don’t really need. I’ll think about it.

Use the version of Mixx that best suits the age and limits of your computer. The "blips" are not an issue with the software it's a result of not meeting the most recent system requirements.

I have different versions of Mix on computers of different capability. Just don't ask a machine to bite off more than it can chew and the program works fine.
 
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Use the version of Mixx that best suits the age and limits of your computer. The "blips" are not an issue with the software it's a result of not meeting the most recent system requirements.

I have different versions of Mix on computers of different capability. Just don't ask a machine to bite off more than it can chew and the program works fine.

Uh... I DO believe I said just that...

... Now... I have doubts that the software (Mixxx) is the problem. It’s more likely to be a computer hardware problem; or more specifically inadequate computer resources. According to the documentation, they recommend a 2GHz or faster CPU. This Acer Laptop I’m running is a dual core 1.5GHz. It has 4GB of RAM, which is likely OK, since they recommend only 1GB or more...

So, conclusions???... if you’re gonna use it, make sure you have a computer that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements.
 
Here’s a shot of the system monitor, which confirms that the problem is an inadequate CPU. Both cores are pegged at 100% with only Mixxx running. Memory usage is below 60% of the 3.7GB installed...

15dfa6b197b30d8d2319e3260e59fc1c.jpg
 
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