Huge Glitch Problems with Serato and Pioneer DJM-S9

Happened again last night while deejaying a party. I had to pull the old cut off the music and do a quick "Happy birthday shout out on the microphone as I unplugged my USB cable and re-plugged it in."

I ended up trying to return it to Guitar center and they said they couldn't because it was passed the 60 days grace period and that they had been extra lenient because of the holidays but this one was a little too far out. 

After that I tried going through Pioneer support by phone they told me to go to pioneer electronics website but the mixer model number isn't even up on the website yet so I had to call back and get the instructions from them, but speaking to them it sounded like they will first try and repair the mixer and since this is a problem that shows up intermittently after an hour or two that is not the best option since it's something that may be harder to pin point and easy to miss.

I felt it would be wiser in this case to have it exchanged rather than send it in and have the possibility of it coming back with the same glitch because Pioneer engineers might not be able to find out what is wrong with it or know for sure that they had and resolved it before shipping it back. Kind of like when you take your car in and all of a sudden it doesn't make that funny noise when they take it out for a test drive.

Being how new the mixer was it would be in everyone's best interest to just do a straight exchange. So I decided to try one more time to talk to Guitar Center, this time calling their online Support phone number and they said that I should have been able to return it without a problem. That they were running a promo for the holidays which started November 1st 2015 which would allow me to exchange anything bought between November 1st and December 31st by January 31st 2016. 

So I took it back to The Colorado Boulevard Guitar Center in Denver and explained what the support specialist had told me and the store had not realized that the special exchange offer for the holidays had actually started on November 1st and not on Black Friday so the mixer I bought on the 2nd of November was still covered under the exchange policy... whew... 

So I was able to go back and get it replaced and so far it has been rock solid, so it might have just been a defective mixer. Hopefully this one stays good. I'll let you know. - DJ Emir www.djemir.com

what is your usb buffer set to?

what is your usb buffer set to?

It is set at 5ms, the problems seem to have completely disappeared after exchanging the mixer, so it probably was a defective mixer.

Did the issue comeback? Don't take this the wrong way but do you think it could be your laptop? It's not exactly a great laptop. If you're going to drop all that money on a dope ass mixer you should invest in a mac as well. 

Laptop is i7 with 2.6Ghz Processor, 16GB of Ram and a GeForce 960M Video card it actually is a good laptop not sure about Windows 10 playing well with Serato DJ though so that could be part of the issue, but so far the problem hasn't returned.

That sounds pretty powerful. LOL!!!  Well might be the windows issue then. make you you update the firmware and the drivers. 

Hey guys, the engineers would like to narrow this problem down to know if it's a software/driver issue or a hardware problem.

Can you please disconnect from USB and use an external audio source (phono or line) and see if the same sound occurs?

I'm also curious to know if it's possibly a USB bus interference issue. Can you try using other USB ports, and do you have any other USB devices connected? Are you using a hub at all?

i have the same glitch happening. it continues even when faders are down and sound is off. i will play for about 30 minutes to an hour and it will start out of nowhere.. the bars reading the turntables start going red and jumping back and forth and then it just completely is taken over by static. also when trying to open cubase 7 or reaper DAWs with serato dj running it will cause a harsh buzzing I played with just cdjs and turntables with actual vinyl for 10 hours and not one single issue. i have returned 2 djm s9 mixers because of the same exact issue in the video above and still no fix. im hoping its a fix that you can do with firmware or driver because i really like the mixer but there seems to be a glitch and i really dont want to have to get another one and return it. if you need any thing else from me to help fix it.

I have tried both Macbook Pro yosemite and windows 7 with correct drivers and still same issue. even when i dont have anything running or i am just using int mode with the headphones it will start humming and bouncing static or a "digital noise".. but when its just hardware connected and no usb it seems to work perfect.

I have used other USB ports and computers, i have disconnected all other sources soundcards, usb sticks and still same sound issue and i am not using a usb hub

my macbook and pc run i7 processors as well, i have no issues using my SL3 box with my Rane57. the problem also persisted on firmware version 1.02 and when i updated to 1.06, i made sure all of my usb drivers were up to date.

The new mixer doesn't seem to do it quite as often as the original one but it still does the same thing. I was starting to get worried it was just me, and was about ready to try returning my laptop. I'm glad a few people were able to chime in that they are experiencing the same issues so it hopefully is something that can be fixed with a new firmware update or a new Serato update. I recently updated Serato again to 1.9.0 and I have the 1.06 firmware loaded on the mixer. It still occurs and bugs the crap out of my wife If I leave it on and it starts buzzing. I disconnected both turntables and even unhooked the ground wires to make sure it wasn;t a problem with my turntables and it still happened on internal mode. I do believe it is a USB issue as it fixes itself if I unplug the USB cable and plug it back in. I am not using a hub and it happens on all 3 USB ports on my computer. It is either a SERATO issue or an issue with the mixers themselves. It is the most frustrating thing ever knowing I can't trust my mixer to use it at live gigs. I hope you guys are able to solve this soon. If you need to send me specific instructions on how to send you error logs of some sort let me know. It happens with all kinds of different tracks as well. The one thing I can tell you is I no longer use itunes to manage my library. I used to use Itunes to manage my song library on my old laptop so not sure if that may have some relevance as far as stability.

PS: the Laptop has 1 TB hard drive and all the songs are on that internal drive, I may look into replacing the hard drive with a 1 TB SSD in the future or just wait til I get my next laptop but the current Hard Drive runs at 7200rpm

ya man your story is almost the same exact as mine it is definitely an issue with the USB from the sound card not working with the USB drivers or something causing an interference static sound. because i played a 6 hour set the other day without any USB or laptop hooked up to the mixer just cdjs and a USB stick linking between the 2 cdjs and it worked flawlessly. I even had to return one already and wait 3 months back order just to receive another one that did the same thing... im holding my breath here hoping they do something fast or i will have no other choice but to just go with the new traktor mixer which is a shame because i truly love this mixer just the fact that it doesnt work properly i hate.

I bought my first djm s9 in december it is now april and i still dont have a mixer to play on.

and Pioneer if youd like to both of us can send you our mixers for testing and you can send us one that works please.. THAT would be nice.

I tried plugging in my previous laptop but it refuses to play at all with the DJM S9 crashes Serato DJ so testing it out on my other laptop doesn't work at all. I don't use a USB Hub and have tried all 3 USB slots same thing happens. It's like a miscommunication or false signal that is being sent between the laptop and the mixer or something. The replacement did come from the same exact Guitar Center but I doubt that it was just a bad batch of mixers what would the possibility be of that. Has to be a software related issue that hopefully can be fixed by the next update. They were the first to get em so it's possible the first batches weren't as refined... and that is my biggest fear, that it will never work.

This my have something to do with it but not sure since I'm on a PC, but if the Macs have this problem it may also be an issue with certain PCs as well... https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/216460288-Known-Issues-with-some-2015-Macbook-Pro-models

I'd say this is a big issue that needs to be fixed soon or Pioneer will suffer big time in terms of countless units being returned. Already in this post alone There have been 3+ returned units 1 by me and 2 by Sensi because lets face it at a $1900+ price range you just expect the equipment to work and if it doesn't no one is going to take the chance that they might have gotten a defective unit, they will return before the return period expires if they can't get it resolved with some quick troubleshooting. Hope Pioneer is still on this. There might be many others that simply haven't noticed that it is a prevalent issue and think it's just a random glitch that happened to their Serato. Or maybe I've just been unlucky so far and have received another mixer from the same batch? who knows?

UPDATE: Yes problems were eventually resolved a few weeks later! It took a later driver update and Serato updates, not sure which ended up resolving the issues but it has been working fine ever since and has become my favorite mixer ever since. I've since tried to keep up with all updates and I also installed a Samsung 1TB solid state drive to replace the 1TB 7200rpm drive. I think the updates took care of all the problems, at least for me. My kid did lean on the fader a bit and eventually It broke off when I was scratching luckily at home, I replaced the faders with infinity faders and everything has been fine since. I might soon upgrade to the Pioneer S11 as I really have enjoyed the S9 all these years! - DJ Emir

I've had the same issue shown in the video and what Sensi mentioned, at a gig earlier this month. I had to unplug the USB right away because of the static noise. Last night, the audio just cut out and I had to turn off/on the S9....these glitches are happening way to frequent and so random.  

Here's the log from earlier the month in case anyone at Pioneer cares to look into this.  

<EDIT>

We don't, thank you.

</EDIT>

Rather, we don't need you to post a thousand lines of logs without being asked to provide them, thank you.

The engineers are working on diagnosing and resolving the issue.

As a follow-up on this post, the engineers have provided the following information:

"The noise is output even after closing the fader so that the mixing process itself does not work properly."

We would like to know if this noise occurs when using only analog source without using Serato DJ or a computer to identify the root cause. We assume it could be caused by a hardware failure. If this issue is not fixed after reinstalling both firmware and driver, we would advise you to send the unit to a local service center.

was there ever a solution to this issue???? My s9 is going thru these exact issues.

@DJ Elusive > Please start a new topic so we can provide direct assistance for your issue; provide as many details as you can, pertinent to the situation, including firmware and software versions.