Gary Tayman

Imagine, three months and one day after purchasing Zulu, there is an update to 2.39 that supposedly fixes this hiccup problem. Within three months I could have upgraded. Then again, it was 2.37 I started with, and 2.38 was supposed to have fixed this. No matter; I and my friends have all switched to something else.

Well, after a couple of weeks this HAS been put to the test, and the results are getting quite frustrating! This is a tale of two computers, both running version 2.38. One of these is an HP laptop, 64 bit, running Windows 7. For the most part it is excellent, but twice it has acted up. In both cases I had just loaded a song into one of the decks, and instead of switching to that deck it reloaded new songs into both decks and played something else. In one case it was still calculating BPM; in the other I had just loaded it as it was about to switch, so I'll give these the benefit of the doubt. However the other computer is a Toshiba laptop, 32 bit running Windows XP. It belongs to a friend of mine, and he has tried several times in vain to register the software and it doesn't work -- paid for but it's still the trial version. We cannot use auto mode at all on this computer, because nearly every song it hiccups -- loads both decks and plays out of deck A again. I watched it once as deck B continued to load songs while Deck A played the music. Loaded another song, another song, another song, another song, another song, took SIX songs before it settled down, and when it came time to switch to deck B it hiccupped and reloaded again. Sometimes even in manual mode you have to click on Play two or three times before the song will play. This is absolutely terrible, rendering the software virtually unusable, but it's obvious there's another element involved because it's almost flawless on the HP computer. Suggestions? My friend is going nuts trying to register the software, but is this contributing to the hiccups? Is the problem related to the 32-bit machine, or Windows XP? Could the sound card or related codecs be involved? I'd like to get some answers because, well, we're not finished; when all is said and done there will be several more laptops using this software. Several DJ's in the area are watching; we all want to use the same software so we can easily work with each other; we love Zulu except for this particular bug. If we can get this fixed we're good to go. BTW, I sent a bug report related to these hiccups while calculating BPM's, but have not heard a reply.

Again I'll reply to my own question. How would I have known that as I was asksing, a brand new update was just being released? I just upgraded from version 2.37 to version 2.38, and I see some definite improvements. First off, the Play buttons are larger -- not by much, but larger. I would like them larger still, and possibly colored green to make them easy to spot in a second. Remember, my opinion of good software, especially for something "on the fly" as this, is big and dumb. Hit the play button and let's go -- not "sit there and read the book", or try and figure out where things are. Features are great, but when I'm playing tunes and people are badgering me with requests, questions, and even shooting the breeze, it's nice to be able to click, click, and the music keeps going without having to think. Zulu itself shines in this department already -- the reason I picked it over several others, but this is just another suggestion. As for adding songs to the playlist, with the new version I can hold down CTL and select several songs without closing the window. This is what I wanted -- for some reason this didn't work with the old version, don't know why but who cares now. I also noticed the cue buttons underneath the deck -- makes it a bit easier to set cue marks. It appears it's on the old version too -- but something about the arrangement of the new version makes it easier to spot. I'll put some practice into the 2.38 version, and later come back to comment. Overall, this is a FANTASTIC program! One DJ friend has already purchased it on my recommendation, and several others are considering it -- simply so we are all "on the same page" when we talk music, or even fill in for each other.

Seems my question may have been answered before I asked it. I was using version 2.37; there is now a version 2.38 and apparently this includes a bug fix for jumping to deck A. I have a few gigs the next week or so, so I'll be putting it to the test.

Just a little feedback after having taken Zulu to a few gigs and getting some practice in. A few comments; things I would like to see improved: 1. I'm really making great use of the "Search" feature. Example, someone requests "Love Me Tender" by Elvis. I can type "Elvis", or "tender", or "love", and immediately get a short list of Elvis songs, or songs with love or tender in the title. But when I locate the song and load it, I must remember to immediately go back and backspace out of the search window. If I don't, every song it selects will be from that short list. I would like to see the search window clear once I make a selection. 2. This is a minor issue, but when playing music I want the control buttons to be big and dumb -- the "Keep It Simple Stupid" concept. When I'm trying to select music, and people are trying to chat with me and there are all sorts of other distractions, I can't always think straight to do a procedure. One of the wonderful things about the old cart players was the fact that there was only one button, and it was big and green. Push it, it played the song or spot, then re-cued the tape and stopped by itself. With this in mind, I'd like the play and pause buttons to be more prominent, and preferably green and red. Think about this for the next upgrade. Maybe crossfader could be enlarged as well. 3. The little blue cue mark is very hard to move. The mouse must be in the exact spot, or it might make a loop instead of moving the cue. Sometimes I do it wrong three or four times before getting it right. 4. Last but not least, is there a way to add multiple songs to a playlist? Particularly when starting anew, you have to Add, select, add, select, etc. I'd like the ability to add a block of songs, or select several to add before clsoing the window. Any comments on these would be welcomed.

I recently tried out Zulu and love it -- to the point where I installed and registered it on my laptop. Easy to use, documentation is easy to understand, but I am running across a strange problem once in awhile. I don't know if it is a bug or something I'm doing that's causing it. It has not done it often enough for me to tell for sure. The problem is this: it seems to happen (in auto playback mode) just after I'm "taking a request." I'll search in the playlist for a song, or maybe even find it in my library and add it, then select it. The song loads into deck B. Then, when the song in deck A is finished, it should go to deck B to play the next song, right? Sometimes it doesn't do that; instead it will load another song into deck A and play it -- then when that song is finished, it will THEN go to deck B. It's not as if I'm loading the song at the very last second; usually the song in deck A has a minute or more to go. I'm still in Auto mode, and usually still in shuffle mode, but surprise surprise, instead of switching to deck B, it plays another in deck A. It has never done this in reverse; it's always deck A. Deck B has never played two songs in a row. Any clues?