<![CDATA[The 36th Chamber

<![CDATA[The 36th Chamber - All Forums]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/ Fri, 08 May 2026 10:30:09 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[May the 4th be with cynical cash ins]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=195 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:17:00 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=195
It's boring as fuck nowadays, just ask my ten yr old...]]>
It's boring as fuck nowadays, just ask my ten yr old...]]> <![CDATA[The YouTube Kung Fu Movie Thread]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=194 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:36:51 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=194
Yuen Woo Ping

Jet Li

Fist From Shaolin
13 Monks of Shaolin ?
Legend Of Lin Chong
Blade Of Fury (please work, please work!)]]>
Yuen Woo Ping

Jet Li

Fist From Shaolin
13 Monks of Shaolin ?
Legend Of Lin Chong
Blade Of Fury (please work, please work!)]]> <![CDATA[RSD - 18th April 2026]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=193 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:52:04 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=193
Charli XCX – Party 4U

Paramore – All We Know Is Falling (deluxe red double vinyl)

Bring Me The Horizon & Sigrid – Bad Life (blue vinyl)

Blur – Live At The Budokan (30th anniversary)

Suede – Coming Up (live BBC)

The Cure – multiple exclusive versions (e.g. acoustic, greatest hits)

Muse – rare early EP reissues

Exclusive vinyl from artists such as Madonna, Elton John, Alice Cooper, KISS, Pearl Jam, Van Halen and more.
Shrug

Slim pickings for this years RSD, I've seen like 2 LPs that are of minimal interest in the list.
Continually disappointed in the RSD offerings. So much junk gets repressed... which disrupts my year round aquisition of the finest underground shit on wax...
If you only buy vinyl on RSD you should be at the back of the queue!!!]]>
Charli XCX – Party 4U

Paramore – All We Know Is Falling (deluxe red double vinyl)

Bring Me The Horizon & Sigrid – Bad Life (blue vinyl)

Blur – Live At The Budokan (30th anniversary)

Suede – Coming Up (live BBC)

The Cure – multiple exclusive versions (e.g. acoustic, greatest hits)

Muse – rare early EP reissues

Exclusive vinyl from artists such as Madonna, Elton John, Alice Cooper, KISS, Pearl Jam, Van Halen and more.
Shrug

[/size]

[size=1][size=1]Isaac Maya - The Mexican EP[/size][/size]

[/size]

[size=1][size=1]Isaac Maya - The Mexican EP[/size][/size]

Release Date: April 17th, 2026

Serial Killaz Recordings proudly presents The Mexican EP from jungle drum & bass heavyweight Isaac Maya, a producer whose sound has been shaking dancefloors from Mexico City to the global underground for more than two decades.

Active since the late 90s, Maya emerged from Mexico City's thriving underground and steadily carved out an international reputation with his distinctive take on jungle. Widely regarded as a pioneer of the “Dubwise Jungle” sound, his productions fuse heavyweight reggae spirit with rapid-fire breakbeats and cavernous bass pressure. The result is a style that feels both rooted in soundsystem culture and built for the modern drum & bass dancefloor.

With The Mexican EP, Isaac Maya leans proudly into his heritage while keeping the jungle energy firmly locked in. Across four tracks he threads unmistakable Mexican flavours through his trademark rhythmic assault, blending rolling breaks, dubwise basslines and infectious groove with a touch of Latin character.

Landing on Serial Killaz Recordings this April, The Mexican EP is a vibrant cross-cultural excursion through jungle and drum & bass, packed with rhythm, heritage and heavyweight low-end pressure. Arriba México!]]> <![CDATA[Harry Hill Bodscarf on Telly]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=191 Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:08:04 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=191 Harry Hill has been doing the pod cast for a while I think, not sure. Recently he's been whacking them up on youtube and some of them are hilarious.
Harry Hill YouTube Channel

Going back a little bit, there's a section of about 3 minutes in this video of Greg Wallace stuffing things in his mouth which is possibly one of the funniest things i've seen recently. Hits all the notess.]]> Harry Hill has been doing the pod cast for a while I think, not sure. Recently he's been whacking them up on youtube and some of them are hilarious.
Harry Hill YouTube Channel

Going back a little bit, there's a section of about 3 minutes in this video of Greg Wallace stuffing things in his mouth which is possibly one of the funniest things i've seen recently. Hits all the notess.]]> <![CDATA[Fuckin AI!!]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=190 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:07:31 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=190
I've been tracking resources (vague estimates at best, the AI companies have yet to develop an appetite to report resource usage - despite or perhaps because of the incredible drain on resources each AI query) in a bid to understand the cost of doing business as it were. Simple tasks such as filtering and comparing lists of text uses 100s of litres of water on top of the electricity, and I doubt the power to move that water to where it needed to be is taken into account.

Given the 'benefits' it gives me, yeah it can spit out a simple loop in milliseconds for a mere 205 litres, but so can I. The things I could really use assistance with are usually super complicated programming problems. Every single one of these it has been presented with has been an utter waste of time. The first round of responses will suggest things already attempted and discarded, if you can break it out of this loop it might hallucinate some more solutiony looking type stuff - often in a different direction than your prompt or codebase indicates. If you can convince it to refresh its context and not suggest things its already suggested you're doing well, but no dice, it'll now tell you computers dont exist or the language you're using doesn't support the thing.

In my complicated codebase AI simply cannot cut it. I never had to explain any of these things more than once to the graduates and apprentices who have appeared in the team over the yrs and they are able to learn and make meaningful contributions. With Copilot it seems I explain it allot and am yet to profit from a meaningful contribution in return.

My company appear to be quite happy with me spending 1/3 of my time berating an AI assistant (Basil Fawlty style), and encourage it further. I've made my view clear lol so what the actual fuckery is going on? As far as i'm aware the copilot seat is £10k annually... whereas its actual worth so far is less than £100... I cannot see how the investors in AI will make any money at all once people realise its best applications - sifting through gargantuan quantities of data and making inferences, and being a human-esque chatbot - have already been met.

Secondly if the shoe is on the other foot, these genius investors must have done the maths and figured out that once deployed at scale and integrated everywhere (despite the neglible benefits) the data centres will require more water than exists in nature... And i'm not sure where the heat from these data centres will actually go? Oh yeah the environment!! - so locking in a second wave of planet heating, straight after the fossil fuel wave. Just fucking great. I thought these people were supposed to be intelligent.

p.s. I've found appending "NO AI" to my web searches mostly suppresses the AI summary bullshit you get served.]]>
I've been tracking resources (vague estimates at best, the AI companies have yet to develop an appetite to report resource usage - despite or perhaps because of the incredible drain on resources each AI query) in a bid to understand the cost of doing business as it were. Simple tasks such as filtering and comparing lists of text uses 100s of litres of water on top of the electricity, and I doubt the power to move that water to where it needed to be is taken into account.

Given the 'benefits' it gives me, yeah it can spit out a simple loop in milliseconds for a mere 205 litres, but so can I. The things I could really use assistance with are usually super complicated programming problems. Every single one of these it has been presented with has been an utter waste of time. The first round of responses will suggest things already attempted and discarded, if you can break it out of this loop it might hallucinate some more solutiony looking type stuff - often in a different direction than your prompt or codebase indicates. If you can convince it to refresh its context and not suggest things its already suggested you're doing well, but no dice, it'll now tell you computers dont exist or the language you're using doesn't support the thing.

In my complicated codebase AI simply cannot cut it. I never had to explain any of these things more than once to the graduates and apprentices who have appeared in the team over the yrs and they are able to learn and make meaningful contributions. With Copilot it seems I explain it allot and am yet to profit from a meaningful contribution in return.

My company appear to be quite happy with me spending 1/3 of my time berating an AI assistant (Basil Fawlty style), and encourage it further. I've made my view clear lol so what the actual fuckery is going on? As far as i'm aware the copilot seat is £10k annually... whereas its actual worth so far is less than £100... I cannot see how the investors in AI will make any money at all once people realise its best applications - sifting through gargantuan quantities of data and making inferences, and being a human-esque chatbot - have already been met.

Secondly if the shoe is on the other foot, these genius investors must have done the maths and figured out that once deployed at scale and integrated everywhere (despite the neglible benefits) the data centres will require more water than exists in nature... And i'm not sure where the heat from these data centres will actually go? Oh yeah the environment!! - so locking in a second wave of planet heating, straight after the fossil fuel wave. Just fucking great. I thought these people were supposed to be intelligent.

p.s. I've found appending "NO AI" to my web searches mostly suppresses the AI summary bullshit you get served.]]> <![CDATA[Spammers will be purged and banned]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=189 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:01:22 +0100 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=189 Its a massive waste of my time and yours (admittedly far less of my time than theirs), so don't fucking bother!!
Dickheads... Icon_lol

]]> Its a massive waste of my time and yours (admittedly far less of my time than theirs), so don't fucking bother!!
Dickheads... Icon_lol

]]> <![CDATA[Quit ChatGPT!! Your subscription is bankrolling fascism]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=149 Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:20:12 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=149 OpenAI is currently in a much deserved hole. Sam Altman is the quintessential hero turned villian as the size of the bags of cash in front of him increased exponentially. Now he and the company he fronts are under pressure and on track to post a $14 billion loss this year. Thats 14 thousand million dollars pumped into it with no return.

Investors must really know something I do not about AI. I only use the agents daily and marvel at how shit they are, factoring inthe eye watering electricity and water usage not to mention the cost my organization pays for my license, it would be nice if they displayed some actual intelligence once in a while. As it is I type CHECK CONTEXT at the start of each prompt because it cannot seem to remember the subject, then summarizes and doesn't catch updates. Entirely frustrating, I've checked with colleagues and am totally justified in telling it to get fucked and delete itself after failing yet another task.

I tell anyone who will listen its not worth the money, and is infinitely less useful than an intern, graduate or apprentice who could probs be employed for the same money..

If you have a OpenAI subscription now is the time to wield it for social change, send a message that customers do not want fascist, energy intensive AI by not paying for it. OpenAI is not robust enough financially to lose a signifiacnt portion of users, and investment would be spooked.

Quit Chat GPT Article]]> OpenAI is currently in a much deserved hole. Sam Altman is the quintessential hero turned villian as the size of the bags of cash in front of him increased exponentially. Now he and the company he fronts are under pressure and on track to post a $14 billion loss this year. Thats 14 thousand million dollars pumped into it with no return.

Investors must really know something I do not about AI. I only use the agents daily and marvel at how shit they are, factoring inthe eye watering electricity and water usage not to mention the cost my organization pays for my license, it would be nice if they displayed some actual intelligence once in a while. As it is I type CHECK CONTEXT at the start of each prompt because it cannot seem to remember the subject, then summarizes and doesn't catch updates. Entirely frustrating, I've checked with colleagues and am totally justified in telling it to get fucked and delete itself after failing yet another task.

I tell anyone who will listen its not worth the money, and is infinitely less useful than an intern, graduate or apprentice who could probs be employed for the same money..

If you have a OpenAI subscription now is the time to wield it for social change, send a message that customers do not want fascist, energy intensive AI by not paying for it. OpenAI is not robust enough financially to lose a signifiacnt portion of users, and investment would be spooked.

Quit Chat GPT Article]]> <![CDATA[RESIST & UNSUBSCRIBE]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=130 Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:46:59 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=130 Resist and Unsubscribe

The above link handily complies the unsubscription links (but probably for US accounts) for the tech companies who are actively funding, supporting and facilitating the fascist Trump administration.

Do not give these fuckers any more money. They will happily take your life and tell everyone you're a domestic terrorist - simply for disagreeing with them or their policies.

If you are a human, it is not in your interests to pay these greedy cunts anything. Get informed. Get UnSubscribed.]]> Resist and Unsubscribe

The above link handily complies the unsubscription links (but probably for US accounts) for the tech companies who are actively funding, supporting and facilitating the fascist Trump administration.

Do not give these fuckers any more money. They will happily take your life and tell everyone you're a domestic terrorist - simply for disagreeing with them or their policies.

If you are a human, it is not in your interests to pay these greedy cunts anything. Get informed. Get UnSubscribed.]]> <![CDATA[Pornification of YouTube]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=129 Tue, 03 Feb 2026 08:40:33 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=129
The main issue I have with this is the shadow of him fucking her against a golf cart that is clearly visible. NSFW. Well not according to google who told me:

Quote:We decided not to take this ad down. We found that the ad doesn’t go against Google’s policies, which prohibit certain content and practices that we believe to be harmful to users and the overall online ecosystem.

Really? Turns out i'm in control and not Google because i can simply delete the App.
Whilst I was at it, I aslo reported an add for "Fitness" that had the strapline "Sex without the clit is not MAx" or some such bullshit. Also reported. Also absolutly fine according to YouTube...
I predict that by the end of 2026 YouTube will be HIGHLY sexualized - because we know it sells and without an adult deciding what is acceptable and what isn't it's only going to slide.]]> <![CDATA[AKO Beatz discount currently active]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=128 Tue, 13 Jan 2026 09:01:06 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=128 Yeah me too, fortunately those good folks over at AKO have got you and me covered.

Firstly they have done a limited rerun of some bits including the Stretch VIP of Papa Lover amongst other classic jams. Secondly they are curently running a 30% discount if you use the code AKO30 in the checkout. Nice.

Rare to get such a deep discount for such quality produce. You'd be a mug not to take advantage.

I suspect this will not last for a long time so get your skates on, or miss out forever and ever.

AKO Beatz Online Shop]]> Yeah me too, fortunately those good folks over at AKO have got you and me covered.

Firstly they have done a limited rerun of some bits including the Stretch VIP of Papa Lover amongst other classic jams. Secondly they are curently running a 30% discount if you use the code AKO30 in the checkout. Nice.

Rare to get such a deep discount for such quality produce. You'd be a mug not to take advantage.

I suspect this will not last for a long time so get your skates on, or miss out forever and ever.

AKO Beatz Online Shop]]> <![CDATA[Shipping from Fascist Economies]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=126 Sat, 13 Dec 2025 11:52:22 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=126
International Ordering
International prices do not include customs charges. Expect to pay import duties for orders outside the US. If you select USPS First Class Mail International as your shipping method, tracking is extremely limited and no insurance is included. Shipments can take up to 6 weeks to arrive (or longer in some cases), and often go several weeks in transit without any tracking updates. Due to the limited tracking, USPS does not accept inquiries for this service and we cannot check on the status of a shipment. Since this service does not include insurance, we assume no responsibility if your shipment is lost, returned to us, or arrives damaged. Additional fees apply for re-shipments.

So after you spend hundreds (quality ain't cheap) on Vinyl, you then face unknown Customs Charges, you cannot insure the package at all and tracking updates are fucked. In 2025. What is the reason please? Oh yeah that fat orange fascist fuckwit C.H.U.M.P. and his tariffs. Seriously he's a fucking liability to everything, he'd manage to fuck up any situation.

Am I gonna gamble that USPS is not gonna lose it or fuck it up? Do I take a chance on not getting charged thousand in customs dues? Nope, just lost a sale there dickheads... literally been following these guys for years... makes me fucking sick. A political decision! Although i can guarantee the head bellend did not think about it. Fucking cretins.]]>
International Ordering
International prices do not include customs charges. Expect to pay import duties for orders outside the US. If you select USPS First Class Mail International as your shipping method, tracking is extremely limited and no insurance is included. Shipments can take up to 6 weeks to arrive (or longer in some cases), and often go several weeks in transit without any tracking updates. Due to the limited tracking, USPS does not accept inquiries for this service and we cannot check on the status of a shipment. Since this service does not include insurance, we assume no responsibility if your shipment is lost, returned to us, or arrives damaged. Additional fees apply for re-shipments.

So after you spend hundreds (quality ain't cheap) on Vinyl, you then face unknown Customs Charges, you cannot insure the package at all and tracking updates are fucked. In 2025. What is the reason please? Oh yeah that fat orange fascist fuckwit C.H.U.M.P. and his tariffs. Seriously he's a fucking liability to everything, he'd manage to fuck up any situation.

Am I gonna gamble that USPS is not gonna lose it or fuck it up? Do I take a chance on not getting charged thousand in customs dues? Nope, just lost a sale there dickheads... literally been following these guys for years... makes me fucking sick. A political decision! Although i can guarantee the head bellend did not think about it. Fucking cretins.]]> <![CDATA[Daupe - Heels Have Eyes III]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=125 Tue, 02 Dec 2025 08:47:32 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=125 Daupe Bandcamp
So this release still had physical copies for dsale like 45 mins after it dropped - usually they sell out immediately.
Why the slowdown, this project isn't better or worse than most of Westside Gunn releases - perhaps the hype hasworn off now the shine has faded...

Still pisses me off I can't ever get one with a Obi strip, i'm always at the front of the queue...]]> Daupe Bandcamp
So this release still had physical copies for dsale like 45 mins after it dropped - usually they sell out immediately.
Why the slowdown, this project isn't better or worse than most of Westside Gunn releases - perhaps the hype hasworn off now the shine has faded...

Still pisses me off I can't ever get one with a Obi strip, i'm always at the front of the queue...]]> <![CDATA[AI Slide begins]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=124 Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:18:40 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=124 This is something i've known for a while as I use CoPilot at work at can't really point to any time savings it has provided. I can point to numerous occasions where I spent a long time trying to wrangle it to complete a simple task before giving up and doing it manually.
The basic question anyone that has used AI in a technical work fashion seems to have is why is a license so expensive when output is untrustworthy and often incorrect. And Incorrect in such a way its not easy to spot before runtime... No wonder Vibe Coding Fixers are making fat stacks right about now..

So, what can you do - clear your portfolio, shares are going to get hit, badly. Theres something like 2 trillion dollars just about to go up in smoke...]]> This is something i've known for a while as I use CoPilot at work at can't really point to any time savings it has provided. I can point to numerous occasions where I spent a long time trying to wrangle it to complete a simple task before giving up and doing it manually.
The basic question anyone that has used AI in a technical work fashion seems to have is why is a license so expensive when output is untrustworthy and often incorrect. And Incorrect in such a way its not easy to spot before runtime... No wonder Vibe Coding Fixers are making fat stacks right about now..

So, what can you do - clear your portfolio, shares are going to get hit, badly. Theres something like 2 trillion dollars just about to go up in smoke...]]> <![CDATA[ASUS VivoBook Laptop Serato Issue - ASUS Buyer Guide]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=123 Sun, 16 Nov 2025 11:53:50 +0000 sdm36]]> https://36thchamber.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=123 Asus VivoBook laptop which is solely for DJ purposes, it's got Serato and Rekordbox on it and nothing else... plugs into my Seventy Two and converts rotational motion into audio. £804. Should work for 10 years, right?

Bought it in 2022 and it worked a OK. Was a massive improvement on the prev. machine too. Double the spec required to run Serato at the time (16Gb Ram, i7).
Then at some point in summer 2024, something updated (I click the 'update now' button when prompted), and Serato began randomly disorting tracks. Like randomly.

The first time it happend I was in the middle of Recording the radio show for Kennet Radio on 106.7FM with DJ Stasha and the tune I put on went to shit...
I found that unplugging the usb and plugging it back in stopped the distortion but it would always come back within a few minutes. As time went on this happened quicker and quicker to the point where it is totally unusable in DVS mode which it had reached by perhaps August 2024.

I am a problem solver and despite the emotional toil (seriously - i've been DJing weekly for over twenty years, it took ages to realise not having the outlet was causing me to be increasingly introverted, tetchy at work and feeling unmoored) so I set out to find a fix. Having followed the troubleshooting guides, the optimisation guides, the setup a new power plan guides, random blog posts and reddit threads I could find, the issue was more persistent.

Each time I'd put an mp3 on, i'd get a tiny flicker of hope - this is the setting i've needed all along! It's gonna work before the inevitable red line of fuckery appears above the deck readout on the screen and the audio slows and becomes all mashed up, and my hope foundered up against the shitty Asus / Microsoft SCSI drivers that were flooding the system with latency.

Latency Mon summarizes:

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

I spent MONTHS trying to sort it out. I approached Serato support, I approached Rane support, I opened tickets with Microsoft support and finally when I realised the Asus drivers were the secret update that fucked it all up I engaged with Asus support.

It was not a happy time for any of us.

Serato took a decent punt at fixing it but didn't get anywhere, Rane also took a decent run at the issue and stuck with me even though it was definitely not their hardware causing the problems. They also provided the closest thing to emotional support I got anywhere in the process. Microsoft Support did not listen to the problem statement, reinstalled some audio drivers and declared the issue fixed. Asus support were entirely knowlegdable and one chap in particular, Gabriel, was clue'd up - pointing firstly to bloatware installed on the new laptop (that i had never wiped) and recent Windows updates as potential factors.

After wiping the laptop and installing a clean set of drivers it was super disappointing to find the system output 90% distortion and 10% listenable music. I went back to Asus support with the plan to ask them to confirm the configuration of the BIOS matched the setting I was unable to change: SpeedStop, C-States or CPU Throttling all disabled.

They were not able to confirm these things.

OKdokes, so it's clear something changed with the configuration of the laptop or drivers to starts this problem. The update that caused it did not have a warning attached about increasing system latency and there was absolutely no avenue for me to find out the outcome of the update without running the update. Yet those fucking Asusholes deflect all responsibility to the user. Simple solution: DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING AN ASUS USER.
In their own words:

Quote: However, we must advise that your device was originally purchased on 11 June 2022, and as such, it is now outside of both the manufacturer’s warranty period and the reasonable period of expected functionality (typically 18–24 months).

Operating systems and firmware regularly receive updates, and it is the responsibility of the user to ensure that any third-party software or applications remain compatible with such updates.

Reasonable period of expected functionality is 2 years on a brand new, high spec (at the time) laptop??? Wow, that is shit! Is it a coincidence that the system became unusable for me shortly after the 24 month end of expected functionality. And because it's so short term and mad I think it needs saying again. This is a major consumer hardware manufacturer and retailer, there's no way they make products with a expected 2 year lifespan and still ahve customers, what the fuck is going on?

The Asus Prime motherboard in my PC is 8 years old and still works, seemingly against Asus expectations. What. The. Fuck are they on about?

So, just to translate that: Asus sell shitty short term products they do not intend to support for their potential lifetime, and secondly if and when we push an update that fucks everything it's your fault for listening to us and clicking the 'update' button not Asus for pushing shitty code that hasn't been properly tested because Asus prioritise cutting costs over happy and returning customers.

So Asus can go fuck themselves, I will be exercising my statutory rights to have a device that is fit for purpose or a fucking refund. I have a certain skillset thats makes me a nightmare for Corporations like them an the cost they have made me pay for their non-functional device demands I exact a similar cost from them.

I got a MacBook air this week instead and was so happy just to play some tunes again!!!

Spongebobdance

]]> Asus VivoBook laptop which is solely for DJ purposes, it's got Serato and Rekordbox on it and nothing else... plugs into my Seventy Two and converts rotational motion into audio. £804. Should work for 10 years, right?

Bought it in 2022 and it worked a OK. Was a massive improvement on the prev. machine too. Double the spec required to run Serato at the time (16Gb Ram, i7).
Then at some point in summer 2024, something updated (I click the 'update now' button when prompted), and Serato began randomly disorting tracks. Like randomly.

The first time it happend I was in the middle of Recording the radio show for Kennet Radio on 106.7FM with DJ Stasha and the tune I put on went to shit...
I found that unplugging the usb and plugging it back in stopped the distortion but it would always come back within a few minutes. As time went on this happened quicker and quicker to the point where it is totally unusable in DVS mode which it had reached by perhaps August 2024.

I am a problem solver and despite the emotional toil (seriously - i've been DJing weekly for over twenty years, it took ages to realise not having the outlet was causing me to be increasingly introverted, tetchy at work and feeling unmoored) so I set out to find a fix. Having followed the troubleshooting guides, the optimisation guides, the setup a new power plan guides, random blog posts and reddit threads I could find, the issue was more persistent.

Each time I'd put an mp3 on, i'd get a tiny flicker of hope - this is the setting i've needed all along! It's gonna work before the inevitable red line of fuckery appears above the deck readout on the screen and the audio slows and becomes all mashed up, and my hope foundered up against the shitty Asus / Microsoft SCSI drivers that were flooding the system with latency.

Latency Mon summarizes:

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

I spent MONTHS trying to sort it out. I approached Serato support, I approached Rane support, I opened tickets with Microsoft support and finally when I realised the Asus drivers were the secret update that fucked it all up I engaged with Asus support.

It was not a happy time for any of us.

Serato took a decent punt at fixing it but didn't get anywhere, Rane also took a decent run at the issue and stuck with me even though it was definitely not their hardware causing the problems. They also provided the closest thing to emotional support I got anywhere in the process. Microsoft Support did not listen to the problem statement, reinstalled some audio drivers and declared the issue fixed. Asus support were entirely knowlegdable and one chap in particular, Gabriel, was clue'd up - pointing firstly to bloatware installed on the new laptop (that i had never wiped) and recent Windows updates as potential factors.

After wiping the laptop and installing a clean set of drivers it was super disappointing to find the system output 90% distortion and 10% listenable music. I went back to Asus support with the plan to ask them to confirm the configuration of the BIOS matched the setting I was unable to change: SpeedStop, C-States or CPU Throttling all disabled.

They were not able to confirm these things.

OKdokes, so it's clear something changed with the configuration of the laptop or drivers to starts this problem. The update that caused it did not have a warning attached about increasing system latency and there was absolutely no avenue for me to find out the outcome of the update without running the update. Yet those fucking Asusholes deflect all responsibility to the user. Simple solution: DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING AN ASUS USER.
In their own words:

Quote: However, we must advise that your device was originally purchased on 11 June 2022, and as such, it is now outside of both the manufacturer’s warranty period and the reasonable period of expected functionality (typically 18–24 months).

Operating systems and firmware regularly receive updates, and it is the responsibility of the user to ensure that any third-party software or applications remain compatible with such updates.

]]>