Up until now, Serato had an exclusive 5 year run on the Rane hardware. If you wanted to use the SL3 box sitting in the club as a sound card, for example, that was not possible. Dj TechTools has learned that there are brand new ASIO and Core Audio drivers that allow any software to use Rane 68 mixers and SL3 boxes as multi-channel sound cards. This is huge because it means some djs can use the Rane hardware already in clubs as their sound card- greatly simplifying set-up. More info and links after the break.
HOW TO GET IT
Right now the drivers are in BETA and can only be download in the 2.2 public beta section of the Serato Sratch forum in this thread. Please note, you will need to register in order to download these drivers. Steve Macatee, Director of New Product Development at Rane told us once they are stable and out of beta they will be available as a free download from Rane.com
SIGN OF THE TIMES?
The exclusive pairing of Rane hardware and Serato software may have made sense for the past few years with Rane mixers being predominant in the US market and Serato having a solid hold on our local digital djs. Those paradigms have been changing lately with Traktor Scratch gaining momentum and the Traktor S4 software stealing away Itch users. For me personally, I love the Rane hardware and it breaks my heart to bring extra sound cards into a club that already has a great one installed. We have also learned that there is a tricky way to use the ubiquitous Rane TTm-57SL mixer as a multi channel sound card on mac computers and I will be posting an article on how to do that next week!
MULTI CHANNEL SUPPORT
Install the drivers above (there are separate downloads for the 68 and SL3 boxes) and presto you will have multi-channel support. 4 channels with the 68 and 3 on the SL3. One of the great features about the new 68, and a reason for its hefty price tag of $2500, are the 2 discrete sound cards. That means you can easily plug your Traktor computer into the mixer at the same time as a Serato dj and seamlessly switch over without plugging in any cables or dealing with routing issues. We just got the mixer into the office today so I have not had a chance to really test the drivers for performance but that feedback and more will be contained in the upcoming Rane 68 review.
SUPPORTED DEVICES 
SL1 Audio Interface
- Support already exists for multi channel ASIO (windows) but no support for mac.
SL3 Audio Interface
- New drivers offer Cross platform support for multi channel audio!
TTM-57SL Mixer
- Existing support for multi channel ASIO and single channel Core Audio (mac). We will write a tutorial next week on how to get multi channel audio on a MAC.
68 Mixer
- New Drivers allow for multi channel support on both ASIO and Core Audio platforms.
NOT QUITE PERFECT
Traktor Scratch users are probably wondering, well what about me? Don’t I still need to have my audio 4 or audio 8 plugged in to make Traktor Scratch software work? Yes- unfortunately your right. Rane hardware will not be supported by NI as an official interface for their Scratch line of software products like scratch duo and pro. We asked for an official comment and Tobias Thon, head of communications at NI, wrote back ” so far there seem to be no specific plans here to certify these drivers for Traktor Scratch”. Hopefully that leaves some wiggle room for support in the future? We hope so. Personally, I believe multi-platform support for all mixers would be good for the craft of djing and even the business too!
