Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
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The Carpet Cleaner
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Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Discuss, Comment, Troll.
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Here's my S4 review, maybe this helps:
Just thought I'd give a quick run down of the new Traktor S4 system, since I was able to get one pretty early once they came out. Probably won't be covering the more in-depth features since i'm still getting to grips with those, but it'll give you an overview of my first thoughts and day of use.
On first look it was pretty much what I expected, solid but not super heavy, good feeling knobs and buttons, decent faders, and sized just about perfectly I'd say. It's large enough that everything is spaced out well enough to be easy to tweak, but there's not a lot of wasted space either. The unit itself is plastic, but with the aluminum top plates of the X1 on the left and right sides of the unit where the jog wheels and cue controls are. In the center the top surface is glossy plastic, but it seems very hard and does not look like it will scratch easily.
All the buttons are illuminated, and you can control the brightness of the on and off states in the preferences. This is nice, since having a very faintly glowing button when it's off makes it easier to find them in the dark. Too bad that the lettering doesn't glow, or is brighter too. In darker settings, it was hard to see what some of the buttons were.
The knobs and encoders are identical to the Kontrol X1, so no surprises there as I'm already a fan of those. The channel and pitchfaders are alright, not the best, but they have the right amount of resistance and don't feel too cheap. Precise is a good word for them. The crossfader is only so so, I'm not a huge turntablist or anything, but while it slid well, it felt a little too light in the hand too.
The new magnetic jog wheels feel pretty good, well at least one of them did on mine. The right one was very scratchy feeling with notches randomly, not at all the smoothness of the left jog wheel. So, back to the store where I swapped it for another that was not defective. The wheels have a very interesting resistance to them, if you close your eyes it does almost feel like you're controlling a much heavier and larger platter ala a 1200. The little fake record surface on top of the wheels is a little too plasticy for me, I'd have rather had a nice grippy rubber top, but it's not a huge concern.
Connections on the back are what you'd expect, mainly RCA connections though the main outs and mic input can also be 1/4". There's two sets of inputs you can connect external gear to, which will then be routed to channel C and D in the software mixer. This can be drum machines, CD decks or turntables, and the appropriate input level switches are present (line versus phono). There's even a grounding post on the back for turntable ground leads. One neat trick is that the input for channel D can be switched to pass straight through the S4 (though still with gain control) even if no computer is connected. So if you have a CD deck connected and your laptop needs to be restarted, you can bypass the IO in the S4 and reboot without stopping the music. Nice touch.
All of the connections feel solid, especially the USB socket which is a special one I've never seen before. It's really grippy to ensure that the USB cable doesn't come loose accidentally. Sadly there's no such provision for the power supply cord, which could still be a little easy to remove. Rounding out the back is a power button, and the MIDI in and out ports.
One the front of the unit is the headphone socket, along with the controls for volume, cue mix, and mic volume. I was a little worried from the pictures I initially saw of the S4 that they stuck out kind of far in a bad place, but happily you can press the knobs in after making any adjustments, and this retracts them into the chassis. Press them again to make them pop back out. Very nice, though it's still a little odd for me having the headphone cord coming from the front of a piece of gear!
Software installation is the same as with anything else from NI, a multi-step process of initial installation, running the authorization and update software, then getting walked through a set up wizard. If you use Traktor Pro or Scratch, you've given the option of copying your Collection Data into the new S4 installation. Not sure if this means you have to maintain two sets of Collection Data for each version of Traktor now (Pro and S4). So far it looks like everything was ported over to the S4 installation successfully.
My first go at using the software and hardware together was a bit frustrating to be honest. I kept running into issues I couldn't solve, things like certain decks randomly not playing, the EQ knobs jumping around, levels not sorted right. It was clearly something wrong with the program, I just couldn't figure out how to fix it. Finally discovered a way in the preferences to reset the software to a default state, and a calibration routine for the knobs, faders, and jog wheels. After doing those, everything was working like it should, so I wonder why NI doesn't make a bigger point to have the calibration run as part of the install?
If you've used Traktor Pro, using the new S4 software is really not much different. The coloring of things is different, and I say much better now. Gone is the yellow of the Pro version, things are much more greys and greens in the new version. The obvious difference is that by default Decks C and D are preloaded as the 8 sample players that are new to the S4 software, though you can use a 4 deck set up if you want instead.
There's also a new Loop Recorder in the center of the software and the controller, and this can be set to record from the main mix, the aux channel, or the Cue channel. Once you have a loop going, there's a wet dry control that determines how much of the main mix and how much of the recorded loop is heard at the main mix. Think of it as a crossfader between your main mix, and just the loop.
One of the best things about the S4 combo, is that the software and the hardware are laid out almost identical, so it's really easy to find things. Doubly so since they both follow the standard DJ set up, decks on the sides, mixer in-between. The integration between the two is so well done, and the controls are so nice, that there were more than a few times it reminded me of using a DJM600 + turntables like in days past. Not sure if that's a good thing or not! Anyway, the key point being that yes the new controller removes all need to touch the laptop, and other than looking at the waveform displays when going to your cue points or checking how much time is left in a track, you can almost just focus on the controller itself.
I set up mine with a latency of 384 samples, which gave me a round trip latency of less than 10ms. Combined with the high-resolution control mapping, it really does feel like a strictly hardware device. Sound quality is really good, exactly like the Audio4DJ I also have. Actually, with the modeled EQs and filters, it sounded a lot better than I expected for DJing entirely "in the box". The Main Outputs are super hot as well, so make sure you have the master volume down all the way before pressing play the first time.
One downside of the controller in terms of sound level, is that the meters on the S4 are still a little vague in how well they can tell you overall loudness. The blue led's look cool for the channel faders, but you only get a single "Over" LED to tell you it's too loud. When things are too loud and you start to clip the master out, it get's pretty poor sounding very quickly. I don't use the limiter in Traktor, so I was having to turn down the channel gain to about 2-3dB to make sure I didn't clip. If I used the Auto gain function when loading new tracks, then Traktor was routinely setting the channel gains for these same tracks to +3 or +4dB. As a result it was almost impossible to mix the tracks together without clipping the master and causing distortion, never mind adding additional loops to the mix too. All of this is further compounded by the fact that the master meters on the S4 and in the software are really small. Not very accurate, so you're better to play it safe to make sure you don't clip, and back off the channels gains.
While the S4 doesn't really let me do anything new compared to my previous Xone62 and Kontrol X1 set up, it's definitely nice to have all my volume, EQ, effects, track collection, and navigation all in one place. And the sound quality is good enough that I don't instantly miss my Xone like I thought I might. It's interesting having a system where I can auto-beatmatch tracks via the sync function, or mix by manually beatmatching with the pitch faders and jog wheels. While those won't won't fool anyone into thinking their using a Technics turntable, the motions are so similar it's not that hard to do without any time spent getting used to things.
Likes:
- Build and sound quality, both are higher than I expected at this price point. Doesn't feel cheap like a lot of controllers, I don't have any hesitation spending the time to learn this like a proper instrument.
- Design, lots of well-thought out ideas like the recessed cue volume knobs, or the hardwired input in case of a laptop crash. You can tell this was made for real gigging DJs.
- The loop recording and sample decks are really well-done for on the fly looping.
- Browsing and previewing tracks in the browser is much easier with the S4 than with the Kontrol X1. You'll actually use the preview player now.
- The different 3-band EQ emulations are different enough that you'll actually want to switch them up once in awhile.
- The layout. Everything that needs to be tweaked is easily accessible with plenty of room around it. Illuminated buttons everywhere.
Dislikes:
- No way to disable the crossfader, it's always active. Kind of a pain given it's location, not everyone mixes with one.
- Currently only 3-band EQs available, the Xone 4-band from Traktor Pro is not in S4.
- Not possible to use most of the S4 in high-resolution mode, but remap only a few of the controls. You're either in S4 native mode, or midi mode.
- Would have liked longer channel faders, and better metering.
- Still no way to specify your own effects parameters to use for controlling in group mode.
- Still have to waste a cue point on a grid marker, which is more disappointing in S4 as there's only 4 cue points immediately accessible. You still have 8, but the other 4 are normally hidden.
Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll try to answer those.
Just thought I'd give a quick run down of the new Traktor S4 system, since I was able to get one pretty early once they came out. Probably won't be covering the more in-depth features since i'm still getting to grips with those, but it'll give you an overview of my first thoughts and day of use.
On first look it was pretty much what I expected, solid but not super heavy, good feeling knobs and buttons, decent faders, and sized just about perfectly I'd say. It's large enough that everything is spaced out well enough to be easy to tweak, but there's not a lot of wasted space either. The unit itself is plastic, but with the aluminum top plates of the X1 on the left and right sides of the unit where the jog wheels and cue controls are. In the center the top surface is glossy plastic, but it seems very hard and does not look like it will scratch easily.
All the buttons are illuminated, and you can control the brightness of the on and off states in the preferences. This is nice, since having a very faintly glowing button when it's off makes it easier to find them in the dark. Too bad that the lettering doesn't glow, or is brighter too. In darker settings, it was hard to see what some of the buttons were.
The knobs and encoders are identical to the Kontrol X1, so no surprises there as I'm already a fan of those. The channel and pitchfaders are alright, not the best, but they have the right amount of resistance and don't feel too cheap. Precise is a good word for them. The crossfader is only so so, I'm not a huge turntablist or anything, but while it slid well, it felt a little too light in the hand too.
The new magnetic jog wheels feel pretty good, well at least one of them did on mine. The right one was very scratchy feeling with notches randomly, not at all the smoothness of the left jog wheel. So, back to the store where I swapped it for another that was not defective. The wheels have a very interesting resistance to them, if you close your eyes it does almost feel like you're controlling a much heavier and larger platter ala a 1200. The little fake record surface on top of the wheels is a little too plasticy for me, I'd have rather had a nice grippy rubber top, but it's not a huge concern.
Connections on the back are what you'd expect, mainly RCA connections though the main outs and mic input can also be 1/4". There's two sets of inputs you can connect external gear to, which will then be routed to channel C and D in the software mixer. This can be drum machines, CD decks or turntables, and the appropriate input level switches are present (line versus phono). There's even a grounding post on the back for turntable ground leads. One neat trick is that the input for channel D can be switched to pass straight through the S4 (though still with gain control) even if no computer is connected. So if you have a CD deck connected and your laptop needs to be restarted, you can bypass the IO in the S4 and reboot without stopping the music. Nice touch.
All of the connections feel solid, especially the USB socket which is a special one I've never seen before. It's really grippy to ensure that the USB cable doesn't come loose accidentally. Sadly there's no such provision for the power supply cord, which could still be a little easy to remove. Rounding out the back is a power button, and the MIDI in and out ports.
One the front of the unit is the headphone socket, along with the controls for volume, cue mix, and mic volume. I was a little worried from the pictures I initially saw of the S4 that they stuck out kind of far in a bad place, but happily you can press the knobs in after making any adjustments, and this retracts them into the chassis. Press them again to make them pop back out. Very nice, though it's still a little odd for me having the headphone cord coming from the front of a piece of gear!
Software installation is the same as with anything else from NI, a multi-step process of initial installation, running the authorization and update software, then getting walked through a set up wizard. If you use Traktor Pro or Scratch, you've given the option of copying your Collection Data into the new S4 installation. Not sure if this means you have to maintain two sets of Collection Data for each version of Traktor now (Pro and S4). So far it looks like everything was ported over to the S4 installation successfully.
My first go at using the software and hardware together was a bit frustrating to be honest. I kept running into issues I couldn't solve, things like certain decks randomly not playing, the EQ knobs jumping around, levels not sorted right. It was clearly something wrong with the program, I just couldn't figure out how to fix it. Finally discovered a way in the preferences to reset the software to a default state, and a calibration routine for the knobs, faders, and jog wheels. After doing those, everything was working like it should, so I wonder why NI doesn't make a bigger point to have the calibration run as part of the install?
If you've used Traktor Pro, using the new S4 software is really not much different. The coloring of things is different, and I say much better now. Gone is the yellow of the Pro version, things are much more greys and greens in the new version. The obvious difference is that by default Decks C and D are preloaded as the 8 sample players that are new to the S4 software, though you can use a 4 deck set up if you want instead.
There's also a new Loop Recorder in the center of the software and the controller, and this can be set to record from the main mix, the aux channel, or the Cue channel. Once you have a loop going, there's a wet dry control that determines how much of the main mix and how much of the recorded loop is heard at the main mix. Think of it as a crossfader between your main mix, and just the loop.
One of the best things about the S4 combo, is that the software and the hardware are laid out almost identical, so it's really easy to find things. Doubly so since they both follow the standard DJ set up, decks on the sides, mixer in-between. The integration between the two is so well done, and the controls are so nice, that there were more than a few times it reminded me of using a DJM600 + turntables like in days past. Not sure if that's a good thing or not! Anyway, the key point being that yes the new controller removes all need to touch the laptop, and other than looking at the waveform displays when going to your cue points or checking how much time is left in a track, you can almost just focus on the controller itself.
I set up mine with a latency of 384 samples, which gave me a round trip latency of less than 10ms. Combined with the high-resolution control mapping, it really does feel like a strictly hardware device. Sound quality is really good, exactly like the Audio4DJ I also have. Actually, with the modeled EQs and filters, it sounded a lot better than I expected for DJing entirely "in the box". The Main Outputs are super hot as well, so make sure you have the master volume down all the way before pressing play the first time.
One downside of the controller in terms of sound level, is that the meters on the S4 are still a little vague in how well they can tell you overall loudness. The blue led's look cool for the channel faders, but you only get a single "Over" LED to tell you it's too loud. When things are too loud and you start to clip the master out, it get's pretty poor sounding very quickly. I don't use the limiter in Traktor, so I was having to turn down the channel gain to about 2-3dB to make sure I didn't clip. If I used the Auto gain function when loading new tracks, then Traktor was routinely setting the channel gains for these same tracks to +3 or +4dB. As a result it was almost impossible to mix the tracks together without clipping the master and causing distortion, never mind adding additional loops to the mix too. All of this is further compounded by the fact that the master meters on the S4 and in the software are really small. Not very accurate, so you're better to play it safe to make sure you don't clip, and back off the channels gains.
While the S4 doesn't really let me do anything new compared to my previous Xone62 and Kontrol X1 set up, it's definitely nice to have all my volume, EQ, effects, track collection, and navigation all in one place. And the sound quality is good enough that I don't instantly miss my Xone like I thought I might. It's interesting having a system where I can auto-beatmatch tracks via the sync function, or mix by manually beatmatching with the pitch faders and jog wheels. While those won't won't fool anyone into thinking their using a Technics turntable, the motions are so similar it's not that hard to do without any time spent getting used to things.
Likes:
- Build and sound quality, both are higher than I expected at this price point. Doesn't feel cheap like a lot of controllers, I don't have any hesitation spending the time to learn this like a proper instrument.
- Design, lots of well-thought out ideas like the recessed cue volume knobs, or the hardwired input in case of a laptop crash. You can tell this was made for real gigging DJs.
- The loop recording and sample decks are really well-done for on the fly looping.
- Browsing and previewing tracks in the browser is much easier with the S4 than with the Kontrol X1. You'll actually use the preview player now.
- The different 3-band EQ emulations are different enough that you'll actually want to switch them up once in awhile.
- The layout. Everything that needs to be tweaked is easily accessible with plenty of room around it. Illuminated buttons everywhere.
Dislikes:
- No way to disable the crossfader, it's always active. Kind of a pain given it's location, not everyone mixes with one.
- Currently only 3-band EQs available, the Xone 4-band from Traktor Pro is not in S4.
- Not possible to use most of the S4 in high-resolution mode, but remap only a few of the controls. You're either in S4 native mode, or midi mode.
- Would have liked longer channel faders, and better metering.
- Still no way to specify your own effects parameters to use for controlling in group mode.
- Still have to waste a cue point on a grid marker, which is more disappointing in S4 as there's only 4 cue points immediately accessible. You still have 8, but the other 4 are normally hidden.
Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll try to answer those.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
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The Carpet Cleaner
- Posts: 1128
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Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Nice Tarekith ! I just saw your tweet, but I don't have an account on the other forum and I was ... well lazy 
Thanks a lot !
Thanks a lot !
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STRATEGY_510
- Posts: 825
- Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:48 pm
- Location: Oakland, Killafoolya
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Thanks.
Do you scratch at all? If so, how are the platters for scratching/cutting?
STRATEGY
Do you scratch at all? If so, how are the platters for scratching/cutting?
STRATEGY
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
I don't scratch, sorry. You can cut back and forth on them to cue up like on vinyl jsut fine, no idea on the tracking at higher speed scratching through.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
If tracktor scratch is anything to go by - I woudnt recommend it beyond the most trivial scratching... it takes a while to catch up - not major, but noticable. Its not like latency when playing a keyboard through a DAW, but more like trying to play stacato on a mono glide synth patch.
Dunno if serato fairs better - not that im really bothered by it (Im not a hamster) but I still notice it when just scratching to sync a beat.
Dunno if serato fairs better - not that im really bothered by it (Im not a hamster) but I still notice it when just scratching to sync a beat.
Nothing to see here - move along!
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
sweet man, thx for the review - and lucky you have one, huh?
been using traktor since v1 so i was creaming a bit when i found out about this controller, it'll be nice to have 1 piece of gear for controlling and audio output so i
will jumping on it soon, just been waiting for ppl like you to give reviews.....
my biggest thing w/traktor has always been the way the fx are routed so thats the first
thing i want to know about: can we do pre-fader fx?
i never understood why NI decided not to have that built in, why would anybody not want their reverb or delay tail to keep fading after stopping a deck or crossing to the other deck......
did you have a go at the fx? how do they compare with the current version of traktor?
thx.....
been using traktor since v1 so i was creaming a bit when i found out about this controller, it'll be nice to have 1 piece of gear for controlling and audio output so i
will jumping on it soon, just been waiting for ppl like you
to give reviews.....my biggest thing w/traktor has always been the way the fx are routed so thats the first
thing i want to know about: can we do pre-fader fx?
i never understood why NI decided not to have that built in, why would anybody not want their reverb or delay tail to keep fading after stopping a deck or crossing to the other deck......
did you have a go at the fx? how do they compare with the current version of traktor?
thx.....
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Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Effects are exactly the same as Traktor Pro as far as I can tell.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Great review!!!!
I've had number of issues lately with running both Traktor Scratch Pro & Live 8 - most in support don't seem to know the answer unless they can look it up in a manual. That said, Ray has been great, very patient and thorough.
Reason for my post is that it seems the main aim with Ableton Support is to draw Traktor users to looking at Serato. Crazy!!! Stick with your Traktor guys, Serato is pants and just because the bridge is introduced don't let that sway you to spending double the cost of traktor so that you can run your decks into Live. It would be waste of money.
Traktor Scratch hasn't given me any trouble at all, I run it through the Allen & Heath Xone 4D and the level of control and sound quality is the best I've ever heard, downside is that I cannot seem to get any solid advice with routing my Traktor audio out into Live channels and record it. Maybe Ableton will realise that they have dropped a clanger partnering with Serato and start talking Native Instruments to write a 'bridge' for Live & Traktor connectivity.
I've had number of issues lately with running both Traktor Scratch Pro & Live 8 - most in support don't seem to know the answer unless they can look it up in a manual. That said, Ray has been great, very patient and thorough.
Reason for my post is that it seems the main aim with Ableton Support is to draw Traktor users to looking at Serato. Crazy!!! Stick with your Traktor guys, Serato is pants and just because the bridge is introduced don't let that sway you to spending double the cost of traktor so that you can run your decks into Live. It would be waste of money.
Traktor Scratch hasn't given me any trouble at all, I run it through the Allen & Heath Xone 4D and the level of control and sound quality is the best I've ever heard, downside is that I cannot seem to get any solid advice with routing my Traktor audio out into Live channels and record it. Maybe Ableton will realise that they have dropped a clanger partnering with Serato and start talking Native Instruments to write a 'bridge' for Live & Traktor connectivity.
Custom Built PC, Windows7, AMD Phenom Quad 3.4, 4gbRAM / Xone4D mixer / APC40 Controller / 2x Technics 1210 mk5g, Ortofon digitracks / M-Audio Keystation / Traktor Scratch Pro / Ableton Live 8 / Soundforge Pro 10 / Komplete 7
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Another point of discussion for this thread is I still don't understand why anybody would want to run Traktor AND Live at the same time, especially given the S4 version of Traktor has sample/loop decks.
A point that often comes up is Live's effects and routing which is something I admit I don't understand the advantage of. IMO if you need Live's effects and routing on top of a separate DJ app. then you might be getting a little too tweaky with your DJ sets and are more impressing yourself than keeping a dance floor filled. No?
A point that often comes up is Live's effects and routing which is something I admit I don't understand the advantage of. IMO if you need Live's effects and routing on top of a separate DJ app. then you might be getting a little too tweaky with your DJ sets and are more impressing yourself than keeping a dance floor filled. No?
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
The sample decks are nice, but you don't get anywhere near the same amount of control that you do with Live clips. For the effects, I admit I realy enjoy crafting my own effect racks in Live for Djing, I can tailor them to exactly what I want. Traktors effects are just 'ok', much less options and you can't pick what parameters you can actually control in group mode.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
-
Short Scope Boy
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- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:58 pm
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Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
I have to admit I like the look of S4, but I am not convinced that traktor is 100% (IMO) reliable; I have always struggled with random anomalies where Traktor is concerned, that I just don't get with Live. Never used Serato.The Carpet Cleaner wrote:Discuss, Comment, Troll.
MacBook Pro: 2.4 4GB DDR3 - Live Intro 8.2 - Maschine - PreSonus Firestudio Mobile - LARGO - SL61 MK2 - Launchpad - Nocturn - Amplitube Fender - ESP LTD H401 EMG - Guitar Rig 3 - PreSonus Studio One - KRK RP5 - Blue Sky Media Desk
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
I guess i must be getting old, i learned to mix back in 1989 using 2 decks and vinyl. I like the hands on control which traktor gives and to be honest ableton will never be able to offer.
That said i'm not knocking Live. It's great for building tracks 'lego block' style, but not the best for dj'ing with. Lives fx are amazing and give far more flexibility and quality than those within traktor..... and i guess the debate rolls on. But I'm not here for the pointless going nowhere chit chat.... does anyone know how to route audio from traktor into ableton and to record too??????????
That said i'm not knocking Live. It's great for building tracks 'lego block' style, but not the best for dj'ing with. Lives fx are amazing and give far more flexibility and quality than those within traktor..... and i guess the debate rolls on. But I'm not here for the pointless going nowhere chit chat.... does anyone know how to route audio from traktor into ableton and to record too??????????
Custom Built PC, Windows7, AMD Phenom Quad 3.4, 4gbRAM / Xone4D mixer / APC40 Controller / 2x Technics 1210 mk5g, Ortofon digitracks / M-Audio Keystation / Traktor Scratch Pro / Ableton Live 8 / Soundforge Pro 10 / Komplete 7
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Nick Shepherd
- Posts: 314
- Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 10:06 am
- Location: Berlin
Re: Tracktor S4 or Ableton Live + Serato + bridge ?
Thats a superb demo of the traktor controller - also shows how good scratch pro is too. This must answer the Live 8 versus Scratch Pro question - as I've seen posted on another thread, the question was asked "should i buy Live or Scratch for dj'ing with?" - So in my opinion, use Traktor for that hand-on full dj control, and use Live for production and looping with a massive library of high end studio fx (and vst plug-in functionality), bring the two peices of software together and you've have a complete solution - buy wisely when it comes to choosing your controller. The new traktor unit looks very impressive and i cant wait to give it try out, at the moment i'm using the Xone 4D which offers many of the same features but has more midi control, then again though the 4D is double the cost here in the UK, link either one of these units up to ableton using the APC40 and hey presto!! Stunning results.
Custom Built PC, Windows7, AMD Phenom Quad 3.4, 4gbRAM / Xone4D mixer / APC40 Controller / 2x Technics 1210 mk5g, Ortofon digitracks / M-Audio Keystation / Traktor Scratch Pro / Ableton Live 8 / Soundforge Pro 10 / Komplete 7