NI Traktor Pro v2 annouced

[Khazul]

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... tch-pro-2/

[beats me]

Hm, I can't hit the NI site from work. I'm wondering how it compares to the S4 version or if it is exactly that sans needing the controller.

[Khazul]

It seems to bring into the main version all the S4 features (sample decks, adds a new looper effcet as well) and v2 will be a free upgrade for S4 owners (so S4 onwer will use the same version as everyone else it seems)

Also new audio Interfaces - Audio 10 DJ and Audio 6 DJ replace the Audio 4 and Audio 8, though both will continue to be fully supported.

For scratch pro users, just the software upgrade needed (existing audio DJ timecode interface fully supported) - 79usd I think.

Release on April 1st (or is an early April fools day joke ).


Now I just wonder if there will be a cheap hardware only purchase of S4 available for those who have everything else allready and just want an more portable alternative to a full decks rig sometimes ??

[beats me]

Intesting about the upgrade to v2 being free to S4 owners. So there must be some things new in there other than just bringing Pro v1 up to speed with the S4 version.

I will also be curious if the 2 versions match and they release a version of the controller cheaper but without a new Traktor license, although I'm thinking they're already potentially eating the cost of the software when you buy the controller.

I also wonder if down the line they'll release a version of the controller that doesn't include the audio interface built in since plenty of people are already invested in their external audio interfaces and don't want to pay extra for something they don't really need.

Also interesting to note that Ean Golden of Djtechtools.com helped design the controller and yet hasn't been seen too much since release using it or pimping it, although he kind of is a DYI guy so maybe it's too closed for his taste as far as making alternative layouts and uses.

[Tarekith]

I almost sold my S4 last night on Craigslist, I was just to lazy and tired to go meet the guy. Now that I'll get my Xone 4-band EQ's back it sounds like, I'll wait until I can at least try those first.

My understanding is that Ean was one of MANY Djs who had some input into the layout of the S4, it's not like he was the main guy behind it.

T Pro2 is basically the S4 version, with new waveform colors, a few new effects, and some instant routing functions if you plug in an NI soundcard. Otherwise it's almost identical to what S4 is now.

[Khazul]

T Pro2 is basically the S4 version, with new waveform colors, a few new effects, and some instant routing functions if you plug in an NI soundcard. Otherwise it's almost identical to what S4 is now.

Ah - thought there would be software controlled thru routing on the new sound cards - would free up some inputs on my over stuffed DJM - hmmmm - suddenly the new Audio 10 DJ looks appealing to replace the Audio 8DJ

[Tarekith]

Yeah, the new thru routing on the cards is nice if you have a full DJ mixer already.

[Agent G]

S4 will have time code now......

I know most won't care but,nice that you can hook a pair of Tech's up....

[beats me]

I almost sold my S4 last night on Craigslist, I was just to lazy and tired to go meet the guy. Now that I'll get my Xone 4-band EQ's back it sounds like, I'll wait until I can at least try those first.

My understanding is that Ean was one of MANY Djs who had some input into the layout of the S4, it's not like he was the main guy behind it.

T Pro2 is basically the S4 version, with new waveform colors, a few new effects, and some instant routing functions if you plug in an NI soundcard. Otherwise it's almost identical to what S4 is now.

What are your misgivings about the S4 system? Has to be more than just the EQ.

I read the article on djtechtools last night interviewing Ean and Q Bert together and watched the video where they jammed. It was quite obvious Ean was surprised, unprepared, and out of practice, as he even admits to. I'm not clowning the guy but I can imagine the butterflies of thinking you are just doing an interview with one of your heroes and then an impromptu jam is suggested...and they are going to film it.

[Tarekith]

This is a cut and paste of something I posted here earlier about my S4 thoughts after a couple months of use:

Well, I'm not totally sure i'm going to sell it yet, but it's definitely something I'm considering. I have a feeling we'll see an update around Winter NAMM, so I'm waiting to see how responsive NI is to user requests before I make up my mind. If I do sell, likely somewhere around $799.
As for it being a love affair, well, sort of. I've always said that my main reason for going to Traktor was just to see what the competition was up to, and not because I was leaving Live for DJing per se (just used it two nights ago in fact). Yes the S4 is pretty, and it's new, and there's a lot of hype around it, but it has some flaws too. After quite a bit more time with it, here's my updated thoughts on the S4 as a DJ package:

The Good:

- Track browsing and crate organization is excellent, lots of options and ways to customize your playlists, and the way NI implemented the push encoder for previewing is one of the nicest things I've seen in awhile.
- Overall build quality is very good, especially the knobs and the jog wheels.
- Easy set up. One usb cable, one power cable, done. Does not draw a lot of power either, I often use it with my laptop running on battery power when I'm too lazy to move the laptop powercord from my studio to dj set up, lasts for hours like this.
- The loop recorder is really nice, grabbing recordings of audio as you tweak it via the filters, EQ, and effects is really convenient, and you can even move recordings from the loop recorder to a sample slot fairly easily with the hardware.
- Some really useful DJ features for when things go bad. IE, the main volume knob is seperate from the software volume knob, so you can always kill the sound instantly if you need to. The fact that you can hook up an MP3 player to the hardware and that it's hardwired to the main outs is useful too if you need to reboot. The USB socket deserves a mention too, it's SUPER snug so there's no worries about the USB Cable coming unplugged.
- I like the layout of the Traktor software, they do a really nice job of letting you configure what you want to see. Having a dedicated button to switch the browser to full screen is nice too. Dual waveform view is nice too, though the waveforms are a little small IMO.
- No denying the usefulness of being able to manually beatmatch tracks if you need to, or if you don't want to prep (grid) your tracks.
- Overall sound quality is good, as long as you really pay attention to your gain structure (see below for caveats).
- On the fly looping is implemented really well, though I wish loops could be longer than 8 bars when set on the fly with the loop encoders.

The Bad:

- The EQs are really not that good IMO. Not even counting the lack of the Traktor Pro 4-band EQ, the current three options are just not that good sounding IMO. Very phasey sounding, not that transparent. This is probably my biggest complaint with the S4. They're still useable of course, but hard to be subtle with them. I've had more than a few people point out that it was pretty audible when I was EQing tracks, and I barely cut that much when using EQ for DJing.
- The metering on the hardware is next to useless. I don't find that the signal is really represented well, does not seem to be accurate at all. Personally I think it's reacting too fast and possibly the tiny bit of latency could be throwing things off. Basically it's hard to accurately know your levels looking at the meters on the S4, I tend to look at the software meters instead, which is the opposite of how it should be.
- The faders and gain knobs are so so feeling. Not the worst I've used, but not up to the same quality as the knobs and jog wheels. The gain knobs have a potentially useful feature in that if you push them, they reset to 0dB. Unfortunately in order to keep the soundcard in the S4 from clipping, I often need to keep the channel gains closer to -6 or -7dB. This means accidentally pressing the gain encoder causes the volume to jump drastically and distort. Bad when this happens mid-mix. Also the gain knobs are detented, which can sometimes make narrowing in on an exact value impossible.
- Auto-levelling and the output limiter in the software are not that good. For some reason Traktor always BOOSTS the signal of tracks to level them, which means you need to crank the channel gains down a lot to keep from clipping. It also means it's next to impossible to keep from hitting the limiter as well, which sounds not that good IMO (granted I'm really picky about this doing mastering for a living). I disable both of these functions and manage gain myself.
- The Sample Decks are not key-locked or timestretched, which means if you assign a sample to them from a track that's not playing exactly at it's original tempo, it will be out of sync or out of tune with the audio currently playing. As a result, I almost never use these unless I grab a loop with the loop recorder first, and then assign it to a sample deck.
- Effects are so so. They make it very easy to assign the effects you want to the effects knobs, but honestly I find most of them to be pretty bland. Also things like the delay do not show the delay time in musical values (i.e. 1/8th, 1/4, etc), unlike how it is done in Traktor Pro. All values are 1-127. Effects are prefader too, which is not how I prefer them.
- Very hard to see the hardware controls in low light. Too much black, and too small of text in most cases. Also the glossy area around the EQs and volume faders is super prone to collecting fingerprints, which makes your shiny new toy look very messy in no time.
- Not very easy to remap controls with the default S4 configuration. For instance, if you wanted to reassign the loop length knob to global tempo, there's really no simple way to do this currently. So you either use the S4 hardware as NI intended, or switch to MIDI mode and lose a lot of funtionality that can't be accessed via midi mapping.

It might seem like I have a lot of complaints about the S4 system, but in all honesty most of these are just minor annoyances. I think the main thing I've learned is that the S4 system has enough flaws that it's not an obvious winner over my previous Live set up for DJing. It does a lot of things very well, but in some ways it feels like it's not yet done or was rushed to market on the software side of things. Stability has not been a concern, which is the main thing, but I think NI still has a ways to go with making things a little more customizeable for power users. Most of my wishes are things that can be addressed by a software update, as well as being things that many other users have been asking for as well. That's one reason I'm waiting until NI releases the next update, to see what (if anything) they address. Better sounding EQs, more accurate metering, and key-locking of the sample decks would definitely win me over.

[beats me]

This is a cut and paste of something I posted here earlier about my S4 thoughts after a couple months of use:

Well, I'm not totally sure i'm going to sell it yet, but it's definitely something I'm considering. I have a feeling we'll see an update around Winter NAMM, so I'm waiting to see how responsive NI is to user requests before I make up my mind. If I do sell, likely somewhere around $799.
As for it being a love affair, well, sort of. I've always said that my main reason for going to Traktor was just to see what the competition was up to, and not because I was leaving Live for DJing per se (just used it two nights ago in fact). Yes the S4 is pretty, and it's new, and there's a lot of hype around it, but it has some flaws too. After quite a bit more time with it, here's my updated thoughts on the S4 as a DJ package:

The Good:

- Track browsing and crate organization is excellent, lots of options and ways to customize your playlists, and the way NI implemented the push encoder for previewing is one of the nicest things I've seen in awhile.
- Overall build quality is very good, especially the knobs and the jog wheels.
- Easy set up. One usb cable, one power cable, done. Does not draw a lot of power either, I often use it with my laptop running on battery power when I'm too lazy to move the laptop powercord from my studio to dj set up, lasts for hours like this.
- The loop recorder is really nice, grabbing recordings of audio as you tweak it via the filters, EQ, and effects is really convenient, and you can even move recordings from the loop recorder to a sample slot fairly easily with the hardware.
- Some really useful DJ features for when things go bad. IE, the main volume knob is seperate from the software volume knob, so you can always kill the sound instantly if you need to. The fact that you can hook up an MP3 player to the hardware and that it's hardwired to the main outs is useful too if you need to reboot. The USB socket deserves a mention too, it's SUPER snug so there's no worries about the USB Cable coming unplugged.
- I like the layout of the Traktor software, they do a really nice job of letting you configure what you want to see. Having a dedicated button to switch the browser to full screen is nice too. Dual waveform view is nice too, though the waveforms are a little small IMO.
- No denying the usefulness of being able to manually beatmatch tracks if you need to, or if you don't want to prep (grid) your tracks.
- Overall sound quality is good, as long as you really pay attention to your gain structure (see below for caveats).
- On the fly looping is implemented really well, though I wish loops could be longer than 8 bars when set on the fly with the loop encoders.

The Bad:

- The EQs are really not that good IMO. Not even counting the lack of the Traktor Pro 4-band EQ, the current three options are just not that good sounding IMO. Very phasey sounding, not that transparent. This is probably my biggest complaint with the S4. They're still useable of course, but hard to be subtle with them. I've had more than a few people point out that it was pretty audible when I was EQing tracks, and I barely cut that much when using EQ for DJing.
- The metering on the hardware is next to useless. I don't find that the signal is really represented well, does not seem to be accurate at all. Personally I think it's reacting too fast and possibly the tiny bit of latency could be throwing things off. Basically it's hard to accurately know your levels looking at the meters on the S4, I tend to look at the software meters instead, which is the opposite of how it should be.
- The faders and gain knobs are so so feeling. Not the worst I've used, but not up to the same quality as the knobs and jog wheels. The gain knobs have a potentially useful feature in that if you push them, they reset to 0dB. Unfortunately in order to keep the soundcard in the S4 from clipping, I often need to keep the channel gains closer to -6 or -7dB. This means accidentally pressing the gain encoder causes the volume to jump drastically and distort. Bad when this happens mid-mix. Also the gain knobs are detented, which can sometimes make narrowing in on an exact value impossible.
- Auto-levelling and the output limiter in the software are not that good. For some reason Traktor always BOOSTS the signal of tracks to level them, which means you need to crank the channel gains down a lot to keep from clipping. It also means it's next to impossible to keep from hitting the limiter as well, which sounds not that good IMO (granted I'm really picky about this doing mastering for a living). I disable both of these functions and manage gain myself.
- The Sample Decks are not key-locked or timestretched, which means if you assign a sample to them from a track that's not playing exactly at it's original tempo, it will be out of sync or out of tune with the audio currently playing. As a result, I almost never use these unless I grab a loop with the loop recorder first, and then assign it to a sample deck.
- Effects are so so. They make it very easy to assign the effects you want to the effects knobs, but honestly I find most of them to be pretty bland. Also things like the delay do not show the delay time in musical values (i.e. 1/8th, 1/4, etc), unlike how it is done in Traktor Pro. All values are 1-127. Effects are prefader too, which is not how I prefer them.
- Very hard to see the hardware controls in low light. Too much black, and too small of text in most cases. Also the glossy area around the EQs and volume faders is super prone to collecting fingerprints, which makes your shiny new toy look very messy in no time.
- Not very easy to remap controls with the default S4 configuration. For instance, if you wanted to reassign the loop length knob to global tempo, there's really no simple way to do this currently. So you either use the S4 hardware as NI intended, or switch to MIDI mode and lose a lot of funtionality that can't be accessed via midi mapping.

It might seem like I have a lot of complaints about the S4 system, but in all honesty most of these are just minor annoyances. I think the main thing I've learned is that the S4 system has enough flaws that it's not an obvious winner over my previous Live set up for DJing. It does a lot of things very well, but in some ways it feels like it's not yet done or was rushed to market on the software side of things. Stability has not been a concern, which is the main thing, but I think NI still has a ways to go with making things a little more customizeable for power users. Most of my wishes are things that can be addressed by a software update, as well as being things that many other users have been asking for as well. That's one reason I'm waiting until NI releases the next update, to see what (if anything) they address. Better sounding EQs, more accurate metering, and key-locking of the sample decks would definitely win me over.

Good read.

Was this also your introduction to the Traktor software? It sounds like some of your dislikes have to do with Traktor in general even without the controller (EQ, effects, gain) but I guess for your taste that might be incentive to use Traktor with an external DJ mixer. I haven't dug too deep into the effects section but from what I've seen they can be quite interesting and useful when you know how to stack them and map knobs to multiple controls sort of like Live's macro rack knobs.

It's kind of crazy what digital DJing has done for DJing because programs like Live and Traktor can now do most of the heavy lifting of what old school DJing is and now it's about how you can best utilize that free time and be creative.

[Khazul]

S4 will have time code now......

I know most won't care but,nice that you can hook a pair of Tech's up....

Timecode support is a separate purchase.

If you allready have traktor scratch DVS as well as the S4, then when you get your V2 update, you get the scratch update instead which works with the S4.
Else if you just have normal traktor (S4 or otherwise), then you have to buy a crossgrade to the full scratch system if you want timecode vinyl/cd support - which is pricey as you need the hardware too unles you allready have a supported audio interface (even then, you still need to crossgrade the software to get the DVS support).

[Khazul]

I haven't dug too deep into the effects section but from what I've seen they can be quite interesting and useful when you know how to stack them and map knobs to multiple controls sort of like Live's macro rack knobs.

Funny that - though I was about the only one who had barely ever touched traktors internal mixer and effects - at least its not just me

It's kind of crazy what digital DJing has done for DJing because programs like Live and Traktor can now do most of the heavy lifting of what old school DJing is and now it's about how you can best utilize that free time and be creative.

To my mind the heavy lifting of DJing is still track selection and set planning. Thats something you either have or you aint. Betamatching and all the mechanics of old school DJing could be learnt fairly quickly.

Im still a bit on the fence over thre general sttate digital DJing.

At the lowest of the low - bar staff in the local club are now 'DJs' (instead of getting in real DJs with some music taste) playing random cheesy shit all night and totally fucking it over with fx (well then again its cheesy shit - what else can you do with it, but they actually manage to make bad shit worse )

But at the other end of the scale - yes - agree its amazing how far its come in the last few years - to me the real biggy was just simply having live and traktor scratch running in harmony on the same computer with the APC looking after live, an X1 and timecode looking after traktor (and some bits of live too) and both happily sharing the audio interface all being mixed via the external mixer and the coolest bit - using a timecode CD to beatmatch the tempo of live (which is locked to traktor) for a pickup - just tickled me that did the first time - one of those - wow this shit actually works moments

[Tarekith]

Was this also your introduction to the Traktor software? It sounds like some of your dislikes have to do with Traktor in general even without the controller (EQ, effects, gain) but I guess for your taste that might be incentive to use Traktor with an external DJ mixer. I haven't dug too deep into the effects section but from what I've seen they can be quite interesting and useful when you know how to stack them and map knobs to multiple controls sort of like Live's macro rack knobs.

A few months before the S4 came out I bought an Audio 4DJ, Kontrol X1, and Traktor Pro to use with my Xone62. The X1 impressed me enough that I was willing to give the S4 a chance.

The effects are so so only for me. They're either really plain like phasers and flangers, or too weird like Mulholland Drive. I normally keep them in chained mode, but then you're stuck controlling only the one parameter from each effect that NI thinks you should control. Meh, I'm spoiled on this front, I have dozens of custom Live racks for DJing that I was really happy with I guess.

Anyway, it's not a total knock on the S4 or a deal killer obviously, as I decided to keep it for now. It is fun to use, and I do like the all in one nature of it, combined with the ability to manually beatmatch if needed (or wanted). Live has a lot of faults for DJing too, so at the moment neither is a clear winner for me so I'll keep both.

[Khazul]

Meh, I'm spoiled on this front, I have dozens of custom Live racks for DJing that I was really happy with I guess.

Then chain traktor audio through ableton live - thats what I do - send/return from your DJ mixer to/from live