Mike Henderson, aka DJ Endo, is the newest addition to Dubspot’s world-class DJ instructor lineup. He has been a DJ for a decade, Native Instruments’ DJ product specialist for 3 years, toured with Richie Hawtin, and is the tour manager for Dubfire and Nic Fanciulli…
Finally, what the digital DJ world has been waiting for: the Traktor Kontrol X1 has been unleashed and is scheduled for its official release on February 1, 2010.
For years, DJs have been using a variety of MIDI controllers to control Traktor Scratch Pro and all of its brother and sister programs (Traktor Pro, Traktor Scratch, Traktor 3, Traktor Duo, Traktor LE, etc). Some controllers work better for some functions, and others work better for other functions, but to this day there has never been an official “Traktor Controller”. Well now it’s here!
Native Instruments did such an amazing job with the controller, and mapping that you can really take the controller right out of the box, plug it in, and it is instantly working and mapped out for you. Any DJ, no matter how they play (internally, with Timecode Vinyl or CDs) can simply plug and play with the X1 and have instant access to almost every feature inside of Traktor.
Not only are the controllers set up for quick, intuitive control over the Traktor software, but Native Instruments actually took the controller a step further and introduced a new High Definition NHL (Native Hardware Library) protocol which is about 4 times faster than MIDI, so the controller is super responsive with no latency. Also, with the new Traktor update 1.2.4, Traktor instantly recognizes the controller and does all the setup for you automatically, so there is no need to configure anything. You can even hotplug the controller with Traktor already open!
The controller looks great in the club with its flashing blue, white and orange buttons, and fits snugly into the DJ booth, especially if you have the Traktor Kontrol X1 bag, which doubles as a stand for the controller.
One of the best features on the X1’s is its browsing capability. The X1’s make it so you don’t have to touch the computer when you’re DJing. On the X1’s there are two heavy-duty rotary knobs used to browse through your tracks and playlists, and if you push on that knob it instantly loads the highlighted track into the deck. You can also hold shift and press the browse button to go into browse mode where you can only see your tracks on the screen.
Once the track is loaded, you can then use the same knob to seek through the track, as if you were spinning a record forward or backwards, except the seeking is done using tempo sync’d beatjumps, so you could be seeking through a track while both decks are playing live without the mix going off. You can additionally seek through the track seamlessly using the X1’s beatjump buttons.
The Kontrol X1’s also have simple and advanced looping capabilities, including Manual Looping buttons, Autoloop buttons, an automatic 4 beat loop button, and also a knob to control loop length and even move the loop forwards and backwards seamlessly throughout the track. These controls allow you to do quick re-edits of whatever track you are playing seamlessly and on the fly, and the lit up LEDs on all the buttons will give you clear visual feedback of your loops status, taking you away from the laptop even more.
Another great feature built into the X1 is Hotcue Mode. If you press the hotcue button, the controller turns into a hotcue sampler instantly. You can save, map and delete cue points very quickly right on the controller in hotcue mode, which is great for turntablists and controllerists alike.
The Effects section of the X1 has all the controls necessary to control Traktor’s 28 built-in effects either in Advanced or chained mode, and also contains buttons to scroll through your effects without touching the computer. You can also assign each effects unit to a deck by using the FX assignment buttons on the controller. The orange LED lights will tell you which Effects Units are assigned to each deck.
The X1’s also have a highly functional transport section that is great for DJs who mix without timecode. The transport section has controls for play/pause, sync (for automatic beatmatching), pitch bend, tempo control, and cue/cue play. Basically everything you need to take the turntables completely out of the equation. However, if you are using the turntables (or CDJs) there are additionally controls to change the timecode mode from Absolute to Relative Mode. The coolest part of the transport section is that the buttons actually blink to the beat!
There are also buttons to turn on and off Key Lock, Snap Mode, Quantize Mode, select which deck is acting as the master clock and more.
Some DJs using the Kontrol X1 include Pete Tong, Dubfire, Richie Hawtin, Paolo Mojo, Victor Calderone, David Morales, DJ Shiftee, DJ Rafiq, and me. I am actually using 2 Kontrol X1’s with Maschine for 4 deck madness, sync’d to live drums and additional MIDI control on the Maschine and it’s a match made in heaven.
The developers of the Traktor Kontrol X1 really deserve a round of applause from listening to the feedback of the Traktor artists and user feedback to develop this amazing controller.