For those of you who don’t know me I am the East Coast DJ Product Specialist for Native Instruments and my job is to train artists how to use Traktor Pro – to take their artform to the next level. I am also a full time DJ myself, and an instructor at Dubspot. I do some tour managing for Dubfire and Nic Fanciulli and I have trained many different styles of DJ’s, including Dubfire, Grandmaster Flash, Victor Calderone, DJ Skribble, DJ Dan, David Morales, Oliver Huntemann, Charles Feelgood and Nic Fanciulli just to name a few.
These artists depend on Traktor night after night for their gigs, and report to me regularly with their feedback, which I then report to the developers. By now I could write a book on the evolution of Traktor Pro based on the Artists’ perspective and mine as well. Traktor Pro was basically built from scratch after Traktor 3, and I will admit that it has been an uphill battle to get things to where they are now, and with the 1.2 Traktor update, Native Instruments continues to have the most powerful and stable digital DJ program on the market. Things wouldn’t be where they are now without the feedback from the user base and the artists who depend on Traktor night after night.
Here are some of the major updates:
The first major update is the new Zplane Elistique key lock algorhithm. This algorithm is based on a completely new approach to time-stretching, making stretching artifacts (crackles) obsolete and also preserves the bass in your tracks.
Two Traktor artists who rely heavily on key lock are Dubfire and Grandmaster Flash, who are two completely different styles of DJ’s. Grandmaster Flash helped invent turntablism as we know it and uses key lock to preserve the original pitch of his records, and uses it for the occasional effect, raising the pitch of the record to make rappers sound like chipmunks. Dubfire on the other hand mixes “internally” meaning there is no timecode vinyl or CDs involved. He is using strictly controllers and does “beatgrids” for every track, so when he plays live all beatmatching is done already. He is also an avid user of the Mixed In Key software, which analyzes the key of his records and writes them into the MP3 file itself. Dubfire uses the Key lock so the pitch of all the records are at zero, so all of his mixes are perfectly in key. With the new Key Lock algorithm in Traktor Pro, there are two different modes of key lock. One is for DJ’s like Flash who use timecode, and the other is for DJ’s like Dubfire who use Key Lock in Internal mode.
The next update is great for users like Chris Liebing, Dubfire and Richie Hawtin who use 4 decks and users who were used to the Traktor 3 way of having the option to use 4 separate effects units, one for each deck in Traktor. There is now an option in the preferences to show 4 separate effects units, and assign them separately to each deck, allowing for much more creative use of effects.
Another great addition in 1.2 is the simplicity in setting cue points. This is one thing a lot of cue point based DJ’s such as DJ Skribble have asked for. Now Traktor users can set and map their cue points with a single click.
Another feature in Traktor Pro is the ability to automatically save playlists from every set. This is something that is very valuable to radio DJ’s, as well as club DJ’s who report their setlists to record labels, and websites for example.
One of the main complaints from the old version is whatever track you load into a deck will automatically show up in the history. In Traktor 1.2 you can change the minimum “playtime” of a track before it shows up in the History playlist. Also there are 2 new “favorites” playlists allowing you to quickly access 12 of your favorite playlists via the GUI, or even using hotkeys or MIDI. They also added a new “preparation” playlist, allowing you to put your “on deck” tracks in one playlist, with a diamond icon showing up next to your tracks, kind of like putting a record up at a 45 degree angle in your record crate.
These are just a few of the major updates. There is also a lot of “under the hood” stuff that was done as well for MIDI programmers and in general. I have gotten nothing but good feedback from all users using 1.2 on a professional level. Traktor 1.2 is out, and available via the service center… Welcome to the next level!
Summary of Improved Features:
- Improved “Elastique” timestretching algorithm for best keylock quality with timecode
- Number of separate effect units increased from two to four (Pro version only)
- “Preparation List” feature with diamond icons, “Append/add next” menu functions
- Adjustable “minimum playtime” for play count and history functions
- Internal EQs enabled for external mixer mode
- New track caching technology with reduced memory footprint
- Improved Tap Tempo function
- Additional effect algorithms: Beat Slicer, Formant Filter, Peak Filter (Pro version only)
- Tag editing in Explorer node
- Native HID support for Pioneer CDJ-400 / Denon HC-4500
- Drag & Drop from decks to playlist
- New “Progressive Sensitivity” option for Pitch Bend
- Pitch Bend controller assignable to jog wheels
- Customizable Cue Play button behaviour (Instant/On Release)
- Improved cue point handling
- 2 additional favorite slots
“I have been playing many (and I mean many!) gigs in the past weeks with 1.2. I use 4 decks, 4 efx units, and so on… full force. Not havin one problem with it. I simply love to work with it. A big hurray for NI to get a piece of software like this running so smoothly! I still do not understand why you would not wanna switch to 1.2 ? I understand that with every update, there comes new obstacles, some minor, some a bit meaner, but I always find a way to work around them… even if some of you shake your head now, but I say thumbs up big time!!! 1.2 GO!” – Chris Liebing
