Having no success with Traktor iOS, and been trying for over a year.

Hi there forum
Im sure the younger users will be 'laughing out loud' at the lack of understanding i have here but I'm going to go on anyway. Im 48.
Ive been a Pro DJ for over 20 years and have been watching all of the new tech unfold around me. I eventually chose Serato Scratch as it allowed me to carry on as normal with less baggage. I admit to loving it still. I'm a bit of an expert with Logic Pro incidentally.
This weekend i played at a festival and had no choice but to put my set on a stick and use a windows machine connected to Traktor Kontrol s2. I have traktor on my 2 MacBook Pro's but neither would recognise the hardware.
So simply, i was amazed by the faultless tempo detection and the ludicrously simple way you navigate your library. Amazing. Later, the fella who owned the kit brought it to my bus and we messed with it late into the night. How much less stressful it would be to set up the S2 or S4 on arrival in the middle of a gig. Serato has everyone sweating until its actually working.
So i already had Traktor on my iPad for over a year and from the get go had no luck at understanding it and would never have dreamed of trying to use it in front of an audience as the tempo's are always all over the place. I simply would not trust it or myself to keep it all in time.
So with a little excitement, I've just spent the last 2 hours trying again to see if i could actually play a set using the iPad. Of course, i could not. I have no idea at all how to relax with it and be creative.

Ill tell you what i do get.
1. Loops, triggering and shortening and then getting rid of, amazing. Not that I've ever needed to do that as a dj, but I'm sure i would get into it.
2. Freeze, very amusing and could be fun, again, I'm not really that bothered about messing with records that i already consider great.
3. Keylock? Again never even considered it as i know what I'm doing anyway, but i'd like to see it in practice. Does the iPad app do this?

So thats what i do understand, at least in principle.
What i don't, is how to just tell it to detect the tempo and in the right place.
Why use the flags/markers? Ive no idea why. Ive seen all that in Serato, and never once in 8 years tried or understood the point. The idea of messing with the tracks in a gig terrifies me.
So all in all, i would love some help. I hate reading manuals on computer screens. Not just my age, as i run a Mac support company and am utterly wrapped up in all things Mac, its just creative stuff that fries my brain in that way. I was so happy/excited to be actually shown how the S2/Traktor was used, at a gig with an audience who didn't notice i had no idea (at first). One day soon i will buy the S4 as it appears to allow turntables to be used in the Serato way as well. But, in the meantime i want to learn how to get my Serato record boxes into the iPad and actually have tracks i would play in there and try to do 'mix tapes' to see if i can simply do what i would normally do and even get creative with the gadgets. Ive tried and tried on my own and have been left sad each and every time.

Can you guys please help me out. I'd even visit someone who was prepared to show me, hands on. I can really only learn properly that way.

Thanks for your time
Lee Jones
Country Gents
www.soundcloud.com/country-gents

 

Off the top I can tell you that currently you can only change the Keylock in Traktor DJ with an S2MK2 or S4MK2, can't be done straight from the software (that I'm aware of.. would love to have someone tell me otherwise). Traktor DJ does set a key lock on the tracks though.. which is a pain point for many of us because there's no logical way to turn it off without a controller.

Again, Traktor DJ detects the tempo automatically, but you can change it through the Beat Grid section which can be found located next to the Sync button on iPhone (I don't have the iPad version, so I'm not sure if its in the same place.. someone else can correct me there). You can tap the track tempo when you're in that screen, and lock it with the lock icon... I don't really know if that's a permanent change or not though.

I'm going to make the assumption that by "flags/markers" you mean "Beat Grid Markers" (the 1,2,3,4 markers on the same screen). As you stated you're familiar with Logic, you can think of the Beat Grid the same way you think of the tempo grid in Logic. The key difference is that in Traktor, you fit the grid to the track, as opposed to Logic where you fit the tracks to the grid.

Am I making sense?

 

Thanks for getting back to me today.
I've been messing with the ipad constantly since I wrote that and feel a little more aware of how to interact with it. I think what has phased me always was that I had to spend time I really don't have preparing tracks when all my life I've just listened to my records and turned up and played them. The idea of having to pre grid map each one is what has always put me off even attempting to perform using traktor on a laptop and now the ipad.
Hopefully more words of wisdom will appear now and hold my hand through this unnerving change.
Thanks
Lee

 

Yes, sadly, without a Traktor S controller manual beatmatching on Traktor DJ is pretty much out of the question. Before the 2.6.8 update, it was a great little app to setup beatgrids and cue points while in transit or killing time, which you could transfer over to the desktop app. Still waiting for that functionality to return...