S8 + Traktor + Ableton Live

Before I buy an S8...

If I wanted to run Traktor and Ableton Live on the same laptop, I'm assuming that the sync between them is as easy as it looks settings-wise, and that it's easy enough to dial in negative latency on Live to compensate for latency. Has anybody here done this? Is it as easy as it looks from the directions on NI's site or the youtube videos out there showing how to do it?

Also, re: audio from Live. Would I route that out to a separate sound card and then into the S8's mixer or is there a way to route that audio from Live internally to the S8?

The goal here is to have Traktor playing stereo files from our albums, with say, one remix deck going at times, and then have Ableton locked to Traktor's tempo and spitting out MIDI clock to Live and then setup Live to have a couple instruments going over any given song. Nothing too CPU heavy, but load is certainly a factor. Does Traktor offload any processing to the S8 hardware, or is the S8 purely 100% controller and all the processing is CPU-bound?

Has anybody done this or had any experience with this kind of performance setup? Unfortunately, I'm unable to secure a loaner S8 anywhere and this isn't really the kind of thing you can figure out in a retail store w/ a floor unit.

Anybody have any experience with this?

 

I suspect most of the processing happens with the computer CPU. I was testing things at home and my browser crashed in the middle of my set, reopening it with 3 browser windows and 20ish tabs each lagged traktor HARD, the audio glitched out and just couldn't keep up as my core i7 was flooded with browser threads to process. Since then I've assigned the traktor.exe to run as high priority, which seems to make a difference, though I haven't yet recreated that exact scenario.

 

When you plug Ableton (for me via a Focusrite Saffire AU) into the mixer, say Deck D, quoting the user manual of the S8: "By pressing the respective channel's TRAKTOR button, you can switch between Live Input mode and Direct Thru mode in real time. While FX can only be assigned in Live Input
mode, the 3-band EQ and Filter are available in both." I run yesterday Ableton alongside Traktor on one MBP for the first time, with no problems but then I have not yet done anything to do with MIDI sync but I'd also appreciate if others share their experience running Traktor alongside Ableton.

 

yes, Ableton should be able to output on the S8's master out, WHILE traktor is playing. it's really not as crazy as it first seems, ever listened to winamp while playing a videogame on the same computer? same idea.

what's REALLY fun is once you figure out that you can run multiple instances of ableton ))

i do a weekly ustream broadcast using traktor, and 3 instances of ableton, all outputting through my S4. hope that helps!

 

Thanks for the info ^^

 

I see that you can route Ableton through your master, but can you route Ableton channels (or send, master, etc) into one of the S8's individual channels?

In this way you could control the eq, filter, etc of the incoming ableton track/channel/send/output, which sounds really cool.

 

Hey I also have an S8 and i bought ableton suite, now I want use both together. Do you have new experience for me?

Is it possible to say to one Deck that it should use ableton? and can I sync my tracks with ableton?

Thanks for informations.

 

So here are my discoveries as of late with the S8 and Ableton/Traktor:

Option 1. You can run two sound cards and feed Ableton into the S8 as an ANALOG signal to any deck you wish. This allows you to control the audio signal as if it were another deck in Traktor. That deck needs to be in "pass thru mode" to work. You can feed the audio into FX modules, use the faders, etc. This requires an investment and some extra wiring. I do not like this idea for a mobile setup, personally. I used the UA Apollo to accomplish this, as it's a thunderbolt IO, to avoid USB hubs in my setup. S8, Apollo, and one controller (Push 2, in this case) on the 2016 MBPro = no hubs required.
Yes, ableton Link is now compatible with traktor. It does sync pretty well almost 100% of the time. It's still a bit iffy at times. Perhaps more updates will fix this. Keep in mind, running two IOs can tax your system, depending on the specs and settings. The S8 runs at 48000khz, which stinks, because Ableton/Apollo/other DAWS (I have found, in general) run better with less CPU hits at 44.100. 48,000 seems to force higher buffers, higher latency... So the system becomes less awesome for live-drumming, live-keyboarding via ableton, for example. The Apollo has built-in CPU chips x2, which helps, but most USB $200ish cards will not have this capability.

Option 2. Map the S8 to control 4 different group channels in Ableton live. Control the four main groups (drums, bass, synths, vocals) via the mixer in MIDI mode. The countless sliders/faders/knobs on the S8 really allow you some creative options, but I haven't decided if it's really any more creative than just loading 4 different track decks into Traktor and fiddling around (remix decks, stem decks, etc).

Option 1 also works with Maschine, but the same issue exists (stability, multiple IO interfaces).

NI is one step closer to just making it all smooth. Their recent Link integration with Traktor tells me it's not long before Machine adopts the same thing. The step sequencer decks in Traktor are only one step away from allowing the Machine MK2 controller to natively control all 16 steps of a given channel. The ability to take your Ableton project and convert it into a STEM format track, then load into Traktor and remix away, is already here.

It seems to me that a "maschine deck" is almost here. If that happens, you'd be able to route a Maschine project directly into traktor, which auto-syncs, gives you control over the sound in the mixer and with FX, and opens the ability to take a scratch-pad song idea and just throw it into your traktor mix to play with it. It would also, I assume, give you the ability to access the "virtual channels" in traktor to map to the decks on the S8 for ableton as well. These things seem only a moment away...

The default Ableton / Maschine routing just sends your audio into the master feed, thus you gain zero control within traktor over the audio feed. I don't love this option, but if someone spends the time to map the proper racks in Ableton, or Macro controls in Maschine, then the 8 knobs up top of either controller should give you a TON of control over the audio signal, despite the default S8 routing.

Does this all make sense?

I was able to route a Maschine project into the Apollo virtual channels, and Ableton into another, then route each one with dual 1/4" to RCA outs back into my S8, so I had two traktor decks, a Machine deck, and Ableton deck running all at once. Did they all sync perfectly? No. Did it run smoothly enough that I would be willing to do it live? No. Did I have low enough buffer/latency settings across the board to make live drums/chords seem responsive? No.

The key, I am finding, in all of this - is to identify a workflow to get from Ableton project file (or Maschine) into audio clips or stems you can import into traktor (as either a remix session or a stem track) so that you are doing within Traktor what Traktor does best... That process of identifying a workflow is tough. You gotta pick one, commit to it, and then finish your project enough that it sounds good when you export.

It seems silly to have these tiny brick walls between the programs, but they seem to be crumbling all around us. 2016-2017 are interesting years for NI...

 

And with the Jam controller, Maschine is one step closer to that amazing Ableton workflow. So, if they continue on this path, they could make Ableton less necessary in an all-NI setup like mine/many of ours.

 

tank you really much for this detailed description!!! Thank you very much.

Do you know about any different between windows and mac? a friend told me, that it is easier to switch between traktor and ableton if you have a Mac.. i dont know why. are you so limited if you use windows?

thanks man

 

I can't really explain why Windows vs Mac results in limitations. I switched to Apple products in 1999 when a few friends told me, all separately, that I would have a better music production experience if I just learned to use Mac. These days I only use PCs when I have no other choice.

I know NI wrote Traktor DJ and iMaschine for iOS devices only (at least, last I checked)... So I imagine it has something to do with the architecture of the operating systems. My Macbook Pro runs a quad core i7 2.8 with 16Gigs RAM and I know that it wins on performance benchmarks on PCs with equivalent specs "on paper."

I wish I could be more help.

 

I do have a slight update. Today's Maschine update resulted in LINK support. When I opened Traktor alongside, they synced PERFECTLY for over an hour. I used another app called "LoopBack" to create a virtual IO with 4 outputs. I routed Traktor into outs 1/2 and Maschine into outs 3/4. I then opened Ableton, with link DISABLED, and created two audio tracks with inputs from the LoopBack device. One channel is for 1/2, one is for 3/4. When you route Traktor and Maschine in this way, it allows you to use Ableton strictly as a recording sketchbook, to convert your Maschine + Traktor sessions into a sweet track of their own. This same method will work if you ONLY have traktor and ableton to mix together, but you want to record the session in separate audio files, but simultaneously. I hope this helps.

I am now going to spend some time digging around to try and route each deck of Traktor into separate Ableton channels for recording separately, but i suspect that will prove more difficult.