Traktor on the Record #2

Hi all,

Welcome to the second issue of "Traktor on the Record"! This Q&A session gives you the opportunity to get direct answers from product designer Friedemann and product manager Tobias on all things Traktor.

Please read this post first for info on how this works:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75597

The most important stuff briefly:

- this thread works like a mailbag, all posts go in an internal queue and won't be visible at first
- only NI product owners can post questions in this session
- please keep it focussed and suggest only one topic per session

This thread will be closed for submissions sometime on Wednesday, and answers will be posted on Friday.

We are looking forward to your topics!

Regards, Thomas

 

Traktor always shows the track collection after each startup, which we consider the most common sense setting. I take your remark as a feature suggestion for an additional startup option, though I don’t think that we had requests along those lines from other users so far.

 

Of course we have had ideas for possible DJ controllers from the first version of Traktor on! But there are many reasons why companies have to play their cards close to their chest when it comes to possible product plans, so I am afraid I have to leave your question pretty much open…

 

You can of course still save and export playlists in Traktor Pro. The new playlist concept was introduced based on feedback from Traktor 3 users, but we are aware that some details of it need some more refinement to really make it work best for all types of different workflows. We will definitely work on this within the next updates based on the feedback we have been getting.

 

The audio engine was significantly updated when we went from Traktor 3.3 to Traktor 3.4, but after that it has not really changed much for Traktor Pro. Either way it was not necessary for manufacturers to update their drivers for it, and regular ASIO drivers should generally work fine with Traktor Pro.

You maybe have a very specific problem with your setup and probably something is not right with the Focusrite driver you are using, so you should definitely contact them about it.

 

In Traktor Pro you can generally set more than one beatgrid per track to readjust the phase of the grid. But we are planning to expand the beatgrid concept to allow for tempo changes in the future.

 

Maybe you have already seen the cover art tutorial that we posted in the forums a while ago. We are compiling more tutorials like that at the moment, and one of them will give a deeper look at the modifiers in Traktor Pro.

 

The transients are the best indicators for the beat of a track, and are used by Traktor Pro to calculate the beat grid. I hope that already answers your central question because I am not sure if I have fully understood all the parts of what you posted.

 

For the deck elements in Traktor Pro we decided to go with a specific tone of yellow that gives the best readability in low-light conditions, it’s the color that came out as the best in our usability tests. You can still switch the waveform display between three visualization styles – Beats & Highs, Beats & Envelopes and Beats Only - under “Global View Options” in the Preferences.

 

Traktor gives so many ways to be creative with the music that most users wouldn’t even have time to also look after video in their performances. Also in most venues where people play with Traktor, when there is video there is also typically a VJ who takes care of that aspect. But we are aware of this wish that comes from a certain part of the Traktor userbase.

Of course we have to carefully consider the effort to implement video in Traktor, because the user interface would need to accommodate a whole new area of functions without compromising the usability.

 

This concludes the second Traktor On The Record!

Unfortunately Friedemann was not available in the second half of this week, so we have to shift a few remaining questions to the next session.

We are now having a little Holiday break and you will be able to submit topics for the third Q&A round from January 5th on, with answers due on January 9th. That session will be a "free-for-all" so all forum members will be able to post questions.