Traktor on the Record #4

Hi all,

Welcome to the fourth 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

 

Such an auto-focus feature is on our list for one of the next Traktor Pro updates.

 

When we added cover art to TRAKTOR, it was not our priority to provide full artwork management features right from the beginning. Many other freeware/shareware tools already offer this functionality.

We will obviously further extend the artwork functions in Traktor over time, but in the meantime we have written this tutorial that lists various tools for managing your cover art: http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75647

 

We will release the update "when it's ready", we cannot give a reliable date since we are still in the beta testing process. But you can expect the update within the next weeks. At this point we will also post a longer list of included fixes.

 

The timecode signal is a sequence of bits that encode the position transmitted at a rate of 2bits/ms. The 20ms latency that you mention consists of 10ms audio latency and 10 ms of "decoding latency" for approximately 20 bits.

Once the position is established, the motion of the track is mainly controlled by "shape" of the incoming timecode. This has a much higher resolution than 2bits/ms. So it's important to understand that the "needledrop latency" does not equal or add to the regular audio latency of the setup, which is usually much lower.

Regarding audio quality, what can be heard in your examples is the slightly "watery" sound that is currently introduced by the HiQ key correction in timecode control mode. We have fixed this for the upcoming 1.0.3 update, which considerably improves sound quality.

Nevertheless you should carefully evaluate which mode of key correction (HiQ or Eco) works better for your style of music. Timecode control puts additional stress on the key correction algorithm because the pitch fluctuates continuously. Eco mode deals much better with these fluctuations than HiQ mode, so that I currently recommend to use Eco mode for timecode-controlled playback.

 

Yes, we are thinking about how we can possibly combine four separate effect units with the effect assignement concept of Traktor Pro, without making the handling or the interface too complex. This is something that you might see in a future update, but not in the near future.

 

I can't speak for Vestax here. But two assignable sections instead of four still makes a lot of sense to me because the form factor and price of the unit will remain under a certain limit.

Most people who use four decks likely still prefer to switch assignements on the controller instead of dealing with the huge size and price of a controller that has dedicated sections for four separate decks.

 

Your observation is correct and it illustrates a problem of principle: How can the software know that the position has changed before that position has been decoded? If we would simply mute the audio after a CD stop, it would introduce a latency of 10ms every time you start playback, which is not acceptable.

It is important to understand that even though there is a few milliseconds of audio played from the former position, it does not delay the "correct" audio, so that the timing is not affected when you press the cue button.

Nevertheless we have plans to reduce this small chunk of audio even further.

 

This concludes the fourth Traktor On The Record! Thanks for all your submissions.

Next week we will have the first German-language Q&A (originally supposed to happen last week, but postponed due to NAMM), so the next regular session in this forum will be in two weeks time.