Traktor Pro 3 Optimum Internal Recording Quality

Hi, i've just recently purchased a Kontrol S8 but before that i had a Kontrol S4 MK2 for around 3 years.

I frequently record my mixes through the internal recorder, i suppose it's important to add i use my Kontrol S8 with Windows 10, my cpu is an I7-8700k and i have 16gb high spec corsair gaming ram as well as a pretty high spec asus motherboard which i can't remember the exact model number, but my pc should be pretty capable to handle running Traktor Pro 3.

I've noticed the recordings to my hardrive are never of the best quality, i always have to run it through Audacity and even then when i upload to sites like Mixcloud and Soundcloud i've noticed the sound quality is much worse than most of the other dj's uploading their mixes. I upgraded to the S8 for the better soundcard so my mixes would come out in better quality but i'm still not getting where i want to be. I've been through many youtube video's and forums and tried everything in terms of setting the channel levels to 0db, setting my record level to 0db, making sure nothing is clipping or in the red, even gone through video's of changing my pc settings for better recording performance. My mixes aren't clipping it's just the clarity of the sound. To add, i use wave files to mix with so i would of thought i'd be getting great quality sound, yet still i don't. I use ASIO4ALL on my PC and i've set everything audio wise up the way N.I. website has instructed.

I have a Roland MX-1 mixer which today i've run the mix out of the S8 into my MX-1 then fed the audio into Ableton live to record, the sound quality seems much better. However, i use the broadcast function also with icecast to stream live audio (not video) and i'd really like to improve the live broadcasting audio quality as well.

My question is... Is it worth buying an N.I. Audio Interface such as Traktor Audio 2 to improve both the recording and streaming sound quality? Is the quality on the Audio 2 better than the built in Soundcard that comes with the Kontrol S8? I'm also pretty confused about how the routing will work and if there's actually any point in using as example the Audio 2 if i'm recording internally onto my windows hardrive? Should i just invest in a Macbook Pro? I've seen some debates saying you get better sound quality with Mac, not sure if this is true or not

Sorry for the long thread but i'm really struggling to find such specific answers anywhere online. Hopefully i covered all bases in terms of my equipment set up.

Thanks in advance.

 

You've posted in the "DJ Controllers" section of the forum so this is probably gonna get missed by a lot of people. Would have been better to post it in the general Traktor Pro area. That said... lets see if I can help.

"I've noticed the recordings to my hardrive are never of the best quality"
What do you mean? How is it not the best? What's wrong with it? How is it worse than other people recordings?

The internal recordings are done digitally. There is not analogue to digital conversion going on so the sound card should not have any impact. The software is taking the digital sound from the master out and recording it. This would happen before the it even runs through the sound card.

Recording via a sound card means the signal is output from Traktor via the S8 or S4 sound card (digital to analogue) and then the sound is input into the recording sound cards MX-1 or Audio 2 (analogue to digital) before being recorded. So you are effetely losing a generation of quality.

So your dissatisfaction with your recordings seems to have something to do with your settings.
How are you setting up Traktor?
Are you using the built in compressor?
Have you got an example of your recordings?