What site do you recommend for downloading new music? Starting from scratch...

Hello,

My 13 year old son just received his Traktor Kontrol S2 for Christmas. We have it up and running on his laptop. Although he is essentially starting fresh, since he currently just uses Beats Music on his phone and doesn't even have an iTunes account on his laptop.

I recognize this is the first step on a long journey, so before we begin downloading new tracks to his S2, I was hoping to get some recommendations of which is the best place to begin downloading music (music preferences are house and progressive me and dubstep, techno/trance him). I have used iTunes, but believe BeatPort or VideoToolZ may be popular too. I would prefer to pay a monthly subscription for unlimited tracks and avoid paying on a per track basis. Can you help offer a recommendation?

Thanks in advance for your help and Happy (almost) New Year!

Kind regards,

Tom and Ian

 

Welcome you two - glad to see him starting to DJ!!
Your question is a very valid one imo.
The world is moving to streaming, and I am sure in the long run you will be able to use streaming services (with local caching for offline usage, of course) in professional DJ software (like Traktor). Some competitors already support services like spotify, but I would carefully say that those cannot be considered as professional as Traktor (for reasons I will not go into here).

At this time, Traktor requires physical MP3 / AAC etc. files stored on the DJ production machine.
Tractor is not working with any streaming services at this point. There are a lot of things to work out, most importantly the business side and the legal side. Many streaming services today do not allow playback for commercial use - and a professional DJ software is of course built for exactly that (even though there are enough people who use Traktor only at home).

Long story short: If you (or your son) want to use Traktor, there is no (legal) way around buying music.

Let me jump in here. The S2 is a controller. It's like a keyboard or a mouse. It merely controls the software (Traktor).. In a more sophisticated way than a keyboard of course
Therefore, you cannot "download new tracks to the S2". You can surely purchase music - which can then be played back in Traktor and controlled with the S2.

Now the good news:
Almost all digital music stores today use DRM-free audio files. That means, that technically it does not matter where the track is purchased. Many DJs here on the forum have a preferred supplier (like the iTunes Store or Beatport) - but usually everyone buys tracks somewhere else now and then. Which is great!!!
iTunes has a good mainstream repertoire, other stores are more specialised.

With (usually paid-for, subscription-basd) services like iTunes Match or google play music, you can "match" tracks purchased elsewhere. The tracks then become eligible for re-download in that service. When I buy a track from, let's say Amazon today, I put it in iTunes. iTunes recognises that I own the track, and I can re-download a fresh version at any time, as many times as I want, at no additional cost.. As long as I am subscribed to the service, of course.
And again, the tracks are not digitally protected (DRM). So one should DEFINITELY make a backup of the entire music library.

Hope that helped - and again I am really happy to see him getting into DJing

 

Thanks for the warm welcome and your reply!

Candidly, I am not familiar with all of the terms that you mentioned. Here's our question...if we have a paid subscription with Beats Music, can my son somehow re-download a fresh version and play tracks/songs on his Traktor?

Thanks a million for your time and direction!

Sincerely,

Tom and Ian

 

Sure! It has become rare that someone is nice and pleasant in phrasing their post.. This always gets special attention (not just from me, but usually from all the fine helpers in this forum).

On-topic: You need to understand the difference between streaming services, like beats, Rdio or spotify and stores that offer the purchase of an unprotected file (like iTunes, beatport, traxsource etc.).

In both cases, you don't "own" the track. You only get access and the right to play them.

With streaming services, however, the source file remains on the provider's servers. You don't actually get a copy of the track, you only get the right to play the track from the provider's servers. That said, some providers (I don't know beats, but I know it for spotify) allow you to temporarily store a cached version of the track on your device - leaving the tracks playable when you're offline.
However, this temporarily saved (cached) data is not an mp3 or in other ways playable file. These cached data are only readable by the streaming software, and only as long as you are subscribed to the service.
Traktor cannot read this data. It is highly encrypted (and has to be.. otherwise the music industry would not allow spotify, beats etc. to exist).
So the "bad guy" here is not Traktor and neither the streaming provider.. You could blame the music industry.

"Proper" stores, on the other hand, allow you to download an unencrypted ("no-DRM") copy of the actual audio file. So when you go to beatport, amazon, or iTunes, you get an audio file (usually MP3 or m4a), which uses open standards and can be played by any software that choses to support that file. Thus, any track you purchase on these stores (usually somewhere around 1$) can be played by Traktor, can be synchronised to your phone, can be saved on a USB stick etc.

Usually, the licenses that go with these two types of services are different, too. Streaming services are aimed at consumers who play the files on their mobile devices and maybe on their Sonos system at home. The licenses (usually) don't allow you to use the tracks in a commercial environment - which is where Traktor lives.

So if Traktor wanted to support Spotify, it's not just a matter of flicking on a switch. They would need to negotiate deals that would allow streaming music to be used commercially.. Which I doubt they have the power nor money to negotiate.

Your son can not download the music from beats (there are workarounds on the internet, but they violate the license and are therefore illegal).

Your son will have to buy the tracks from stores like beatport, traxsoure, amazon, iTunes or the likes.

There is maybe even a teachable moment here:
If you like a track so much that you want to include it in your "digital recordcase", maybe it's worth spending the 1$ on the track. Good DJs know their tracks in-and-out. If you get all the music you want, for free (or for a flat fee), it usually means you don't spend as much time with the tracks to really understand them and get good at mixing them.
So the message could be: Know your library, love your library, pay for your library.
Additionally, "good" music (i.e. independent, not overcommercialized david-guetta-avicii-music) is often times not available on streaming services anyways and needs to be purchased in specialised stores. Like in the old days of record stores

I think in a couple of years, the music industry will have made some deals and yes: DJs will be able to use locally cached songs with professional DJ software. But we're not there yet.

 

Awesome...thank you for taking the time to help me understand the differences in track licenses and their nuances! This helps a lot and we are excited to start buying some tracks. I think it's sage advice to begin with a finite number of tracks, as I can now see how organization of tracks and playlists will also have a learning curve.

Something strange is suddenly happening with my sons S2, every time he tries to turn it on, it blinks a few times and then shuts off. Before we can proceed, I'm afraid we will need to get on the phone with NI Support.

Many thanks again for your time, help and direction!

Kind regards,

Tom and Ian

 

you can use record pools like dms or bpm supreme or digitaldjpool for very small fees to get unlimited tracks per month

 

Best to use iTunes. I feel like their catalog is just massive.

 

it would get expensive that's why i would say the record pool option is a better value .

 

Best to use iTunes

 

SoundCloud, Spotify app apknite