Note : To those who don't want to read the whole thing, just check-out the part in bold, it says it all..
Hi everyone,
As user of all the previous versions of Traktor since version 1.x, I'd like to share you my feelings after trying to get used to the Traktor Pro 2 + S4 combo. For now, the experience I have is overall pretty negative since I upgraded to the latest releases. Not because of bugs or performance issues but because of the experience of mixing in tempo.
Now let me be factual. I just spent an hour and a half to try to record a simple beat-matched mix of dance tracks, just for fun and it ended being less funny than expected. Why ? Because I wanted to make things simple and just couldn't :
- I created a list of pre-analyzed tracks with manally checked beatgrids to avoid any surprises with tempo syncing. BTW the tracks also have all the cues and loops prepared.
- I've set a main master tempo to 130BPM and activated Sync on both of my decks, again, to make things straightforward.
- I've set my three prefered FX and activated key lock on both of my Decks
- I made sure that my S4 has the standard native mapping and removed all my MIDI mods as well as disabled timecode control on my decks (I have Traktor Pro Scratch 2.0.3).
No risk at all on this setup. Not willing to put any crazyness to the mix for this time so no use of the Sample Decks or the Sampler either.
Here's the result :
- During the mix, I suddently realize that one of my decks has gone Master and that the Master BPM on the top of the UI has been synced to it.
- Getting back to Master Tempo and while I'm mixing, for some reason, without touching to the Sync buttons or moving the pitch slider, Master Tempo suddently goes 20BPM down while I was playing with the FX and literrally kills my mix. Can't even change the tempo value on the top.. Looks like one of the Decks has again taken the lead and caused the trouble.
- Tried to finnish my mix without Master Tempo by using the Auto mode, and still experienced surprises all related to getting control of the tempo of my mix. I just feel like I've lost the control of it.
I don't know if my brain suddently burned or if it stopped being open to change. In fact I can't even determine what's wrong with Traktor 2 but with all this preparaton I was unable to have a stable tempo and I actually ended up getting back once again to the manual with doubts on how to use the software's beat/tempo matching features.
I don't think any of these issues are related to bugs, I probably did something wrong or I probably didn't understand the change in the philosophy of mixing with Traktor Pro 2. I'm pretty sure of it as so major bugs would probably have been reported and fixed for some while.
But suddently my feeling is : WTH ? Shouldn't this be straightforward like on previous versions of Traktor or any other Djing software ? Put the Master tempo on, put Decks in slave mode, mix on a stable beat.., or just have the tracks syncing to each other by variating manually their tempo.
Either I'm clearly missing something or this peace of software has become just useless because though it can do a whole lot of things, it just isn't capable at the most basic thing a DJ wants : Just mix some tracks with simplicity.
If we make the analogy with Maslow's model, I would say that I suddently got down to the base of my pyramid in terms of DJing experience and confidence. It's something that happened to me on previous versions as Traktor has chosen the philosophy controlling tracks through a beatgrid which I got comfortable with quite quickly.
I'd be glad if anybody could explain me with simple words the new philosophy of beat-matching with Traktor Pro 2 as I feel shame to not have even figured out what's the difference between this Beat Sync / Tempo Sync mode on the preferences, even after reading the manual.
Notice, my problem isn't about having the tracks synced, they were very well in sync, my problem is to keep control of my tempo during my mix, I want to be the one who decides what is the speed of my mix and not having the software constantly stealing this power. Still I'd love to use Traktor's new functionnality and not just disable all this things and sync my tracks the old way.
Just for the comparison, yesterday, I did the exact same mix (without recording it) on Alogriddim's djay on an iPad 2 and I was surprised of how straightforward it was. Of course I felt it was poor in terms of features but it delivered on the basics.
To my humble opinion, DJ software and hardware's reason to exist is to make things simple, accessible for DJs to feel free of complexity and let them start actually being creative. The latest evolutions of Traktor provide so many great features for us to be creative. Too bad, it misses on the basics of remaining straightforward to use.
Back on my Traktor 1.x + VCI 100 for my next gigs for now, unless someone can unlock my brain until then.