Can anyone explain what the benefits of Traktor 3 are? I already have Ableton Live and Serato Scratch Live (and am not that good at either at the moment), but was wondering if Traktor 3 does anything that I cannot already do with my current setup? I have a Xone 92 with SSL assigned to channels 1 and 2. I also have an Audio 8 DJ assigned to channels 3 and 4 to use with Ableton Live.

Thanks.

I have chosen to go with Traktor Scratch for two reasons: low lag/latency, and easy, easy, easy Ableton integration (they're both NI products).

That being said, there isn't much you wouldn't be able to do with your current SSL setup if you switched to Traktor, it just might not be as easy/have NI support for too long.

A lot of what you're trying to do, Keith, comes down to trial and error. You just have to find a way to get your gear setup so it makes sense to you, but in a lot of ways the opportunities are pretty endless.

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traktor is way more fun imo.

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Le Freak - A.D.D & Chimichurri [Techno/Tech House/Music to put on burritos.]*click bitches*

It's also not a resource whore, which is quite nice.

God, I remember trying to get fucking Final Scratch running a few years back and just getting so frustrated that my PC basically had to be in tip top shape for it to work.

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Do you have to warp tracks in T3 the way you do in Live?

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 Do you have to warp tracks in T3 the way you do in Live?

Kind of (though you never have to), but it's quite a bit easier. There's a beat grid that you can set up for each track before playing live, but how much time you spend mapping everything is really up to you.

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quote:

Originally posted by RJT ... easy, easy, easy Ableton integration (they're both NI products).

No they're not. Ableton is a completely separate company from Native Instruments.

sorry can someone elaborate on traktor and "warping" tracks?

Both ableton and traktor analyze tracks when you load them up, and attempt to determine where the beats are. When you play the tracks, the software uses these points to sync the tracks to the master tempo (or optionally the other deck in traktor).

In ableton it's called warping, in traktor they call it a beat grid.

If you want everything to sync up nicely, you need to ensure the tracks are warped/beat gridded properly.

Abletons warping process is much more flexible than traktors, as it allows you to use tracks that don't have consistent tempos, whereas traktors mechanism works best for tracks that do (like EDM).

If you're using timecode, you don't HAVE to beat grid in traktor at all, but it can help when you are dropping loops and such (the loops are also based on the grid markers).

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 sorry can someone elaborate on traktor and "warping" tracks?

and when you beatgrid in traktor does it automatically save that information so you don't need to repeat this step the next time you play the track?

if so, how does it save it? i know in ableton it creates a .asd file which needs to be the same filename as the .mp3 (for example) and be in the same folder. anything similar like that in traktor?

i'm just concerned because i'd hate to go through all of the hard work just to rename/edit the file in itunes one day and mess up my beat warpers/beatgrids because itunes manages all of my music and filenames.

Saves it along with the stripe info in the collection database. It doesn't put it next to the file like in ableton.

If you move/rename a file outside of traktor, it will show up as "missing" in your collection. You then just point traktor to the files new location and it'll re associate it with the new location.

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 and when you beatgrid in traktor does it automatically save that information so you don't need to repeat this step the next time you play the track? if so, how does it save it? i know in ableton it creates a .asd file which needs to be the same filename as the .mp3 (for example) and be in the same folder. anything similar like that in traktor? i'm just concerned because i'd hate to go through all of the hard work just to rename/edit the file in itunes one day and mess up my beat warpers/beatgrids because itunes manages all of my music and filenames.

Traktor saves the beat grid info (which is almost always essentially just a single very accurate BPM measurement that you get when you make & adjust the beat grid) in a database called the "collection". Also it will save any cue markers and comments, genre, etc info in the collection. So you only need to set that stuff up once per track and you're done. You can edit the info later at any time.

Optionally Traktor will save this information in the MP3 file (in file header areas) which are compatible with other programs, however this information is usually ignored by them. You must set certain options in Traktor to make sure the beat grid etc info is written to the MP3 files. It is an option (or command) related to or called "write file tags" or similar, depends on the specific Traktor version you have, check your manual.

I always make sure my MP3s contain the beat grid info, in case I want to rebuild my system later maybe on another computer using just the MP3 files. Good idea to back up your MP3 files regularly. The collection database however will reliably hold the beatgrid info for long periods of time so there's no great rush for you to write new MP3 files.

BTW if you use WAV files they can't hold beat grid info so for that format the beat grid etc is only kept in the collection files. That makes WAV files more risky as you will lose their beat grids (which can take a few minutes per track to set up) if the collection files are somehow lost or destroyed.

Last edited by tvmann on Sep-08-2008 at 15:49