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Finally!
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On Wednesday night, I got home from work at the AP and decided to just focus and put together my first Traktor DJ mix. This time, I had a slight problem when one of the tracks I began to load in the left channel caused the track playing in the right channel to cut out a few times.
Fortunately, when I exported the mix to .wav, Traktor didn’t notice the hiccups and didn’t include them in the final mix down. Since Traktor works like a non-linear editor, it does not actually parse the .mp3 files, it just records all of your mouse clicks in a database and then replays those mouse clicks and actions upon export. I was happy to have gotten through 1 hour and 18 minutes without a crash, but silly me dragged a new song into the wrong window and that pretty much killed it from getting a good hour and a half down. That was my own mistake and a tough one to recover from, because you might have forgotten what record you were playing, and there’s no recovery system to help you jump back to the point in the last track playing. Hopefully, they’ll add something like that someday, so you it you’re using Traktor in a club environment, you can try and recover gracefully.
Maybe it’s already there, I don’t know. Who reads the instruction manual anyway? LOL. 🙂
This was my first ever recorded mix using Traktor DJ. I think it came out pretty good. I tried to use the loop feature a few times to extend intros of a couple of records. I also played around with the filter feature on one of the extended breakdowns, but other than that, I kept it pretty standard.
I don’t have the external controller, so I just used the mouse to make my selections and drag the crossfader in the application interface. It was pretty responsive and I didn’t have the problem I had last time; a track crashing the application by just playing it in the libraries player while a track played in one of the main channels. But then again, I didn’t use the libary player at all this time. I just dragged everything into either channel 1 or 2 and used the cue feature to review.
I have to figure out how to click on a track in the library and just assign it to a channel. I don’t like this dragging and dropping. Seems like it uses unecessary processing. Maybe that’s in the software too, but I don’t know where yet…lol. I’m just using this thing from scratch and teaching myself as I go. Not the best way to do it, but always the DJs way, right? We never follow instructions, or we wouldn’t be the rebellious soul’s we are, would we?
I’m getting pretty adept at using the crossfader. One feature I do like is the the “average volume” button next to the gain knobs, which helps you get a somewhat accurate setting on how low or high the volume should be of the track your getting ready to bring in versus the one currently playing.
The main thing I found that’s kind of weird is, if you have two records playing at the exact same bpm, at times you have to slow one down or speed it up by a percentage point. I would think that having two tracks playing at the exact same speed should lay over nicely and kieep time accordingly, but I won’t be so quick to think that again. With Traktor, you’ve got to be on your toes, just as you would vinyl, because like using Technics, bpm’s can lag even if you think you’ve got the perfect mix going.
Most of the tracks I used I purchased from Beatport.net, by far my favorite online music store, other than the Apple Store, of course. If anyone has any other recommendations, please let me know and I’ll post a list here soon.
I purchased my copy of Traktor DJ at B&H Photo on 34th and 9th in midtown Manhattan. It was far cheaper than buying it through the Native Instruments web site.
Enjoy my first Traktor mix. I probably won’t update until I sign my deal next month with Live365 to use their streaming service. I don’t want to piss of the RIAA, SESAC, ASCAP, BMI, Harry Fox and Sound Exchange. Since they all know me…I can’t hide from the arduous taxes they’ll all hit me with. So, I’d rather just pay Live 365 for a pro-account and serve my streams through them. That way, they pay all the rights organizations and I don’t have to worry about it.
So, if the webcast police are watching and listening, don’t worry…this is only a test to get it going and I’ll be signing up with your partner in September!
Happy Friday! Enjoy the mix.
Tony Z.
Wow, nobody commented in.. almost 7 years? What a bunch of douchenozzles! Hey, yeah, Traktor is still a good soft to this day. I kind of feel bad that vinyl seems to be heading out in favor of digitally compressed tunes, but since I spin electronic stuff anyway, doesn't make so much difference to me. It's a big problem for acoustic recordings though, whether anyone admits it or not. Even electronic music sounds much better over vinyl. A smooth waveform carved into slick black vinyl… you can't beat it! 😀 But anyway, it's amazing to see how far e-jaying has come since the yesteryear. I've got my eye on that Numark NS6 🙂 Tidings..
Hey Robert,
Well, my blog has been through fits and starts for a while now. It's a long story. If you only knew the half of it. One of these days, it'll be a movie, for sure.
I know there's a new version of Traktor (2.5?) that was just released, which I'm going to get my hands on. It's supposed to offer some remixing capabilities in the live mix.
I've been eyeing the Traktor Kontrol S4 myself here: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/d….
Agreed that there is a sentiment about and quality of vinyl that is lost in the digital transition. I DJ'd a few months back at a vinyl party after not playing vinyl for a couple of years. There was something really sweet about blending with vinyl that you just can't replicate – but lord knows, they are trying to make tools everyday that do the job.
Thanks for leaving a post on the blog! Much appreciated. I'm going to be changing things up a bit here over the next few months for focus more on social music and lifestyle. There's too many DJ sites out there today to compete with now. Far different than when I started in 1995.