Traktor S4 Vs Numark 4 Track

[GrooveStylist]

Hi People,

Nice to finally post on here. I have been a reader of the forum and a dedicated DJ Tech Tools visitor for years now but this is my first post, so first of all, big up to you all and congratulations on all of your good work! (If DJTT ever need some work done for you in Europe then, I’m your man!)

I'm a hobbyist based in London. I’ve DJ’d in London and Spain and hosted a bilingual radio show but I’m mainly a tech geek with an unhealthy love for music. My current set up consists of 2x Technics 1210MkII, a Pioneer DJM700s, an audio 8DJ and Traktor scratch. I have decided to sell the pioneer to invest in a Traktor controller.

I had my heart set on the Traktor S4 as it looks like an all-round winner for the control I need of the included Traktor Pro 2 software (plus would look good between my 1210's!) AND of course you considerate and intelligent people at DJTT have come up with a mapping which I’m dying to get hold of and try out. …Right that’s the **** kissing out the way….!

Recently however, I've had a spanner thrown into the works, since I saw the Numark 4Trak presented at NAMM. I love the retro silver look, the larger jog wheels, and the raised effects/filter section. I particularly like the fact you can use the mixer section without a laptop and Traktor running (so I can just get out the vinyl’s if I want, instead of powering up the laptop for a quick mix... plus its great feature to have as a backup of laptop failure). One thing I’m worried about is the version of Traktor that comes with the unit is a “4Trak” version which I do not know the limits of, also, I can imagine that it does not come with an upgrade to Traktor scratch which would be available for the full pro 2 version which comes with the S4 (additional plus, no mapping by DJTT as yet…!).

I only know the above info from researching different websites and viewing as many product videos that I could find, however, there is still not much info on the 4Trak that I can find, especially on the functionality of the unit. From some of the pictures I have found, there are various controls have been labelled “assign” so it doesn’t really give a good idea of what its main function (if any) would be.

I would really like to make a decision and buy one of the two ASAP. So I was wondering if you guys could correct any of the above details that I may have wrong, share some opinions and as much info as you all can to help out my decision. If any of you have had the privilege of using both controllers, your views would definitely be of importance to me!

At the end of the day, I appreciate any help, info and thoughts any of you have.

Oh! And if anyone’s interested in a Pioneer DJM700s mixer, let me know and I’ll get you the details!

Apologies for possibly the longest post this forum has ever seen and I thank you all for your time.

Big love,
The GrooveStylist.

[dJ SOUZA]

Hi GrooveStylist,

I am very much in the same position as you, hovering back and forth between the S4 and 4trak. I've been reading everything I can find on both machines and going to the music store every other day to drool...!

But I think I've settled on the S4 because it can handle timecode vinyl (the 4trak can't) which is a big feature for me as I'd like to make use of my 1200's. The features of the 4trak hardware are awesome though. I love the strip search and the jog wheels look fantastic but in the end I'm trying to move away from carrying around records and have everything compact. Another great selling point for me is the complete bundle they are selling here at DJTT because it gives me a nice little update to all my equipment.

At this point the only thing that concerns me is that they'll release the next traktor kontrol the day after I purchase the S4.

Just some of my thought process, I hope it helps with your decision!

[DJQA]

I'm a (rare, it seems) 4Trak user, so I can try answering any questions you may have.

I ended up getting the Numark because of the big and precise jogs, full-size pitch faders, decent amount of controls that are well spaced, customisability, and the build quality. Oh, and split cue on the mixer! I did consider the S4, but it's simply not as good for manual mixing with the tiny pitch faders and jogs - the precision of which you lose as soon as you use a custom mapping. I play a lot of funk/soul, so that was an important point for me. The analogue mixer was definitely a bonus.

Traktor 4Trak Edition is limited to only being able to map the "Assign" controls, which are blank by default. Also there are only 2 FX units, which only function in Group mode. You will want to get Pro instead, which is cheap nowadays. Using Traktor Pro, you get to remap everything except the jogs and pitch faders without losing HID on the jogs and pitches - but that also means there's no way to implement jog FX, for example. Luckily there's enough controls to go around.

Downsides? For your purposes, the 4Trak isn't (and won't be, knowing NI) Traktor Scratch certified, so you can't use the internal audio interface to get Scratch control over Traktor, no matter which software version you've got. Not being able to remap HID jogs and pitch faders is also a downside, but shared by all HID controllers out there. The Numark default maps are usable, but I really think you only get the best out of the 4Trak if you customise it to your own liking - the NS6 would be the real use-out-of-the-box version of it. For me, the only real downside is that the pitch faders are still only 10 bit (just like every other controller with 'high res' pitch, except the NS7 AFAIK) so they're not *quite* up there with modern CDJs in resolution - but at least they're full size, so manual mixing is easier.