Setup Help Required! Traktor 4 Decks, DB4, K2(s)

[RossH]

Hi,

Firstly, I come from a fairly old school setup of vinyl/CDJ + analogue mixer. I think there will always be a place for it, it has served me well and will always be my first love but I can’t ignore the digital revolution any longer! There are some really cool things that just aren’t possible with the traditional setup.
I’ve been playing around with Traktor for a while now on my laptop but I’m looking to start using it properly within a hardware setup. I’m looking to get a Xone DB4 and probably one or more Xone K2s. Here’s where I need a little help. The concept of MIDI and controllers is still quite new to me, so please bear with me!

• 4 decks of Traktor (A,B,C,D)
• External mixer, (Xone DB4)
• Controller (Xone K2) purely for transport, browsing, cue points, loops etc. Not interested in using Traktor effects as the DB4's are awsome

My question is this, how do I physically get:

Traktor Deck A - DB4 Channel 1
Traktor Deck B - DB4 Channel 2 … and so on.

How would I need to set this up and how many K2’s would I need? One of the big reasons I want the DB4 is the ability to have one channel sent across all the other channels. Is there a way I could select which Traktor deck goes to which mixer channel and be able to change this whenever I like, say:

Deck A – channel 1
Deck B – channel 2 + 3
Deck C – channel 4 …

then change to something else, as and when I need.


I would also like the ability to use other sources as well as my 4 Traktor decks, say a vinyl deck playing through channel 4 while channels 1-3 have Traktor decks playing. Again, i'd like to mix and match at any time, i'm fairly sure this is possible on the DB4. One thing I’ll mention is I don’t want to use the midi shift function on the DB4, I’d rather have a separate controller(s) to control Traktor.

Sorry if what I have asked is simple stuff but as I said, this is all a bit new to me! Any help appreciated.

[Xonetacular]

My question is this, how do I physically get:

Traktor Deck A - DB4 Channel 1
Traktor Deck B - DB4 Channel 2 … and so on.

How would I need to set this up and how many K2’s would I need? One of the big reasons I want the DB4 is the ability to have one channel sent across all the other channels. Is there a way I could select which Traktor deck goes to which mixer channel and be able to change this whenever I like, say:

Deck A – channel 1
Deck B – channel 2 + 3
Deck C – channel 4 …

then change to something else, as and when I need.


I would also like the ability to use other sources as well as my 4 Traktor decks, say a vinyl deck playing through channel 4 while channels 1-3 have Traktor decks playing. Again, i'd like to mix and match at any time, i'm fairly sure this is possible on the DB4. One thing I’ll mention is I don’t want to use the midi shift function on the DB4, I’d rather have a separate controller(s) to control Traktor.

Sorry if what I have asked is simple stuff but as I said, this is all a bit new to me! Any help appreciated.

You just assign traktor's outputs to a DB4 soundcard channel, then using the input matrix on the db4 you can place any traktor deck on any/multiple channels you want and move them around with a knob- you can also hit the analog or digital switch and toggle between the db4 soundcard and external inputs and mix and match.

As far as other controllers get however many you want. Personally I don't plan on buying K2s with my DB4 since I already have 2 x1s and they pretty much serve a purpose to act for basic transport stuff so the extra knobs on the K2 wouldn't get used since I don't even use the ones on the X1.

I'm sure you could do everything on one K2 but it would be more comfortable on two. Also I'm sure the K2 ships with a traktor map and there will be a lot of user maps floating around for it too.

[RossH]

You just assign traktor's outputs to a DB4 soundcard channel, then using the input matrix on the db4 you can place any traktor deck on any/multiple channels you want and move them around with a knob- you can also hit the analog or digital switch and toggle between the db4 soundcard and external inputs and mix and match.

Ok, so in Traktor settings, I set my external mixer to be my DB4. Traktor then recognises the 4 channels on the DB4 soundcard. I can then set Deck A output to Channel 1, Deck B output to Channel 2 etc.

I am assuming that my DB4 is the master device i.e. usb from laptop into DB4. How do I then allow the K2s to control Traktor, is this where x-link comes in?

Another really daft question, I assume each deck is always sent from Traktor with the fader volume set to full, I don't really want to be dealing with 2 seperate volume controls for each deck.

[RainerHaselier]

Yes, you can connect one K2 to the DB4, and then a second K2 to the first one via XLINK.
Traktor sees all three controllers as one device (DB4), as they are all connected to the laptop via ONE usb cable.

To be able to distinguish the three devices you set them up to use different MIDI channels.
- DB4 and DB2 use MIDI channel 16 as default this cannot be changed
- set the 1st K2 to MIDI channel 15
- set the 2nd K2 to MIDI channel 14

When Traktor is set to external mixing mode, the channelfaders and the crossfader in Traktor are disable. And yes, the channel faders are set to open.