Need help: controlling Traktor Pro and or Traktor DJ with S4 and Control F1 blind

[DJPat]

Hello DJ Tech tools comunity.

I allready posted earlier my situation. Quick rekap:
I am 100% blind and DJ with hardware for over 25 years now.
I am looking to update to digital Deejaying or a hardware solution that gives me more control over my music and mixing.

I looked at the s8 first and still will take a look (feel) when I visit the DJ shop here near by. But I am also looking into alternatives.

Right now I would like to go with the following Setup if I decide to go with Traktor Pro (pc or mac) and Traktor DJ for Iphone:
1 or 2 S4 plus 1 or 2 Controler f1.
that will give me much room to control Traktor and the remix decks.
I today got Traktor DJ for Iphone and I also have a Traktor Pro version installed on my pc here.
Both versions can not be read with my screen reader either on pc or Iphone.
So I really will need hardware that can control the software with out ever me having to see it after a setup has been done from a knofledged traktor user.
I realy hoped that Traktor DJ would be accessible but it is not. The wole screen tells nothing at all.

so now to my questions:
Is the following for you atvanced traktor users imaginable:
doing the following fully blind in Traktor pro (pc / mac) and or Traktor DJ for Iphone:

preparing music:
1. loading a song.
2. analycing it with the beadgrit funktions and the metronome by ear. I have seen a really awesome tutorial that does it with the keyboard on the website here.
3. setting cue-points and loops at the end of the track.
4. saving this information.

live Deejaying:
1. loading a playlist.
1.2 loading a pre-prepared folder
1.3 loading a folder prepared with Itunes.
2. pre-listening to a song
3. loading a song to the deck
3. pre-listening to an other song while the first one is playing and loading it to the 2th deck having access to all cue-points and loops I setup in the preparation section before.
4. synking both decks together and playing the 2th song.
5. fading in and out of the tracks.
6. having access to equelizers to take bass, middle, and highs in and out.

This is my basic mixing. So what I must be able to control with out ever beeing able to see or access traktor pro or Traktor DJ at all.

Again I will have the 2 s4 and 2 control f1 here to do the stuff. Most of the basics I will need is may be allready mapped to the hardware.
what is important is the bead-gritting by ear in the preparation sektion.
Where it gets more atwanced is when I want to play music wishes!! With out beeing able to interact with the traktor aplikation aat all this will be a hard task.
I could imagine a folder called wishes that is always emty and I copy the tracks in there I need next and have a funktion mapped to the hardware controller that accesses that folder when needed. ofcurse I will only have analyced tracks in that wishes folder.
Does traktor remember an allready analyced track that is just moved into a different folder or would I need to do beadgritting etc. again?

Thats it for now.
Your answers will realy help me to decide if I can or should go for traktor or if I need a more accessible solution.

Next options for me will be Deejay Pro plus harrdware that works with it or if rekordbox is accessible I could get pionier gear.

Thanks in atvance for your help / answers:-)

[vzk]

Regarding the hardware, the S8 does not give as much haptic feedback as the S4. I used both and I think especially the jog wheels will make it easier for you to beatmatch and synch.

Regarding the software, Traktor supports quite a lot MIDI customizations, so you could do all of your steps even without a controller, if you can get your input via voice (which might be tricky in a live situation) or keyboard turned into MIDI signals.

I personally do not know software for this but a search for MIDI and braille (for example) should reveal some useful tools for you.

Traktor supports 4 decks and as all the controllers do not give you intel about which decke they are controlling, I would suggest to go with one S4 to control decks A and B in the more classical way. It will also server as your central mixer controller for all four decks (there are four channels on the mixer).

For decks C and D I would suggest to use F4 and F1, depending on your prefererence. The F1 is more complex, and has also transport controls you might want to map differently for your needs (e.g. selecting one of several playlists, etc). Yet, you can also use a F4 to control that and it is in my opinion easier to handle, as it only has 16 pads, 4 faders and 4 rotary controllers.

How about this:
One S4 to control 4-channel mixer, deck A and deck B.
Two F1 to control decks C and D, both as remix decks.
Then another extra F1 for things like playlist selection, prelistening, track browsing, and everything else that I as a non-blind person forgot to mention etc.


The preparation would be done with the F1 "extra Controller" and the S4.

Your question about whishes adds even more to the problem of "how to handle requests".

In Traktor, you can create and organize as many playlists as you which, yet to access them via the playlist controller, you should preselect 10 playlists that can be easily assigned to your 'extra Controller'. More are possible, but still you have to assign and remember which button selects which playlist. Traktor also has a special playlist called "preparation playlist". When browsing for tracks in any playlist, you can add the currently selected track to the preparation playlist by an easy touch of a button.

Still this poses the question about searching tracks by text, I think that will be the trickiest part.

Traktor will save information in the file, if the file format supports it. WAV files won't store cur points, while, mp3, mp4, flac. The copied (or moved) file will still have your cue points.

Please keep us posted on your progress, I think this will become a great thread that can benefit other blind people, too.

[DJPat]

Hello vzk,
Thanks for your answer and your input! It helped me a lot.

Regarding the hardware, the S8 does not give as much haptic feedback as the S4. I used both and I think especially the jog wheels will make it easier for you to beatmatch and synch.

Jep right! thats why I move from the s8 to the s4 with aditional controllers to give me basicly what an s8 can do:-)

Regarding the software, Traktor supports quite a lot MIDI customizations, so you could do all of your steps even without a controller, if you can get your input via voice (which might be tricky in a live situation) or keyboard turned into MIDI signals.

The important part here to point out is that my voice reader software can not access or read the Traktor Pro interface at all! It is for me as you would look on an emty Window on one of your programs. So voice input is not easy. By the way what do you mean with voice input? May be I get you wrong. Do you mean that my software reads Information from the screen if a button or funktion is triggered from a controler and or the keyboard?
Or do you mean that text could be given out into an other aplikation or window when an action is performed?


I personally do not know software for this but a search for MIDI and braille (for example) should reveal some useful tools for you.

Hm, I have allready my software here. It is called Jaws for Windows and very atvanced allready. The biggest challenge is that the wole Traktor Window acts as one grafic and that makes it nearly impossible for the software to access it and read it out via voice.

Traktor supports 4 decks and as all the controllers do not give you intel about which decke they are controlling, I would suggest to go with one S4 to control decks A and B in the more classical way. It will also server as your central mixer controller for all four decks (there are four channels on the mixer).


For decks C and D I would suggest to use F4 and F1, depending on your prefererence. The F1 is more complex, and has also transport controls you might want to map differently for your needs (e.g. selecting one of several playlists, etc). Yet, you can also use a F4 to control that and it is in my opinion easier to handle, as it only has 16 pads, 4 faders and 4 rotary controllers.

thanks for your Input I will deffenitly put the controller on my "to take a look (feel) at".

How about this:
One S4 to control 4-channel mixer, deck A and deck B.
Two F1 to control decks C and D, both as remix decks.
Then another extra F1 for things like playlist selection, prelistening, track browsing, and everything else that I as a non-blind person forgot to mention etc.

This really sounds like a great Setup!


The preparation would be done with the F1 "extra Controller" and the S4.

Your question about whishes adds even more to the problem of "how to handle requests".

In Traktor, you can create and organize as many playlists as you which, yet to access them via the playlist controller, you should preselect 10 playlists that can be easily assigned to your 'extra Controller'. More are possible, but still you have to assign and remember which button selects which playlist. Traktor also has a special playlist called "preparation playlist". When browsing for tracks in any playlist, you can add the currently selected track to the preparation playlist by an easy touch of a button.

Sounds like a great plan! remembering playlists is not so much of a big thing. I have playlists (folders) here for Trance, Dance etc. and for example Handsup vocals. I think I will need 15 at max. This needed to be mapped once and then I can just go in and edit the playlists (add and remove tracks) etc.
One of these playlists could act as my song request-playlist. So this solves a big problem for me that I almost thought to be impossible to solve.

Still this poses the question about searching tracks by text, I think that will be the trickiest part.

Jep I agree and this might not be possible. (see solution below)

Traktor will save information in the file, if the file format supports it. WAV files won't store cur points, while, mp3, mp4, flac. The copied (or moved) file will still have your cue points.

Avesome Thats the info I need. So I only use mp3, mp4 or Flag for my Music anyway. No wav!
So I could:
1. create a folder, name it song requests and map it to a playlist button on the extra controller and put every time I have a request that song from the collektion into that folder with out lousing my information for cue-points etc.
or 2. create a playlist in winamp called requests, search in my traktor collektion for the song (via windows explorer) and then add it to the winamp playlist file. This playlist is then called by the extra hardware controller with a mapped button.

What do you all think about this? Setting it up once is the most tricky part and the part where I will deffenitly need help.

Please keep us posted on your progress, I think this will become a great thread that can benefit other blind people, too.

Sure I will do! I also hope to get help with the setup here from an advanced user. May be we can even film it and offer it to other blind people who want to DJ with Traktor and a hardware setup.

[DJPat]

Aditional info regarding my windows voice reader software:
I can set my voice output to different soundcards or just use an usb-headphone for it. so that will not be a problem.
I may not need it at all because no output from Traktor is possible with out scripting at the highest level of my software.

[vzk]

One option might be to use iTunes playlists - if your voice reader supports it.
Then you could use the iTunes playlists in traktor.

Yet, be careful about the upgrade to the latest version of iTunes if you play iTunes-purchased music. Some early reports are in that it turns DRM back on again and the tracks might not play in Traktor/Serato/VirtualDJ anymore...

[DJPat]

Thanks, I will look into itunes playlists. I will import all my music as my main surce is amazon, cd or beadport. I only have 20 songs from Itunes.

I talked today with an online shop and explained my situation.
I now can order the hardware for testing and sending it back and at the End I decide what I want and ship the other stuff back.

[DJPat]

I wanted to give you all an update:
I looked into all possible solutions for me now.
1. Traktor with s8 (not useful)
2. Traktor with s4 and f1 / f4
3. Djay with bead pad.
4. Hardware gear (Pionier)

I have decided the following:
I will order a s4, f1 and may be f4 to take a feel at them. When I have someone who helps me to setup Traktor I think I have the best option possible.

I will also order a Bead pad to see if Djay 2 on the Iphone may be enough allready for what I need. I can also imagine having 2 systems 1 with bead pad and the Iphone for mobile gigs where mixing is not that important and one professional setup with Traktor.

I will also have to test if my notebook is enough for traktor or if I will have to get one more powerful Laptop.

I will now look for a person that can help me via remote control to setup Traktor. Once I have him or her I order my Traktor hardware. I may open an extra post where I describe my needs in detail.

thats it for now.