Traktor Layout 'Hack' for 13inch Macbook & 2 Decks

### Please read this post for an easier, updated method to do this ###
http://forum.djtechtools.com/showthr...l=1#post514985

Just a few points:
- will work on OSX 10.8 now!
- NI fixed the waveform bug on large displays with 2.5, so it will work with a 15inch, 17inch model now
- should work the same way on windows (i have no way to try at the moment)


Old post, ignore these instructions:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi guys,
I have been a long time reader of the forum but this is my first post. I have discovered a way to trick Traktor and MacOSX so you can alter the layout which is very useful for my setup. This would only be useful for you if you use 2 Decks and 2 FX units. It will hide some information, but give you much better overview of your two tracks in return (you will lose the sample decks and internal crossfader for example).

Since some of you asked, here is a video of it in action (this is not about mixing!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DanlDtzUIo


You will basically have to use Deck A&C as Deck A&B and FX1&3 as FX1&2. Also you will have to toogle between Browser View and Deck View using the spacebar.

INSTRUCTIONS

Important information & How to revert back to normal

■ Due to a bug in Traktor 2 at high resolutions it is not wise to make the waveform wider than in the example image above. It would make the stripeview unusable. That's why it is a good idea to display the internal mixer & filter sections even if you are mixing externally. In Traktor Pro 1 you can fill the whole screen or a bigger display with the waveform.
■ You only have to do these steps once, as long as you never press the little plus button in the titlebar - if you need to see all decks you can switch to fullscren and back -> it should remember your layout
■ If you want to revert back to normal simply click the little green + button (or grey in my case) in the upper left corner. To show the menubar simply move your cursor to the top of the screen. To reset the menubar delete the two lines from step #2.


1# Preparation

■ Setup your traktor layout similar to mine (4 FX, 4 Decks, hide Crossfader...).
■ be sure to have your master set right & close Traktor


2# Hide the Menubar (this will only affect Traktor, not other programs!)

■ Go to Programs -> Native Instruments -> Traktor (2)
■ right click (or CTRL+click) on the Traktor Icon and choose Show Package Contents
■ open Contents -> open the info.plist with an editor
■ scroll down to the very bottom, it will look like this

Code:

---

                ...
                <key>LSPrefersCarbon</key>
                <true/>
        </dict>
</plist>

---

■ now add the following two lines, so it looks like this

Code:

---

                ...
                <key>LSPrefersCarbon</key>
                <true/>
                <key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
                <integer>4</integer>
        </dict>
</plist>

---

■ save & close


3# Enlarge Layout

■ open Terminal (open Spotlight & type Terminal)
■ paste the following code and press enter

Code:

---

defaults write com.native-instruments.Traktor AppleDisplayScaleFactor 0.5

---

■ open Traktor -> it should be half the size & look like this (don't freak out!)

http://g.virbcdn.com/_f/files/d4/Fil...51311-trr1.jpg

■ drag the window to the upper left corner and resize it to this size
■ make sure the Browser columns are resized to roughly half of the windows width

http://g.virbcdn.com/_f/files/66/Fil...51312-trr2.jpg

■ close Traktor
■ open Terminal, paste the following code & hit enter

Code:

---

defaults write com.native-instruments.Traktor AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1.0

---

■ open Traktor again -> done!

http://g.virbcdn.com/_f/files/21/Fil...51313-trr3.jpg

■ the layout might not be perfect yet, you may have to repeat step #3 and play around with the window size till you get it right...maybe you want to make it a bit smaller so you can see the master output
■ be sure to check the stripeview in Traktor Pro 2, if it's not working correctly your waveform is too wide!

4# 4 Decks

■ If you or I find a tool to set the X and Y position of the window with a keyboard shortcut or MIDI command, it would be possible to switch between Deck A&C and Deck B&D and use all four decks this way


Hope some will find this useful!

if you show us an actual result and not a photoshopped picture and i recon you'll get some interest.

This is the actual result. It's a screenshot I took photoshopped onto a Macbook image, because a screenshot would just look like a cropped high resolution screenshot :P

This is what your Macbook will look like, you can't use Traktor in fullscreen mode, but the menubar will be hidden, so it is close to fullscreen (didn't find a way to hide the titlebar yet).

This is how the Browser Mode can look like (actual screenshot of my 1280px screen).

I like it. Toggling the browser is the way to go. You don't need it for 99% of the time, so why leave it visible, taking up valuable screen space when you're not using it?

ok, so how do we do it?

Is it possible to do it a toggle backwards as well as another layout giving you decks B/D

I like it ... get those instructions up :D

First post updated with instructions!
@deevey: See point #4

Please post instructions to revert back to normal.

very interesting idea I wish NI would just give us better layout options mainly decks either side by side or op top of one another like this setup has. Thanks for posting.

@photojojo: revert instructions added to first post.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shazzy

This is the actual result. It's a screenshot I took photoshopped onto a Macbook image, because a screenshot would just look like a cropped high resolution screenshot :P

This is what your Macbook will look like, you can't use Traktor in fullscreen mode, but the menubar will be hidden, so it is close to fullscreen (didn't find a way to hide the titlebar yet).

This is how the Browser Mode can look like (actual screenshot of my 1280px screen).

---

yeah sorry mate, i kinda shot the reply off pretty quick as i was in a rush and probably should have been more concise and said to post a phone photo or video of it operating on your screen.. as thats what i meant by my comment ;)


EDIT: nice work by the way!

this is some pretty neat thinking. Cool stuff. Hopefully stacked waves will be a layout feature one day.

this should make some of those serato fans change their mind (especially the ones stuck on traktors layout.......)

and i second the call for a youtube vid of this in action.

so you would be using decks a and c... so you would also need to edit your mapping a bit. shouldnt take too much time, but this is interesting

+1 for video

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theory28

so you would be using decks a and c... so you would also need to edit your mapping a bit. shouldnt take too much time, but this is interesting

+1 for video

---

You can change which decks show where in TSP2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by happydan

You can change which decks show where in TSP2.

---

hes talking about having say a controller like the VCI mapped to A/B normally

having to change the mappings deck focus so the left side was still side A and the rightside was focused on C so the crossfader an everything worked the way it should....with the layout hack.

atleast thats how i read it.

Oh man I love this idea! I have a Toughbook which I love, but I do admit that the screen is a bit small. I'm going to see if I can replicate this on it.

Well lame. There's no way to do that natively in Win7, but I did find an app that will do it.

GiMeSpace - http://sites.google.com/site/gimespace/ - costs $12.50

can a mod change OPs name to Harry?

just so i can post the following

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfNNs4iGc30

damn this looks pretty interesting
overlapping waveforms = no need to beatgrid lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DJZILCH

overlapping waveforms = no need to beatgrid lol

---

Wouldn't work though, would it?

The waveform stays the same size and moves at the same speed whether it's 175bpm DnB or 85bpm Hip Hop, but speeds up or slows down if you use the pitch fader.

In Itch and SSL the wave stretches when you move the pitch fader, always moving at the same speed.

So you wouldn't be able to line up the beats with this method like you can on SSL and Itch. I think.

I made a video of it in action, see first post!

+1 for siriusmo beats :D

i have to say iy again now that theres a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfNNs4iGc30

I have a 11.6 MacBook Air with OS X Lion and this didn't seem to work at all. Any way to implement this layout?

Could you be more specific? Which step is troubeling you?
It's working fine on Lion on my Macbook Pro...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shazzy

Could you be more specific? Which step is troubeling you?
It's working fine on Lion on my Macbook Pro...

---

I followed the steps, but it didn't resize my decks like your image shows. I used Apple's built-in text-edit, not sure if that makes a difference. I have 11" MacBook Air.

Alright.. seems to be a problem with Lion indeed .. I just resized my window back to normal and am unable to do step#3 ... I will try to find a solution - this is the problem http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1185089

Okay I found a solution...

The easy way (if you have an external screen):
Connect the external screen - make it your main display - resize Traktor the way you want... quit Traktor - disconnect the external screen... should work!

The hard way (if you don't have an external screen)
You gotta use screenrecycler (beta for lion) and a vnc client (jollyfastvnc) to emulate a secondary display... then you make that your main display, resize traktor, quit traktor and quit screenrecycler... that's how I just did it.. works but you should be a bit tech-savvy for that

Nice find, but with waveforms, especially this big, i doubt you are listening to your tracks, you're watching them.
Kind of a paradox for a musician :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dope

Nice find, but with waveforms, especially this big, i doubt you are listening to your tracks, you're watching them.
Kind of a paradox for a musician :)

---

Haters gonna hate.

Seriously, what's wrong with looking at the waveform? If you're already using traktor as a musician, shouldn't you use every opportunity to better your skills. Waveforms offer a wealth of information about a song. You don't even have to hear a song, but can pick up the highs, lows, drops, breaks, etc just by looking at the waveform. I don't see how that is a bad thing. Being able to read a waveform doesn't make you a worst musician or dj, hands down, I would say it makes you a better one.

I'm not hating. I used waveforms since i had traktor. But few weeks ago I figured out I didn't listen to my tracks like I used to. I was focused on waveforms with my eyes, not on the actual track with my ears.

What the crowd hears is the music, the sound. I thought that I was logical to focus on the same thing the crowd does. That made sense to me.

If your mixing style involves waveforms, I'm fine with that. But IMHO I'm 100% convinced it decrease the quality of your mix. Knowing every single part of every single track of your collection takes times, load of time, really. And I understand it's easier to go the waveform way.
But I do believe that going 100% by ear will enhance the quality of what's going out of the master output. And that's what matters after all.

Quote:

---

You don't even have to hear a song, but can pick up the highs, lows, drops, breaks, etc just by looking at the waveform.

---

Or you can know your tracks by heart ;)

I hear ya...and knowing the music you play is very important. I'm with you 100% on that, but I don't think we should avoid waveforms altogether. I think they can be very helpful but not something you should depend on. Still, when you load an old track that you might have lost touch with or have a new track you're not that familiar with, the waveform can be very helpful.

Hey guys, just a quick update. I found a way better solution to do this trick / hack!
If you haven't read the original post yet, the basic idea is to have bigger waveforms when using 2 decks - this can be accomplished by putting Traktor into 4 deck mode, using deck A and C as output and resizing the width of the window by following these instructions (you will have to modify your mapping B->C if you use a controller). Basically it will look like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DanlDtzUIo

How-To

■ download a code editor - e.g. BB Edit (trial) or Sublime Text (free)
■ on OSX go to (Windows users should have a similar folder somewhere)

Code:

---

/Users/YOU/Documents/Native Instruments/Traktor 2.5.X

---

■ copy and paste the file Traktor Setting.tsi to make a backup
■ open Traktor Setting.tsi in the code editor
■ scroll down to the very bottom, it will look something like this

Code:

---

                ...
<Entry Name="View.Window.Size.X" Type="1" Value="1280"></Entry>
<Entry Name="View.Window.Size.Y" Type="1" Value="800"></Entry>
<Entry Name="WaveDisplay.GridMode" Type="1" Value="1"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wavedisplay.ColorMode" Type="1" Value="3"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wavedisplay.PlayMarkerPos" Type="1" Value="50"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wavedisplay.ShowMinuteMarkers" Type="0" Value="0"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wavedisplay.Stripeview" Type="1" Value="0"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wavedisplay.WarningClock" Type="1" Value="30"></Entry>
<Entry Name="Wizard.Completed" Type="0" Value="1"></Entry>
</TraktorSettings>
</NIXML>

---

■ now just change this value to any size you want, this will be the new width of your Traktor window (you could try around 2000 on a 13inch)

Code:

---

                ...
<Entry Name="View.Window.Size.X" Type="1" Value="1280"></Entry>
                ...

---

■ save & close, done!


Optional: Hide the Menubar (this will only affect Traktor, not other programs!)

■ Go to Programs -> Native Instruments -> Traktor 2
■ right click (or CTRL+click) on the Traktor Icon and choose Show Package Contents
■ open Contents -> open info.plist in the code editor
■ scroll down to the very bottom, it will look like this

Code:

---

                ...
                <key>LSPrefersCarbon</key>
                <true/>
        </dict>
</plist>

---

■ now add the following two lines, so it looks like this

Code:

---

                ...
                <key>LSPrefersCarbon</key>
                <true/>
                <key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
                <integer>4</integer>
        </dict>
</plist>

---

■ save & close

I just tried this on my 11" Air with OS X Lion and set the value as 2,000 and also tried 2,400, but I don't see any difference whatsoever. What OS are you using?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lisarose416

Have you guys ever found yourself facing this type

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None of your photos are loading!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sweetsound2001

I just tried this on my 11" Air with OS X Lion and set the value as 2,000 and also tried 2,400, but I don't see any difference whatsoever. What OS are you using?

---

I am using Mountain Lion, but I don't see why it wouldn't work on Lion..
You did close Traktor before you edited the file, right? If you are still using Textedit, you should try it with another editor (Sublime Text is free). Could you upload your file somewhere and post a link here so I can have a look? (dropcanvas)

i dont see the point in this...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djchriswoods.co.uk

i dont see the point in this...

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it makes more use of your screen real estate and therefore gives you more information and easier readability when playing with 2 decks... what's not to get?

i get it...just dont see the need