Traktor Pro 3.0 ? [The Speculation Thread]

[ReggieUK]

If they've already put a couple of LCDs on the device, there is probably an arm cpu core of some description running them, they've almost made it standalone as it is, just haven't provided the software side of things. The only issue with doing that would be processing power, it's simple enough to provide an interface that can poke out stereo audio but the cpu power needed for effects etc. might be more of an issue.

[iambiggles]

If they've already put a couple of LCDs on the device, there is probably an arm cpu core of some description running them, they've almost made it standalone as it is, just haven't provided the software side of things. The only issue with doing that would be processing power, it's simple enough to provide an interface that can poke out stereo audio but the cpu power needed for effects etc. might be more of an issue.

Hence my suggestion of the sharc chips - you can run a LOT of plugins on a few of these....

[ReggieUK]

I hadn't spotted you'd mentioned sharc, indeed, that'd be pretty powerful, although I'm now not sure how arm chips might fit in, I know they can tailor the software but they're really looking at an rtos to run it on or doing baremetal, then again, those screens could be run with a cortex-m3/4 easily enough, so they probably are already, you wouldn't want the overhead of a full blown os messing with your audio bits in something that small.

I really don't see it being too long before someone does something (commercially) that has a full 'thing' inside it. I've been thinking of using one of the arm boards that I mess with for a controller, mini2440, tiny6410 and mini210S, I've got various screens for them, 3.5" resistive touch, 4.3" res. touch, 7" res touch and a 7" cap touch, pretty sure they've all got an 8x8 keyboard matrix built onto the chip too, all of them run linux, all of them run samsung chips, I think the 2440 is a 400Mhz s3c2440 arm9, the 6410 is a 533Mhz s3c6410 arm1176 and the 210 is a 1Ghz s5pv210 arm cortex-a8. The 210 board will run android ICS as well, all have as open as possible source code.

At the moment though, none of them seem to run mixxx too well, so it may be that I can just use one as a midi controller with some kind of function editing utility built in and utilise the USB gadget drivers built into linux, it would need minimal hardware setup, just a breakout for the 8x8 keyboard matrix and a bit of software to interpret the button inputs and interface with the virtual midi port that the 'usb gadget' driver will setup.

[blancodisco]

Didn't NI stop doing or attending Trade Shows?

Not saying they won't near that time, but I believe they pretty much release stuff on their own schedule these days with all the bloggers getting the press and 'behind the scenes' and 'first looks' out for them. Much cheaper.

bb®

I posted this earlier in the comment thread of the Digital DJ Tips article about the Maschine Studio.

"I predict that around the 2014 NAMM show we will see Traktor 3 announced with the Z4 mixer and a single deck controller (with these screens, among other features) obviously designed to replace the CDJ and DJM and will likely work without the computer, possibly using something similar to Rekordbox. The software will also include features from the iPad app like x/y effects and freeze mode and integration with the Maschine 2.0 software/hardware. we might also see changes to the controller editor including the ability to order commands into a sequence and additional modifiers and conditions.

Not all of these predictions may come true but I suspect that NI will probably announce something at the next NAMM show Traktor related."

Also Elastic beatgridding would be great and maybe even an inbuilt warping engine like Ableton has. I guess we'll have to wait until Janurary (If not later)

[rdej47]

A software company, that drastically reduced the price of their top selling softwares, used to give out their software for free when you buy their hardware and has completely changed the hardware market within the last three years. I agree with you that stand-alone-controllers would easily take away sales from the traditional Traktor setup, but it would still be NIs technology. If they hadn't started to throw out their software, I would totally share your opinion, but now I think it's going towards a complete approach which enables the user to get an all-in-one-solution by NI.
The big money is waiting in the hardware market, especially since hardware cannot be pirated and NI is just following the trends. They WILL HAVE to create all-in-one solutions, because the competition hasn't stopped and Pioneer would be glad to be the first company to introduce such controllers. Of course, they are known for CDJs and mixers, but the future lies within controllers and they have already started to bring out stand-alone-controllers, although they are not the best.
NI is the industry's innovation leader and they have to keep their advance to be able to survive on the long-term.

I think either market in isolation is flawed. Software alone has the con's of being easily pirated so you lose out on profits there. Hardware is limited by what it is shipped with. Take the MPC 5000 for example, back in 2008 the memory was expandable up to 192MB. And you were limited to the screen on the MPC. Now look at Maschine a hardware/software combo. There has been tons of new features added in 4 years all while having the same hardware. Since Maschine isn't limited by hardware that means any additional RAM, Storage, or CPU upgrades you make will only make Maschine faster and as we've seen in the 2.0 update it can now take advantage of multi core CPU's. I think more companies are starting to see the benefit of this hardware/software combo. Look at Ableton with Push, now they can make money off hardware/software instead of losing money to people who would just pirate Ableton.

I think we'll see Traktor units that have Maschine like screens in the near future but the laptop will still drive the software in the background.

[wrong chris]

i hope they team up with a proper hardware manufacturer for Traktor Pro 3 like Pioneer, Numark or Denon.

Traktor deserves controller options on par with NS7-II and DDJ-SX

[Polygon]

Traktor pro 3.
I see it coming out with an S8, with two LCD screens on top of the jogs, à-la-maschine studio
The release date, well, with the s4&s2mk2, i don't think it's going to be near...

[c0nsul]

SHUFFLE MODE!

no, seriously. i´m still on Traktor 1.2.7 and the only thing I´m missing is flux mode. but a third (or more) modifier value in the next Traktor version would be sweet. also the ability to lock playlists. and these elastic beatgrids sound goo aswell.

[astromech]

I'd like to see some sort of effects sequencer. It would be very nice to have an 8 bar loop and have a beatmasher on the final beat. You could do some pretty cool things with it.

[Stewe]

I'd like to see some sort of effects sequencer. It would be very nice to have an 8 bar loop and have a beatmasher on the final beat. You could do some pretty cool things with it.

Something like this?