Midi controller jogs

[DJQA]

If you remap anything within traktor do you lose the HID jogs? Isn't that what happens with the S4?

No, that's the good part with the 4trak! Everything else is freely mappable, but the jogs don't show up as controls in Controller Manager.

[MisterMoleyMole]

No, that's the good part with the 4trak! Everything else is freely mappable, but the jogs don't show up as controls in Controller Manager.

Oowh i like the sounds of this. I've just looked again at it and there are quite a few things that could be customised if i wanted i guess.

Them filters look a bit out of the way are they comfortable?

Also i take it they are software filters not hardware ones ?

Are the normal mixer controls midi mappable or are they analogue only?

Cheers
MMM

[zestoi]

Straight from the bottom of http://www.native-instruments.com/#/...-s4/?page=1746

we have no idea what they're referring to there. the 30x must at least in part refer to the hardware, else any protocol doesn't matter.

It's not just marketing hype either - midi is limited to 127 steps of resolution because of the protocol vs. NHL which is about 4,000 or so IIRC. Also for midi jogs, you only get "note on" or "note off" information sent to the software which makes a huge difference in feel; the difference in feel between a VCI-100 (standard midi) and an S4 is night and day for the jogs and faders.

again not true... anything like a jogwheel only ever sends "relative" messages anyway so even using MIDI it can send 5k ticks per revolution if u really wanted.

the only limit with 128 is a normal note or cc, but we have 16 14bit pitchbend messages per device not to mention all the nrpn's etc.

it should be possible for midi in the most part to feel as responsive as a hid device, but i'm sure NI are purposely optimising their hid interface and not midi for just this very reason...

as i said before the only real other thing i can think of is that any midi message ofc needs to pass thru the windows or macos midi layer, that adds some latency to the whole shebang (maybe) compared with dealing with the actual device directly.

with hid afaik an encoder *has* to be sent in absolute mode as all it can o it signal "something has changed" flag so the driver/software can read the status and work out "how much" it has changed. which ofc is all the midi driver would be doing anyway. i don't really understand the difference in real latency between midi and hid for something as simple as a jog movement given the equivalent complexity in processing.

MIDI:

* controller sends a 3 byte (usually) midi message
* driver/software reads the message as soon as it comes in
* byte 0 is decoded to work out what it is, then usually just bytes 1 and 2 for the actual values
* the value of a relative encoder will (can) vary with how much it has moved since the last message

HID:

* controller sets a "modified" flag indicating *something* has changed
* driver/software reads *ALL* status bytes from the controller (19 bytes for even something as simple as a hercules mk2)
* software compares the current bytes to the last read bytes to see what has changed
* software maps which bytes have been modified to work out which (1 or more) controls have changed values
* any absolute encoder type message turned into a relative one to work out how much it has actually moved
* final value(s) then used in the software

the main advantage of hid is the flexibility to encode whatever data the developer needs with whatever resolution that is needed but this *shouldn't* be translating so directly to different feel/latency

so i'm not arguing that the s4 *feels* more responsive i just can't see *why*. my bet is that NI is purposely making sure that their HID interface feels better, since the only technical reason for it (talking about jogs, and 14bits is gives u over 16k values anyway so over the 4k limit they mention so that's not a limitting factor) is the fact that they aren't in control of any midi driver and/or midi layer running on the system for any controller, where as with HID they are able to interface directly. it could be that this is the reason and not that they're throttling their midi code, but this advantage has nothing to do with the advantages that they state about hid.

[DJQA]

Oowh i like the sounds of this. I've just looked again at it and there are quite a few things that could be customised if i wanted i guess.

Them filters look a bit out of the way are they comfortable?

Also i take it they are software filters not hardware ones ?

Are the normal mixer controls midi mappable or are they analogue only?

Cheers
MMM

Okay, first off let me clarify that the full mappability is available on Traktor Pro, I already had a licence. The 4trak version MAY limit you to the controls labeled "assign" only, not sure.

The filter controls are just MIDI, not available in standalone mode - however, the PC/line switches actually switch the decks in question into Live Input mode if you have Traktor running, so you get the filters and all FX etc on line/phono inputs as well, which is nice. Positioning wise I'm still not used to them, but shouldn't take long.

All mixer controls including CF curve and fader start are MIDI mappable, and you get friendly names instead of MIDI control numbers as labels in Controller Manager. The exceptions are master, booth and phone levels and phone mix, they're all analogue - which is how they're able to have split cue in there.

The only complaint I have so far is that they haven't gone all the way with the pitch faders. They feel very nice, 1200-ish if you know what I mean, but the actual resolution is only 10 bits I think, not 14 - so you don't quite get 0.01% precision unless you drop the range to something silly. At 8% you get 0.03 to 0.04 bpm resolution, which is almost as good as a CDJ-1000mk3 but not quite. I know the NS7 got this right, but I'm not sure if any other controller has it any better.

[MisterMoleyMole]

Thanks for the info. Thats a real shame on the pitch faders. It was one of my next questions.

As this has been developed closely with NI have they certified the unit for Traktor Scratch use?

Cheers
MMM

[nem0nic]

A bunch of misinformation...

Sorry Keeb, but you're absolutely wrong in your post. I was about to rip you to shreds, but then I saw that Zestoi beat me to it. All MIDI isn't limited to 128 steps. MIDI jogs don't send note data. That DJTT article got a lot of it's information wrong (and I called them on it).

Stay classy Zestoi! Great info as always.

[zestoi]

Sorry Keeb, but you're absolutely wrong in your post. I was about to rip you to shreds, but then I saw that Zestoi beat me to it. All MIDI isn't limited to 128 steps. MIDI jogs don't send note data. That DJTT article got a lot of it's information wrong (and I called them on it).

Stay classy Zestoi! Great info as always.

cheers nem0nic tbh i was expecting u to post... glad you're here now i still have a lot of midi stuff to learn really, only really know about the stuff i've coded in my midimasher.

i am still curious as to the *(f)actual* reasons (and not the marketing BS) for jogs feeling more responsive on say the S4 in hid mode verses midi...

[DJQA]

As this has been developed closely with NI have they certified the unit for Traktor Scratch use?

No mention of Scratch certification, and to be honest I'd be VERY surprised to see that. Practically, a 4trak and a pair of 12-hundos would be such a huge setup that I don't think it would make much sense.

In any case, you will need Traktor Pro to get the best out of it. The 4trak edition doesn't have Advanced mode effects. No delay freeze? Get outta here...

[MisterMoleyMole]

No mention of Scratch certification, and to be honest I'd be VERY surprised to see that. Practically, a 4trak and a pair of 12-hundos would be such a huge setup that I don't think it would make much sense.

In any case, you will need Traktor Pro to get the best out of it. The 4trak edition doesn't have Advanced mode effects. No delay freeze? Get outta here...

Ahhh I see. Is it really that much bigger than the S4.

I already have Traktor Scratch Pro 2 so i would be good in that respect.

[synthet1c]