advantages of external mixer over s4?

**Xonetacular** · 02-16-2012, 03:57 PM

Plus you can't fit 5 innobenders in an S4. Pretty sure only the crossfader will fit.

**papo** · 02-16-2012, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by DigitalTiger

If the faders feel like a toy, then you can get replacements like the Innofader.

Originally Posted by keeb

That's an expensive proposition when the channel faders are the main offenders. 5 innofaders or an equivalent if you want to replace everything, plus you have to take the unit apart to do so which may void your warranty.I'd rather have it nice stock.

exactly..

Don't want to have to worry about tinkering with something, while voiding my warranty, and then have to eat the costs.

At least, with most hardware mixers, they are designed to have the faders user replaceable and not void warranty.

again, I love the S4 and I'm not saying one is better than the other. Both have pro's/con's. I guess I'm just lucky enough where I can afford both. This way, I can benefit from both.

Also, I'm not the type of person to say one thing is better than the other until I have personally experienced both sides to compare.

**caldwin** · 03-19-2012, 05:09 AM

yep.... i manage to integrate sl3 and djm400 to be used together with traktor and S4. In my opinion, sound quality wise is much better. Faders and eqs control are much better too as compared to the S4. I highly recommend this kind of setup to be integrated into a 4 channel mixer for full control of all 4 decks in traktor.

*S4 as controller for deck A & B. All the keys, jog wheel, filter and FX will work as usual except for the faders and cross faders.

*SL3 assigned as sound card for deck A & B to be connected to djm400 mixer.

**thisisian** · 03-19-2012, 05:33 AM

Originally Posted by keeb

-VU metering and gain knobs that I don't cringe at using. The gain encoders on the s4 are lame to say the least, and the VU meters have what, 5 sections and no labels?

The way Traktor handles gain structure / metering is the one thing I have a real issue with, & is exactly why i've recently sold my S4.

Don't get me wrong, ....the S4's good, & it mostly was a joy to work on. I just felt that i didn't have enough control over levels. Even if i adjusted gain manually, the metering wasn't actually giving me any useful information.

I've now gone over to a Denon DN MC6000, & if you mix "externally" on just two decks (which is absolutely fine for most of my gigs). It works as a proper "analogue" mixer with decent metering & full control of your levels. If you run 4 decks, you have to mix internally (software mixing) with the MC6000 purely working as a midi controller, & poor metering (with the meters being driven by Traktor).

The only controller that i've ever really like'd the metering on is the Vestax VCI-300 running Itch. That behaves very close to an analogue mixer, with proper meters with decent scale & ballistics. If the new VCI-380 behaves in the same way, i'll be buying one!

**ZxZDeViLZxZ** · 03-19-2012, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by pbcrazy9898

I never use traktors auto gain... Just go by ear, Like you guys said I don't trust it at all. Why hasn't traktor added eq kill? this problem has been around long enough, Im surprised they haven't addressed it yet.

They have eq kill

**fullenglishpint** · 03-19-2012, 09:56 AM

Couple of points to clarify my POV on.

Agree with xonetacular - the Traktor internal mixer is fine, it works well, but it's not amazing and the metering is useless.

External mixers do, for the most part, feel nicer to work with than midi controllers, purely because controller faders and other components HAVE to be slimline and lightweight to fit the format.

I know this is only relevant to a very few people, but the DB4 effects honestly do not compare to traktor's. I used Traktor for quite a long time and got to love the effects, especially when I got my midifighter, but the first time I tried out a DB4 I realised how far ahead it is. They call them studio quality because they are - A&H's main other business is effects consoles. Xone filters are awesome as well - again, I thought traktor's were fine until I tried them. I think Traktor filters are better than DJM-800 filters though, by a long way.

I know I'm in a very lucky position to have a modern TOTR mixer, and I do love it so much that I'm likely to ramble on about how awesome it is, but suffice it to say that the stellar reviews the DB4 gets are well deserved.

**ZxZDeViLZxZ** · 03-19-2012, 10:34 AM

Ok after reading it all I can not really comment beyond s4 feels toyish. My ns6 feels solid why I went ns6 over s4 and I have used traktor for years upon years. The ns6 from I enjoy being able to hook directly into it. From what I can tell it does this great. Sound quality from itch an ns6 is great no complaints.

Now for what I want to say using an external mixer i think is really a benefit if you don't want to use a midi controller. Most 100 dollar soundcards can be used to allow external output to goto a mixer this would allow some one without much to be able to run traktor to an external mixer then do everything from there and a mapped keypad or x1 or joystick even. Flashback traktor 1 anyone. Honestly if I didn't have controllers I'd pickup a djm600 and a kontrol x1 and get downto business but I own multiple controllers one being the ns6 which from what I can tell is very nice sound using just line inputs.

**Frank112916** · 03-19-2012, 11:26 AM

Feel. End of the story. My DN X-1600 feels worlds apart from the S4 I had previous. Also, it was a fucking pain to use EFX in traktor. I hated it. EFX weren't post fader so you had to jury rig post-fader like FX a la armyofme. Everything felt toyish on the S4. The Jogs were awful. The space was cramped. It was a pain to beatmatch manually so I relied on sync, which sucked because I tend to use transition tracks with 2 different BPM's when switching genre's. Honestly, it just never felt like it just "got out of my way" and let me mix. I would always have to stare at the screen. I just want to get up and go. When I get the money I'm buying at SL box and switching to serato. I want something simpler. Traktor has too much going on for me in general. All I need is 2 decks and the occasional sample.