Q&A from the NI forum...

[sheikyerbouti]

Just found this on the NI support forum. Some questions from the users + answers by the Traktor developers, compiled by DJ Freshfluke. Thought this might interest some people here too:

General Questions
Will there be further hardware cooperations with other manufacturers (also TSP certified)?
These cooperations are always evaluated on a case-by-case basis. We have just integrated the Pioneer CDJ-900nexus and XDJ-1000, for example; these will be out in the next release.

Are mobile DJs still a target group? Are there any 19” rack mountable devices planned?
NI does not have any 19” rack-mount devices planned at this point and prefers to maintain a focus on club-style (tabletop) and portable devices.

Can you say sth about the Win10 compatibility of TRAKTOR?
As with any version of any OS, we will inform our users once Windows 10 has been tested and approved by our development teams. Until then, one should continue to use TRAKTOR on a supported OS version (a list of supported operating systems can be found on our website).

We like to have more public betas. Are more of them planned for the future?
Yes, these will be happening with more frequency and participation from the community will be essential in helping us track down bugs and other compatibility issues.

We sense a lack of communication when it comes to new products or releases, the release notes are too thin as well are the known issues.
We will now be making conscious efforts to include more information in our releases as well as Known Issues where appropriate.

Issue Related Questions
A lot of users encounter Service Center issues. New releases don’t appear or it crashes. Does NI work on these issues?
Yes, we work on them, as long as they are properly reported to NI Support.

When – if any – will there be a solution to the M4A and ALAC issues?
The M4A and ALAC issues on Windows stemmed from the same cause but will require different solutions. The M4A issue is something we hope can be fixed quickly since the Windows Media Foundation natively supports AAC audio (the encoding used in M4A files). However, the Windows Media Foundation does not support ALAC at all, so this is not a matter of simply fixing a bug. The only solution is to implement ALAC decoding directly in TRAKTOR since the Windows operating system itself currently cannot be extended to support ALAC.

When will Metadata Sync come back? A lot of users are missing the removed feature.
It’s hard to say. Metadata Sync used to work by taking advantage of the “Persistent UUID” which iTunes assigned to every track in the iTunes Library. Previously, that UUID would remain unchanged for as long as the track was kept in the iTunes Library, and that same UUID would be copied over with tracks copied to the iOS device via USB. A change in iTunes (I believe it happened with iOS 7) has broken that functionality: the UUIDs assigned to tracks can now change unexpectedly, thus causing a UUID mis-match between the tracks on the computer and those on the iOS device(s). Without this mechanism for ensuring proper track matching between devices, it is no longer possible to transfer the metadata between the matched tracks. We attempted to solve the problem by looking at other features of the tracks, such as their length, name, and so on, but this only provided a “soft match” which was not 100% reliable.
The only avenue we want to pursue is one which does not rely on iTunes at all for track identification as any change made to iTunes could potentially break the system again. This research is ongoing.

Feature Request Questions
HID-Support?
This happens on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, manufacturers have lots of freedom with how they wish to implement HID control and this prevents us from “just adding HID support” to the software – HID and MIDI are different communication protocols and have different messaging formats, even though they might not appear to be on the surface. Therefore, for now, all HID support has to be hard-coded into TRAKTOR based on the manufacturer’s published specifications rather than being “mapped” in the way one assigns a MIDI controller to TRAKTOR.

Further features for S8: Loop Recorder?
Loop Recorder support will not be provided with S8 (though it may be possible to map the Loop Recorder controls to those on the S8 when overmapping support is provided for S8).

Maschine Integration?
An integrated solution for using MASCHINE and TRAKTOR together is under development but will still be several months before it is ready.

3band EQ for Mics on all devices?
Unlikely. The solution here will be to use a Live Input Deck to EQ the Mic using a normal TRAKTOR Mixer channel.

[AshtonArcher]

Maschine Integration?

An integrated solution for using MASCHINE and TRAKTOR together is under development but will still be several months before it is ready.

Nice.

[Notanon]

^I think the D2 will be part of the Maschine/Traktor integration process. Just a hunch.

[ekwipt]

I'd like to see NI release their version of push. Techno people would rather see the sequence running over 64 pads rather than that like Maschine IMO