Help with 4 Decks Mixing.....

[EYENSEE]

So up until now, I've been using Traktor and a regular vestax VCI-100 just as its basic form and am completely fine with it. No bells and whistles, no integrating ableton and tracktor (yet)...

The most I've ever done was download a .TKS file that enabled me to use my four buttons (cue,play,pause,setcue and the touchpads) as juggle cuepoints.

I've gotten to the point now, where I want to start using Deck C and Deck B. There's a few questions I have before really getting into it and some of the theory behind mixing with four decks

1) How does the cross fader operate when all four decks are playing at the same time?

Is there a way to fade the blends: ex.

A&B --fade to--> C&D

or

A&C --fade to--> B&D ?




2) I noticed that when I had gone into 4 deck mode, In order for me to activate Deck C and load a track, I had to use my mouse, click on the deck and then choose my track as usual. For those that have a regular VCI-100, what button did you assign on your unit to activate deck C and/or D - how?


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[DvlsAdvct]

I'd say either make use of the MIDI pages or use Bomes and remap the VCI using presets.

:-)

[Walidism]

if you're going to use SOLELY the vci in internal mode on traktor, then you would need to use either the midi pages to layer decks c and d in place of a and b, which means you can never manipulate a and c or b and d at the same time.

there is a way to blend a &b to c&d, in the top panel on traktor, right click and select DECKS, below each Deck letter, there is a left and right arrow where you can select which side of the crossfader you want to assign.

as for the second question, there is no button that solely activates the midi controls and changes them to a different deck, instead, you can use a knob or button to activate a new midi page with those controls on there.

what i have come to learn in my style of mixing is that i never need to manipulate more than one track at a time with the jog wheels, so, i assigned one jogweel to all 4 decks and it is selected depending on the focus deck, which i have 4 buttons for. if you do a lot of scratching, then you would need 2 jog wheels, but really it depends on your style of mixing.

personally i cannot control 4 decks internally in traktor with just the vci, so that's why i bought a 4 channel mixer and now i mix externally (or internally cause my mixer is also a midi device, but i like it better externally). all my cueing and eqing is done on teh mixer, including fading, sound volume gain etc, and the transport controls, looping, and fx is done on my vci and sometimes my mpd24 pad.