Traktor Scratch Certified (What does it mean now)...

[Rexx]

I find these corporate politics fascinating. NI sure makes it appealing to buy this. Especially with Serato being kind of slow with what they have going right now. I was going to buy TSP2 with the A10 a week ago and I'm glad I waited. And now I can get it for cheaper. I'm still on the fence about it though. Just not sure if it's worth it when anything can happen after May 30th.

I mean, I don't know if I need it or if I just want it for the sake of having it.

I've tried the demo on the db4 and I do like it and it's simplicity. But I can't try the timecode to see if I really like it. I know I don't need turntables/jogwheel, but I miss the vinyl feel. For those who have scratch ability, can you tell me; is it really great? As good as Serato? Maybe even better?

For years and years I've been mixing from A to B at the clubs, (get in / get out / get paid) but for recording and creating mixes, it's been sera-bleton. Would this TSP2 save me time in creating mixes?

For those who remix live, is this the thing to get? I don't know if I'll ever remix anything on the fly, seems like a lot of work, but it does look like fun.

[Daw-z]

^^^^The timecode vinyl works very well mate and definitely gives you that old school feeling.

[keeb]

I haven't dropped $1000 on anything without doing my research. I am doing my research thankyou very much, so back in your basket!

And as far as "It's a process that takes a significant amount of time and money".... Money.... probably. Just to line NI's pockets so that they will flick the "switch" which cant really take much "time" at all. It used to work with anything until they just blocked it by knowing what device is connected see "ghetto timecode" thread if it still exists.

It makes me not like them as I .... actually you know what i can't really be bothered as I have already said why, but you clearly just jumped at the chance to have a bit of a rant at me without actually reading past the post you quoted.

Cheers for your input
MMM

You did your research, yet you, "really expected the 4trak to work with scratch?" As I said, I really don't know where you got that idea from aside from blind assumptions so in turn I assumed you didn't do your research. Working together with NI on HID has nothing to do with working together with NI on the soundcard. You're assuming the problem here was with NI and not Numark as well without knowing basically anything about the situation. For all you know, NI could have offered scratch certification but Numark was unwilling to upgrade the components in the soundcard (and thus the price) to accomodate that certification.

It isn't simply a matter of "flicking a switch." I'm no hardware or software engineer, but I'd imagine the drivers have to be written specifically so that the timecode will work properly. You also need phono pre-amps that are up to spec for the turntables, levels probably have to be within a certain tolerance, etc. etc. The "ghetto timecode" situation was called ghetto for a reason - it wasn't reliable. People accepted that though because they knew it was a workaround. If NI unlocked scratch to work with any soundcard,
NI would have to spend a lot more time troubleshooting issues with users trying use cheap cards like the Maya44 etc. and expecting them to work. The competition (Serato) does the same thing NI does as far as locking timecode to the proprietary cards and approved mixers, so I don't see why this is surprising. This thread reeks of entitlement and sorry, I'm not going to coddle you and I will call you out on BS statements. The information about whether or not the 4trak would work with timecode was available when you purchased it and it's your responsibility to be aware of it.

I did, in fact, read past the post I quoted. That doesn't change anything I said, though.

[MisterMoleyMole]

You did your research,

I said "doing" oh almighty one!

And as far as the ghetto situation, i think it was pretty reliable as long as you had a phono amp. I know for a fact it was extremely reliable for cdjs as i had it working myself. If it wasn't reliable why did they feel the need to go about blocking the functionality?

[keeb]

I said "doing" oh almighty one!

And as far as the ghetto situation, i think it was pretty reliable as long as you had a phono amp. I know for a fact it was extremely reliable for cdjs as i had it working myself. If it wasn't reliable why did they feel the need to go about blocking the functionality?

If it was unreliable that would be a major incentive for them to block it. Think about how much shit Traktor has gotten historically (dating back to the days of Final Scratch) for lack of reliability; allowing other potentially buggy soundcards to work with timecode only exposes Traktor to the risk of being perceived as even more unreliable, even if NI never intended the program to work with those soundcards in the first place. If a DJ at a club is using a Presonus Firebox with TSP and TSP crashes/malfunctions because the card isn't meant to work with timecode, the standard reaction would be, "oh there goes that buggy Traktor software again," with little thought given to the use of a non-standard soundcard. Integration of hardware and software, while sometimes frustrating, inevitably does have benefits for stability and faster development cycles. As it stands, with the certified mixers and soundcards NI has about 10 devices to worry about in terms of timecode. If they opened timecode up to any soundcard, they'd have to worry about compatibility with hundreds of devices instead.

Your soundcard and setup might have been an exception that happened to work well while others didn't. On the other hand, if non-standard soundcards did work perfectly fine with the workaround, users were violating their licenses and taking money out of NI's pocket. NI make money through selling hardware just like Serato; they just package the pricing as part goes to the software, and part goes to the hardware. By using other hardware instead, you're messing with NI's revenue - I don't blame them in the slightest for locking it down. NI soundcards/certified mixers are effectively dongles for scratch functionality just like the SL boxes/Rane SL mixers are. The other part of the equation is that with all of the pirated copies of Traktor floating around, being able to use any soundcard means all someone would have to do to get a full TSP setup would be to buy the vinyl from NI and use whatever soundcard they already had after downloading the software. NI need to make a return on their development costs to make continued development of Traktor worthwhile, and as long as the steps they take to ensure that aren't unreasonable or prohibitive to expected usage of the program I don't see an issue. It would be cool if the 4trak worked as a TSP certified card with Traktor, but for whatever reason NI and Numark didn't get together and make it happen. It's unfortunate, but I don't think it's a big deal. The 4trak is not the first controller with phono inputs that isn't Traktor Scratch Certified and it won't be the last. Honestly if I owned one I'd be happy about the HID rather than annoyed at the lack of timecode support baked in. At the end of the day, you can always buy an Audio X card for timecode support. S4 users, on the other hand, can't install bigger jogwheels.

[MisterMoleyMole]

I'm not really annoyed, i just thought it may have worked, given I assumed it was developed pretty closely with NI because of the HID support, which i don't think anyone has have they?

Its just a shame that I still need my audio 8 when I'm pretty sure would have a more than capable device for running scratch with just the 4trak and my scratch license. I know you probably disagree with that, but sh*t happens.

I may give the youtube vid i posted earlier a go to see if there is a way of tricking Traktor

[Xonetacular]

NI soundcards/certified mixers are effectively dongles for scratch functionality just like the SL boxes/Rane SL mixers are. The other part of the equation is that with all of the pirated copies of Traktor floating around, being able to use any soundcard means all someone would have to do to get a full TSP setup would be to buy the vinyl from NI and use whatever soundcard they already had after downloading the software

Hah, that's already how it works- the pirated copies of traktor scratch allow you to use whatever soundcard you want, so it's only the people like us who pay for the software bitching about it. The NI soundcards and certified mixers are not dongles the way SL is set up.

[padi_04]

Hah, that's already how it works- the pirated copies of traktor scratch allow you to use whatever soundcard you want, so it's only the people like us who pay for the software bitching about it. The NI soundcards and certified mixers are not dongles the way SL is set up.

That was patched with 1.2.4/1.2.5 and it was a windows only exploit.

[Xonetacular]

That was patched with 1.2.4/1.2.5 and it was a windows only exploit.

There are definitely releases of traktor scratch pro 2 for windows and mac with all interfaces unlocked, just saying...

[MisterMoleyMole]

There are definitely releases of traktor scratch pro 2 for windows and mac with all interfaces unlocked, just saying.

Really!? So I've now bought my software and its more appealing to go back to a cracked copy.

Did anyone see my youtube video further up the thread? Does anyone know if that works?