Alright so I know there is huge discussion, this post has probably already been posted, AND there was a DJTT article written about the debate…but I still would like to get some personal opinions from people who have used both pieces of software.
Why is serato the “standard” when it seems so far behind traktor in most aspects. It seems as if like 80% of DJs I see DJing with a laptop are running serato, why not Traktor?
Just wondering…any kind of answer would be appreciated.
i liked serato better in some ways but the fact is tracktor is much cheeper , £600 for the new sl5 is a joke but the reason i went to tracktor is i simply couldn’t afford to get the same set up i had before ( sold my technics , mixer and sl3 when i moved house . kontrol s4 seemed a good compromise . if i had the more money id have got serato sl5 2 technics and a shit hot mixer
If you’d asked this a couple of years ago, I think Serato would have had my vote.
Serato have fell off BIG TIME, though. The pairing of Serato and Ableton SHOULD have ended this debate. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver. Massive, massive fail on the part of Ableton and Serato. (Gutted, really).
TSP2 is a pretty awesome piece of software, and the NI controllers are NICE.
NI are going at it BIG TIME. They’re getting DJ’s on board that can push the limits of the hardware AND the software. Shiftee is doing an awesome job.
Serato are going to fall behind BIG TIME unless they get their act together QUICK.
I think the vast majority of dj use Serato because they saw other dj’s using it and Jumped on the Seratto bandwagon. When Traktor Pro-2 drops it’s going to destroy Serato IMO.
Having used both, I think Serato is a much weaker option. They aren’t ever going to have the power features Traktor has, by choice.
Serato is the standard in the US, mostly because hip-hop culture dominates in the US, and hip-hop is obsessed with faux-authenticity. The absence of features in Serato is seen as a feature: because doing it the hard way is considered morally correct.
Traktor is more popular pretty much everywhere else.
jeez sorry. i just wanted to know specifically why serato is more preferred than traktor, and did not really want to spend hours looking around forums for that answer.
With t2 coming out soon, this thread would seem to have different responses than previous ones, so I don’t understand those wanting the lock. technology is always changing, therefore so will the responses.
In any case, the thread will still lean in favor of traktor.
Serato has a bigger base because Final Scratch was buggy and then Scratch Live dropped and gained a fan base for its stability. Those DJs had friends that got Serato because they had it, and so on and so forth
my $.02 is that Traktor is now and (IMO) has been leaps and bounds better than Serato in terms of feature richness. TSP2 seems to have made that gap even further. They have always been on the forefront.
That being said, I think there is more people using Serato due to their customer support being a bit better. The product offers a much more straight forward and clean interface on top of just working. I’d say Traktor is to PC as Serato is to Mac. Traktor works relatively problem free, but requires tweaking to do so… even when your system is above the suggested specs. Serato just works right out of the box with no tweaking. Also, I think the glitchiness of Traktor when it first came out turned people off. The only other thing is the tiered levels of releases of Traktor, vs the one and done nature of Serato. There is no paying to upgrade their software. It’s all free. This is a two way street though, as Traktor offers much more affordable choices at the entry level.
If NI could deliver the rock solid dependability and old school “it just works” vibe of Macs that Serato offers, it would probably be the end of them more or less.
^ Eh, I don’t know about the Traktor to PC comparison and the Serato to Mac comparison, the platforms don’t really push one to make a decision to use either software.
I actually moved Vinyl → SSL → FS2 → CDJs → SSL → Ableton → Traktor Pro.
I’m considering a move to TSP at some point in the near future but it feels really weird. In addition to FS2 being only slightly better than mediocre and SSL being IMO flat-out better software at the time, the Stanton and NI partnership fell apart and destroyed their user base. When one company pisses you off and its direct competitor make a better product anyway, it’s an easy choice. In addition, I still believe wholeheartedly that SSL is for vinyl control; Traktor is for controllers; and both are completely pointless with CDs.
It’s just one of those things I don’t think anyone is going to convince isn’t the way it is.
No. It does that, and it does it very well some times, but it’s primarily about leveraging our collective synergy to elevate our mixing to the next level while providing an open forum for individual expressions of our admiration for specific software packages and hardware devices that empower our abilities to utterly destroy perfectly good music with unnecessary bullshit techniques because we’re told that building a good set is neither necessary nor sufficient for becoming a modern DJ. Oh, and we also make fun of vinyl jocks for no reason and stroke each other’s fragile egos whenever some tom dick or harry says something negative about digital DJing or auto-sync despite the fact that 99% of the EDM scene doesn’t care and I–for example–haven’t seen a single person in real life who even has a clue that this so-called online community exists.
Didn’t really say they did. I’m (poorly?) trying to convey the point that PC is known for not really having a “it just works” reputation that Mac has. Traktor is the same way. Even when your system meets and/or exceeds the specs, you need to do a bunch of tweaks to your system to get Traktor running smoothly. Serato “just works”. Having said that, I’ll take Traktor hands down.