This is first of the series of posts related to Traktor Pro 2 problems/inconsistencies and poor UX decisions.
Note: all these are tested and found on windows OS and might be ok on Mac OS.
Padding as dead spots
[ATTACH]6718[/ATTACH]
Phase meter dimensions are 238 x 19px.
Interactive area is 238 x 9px, so it will interact with full width but with height significantly reduced. This means that there is 10px of height wasted/non-interactive for mouse click/drag. If we include the “mouse-move-in bug”* that area is diminished to tiny 7px of height.
So, there it is, control represented with 19px of height, and you have to snipe the 7px stripe in the middle. I will not describe how this feels in the midst of the mix.
* mouse-move-in bug
When mouse enters the interactive area (from the outside) there is a 1px row that will not interact thus increasing the dead-padding to 12px (summed) and reducing the interactive area to 7px.
Center marker thickness
[ATTACH]6717[/ATTACH]
Center marker is 3px wide and phase meter is hidden beneth it. This means that current solution is wasting precision in a way. It would be great to know that newly available ultra tight beatgridding is spot-on by checking if meter is only 1px wide or invisible under the thinner marker?
Second, color contrast is lost with orange-white combo on such a small element so sometimes it is hard top notice the the phase meter “crawls” from under the marker.
Center marker as dead spot
[ATTACH]6716[/ATTACH]
Center marker is also affected by “mouse-move-in bug”*. In this case, when moving the mouse from the center marker on to the orange phase meter bar. Not only that center marker should not affect the mouse interaction but this increases the dead area of marker from 3px to 5px sometimes leading to undesired effects.
Mouse scroll and phase meter
If you try to re-sync your track with mouse scrolling the phase meter, you might find that it is way to fine-grained.
There should be a scroll resolution popup menu just like there is for any other linear control. If I remember correctly, on older Traktor versions this menu was accessible by right clicking nudge buttons near the phase meter.
Looks like you’re using an old version of Traktor there, with the old phase meter UI. As opposed to the new one.
As for mouse/phase meter interactions - I don’t use the mouse with the phase meter when mixing (and I don’t know anyone that does) so I’ll take your word for it.
You should contact NI tech support with your bug.
The nudge buttons are under the track info.
Im not sure i follow any of this. I dont think the thickness of the centre position matters. The phase meter draw left and right of the centre position not underneath it.
But i dont use the mouse to control Traktor.
I did not update to the 2.1.1 as there were some CPU spikes reported and that CUP button problem were a real turnoff. After checking the changelog I see that there was a line stating:
I’ll check that out and get back to you, they might have fixed the mouse interaction too.
Ok, I’ve checked the version 2.1.1 and, except for the graphical representaion, nothing is changed.
Padding as dead spots: the usable area is still only 7px thick. Center marker thickness: still covers the meter and 3px wide Center marker as dead spot: still 5px non-clickable Mouse scroll and phase meter: I had no nudge buttons in the demo (?).
So, nothing is changed.
Let me answer to your answers now Karlos:
I did not ask where the nudge buttons are. I don’t use those but instead either drag or scroll the phase meter (if you don’t understand what this means, I can go into more details).
I tend to disagree on this one. Do a simple test: play two of your songs with phase set off by a few pixels. Then adjust the tempo difference so that phase meter would shift at roughly 1px per second. Watch closely as it gets close to the center marker and wait for it to emerge on the other side. Did it take 2secs or 4secs to show up?
Neither do I, but my gear has failed me twice since the update to traktor pro and I was forced to use the mouse/keyboard interaction. That’s when I’ve noticed how sloppy this was done. I hope that “who’s using a mouse these days” is not the general view of things in NI, but I do understand that main focus was on S4 and turntable interaction.
What I don’t understand: if your gear has failed you and you’re forced to use mouse/keyboard - why screw around with the mouse in the phase meter instead of just using sync? The phase meter can only be accurate if your beatgrids are set correctly - and then you might as well sync it in that situation.
I mix dnb pretty much exclusively, as with any genre, if you grid it right you CAN rely on tempo and phase matching. That little sync button has got me out of trouble a few times.
I agree that these little bugs with traktor should be addressed, it should be a flawless piece of software, but we all know it isnt.
I would rather they focus their efforts on some of the larger issues at hand though and properly testing their bloody code before releasing it to the masses!
Agreed but this should not be overlooked (and yet they did in the 2.1.1 update).
All buttons on the UI are clickable in full width and height, while you have to find those 7pixels to be able to move the phase meter.
Simply put, as if you had a button that can be clicked only in the area covered by text label while the rest of the button is dead/non-responsive. I mean, that’s just stupid UX. And to top it off, if you click the middle of the button, it also wouldn’t react.
Controls that are supposed to be realtime, used in a club, in the midst of the mix, with a touchpad are not supposed to be like this.
Have you reported this to NI? I should imagine that most users are like myself and haven’t even noticed this problem (I use keys buttons mapped to the nudge buttons in the event of a problem, I don’t like trackpadding around a realtime audio UI, too easy to click on the wrong thing).
@pizzle: I thought I’d discuss about this thing with the the community here. So far it seems that I’ve gone trough the trouble of documenting it but people are trying to make a workaround. We have far:
Im not using mouse (ok but do you find this bad UX)
Use the sync button (ok, but what if the bets are still off)
Nudge buttons are under trackinfo (ok, but phase meter is also interactive)
Other bugs are more important (see below*)
Im not sure even Karlos took time to read trough the text.
*I completely agree that there are issues more important, like the crappy MIDI mapping interface and many thing about it, which will be the theme for one of the future posts.
Short of Karlos, none of us can do anything about your issues here aside from discuss with you our point of views. Which I see people have been doing. If you just want action taken without people discussing it much, i’d suggest putting it up on the NI forums. If you want a discussion on what you’ve pointed out, then this forum is the right place to post it.
I don’t think there’s a lot to discuss. Have you spotted an area where the software could be improved - yes.
Is there much scope for discussing how they can improve it? No, not really. You’ve nailed it. They can make the line thinner. They can increase the ‘detected area’. The can play with the mouse wheel resolution. That’s about it.
The fact remains that it’s not a ‘workaround’ for me not to use the trackpad to adjust the phase. Using my trackpad would be my least favourite option anyway. I’ve been using the software for 4 years without even realising there is a problem.
I do hope you take this up with NI tech support, as I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the thread would be otherwise.
Thank you guys. It seems that posting there first, did have effect.
I’ve adjusted the post to affect the new version and removed unnecessary statements.
