Traktor S8 review Part 2

Traktor S8 review Part 2

Part 2 of my Traktor S8 review is now online:

http://innerportalstudio.com/ni-traktor-review-part-2/

nice review, but couldn’t you just update your OP with the second part?

That would have been another way to do it, sure.

I’m still trying to find a meaningful tutorial on making my own remix decks on the fly, so far all I have been able to do is record a seconds worth of a sample which sounds truly horrible. I’m pretty sure there’s something available from the past F1’s etc.. I can borrow from.

The S8 manual has a pretty good breakdown of the process I thought.

Nice, now that it’s out I will check it out when I get home from work!

any video?

I think it just does audio mixing hehe.

No video yet, I’m in the middle of packing to move halfway around the world, not even sure where my camera is :slight_smile:

If by halfway around the world you mean Atlanta, I still owe you a beer.

@4nT1, I don’t have an S8, but it looks like the process is similar to the way you do it on the F1.

yeah…sampling off a live deck…is weird. You can do it if you want to capture specific sounds to play, and it works to capture a loop you want to keep running to free up a more full-featured deck. But, what I’ve been enjoying is playing with Maschine (either into an extra input or just kind of running), and you can grab the audio (it’ll bounce in the background) and drag it into a remix deck slot, which you can save with the remix deck.

It actually works quite well. But the big benefit is that it’s easier to launch a remix deck clip than it is to re-program the pattern in Maschine.

Doing the same kind of thing with another drum machine or groove box would work, but the process isn’t as fluid.

Nah, Luxembourg, just a little bit further :slight_smile:

Its kind of mystifying that there is no Maschine flavour of track deck yet.

Dang. Should I check your blog for that story? I’m sorry to say I haven’t been keeping up lately.

Yeah…that would be kinda cool. The midifighter twister mapping is close, but…yeah. I’d be all over a maschine deck flavor as long as it was simple enough.

Yes, I believe the remix decks are much easier to fill on the fly with loops (actually very intuitive on the F1)
It is probably best to load single shots prior to playing from a folder. Another, kind of awkward, way would be to load the sample as a 1/4 bar or 1/2 bar loop in a non live track deck and load it up the same way as you do a loop…just change it to a one shot.
Pain though.

I think the DJTechTools midi controller which has the sequencer in it would address some of the programming aspects. My only concern with using Maschine as well is screen real estate as I’m using the Macbook Air 13", everything is already pretty small and I’m not sure what the flow would look like visually on screen. If you have any videos or know of any where people are doing what you describe I’d love to check it out.

I can record a video for you if you want, but 90% of the time maschine is in the background and I’m only interacting with the hardware.

On my 13" MBP, when I do bring maschine forward, there’s just enough space to drag the pattern from it’s handle to a slot on the fourth column of the remix deck. Or, you can use an expose hot corner to switch back to trackor (holding the mouse button the entire time).

It’s definitely not the most fluid thing ever…but it’s a good bit faster than bouncing the audio to disk and then dragging it in from finder.

As for the twister…I like it. I just don’t see myself using the remix decks like that…'cuz I pretty much have 2 slots running all the time (though not necessarily open channels, they’re just there and ready), so that brings it down to 2 voices. And $250ish for a 2-voice step sequencer that takes away other capabilities is just not worth it to me. And I’d still rather have the 3rd full deck than a 2nd remix deck…at least right now.

very true sounds like a pricey option given how likely I am to use it..

I need to start small and scale up based on my needs, I just struggle with using the remix decks and being able to sequence a pattern as I’d like to. Maybe I’m going about it the wrong way..

Yeah, I don’t think it’s worth buying a Maschine just for that.

If you’re just interested in creating loops to use in them and are okay finding samples, Hydrogen should still be free and is decent. Also, lite/le/demo versions of a lot of DAWs can do it…it’s just not quite as fluid.