What do you think of Traktor D2?
I was just wondering what everyone thinks of the Traktor D2 in general? Having two paired with the Traktor Z2 to take out for gigs. I have turntables and don’t know if I should keep the one D2 I own. Thanks.
Honestly, I prefer the F1 for use with TT’s. F1 + Remix Decks are a MASSIVE bonus, and tons of fun, for use with 2 turntables and a mixer.
Get yourself an F1, mate. 
I really dig them myself. I got that set on either side of my Allen & Heath Xone92. My only issue is with Native Instruments not placing the power supply block within the unit enclosure and having it with a bulky power block right at the plug outlet. This, paired with the A10 audio interface plug just takes up so much room its a bit annoying.
But having the 2 screens, access to your remix decks (Yes the F1 has double the pads), and keeping your attention to your mixing decks in front of you feels great. From a performance perspective, its relieving to not have the Laptop face anymore.
My set up has shrunk to a Z2, 2 * D2 and an F1. This is how I play out now and I really like the D2’s, only really work as a pair though. I bought 1 to put my toe in the water, bought the second unit two weeks later and sold my X1’s straight away.
Probably should have kept the X1’s as a back up but totally sold on the D2’s, and really like stems too. If I’ve set up a play list which I mostly do I pretty much dont look at the laptop all night.
Want more info on the screens though, not tried the hacks yet, was hoping Native would man up and do an official version to allow tailoring to suit.
I don’t think the A10 needs power if you use it with a laptop. I don’t…
The Audio 10 always needs power, the Audio 6 doesn’t.
There two version of the A10. The first version needed power the mk2 do not need power.
Damn, I didn’t know the mk2 is USB powered. Maybe it would be worth getting the newer one down the road.
Yea at the current display of the D2, its lacking some useful information and not utilizing the real estate all that well. I would highly recommend hoping on those D2 mappings found in an earlier article on Djtech tools! They are really simple to place and are money!
I thought that was just for iOS devices.
For me, the biggest annoyance with the D2 was the size. I feel like they are much bugger than they needed to be. I preferred the F1.
Full setup at the moment is a Z2, two D2s and two F1s (sometimes with a X1 Mk2 mapped to control the channel gain, highs, mids and lows of decks C and D), though usually don’t use the F1s at home at the moment due to the current desk they are on being limited for space. That will change when I eventually end up building a custom roadcase that can accommodate them all or clear enough space to try my hand at building an Ikea DJ booth.
In the event of a Z4 being released along with the possible future unlocking of the D2s to go up to 4 of them being used without being restricted to 2 as is present, this would change, probably to a Z2/4 D2s or Z4/4 D2s setup.
The D2s I have have pretty much rendered my X1 Mk2 redundant except for when I need an ultra-portable setup (i.e. laptop, X1 Mk2 and Audio 2 DJ plugged into someone else’s mixer). Some of the buttons took some getting used to (i.e. adjusting BPM via clicking a button near the screen and turning the knob), but have become second nature now. Still some scope for optimisation with a future Mk2, but pretty good so far.
My gut feeling is that something like a D2-sized version of the F1 (F2, anyone?) could materialise and with a much bigger screen than the D2 to see up to 4 remix deck/step sequencer rows unlike the 2 rows only available with the D2. Would pretty much have the touch strip and bottom row of buttons replaced with 2 more rows of pads, and perhaps the top row of knobs and buttons removed to make way for a taller screen, with perhaps the existing row of knobs and buttons just below the current screen having to double up with controlling effects and so forth. A Z2/Z4, two D2s and two F2s would be pretty much the ultimate setup as far as I’m concerned.
Same here, I’m not really a fan of those small buttons around the screen, a bigger screen would’ve been nice instead. Although it makes sense to have dynamic buttons based on the mode you’re in, so I get why they did it. But with my display mods I can now zoom the waveform with the Browse knob, and hold the Sync button to display the BPM popup, so now I can mostly ignore the small buttons.
How you guys think the D2 is doing sales wise? Spoke with a company in NY where I use to buy my DJ gear and they said some were sold online but in store they didn’t sell any D2’s. I asked about the S8 and it sold well. So what’s the back up plan if the D2 sales are low you think? Just curious.
I absolutely love my D2’s. I am currently using 2 D2s and one turntable in my coffin, but will be replacing the turntable with 2 more D2’s shortly. With the Nexus screen mod, it does everything and display everythign exactly how I prefer. I have Placed a wireless keyboard in the coffin mounted just above the mixer.
I mapped the “tab” key to enable search. I can hit tab, search for a track, comment, label, genre, etcetera and the browser int he D2 will display what I searched for. I mapped “CTRL+Tab” to clear the search. I set my laptop to wake on when plugged in and to stay one with the lid closed. I created a hot key “CTRL+SHIFT+`” to open Traktor.
The laptop is under one set of d2’s, my audio 10 is under the turntable (soon to be two D2’s). I VNC into the laptop to update my library and buy tunes, etcetera. I literally have no reason to use my laptop screen anymore.
Nice Set-up.
You think they will add jog wheels?
I picked up a pair when they were going cheap in the summer and have loved using them, my current set up is 2x D2s, 2 x 1210 mk2s and DJM, very happy with them in all. As has been said the buttons around the screen are a little fiddly and they really need to sort the screens out - although I have been using the sydes screen mod with no problems at all for a couple of months now. They are well built and very intuitive to use. One other issue is the marketing NI have used they make out like you can disregard the laptop completely which is not the case, beatgridding is best done using the d2 to control and the laptop screen to check things are correct and don’t get me started on the track browser (another thing the sydes screen mod does a million times better) I will end on a positive tho - love the step sequencer
No, I’m sure they’ve made it clear that touch strips are pretty much the replacement for the jog wheels. They take a bit of getting used to initially, but once you do, they pretty much do the job that jog wheels can without needing to worry about future mechanical failure of the jog wheels themselves. Think there have also been some calibration issues with the S2/S4 wheels as well, from what I’ve heard, so removing them from the equation seems to be the way to go.