Why can’t we use our iphones to get extra screens like the S8?
After searching on google I discovered that a member here was able to have track name and some info displayed on a little led display via midi. If traktor is sending that info out to the screens on the S8 why can’t they be hijacked to a smartphone with something like touchosc?
Because NI cant monetize that.
No, really. They have very little interest in features that they cant sell as an update.
My perfect DVS system would be piping Traktor browser info to an app on my ipad, so i can close the laptop.
They refuse to open up HID, so no one can develop for it. Someone would have to go to massive job of reverse engineering it.
They want you to buy the S8, or they want to hear you want it, so they can develop and sell a SX1. (X1 with a screen from S8)
NI could do so many great things, but the developers dont run the show anymore.
Shows no vision. I’ve bought both ios versions even though I don’t use them. I just wanted to play around on them. Surely there is a lot more money in apps than S8s. Apps could be used by every user out there instead of just their top of the line controllers. Complete and utter silliness.
Probably wouldn’t hurt the used market for their gear either. Silliness
I just read a thread from 2011 here at djtechtools where a guy found the midi codes that traktor sent out a non-traktor controller that was usually hidden and able to get basic info like song name displayed on a lcd. Hopefully some wizz kid out there does it. I’d pay $20 easily for an app like that.
Somethings are just so right to do that as a business not to do them is just nasty, sorry but that’s how I feel. Can’t claim to be the future of DJing if you’re holding it back.
Reasonable, incremental updates isn’t sandbagging. They’re still pushing things faster than pioneer, denon, serato, or anyone else.
Maybe there is some technical reason or crazy cost involved that I can’t imagine, what I imagine is that it would be a pretty straight forward thing. I mean I don’t know if they could give us a wave form with lag issue or not but track info bpm such
And rapidly burning through goodwill by releasing more and more half assed software. Im a big fan of NI, but their support response to the bugs in Traktor 2.7.1 has really disappointed me. Theyve essentially made up stories to cover their ass about breaking major file support, and have given no timeline for a fix.
Serato have an ipad companion app. Traktor doesnt, but so easily could. They could easily make a Maschine deck. But they dont want to. They could easily open up the HID protocol so third parties can use the data for piping song info around, but they dont want to.
They released Maschine 2.2 today, with the chord and arp updates. It allows you to press pads, and play chords on a scale, or an arp.
If you want to use these features on a keyboard in Maschine, you must buy a Komplete Kontrol Keyboard. Normal midi keyboards will not work.
This is a new level of bloody mindedness.
Its been discussed extensively. NI treat HID like an proprietary protocol. They want to control it, and build the devices that use it, or forge partnerships with other manufacturers like Denon etc. Its completely about monetising the platform. Ive got no problem with that, but they just refuse to engage the community in any way apart from marketing.
I hear what you’re saying, still believe they would make more money buy selling a companion app. In fact I bet some S8 users would buy it.
I hope youre right, and they do this.
I somewhat agree with you, but I also kind of understand it. They’ve got a very walled-garden approach to a lot of what they do. And, I’m actually not an NI fan. I’m a Traktor fan. Everything else they make…I could easily live without. The only reason I don’t is that I already own some of it. I wouldn’t buy anything else again.
I swore them off from the production side of things a while ago because of how stupid it is that so many of their plugins have to be hosted in guitar rig. I just kept forgetting to sell my Maschine mk1, and now it’s not worth anything. Maybe I’ll get around to it eventually. But, now they’re playing catch-up with Push…which is and probably will continue to be a better product (you get what you pay for). I still use it, but I don’t like it.
As far as I know, they dropped all of the guitar rig hardware because no one bought it. But, their effect plugins still need it for some stupid reason.
Maschine got popular because it was the first thing of it’s kind in a lot of ways, and Akai really missed the boat in failing to crush them (everyone expected the MPC Renaissance to completely kill Maschine).
The synths and sampled instruments and stuff…some people love them. I guess I haven’t payed attention because I’m not one of them. I’m convinced the fact that you can buy something called Komplete is the basis of their success.
There’s also the relatively open platform of Reaktor that a few people take advantage of.
And OMG Battery sucks.
I guess I just don’t expect more from Traktor because most of the new things in the entire DJ gear industry just aren’t that impressive.
NI is still trying to match what Live could do better years ago, at least when it comes to the live remixing thing. But live kinda sucks at just playing tracks. I mean…it can do it. I could drop Traktor from my setup tonight and be back to performing the same sets by this weekend. But, I’ve don that. And, it wasn’t as much fun. Traktor is kind of the stand out to me, despite what you call failings.
Pioneer? Heh…a sync button and decks that share tracks? Welcome to amateur software from 2002.
Rane? I love my 2016, but…it’s design hasn’t changed in a decade or so. Most of their mixers were designed by giving LSD to chipmonks and letting them poop ranbows on good mixer designs.
Technics is dead.
Vestax is dead.
Ecler might be dead.
And as far as the failings…
What would a companion app do? Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in America who hates tablets and thinks they should die. I’ve owned a couple and kinda not hated them…but I’d always rather have a laptop. Actual buttons are better than virtual ones. Period. But, seriously, what would it do? Show the same information that’s already on a laptop screen…on a smaller screen that you have to hold and look down at (as opposed to looking over at a basically vertical laptop screen)? Or controls that are better done with actual physical knobs or buttons…or whatever goofy sensor and arduino based thing you can dream up? A 7" touch screen that can only communicate over wifi, a translation app, and a virtual midi cable is really better?
A maschine deck sounds cool…until you realize that Maschine’s navigation is already so incredibly convoluted and layered that restricting it to something the size of a traktor deck would make the computer side of it unusuable. Traktor and Maschine already sync up just fine with a MIDI clock, and you can route audio between them with Jack if you want to. It works just fine unless you want to scratch what you’re making…but scratching while digging around in Maschine’s convoluted interface is not my idea of a good time.
Besides, people largely don’t know how to use remix decks yet…maschine decks would be even more confusing and still limited compared to the whole thing. And it’ll happen eventually anyway. I was excited when I first heard someone mention the idea, but…meh.. It reminds me of Bridge…awesome idea, probably some cool stuff there…but most of the world doesn’t care.
For that matter…all of this is so far beyond anything I’ve seen anyone (other than Richie Hawtin and Sasha) do live in a club that it’s hilarious you think it’s sandbagging.
With the whole industry being stagnant for the last several years, I don’t think NI has any reason whatsoever to release things just because they can. Not when they essentially have no viable competition and people aren’t even caught up to what Traktor does now. Plug-ins to replace their dated and generally blah effects would be awesome, but that introduces even more compatibility issues that I’m sure they don’t want to deal with.
But, if you really want something that’s open and hackable, check out Mixxx.
No, I don’t use it. But, I can tell you that everything you’re asking for is possible with it…you just have to make it happen. There is beauty in open source…as long as you actually can or want to do it yourself.
I started out on Mixxx. But after many hours of trying to get basic midi mapping working, i just bought Traktor. It was a bargain compared to the time I would have spent getting Mixxx configured.
Dont get me wrong, I really like both Traktor and Maschine. Im more than happy with the value I have gotten out of both the hardware and software, as I bought it for what they did at the time, not what they might do in the future.
But i feel that NI is turning from a company that is passionate about turning out good tech, to a company that is focussed on putting out ‘good enough and only slightly broken’ software to sell the new hardware.
ALAC support has been broken for a month now and counting. The last response from NI was that they dont have a timeline for a fix, as they dont know how complicated the problem is. Something that should have been caught immediately in testing resulted in the breaking of a major file format.
As far as a tablet app, I just want to pipe track info/browsing to as small a screen as possible. From the beginning, I wanted to use my DVS exactly as the DJs i enjoyed back in the 90s did. So even though they are digital files, there is no computer assistance or extra info of any kind. If I could put a 5 inch screen on my turntables /mixer with this info, id be more than happy. I spend %95 of my time looking at mixer knobs, or the TTs.
I dont mind walled gardens. Im an apple user even though i manage PCs for a living, and it works fine for me. Im beginning to wonder if NI want to take me further into their garden than im willing to go. 
I want play list window and bpm or % for pitch. That’s all I ask for.
When I first got SSL, I didn’t have the space for a laptop. A long USB cable and a side table worked, and I couldn’t see it while spinning. I don’t know why doing that now is a big deal.
As for ALAC…meh. Batch convert them all to AIFF and copy the metadata over. ALAC hasn’t really gotten enough real, widespread adoption for my taste, so I never really used it. I tried FLAC for a while too. But, I kept running into media players that wouldn’t play one or the other, probably because Apple keeps screwing with the core audio standard.
As for the bugs…idk. I’m on 2.7.1 and I have no problems with OSX ML. I’m honestly not sure what the bugs are except for a few people complaining about hi-DPI displays and scaling…which doesn’t make sense to me. I thought the point of hi-DPI displays was to use them as hi-DPI displays and not scale UI elements.
Check out this guy’s app Reality Augmenter:
You can select custom pieces of app UI (in my case used for the SDJ FX panel and wave form, but no reason why you couldn’t do it with bits of the Traktor UI) and output them to a different place on screen.
Using Airdisplay for IOS you can extend your desktop screen to an iPad or iPhone and then drag these duplicate UI pieces to that screen. Bam… screens for your controller 
The latency is so so but to check which song is loaded to a deck or which FX is selected its great. The app itself did crash for me a couple of times but that was when I was mucking around with all the settings and it didn’t effect SDJ itself (on Mavericks).
Also for FX selecting with SDJ its not so great because the drop down menu will go off the screen, one can get around this by having a button somewhere to select which effect directly though.
Beisi that’s an awesome idea, actually did read that thread but at the time I couldn’t for the life of me think of a use.
Ive actually been using Splashtop on my ipad like this for a while.
But its a workaround, and Id like to see a native app.
I tried splashtop but I didn’t like it, if we could have a true custom layout then it would be fine.
If i convert I lose my entire traktor collection. All history, cuepoints, loops, gain settings, and playlists. All have to be rebuilt from scratch. For 1000 songs. I also dont want two copies of my songs, so my 250gb library will now be closer to a GB. This means I have to upgrade drives all the way from my dj laptop to my desktop to my server, to my backup drive.
Yep. That’s the other reason I don’t bother with compressed formats. I can’t for the life of me understand why Traktor/Live/PT/whatever would stop supporting uncompressed audio.
Mac only. Meh.