Traktor Pro gets update & new toys!
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in Music Technology
Today’s a great day for DJ’s! As a bonus for all Native Instruments fans spinning DJ software Traktor, there’s a new Vs 1.2 update available right now that offers much improved performance capabilities and for ‘Pro’ package users, 3 great new effects to play with. With the optimisation aspects relevant to all versions, Pro, Duo, Scratch, Scratch Duo and LE, this free update offers some fine tuning that will meet the ever increasing feature demands of today’s digital DJ’s.
Pro users have their effects armoury boosted to 24 plug ins with the addition of a Beat Slicer, Formant Filter and a Peak Filter. With 3 different effects chainable per unit, the creative possibilities are literally endless. I’ve had some great fun with Traktor Pro’s single and stacked effects options, often with creative results surpassing a ‘DJ mix tape’ quality and justifying transfer to a production environment within my DAW. These effects are really that good!
Especially relevant to today’s release of the CDJ 2000, Traktor now supports the HID (Human Interface Device) protocol for the Pioneer CDJ-400 and display support for the powerful Denon DN-HC4500. This alternative to basic MIDI control enables much improved sensitivity and precise control over pitch control and other parameters. It’s great don’t you think to see manufacturers working together, and not against each other for the benefit of the creative end-user?
A final main feature improvement is the new advanced ‘Élastique’ time stretching algorithm. This has been developed to accurately detect tonal and transient components in the DJ’s tracks, making the musical ‘keylock’ function sound even better than before (and I can tell you it was damn good before!). It’s good to hear that this new algorithm is also exceptionally efficient in CPU usage, so no compromising there then – excellent!
Additional Enhancements
- Drag & Drop from decks to playlist
- Two additional “favorite playlist” slots
- New “Progressive Sensitivity” option for Pitch Bend
- Customizable Cue Play button behaviour (Instant/On Release)
- Additional “Preparation List” features with diamond icons, “Append/add next” menu functions
- Adjustable “minimum playtime filter” for play count and history functions timecode
- Internal EQs enabled for external mixer mode
- New track caching technology with reduced memory footprint
- Improved Tap Tempo function
- Direct tag editing in Explorer node
- Pitch Bend controller assignable to jog wheels
- One-Click setting of hotcues
Tags: traktor duo, traktor pro, traktor scratch