Traktor and the right set-up

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Haydn
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Location: London

Traktor and the right set-up

#1 Post by Haydn » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:06 pm

Sorry if some of this has been posted before ...

In the March 2008 'Hey Mister Jesse' podcast, Jesse and Manu both praised Traktor DJ software. They said it was stable, worked on PC and Mac, and more or less did everything they wanted.

So a question for Traktor users - in addition to Traktor itself, what else would one need for a good set-up.

I'm thinking of -

- Computer memory
- Sound output for 'master' and 'preview' with headphones
- Other hardware (controller?)

(NB: Personally, I use Macs)

pompommono
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#2 Post by pompommono » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:55 am

Hey there,

I have an intel MBP and use traktor. So here's my setup.

OSX 10.4
2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB memory
Native Instrument Audio Kontrol for audio interface

I also run smcFancontrol to cool down my MBP since my version of Traktor is not native intel binary version. It does tend to run hot on my MBP after an hour or so. And if my MBP over heats it will crash Traktor. Luckily, it only crashed Traktor twice sooo... it's pretty stable.

Traktor came out with a newer version couple of month ago that's universal binary, so it should not over heat. (Hm.. maybe I should upgrade!)

Sometimes you can get deals where you buy the Audio Kontrol and it comes with Traktor. That's how I got mime when I purchased 'em at Guitar Center.

Anyway, hope that answers your question :D

straycat
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Location: Durham, UK

#3 Post by straycat » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:44 am

pompommono wrote:Hey there,

I have an intel MBP and use traktor. So here's my setup.

OSX 10.4
2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB memory
Native Instrument Audio Kontrol for audio interface

I also run smcFancontrol to cool down my MBP since my version of Traktor is not native intel binary version. It does tend to run hot on my MBP after an hour or so. And if my MBP over heats it will crash Traktor. Luckily, it only crashed Traktor twice sooo... it's pretty stable.
I got an Audio Kontrol 1 a little while back, which comes with Traktor LE - found a relatively cheap one on eBay. The AK1 I love, but wasn't so hot on Traktor LE - partly because I wasn't keen on the interface, partly because I have a few iTunes DRM tracks which it wouldn't play, but mainly because of the crashes - after the first couple I went looking elsewhere. Nowadays I'm on Megaseg. Still love the AK1 though.

Haydn
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Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

#4 Post by Haydn » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:30 am

pompommono wrote:It does tend to run hot on my MBP after an hour or so. And if my MBP over heats it will crash Traktor. Luckily, it only crashed Traktor twice sooo... it's pretty stable.
Over-heating and crashing? Oops :shock:. I guess this is a problem because laptops don't like running too hot, and it does tend to get hot at dances. When Traktor crashes, what do you do? Switch to CDs?

pompommono
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#5 Post by pompommono » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:39 pm

Yea... I use CDs when Traktor crashes. But only twice! I always have a CD in the mixer just in case if there's something wrong with the song or I just can't think of anything or if I really gotta go to the bathroom and didn't have time to think of what to play next...

And when it crashes, all I needed to do is restart the program and everything is fine. So that's probably like 10-20 seconds?

Traktor haven't crashed on me since I upgraded my memory to 2G and running the computer with the Smart Fancontrol. I have even tested it with playing on 2 decks and previewing simultaneously and that doesn't crash the program.

So it's good.

I think that Traktor is a bit over kill for DJing swing music... it's got tones of options and capabilities that I don't use. Like having 4 decks, beat matching cross fading and all that... Traktor also try to calculate the BPM of songs. Most of the time it doesn't work on Jazz music, but I guess it's really useful for those "Boom-Boom" DJs

Another good Djing software that's great and easy to use for Macs is DJ1800, it looks just like a Denon! You can just drag and drop your music from iTunes into DJ1800

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