Because Life’s Too Goddamn Short

I shelled out for a copy of Traktor 2.5, academically priced (gonna make the most of that schoolin’ while I can). It sure ain’t perfect, but it’s conducive to me getting my mix on. With Ableton Live I needed about a four hour block to map out an hour long mix before even running through it. In Traktor, I need maybe half an hour, if that.

Live is still a better choice (really, the only choice) for people doing complex mixes with multiple tracks + samples + effects, or realtime remixes of their own work incorporated into DJ sets. If I was more serious about DJing and music-making it’d be worth the time in spades. But mixing is relaxation for me when I get the chance to do it, so a tool that I don’t have to fight with is the tool I’m using.

I’ve been playing with Traktor via an Evolution X-Session UC-17, which is an adequate MIDI controller but no replacement for a DJ mixer; its layout in no way reflects the decks-plus-mixer interface of Traktor. But at the end of the day the X-Session is a bank of knobs and a crossfader, which gets the job done of controlling (and, by extension, recording) all of Traktor’s MIDI-assignable functions. In using a MIDI controller you may lose the familiarity of a DJ mixer, but you gain control of some of Traktor’s added goodies like looping and filters.

What would be ideal, of course, is a real DJ mixer that also sends MIDI data out from its knobs and sliders. The gorgeous Allen & Heath Xone 92 fits that bill, but is hideously expensive. The Traktor community talks endlessly about custom controllers but little has surfaced, unsurprisingly. I’ll continue to use the X-Session in lieu of a real mixer or specialized controller, but if I had cash burning a hole in my pocket just a little smaller than the Xone 92 I’d think about one of these. I’ve always wanted that mixer, digital mixing or not.

At any rate, it’s nice not to lay warp markers until my hands ache.