Traktor Pro currently comes in 2 flavors depending on the style of control you prefer, Traktor Scratch Pro and Traktor Pro, which offer DVS functionality or Midi Control respectively. Today NI announced 2 “light” versions of the software which offer the core functionality at a reduced price. The name of the new software, Traktor Duo and Traktor Scratch Duo, highlight the major difference. These new versions only offer 2 decks instead of 4 among other slight limitations. As is usually the case, we got our grimy hands on both months ago, and can give you some good insight on what they have to really have to offer.
This is a lower cost Vinyl control packaged aimed straight at competing with Serato Scratch. At $400, its a pretty good value considering that includes control vinyl, a good sound card and some nice software features. While the software may not do everything the pro version does it is still has a lot of the features you are missing in Serato like 3 independent Fx slots per deck and cover art scrolling.
Duo has the same vinyl control engine as Traktor Scratch and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the stability and responsiveness vastly outperformed my expectations. The overall feel is light years beyond vinyl control in Traktor 3. The Traktor Duo and Pro scratch system is built on a 2khz time code, which should perform better while moving the platter back and forth slowly. If the record is moving slowly, the time code moves lower in pitch and really slow movements can possibly lower the code’s frequency out of range of the software. So the idea is, make the time code 2khz (instead of serato’s 1khz) and it will pick up more movements. Your going to have to ask the real scratch artists if it actually makes a difference. What I can tell you however, is that when spinning house and electro with Duo, the record releases and cue-ups felt nice and tight.
So you have tight record control, a good audio interface (the same converters as the larger audio 8) and Traktor software all for $399. Why buy the pro version? Well, there are a lot of things missing including:
- Customizable Layouts
- 4 decks
- quantized mode
- master clock panel and options
- Choose your own EQ
- Midi Clock
- advanced fx control
- master output audio recording
- hotkey customization
- only 6 FX including Filter, Delay, Reverb, Flanger, Gater, Beatmasher
even with all of that gone, the list of cool features are still pretty long and as long as the audio 4 proves to be a reliable sound card, this package could offer the first real competition to Serato Scratch.
Release date: April 1
Price $399.00
On the midi controller side you have Traktor Duo, which replaces the LE software a step above Traktor LE, which is commonly found in midi controller packages like the vci-100. its essentially the exact same software as Scratch Duo but does not support vinyl control. So no, you cant buy the audio 4 + Traktor Duo and get vinyl control. You need to purchase the Traktor Scratch Duo package. Yes I know, its a little confusing for me too but we can figure this thing out.
The one nice thing about Duo, that LE never had was the ability to import and edit custom midi mappings. This is a major problem if you bought a controller that has LE but want to use one of Dj TechTool’s custom mappings for example. Unless your ready to upgrade to pro, nothing can be done. Hopefully Duo will become a popular option so more people can benefit from the extensive mappings available in our midi forum.
Release date: April 1
Price $119.00
I leave you with a video from DMC champs Craze and Clever rocking out on Traktor Scratch.
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