Last night I came heard about the next revision of Native Instrument’s digital DJing solution Traktor Pro and Traktor Scratch Pro. These products could as well be called Traktor 4 (as it’s the 4th version of Traktor), but because the interface is now completely redesigned, they decided to change the name aswell.
Go check the mini site and the the videos of Richie Hawtin and Grandmaster Flash talking of digital DJing
I was totally thrilled about this piece of news since I’ve been looking for some kind of solution to digitalize my DJing. If I was going to do a live performance, I’d go towards Ableton Live, that’s crystal clear. But using Ableton for DJing requires alot of warping and preparing.
With the amount of music I buy and recieve in monthy basis warping and preparing clips for Ableton use doesn’t sound too daunting.
I’ve played one one shot gig with Serato Scratch. I’ve tested M-Audio Torq and I have played some studio sets with Ableton just to try if it feels right.
Well, now things are getting really interesting. In less that 24 hours after I heard the news about NI Traktor Pro, Ableton and Serato announce a creative partnership.
After hearring a rumor of this in forums, I picked up the piece of news from Serato’s site, as there’s still no mention of it in Ableton’s site.
Serato and Ableton are happy to announce a partnership, which will pave the way for the future of Digital DJing.
While Serato’s Scratch Live excels in vinyl emulation, music library control and lightning quick hands-on scratching, Ableton Live provides the tools for production, on-the-fly remixing and beat creation.
“Ableton and Serato take different approaches to modern musical performance,” says Ableton CEO Gerhard Behles, “But both companies live by the philosophy that software should be straightforward, easy to use, and most importantly, reliable and stable onstage and in the studio. Ableton has never had an answer for the DJ who wants vinyl control, and rather than try to emulate what Serato do so well, we simply make sure that our products work well together.”
Serato Audio Research CEO Steve West agrees. “After years of talking together, we’re thrilled to be working with Ableton. It’s exciting to think about what we can offer to DJs and producers: the ability to go beyond just spinning records and add a personal stamp to the music they play.”
Just where this Serato and Ableton collaboration will take us has yet to be seen but one thing is clear: the worlds of DJing, remixing and production for artists worldwide have changes ahead.
Knowing that M-Audio is getting ready to release the next version of their digital Djing solution called Torq, things are getting really interesting.
Some DJ’s have stated they are postponing their switch to fully digital until the moment there will be “a winner” to this war of different digital platforms. I’m waiting to get these different systems to be released fully, test them around and the decide which way to go.
Things are getting even more interesting when trying to decide if to play with a vinyl control, cd control or with a midi controller or some kind of new kind of DJ controller such as the finnish EKS Otus.
I know vinyl is going to be dropped out of count when I’m deciding my method of choice to control the software as I’m been relying fully to CDJ’s for several years now. But will there be a better way to control the signal? Would there be a light weight controller that is versatile and easy to travel with and super easy to connect to the main setup of the venues.
We’ll just have to wait.
WHAT TO DO NOW?