Messages from TRAKTOR
Comments
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Quote Owner (since context/selection quoting is still not functional here):
"all the new features that have recently been introduced are not finished in my opinion. Smart Playlists and the Browser Improvements come to my mind first. Parallel Waveforms before. for me both only half-finished things."
I can fully sign this.
I need long promised shortcomings fixed, not streaming, not a new filter/fx.
Those shortcomings for me is metadata i/o (custom & multi-value field support), the long promised browser/library overhaul (while taking modern metadata features on board, and embedding this into the library/browser/playlist workflow) as well as smart playlists makign use of modern metadata features as well as 'currently playing track', without the last, a smart playlist system is less than half-implemented in my book...
So fingers crossed we'll get to see what was done on the last 4 months of silence soon, and it actually is some of those top 3 topics (i.e. -> https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/traktor-3-5-2-297-released-on-native-access.463005/#post-2141807). Can someone tell me what Ray's removed post says
c.
Cheers.
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Hi @Owner , thanks for your question directed at me. No, I'm not planning to answer every individual question here moving forward. As you're rightfully assuming and as @Matt_NI stated, I wouldn't have the bandwidth to do that and it's not what I'm supposed to do - it's the Community Team's (Matt, Kai, Nico) role to be present here and steer the day to day discussions.
That said, I'll certainly take the freedom to check in frequently here, read your comments, and contribute occasionally also on top of the promised quarterly update - because I appreciate everyone's contribution here and I understand the frustration. And I consider the conversation as valuable input for our work. Same is true for my colleagues from Traktor @Friedemann @ NI , @Michael K @ NI and others - one of us will check in with you frequently here on top of the Community Team. If not me, then another colleague.
On the product feature request side, we're aware of everything you all mention here, and within the boundaries of our possibilities as Team Traktor, we're working everyday to deliver as much as possible of your requests according to the surveys. Also, the 'chaos' as mentioned by @Matt_NI that was induced by all the recent company changes explains a lot of the perceived silence/reduced speed you're all referring too.
Today, in Berlin at least the sun is shining and we love what we're doing: working on/discussing about DJ gear. So let's close the week with some positivity. Sending you all warm regards and wishing you a good weekend - keep the music going and till soon!
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I unfortunately see the same pattern with Maschine software: no incremental improvements to speak off, even though they have been requested over and over again for 10+ years, but a new auto-sampler. In my experience with software-engineering this means that it's to hard/expensive to touch the existing codebase, and it's easier to build new things. Which is a bad place to be, unless you start new all over again, and build a new product/platform/generation from scratch, and make sure it's maintainable in the future. It's a pattern at NI, and a bad one.
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Matt, I wasn't aware that i had posted something disrespectful.
What i was hinting at is the extremely short-sighted way the post was "cancelled". There are many other forums and groups including the one I run where censorship isn't a thing. He didn't swear ...* ******* ******* are just stars. He rightly showed his frustration because this isn't new, some of us have been around since the beginning of Traktor and before and most of the issues have been around since then.
The browser (smart lists, metadata etc.) needs priority number 1 tattooed on your eyeballs, it's constantly being ignored, yet we hear lipservice every time the point is raised.
The gridding needs overhauling because it doesn't fit so many genres, even just tempo markers that switches tempo, if elastic grids can't be done.
I have done multiple surveys in my 11.5K user group ....drum machine was never requested, however 86% did request gridding / browser or both. This seems as you've seen the results and ignored them because you want to release hardware ..... Remember the S3 ...
With that said, i'll be off back to my group and I hope you open up channels with Ray or better still give him the job of steering your mastless ship back to port ! He has way more knowledge that your current product designers it seems.
✌ peace.
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The ability to create a point in a track which tracks how far we are from there in bars/beats would be perfect in future Traktor Pro and I guess it can be made easily. Double dropping music is much easier this way.
Also a standalone Traktor Hardware (like in Maschine+) is a must in today's DJ controller scene, possibly with at least 2 USB in-out ports.
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Thanks for the communication Matt...
The inconsistencies of sharing product roadmap info across different NI categories brought me into this Traktor section and I don't even own this product.
The most recent information from Pedram was very enlightening and I hope what he said about modernizing the Codebase and exciting future hardware applies to all product categories.
Komplete Kontrol seems to be getting short-changed a bit in the sharing of info from NI voices.
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You can already set up Traktor to show the distance to the next cue in beats and bars. Sadly, it also automatically includes Grid Markers.
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Hi NI - I don't post often, but wanted to let you know that I think Traktor is a great piece of software. I did the survey and suggested you replace the F1 with Maschine -- that would be a true integration, so hopefully you do some of that.
As for hardware, a lot of users were hoping for an F1 MK2 (or a slimmed down Maschine Micro MK3), and an updated Z1 (4 channel). I know you can't let out your secrets, but I believe you can do a sstand alone traktor controller that rivals your competitors with true integration.
I look forward to the new products.
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🤣🤣🤣
Hello everyone, as always, there are still a lot of questions, but apart from white noise in this thread, I don’t hear anything else.
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Good morning everyone, just wanted to use this opportunity to also introduce myself in the new forum. My name is Michael and I m overseeing the design department for Traktor.
@leesinthemix I wanted to give a bit more background information on the drum machine module. We designed the module in a way that it will be very intuitive to use and really focused on the main usecases of a drum machine within a DJ performance. We also wanted this to be a feature that everybody can instantly start playing around with, without the need of any dedicated hardware. So you will be able to use it right away with most of our hardware products and if you are using another 3rd party controller in your setup it will also be very easily MIDI mappable (even tho i can hint that you might already have the controls mapped to your controller anyways so in this case it will also work right out of the box ;) ).
Wish you all a great start into the week.
cheers
Michael
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Sounds like updated Remix Deck. Are you going to make the Pitch Slot and Gain mappable?
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DJs, of all people, should respect the need to have bouncers. If the vibe gets bad enough, nobody shows up anymore. I haven't read the message (since it was deleted), but even though us users probably share most sentiments, not all of us enjoy needlessly abusive or threatening language. If that was the case, that ain't censorship.
That being said, if you think the deleted post had some points that are missing from the conversation, how about writing them up but with more neutral language? I'd love to hear what I'm missing, if it's not just chewing out workers at this NI company. I'm sure the board that decides budgets isn't monitoring forums, so the people you'd really need to vent at won't be reading the comments. And I don't think the budget people get messages that "bob on the internet said I had no sexual organs so we'd better fund those elastic beatgrids".
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When is that roadmap coming out? Knowing what's ahead and when (relatively speaking) would maybe tamper the worst desperation.
Last year was extra bad, with seemingly all updates focused on support for 3rd party products, and a couple of dud updates = software was the same, except when it was the same and also broken.
So the expectations are really, really low, and in that climate, you'll get a lot of users balking at the idea of paying for subscriptions.
Subscriptions might work if we knew that we were getting something radically different from day 1. But really, I think that more frequent paid updates would be preferrable. Or even the dreaded in-app purchase.
Here's why:
Many DJs are working all the time. Some of us are not. I'm 42, and not in a big city, I'll drift in and out, depending on mood, and the idea of my S4 gathering dust and also charging me subscriptions, not sexy.
I'd like to buy when I feel like buying.
I expect to pay for what I get, so those forum users that feel that they're entitled to lots of work for free, I hope you don't get the sense that developing for us at a more rapid pace is not gonna pay for itself. (this is really a jab at my fellow forum users, so that's clear).
I've gone for a lot of the subscriptions, for producing. I've had Roland Cloud for a long time, even though I hardly use it. I had Izotope's Producer thing, but since their software sucked on M1, I canceled it and I'm not going back. That's the danger in the subscription model. If you turn off the user, they're more likely to just switch to other products. But a dud update doesn't invalidate your software, you just wait for the next one and see.
But obviously, NI needs to invest first, however this goes. Traktor clearly has a funding problem. That's a corporate problem, NI's performance has been affected severely by misplaced frugality. I'm confident that Traktor can be better user-funded, but you don't want to pay first and then (maybe) get product later. I've only paid twice for traktor, in 11 years, and I think the total was like 100$. Not including hardware, of course. And the hardware is always very cheap, relative to the competition. I'd be much happier if I'd have paid more and Traktor were better. I've upgraded Komplete wayyy more.
I feel that Traktor could rule the software world (and sell more hardware) if it would invest more, scale up. Chose to be the dominant software in the way Pioneer is the dominant hardware. I can envision such a product, I hope you could too. I mean, VirtualDJ has every feature in the world, but they don't have NI's design capability, which is the reason why Traktor is still the best basic DJ software. And I think NI's sound processing still dominates. Even if it hasn't changed at all for years and years.
So the basic ingredients of traktor, but with funding that assumes much, much more income, that would make it grow in the marketplace.
But you have to invest first. Create the superior product, because we're not paying for software that doesn't exist.
Here's my wishlist:
- Something like Maschine+ in hardware, a stand-alone S4+, but with the upgrade capabilities too? New effects, and so on. That would bring in both hardware and software income streams. And Maschine+ proves you can do it.
- "Elastic beat grids" are cool. Importing Ableton warp markers is cooler.
- Stem separation is everywhere except in the stem-based controllers only NI has. Making stems for Traktor is a huuuuge hassle.
- NFTs. (joking)
- Replacing iTunes. This means a library with all the features that iTunes should have added in the last years, plus a method to use cloud software like Dropbox to sync to iOS. I currently use the Music App's cloud feature which mirrors my promos and purchases to my phone, so I can listen to and rate new tracks. There are much, much better ways of working with tags and smart playlists, and there could be ways to make browsing tracks much more natural feeling and visual, kind of like working with 12"s in crates. And Apple's offerings are really, really not made for professionals. The ideas I have are big and complicated, but probably less complicated to actually create, I'd love to talk to someone at Traktor about this.
- Collaboration with other DJ software/hardware companies on an open library standard to replace iTunes/Music App's central, neglected role. Nobody's making money off this, it's just something that might make your users hate you less. Since it's just an XML file, it shouldn't be hard either. The hard part might be to share standards with "propriatary" features like Cue points. And committing to creating a system so any additions to the spec would be shareable too. This would also open up a market for a 3rd party library program, a new iTunes, all about the type of tagging and organization DJs do. Unless Traktor would put focus there too. And it would not hurt if this would work with multiple cloud vendors like Dropbox and Google Drive so you could use this on your phone too, and also between software there. There could be profits in selling tracks or upselling streamers here too. There are angles.
- New effects. Or even effect editing. NI has all the tech, imagine if users could build effects from NI blocks and share between each other. Or sell. And you could do in-app purchases here. If it's a closed system, it should be stable.
- Some way to use your iPad as the track browser, with a more visual design, to stack up possible next tracks. You know, like that 12" crate, where you turn the album on its side so it sticks out. Getting a visceral feel for what you have ready. Honestly, I'd like to spend a few months in a lab with a programmer re-inventing browsing and flagging. Is this turning into a job application. My current job is quite nice though. But still, Berlin in the summer... *sigh*
- I had some ideas about looping to but I forgot them.
I've gotten tons of other ideas. I don't write them down anymore since I've not been optimistic about Traktor or DJ software in general.
I hope we'll see the wheels start turning, anyway.
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Sounds interesting, but will it come in the form of a separate (fifth) deck (like the Serato Sampler I mentioned, but you didn't respond to) or will it be integrated into one of the existing four decks?
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My guess is it will be it will be integrated into the existing decks. To do it any other way, the interface would need to be WAY more customizable to unclutter the screen real estate.
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