Traktor S4 - Most Stable laptop/tablet solution for heavy use with 4 decks?
Hey peeps!
I've had an S4 MK1 for 10 years and so far, running it on a Macbook, it's never crashed or failed in practice or at a gig. (Macbook Pro, 15" 2.3ghz i7 16GB DDR3 on high sierra)
However, I'm looking at buying another laptop or tablet to run traktor S4.
The Macbook is big, expensive, needs to be plugged in whilst in use and if it fails, I have no spare system to run Traktor with.
I would love to try out a Windows OS with Traktor, since I could use the laptop/tablet for other things. But the following things concern me about Windows...
Windows running 4 decks on Traktor:
- I've seen it crash during other people's sets (not responding, forcing to shut down)
- I've heard audio cut out for split seconds of silence during sets, but not crash entirely
- People say you can mess about with the settings in Windows to prevent background tasks from causing traktor to crash, but I've tried that and I had no end of hassle trying to stop it from crashing. I'm savy, but not a programmer or computer geek.
Mac OS running 4 decks on Traktor:
- Limited to Mac OS compatible software only (its only advantage is to run Traktor stable)
- They cost a fortune
- At any point, a mac can fail beyond repair and then you're forced to by a new one (this happened with my last mac, which cost £2600 new, 3 months out of warranty for replacement & was deemed unrepairable.)
- It runs Traktor S4 with 4 decks, you can get as technical as you like and it never crashes.
- My previous Macbook could handle about 9 hours on the battery alone - but the graphics card failed and it never worked again.
It'd be great to hear some suggestions in order to help make my setup more compact. But in the past, I've had to send back equipment after testing it at home to realise some Windows laptops just couldn't perform well enough to run 4 decks simulataniously for long periods of time.
So if you know of systems, Mac or Windows, which can run 4 decks with no hiccups, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Ideally something no bigger than 13" would be great, or 14" tablet, I could imagine it'd need a decent processor i5 minimum and hopefully, long battery life for on the go.
I've seen Lenovo Yogas and Surface Pros & wondered how well they perform, but if anyone's already been through this research and can point me in the right direction I'd be very appreciative :-)
Thanks!
Neil
Comments
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Why not buy a secondhand Macbook (Pro) 13"? I have no issues with Windows, but for playing out with Traktor I always use my trusty Macbook Pro 13", it's stable as hell.... You can find refurbished or second hand models for very decent prices. 8GB should be enough imho.
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If you consider Win, I would have a look at notebooks with AMD Ryzens - 6th (6xxx) or 5th generation (5xxx). They are more stable and do not need so much power comparing to Intels. Easier to cool them and longer battery life (mainly 6th gen).
I cannot recomend particular notebook, as I do not use notebook, but miniPC.
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Thanks for the headsup there. How well does your Macbook Pro 13" handle 4 decks running simultaneously?
I've heard that with a 13" i5 macbook, it managed 2 decks fine but started to lag when using 4 decks.
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Cheers, I'll have a look at those. Ideally I'd like to see what people have already use successfully with traktor on 4 decks, as I've bought great windows machines in the past, of which still crashed during practice, so I had to send them back.
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I use 10 years old DELL (i7 4C/8T) and no crashes with Traktor on Win7. I use Traktor 2.
Generally, it is better to have Win Pro, not Home and notebook with decent cooling. So, no ultrathin.
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I have 2015 13” MacBook Pro. Works great with 4 decks, or stems, remix decks. So stable. I stream twice a month.
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Thats great to hear! Thanks. what Processor is it? i5?
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Thanks Kubrak. It's good to see it withstands the strain of 2 decks, but ideally I'd like to know about how certain OS's and machines cope with 4 decks in use, as I understand this can be considerably more CPU heavy. I'll take note of what you say about Win Pro, and be sure it provides a decent cooling mechanism. & yes, from what I know ultrathin aren't designed for high CPU usage in most circumstances. More just aimed at office yuppies who want a swish looking machine which they can go online with. I guess
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Not 2 decks, four. But it is Traktor 2, not Traktor 3, if that matters.
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I5. 500gb SSD
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XMG DJ15 or XMG Audio. good hardware/software combo.
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Thanks, yeah it's just on 4 decks which interests me. I only run Traktor 2 also. For me, if it works, don't change it :-)
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Thanks. Have you ever used external storage HD with it? I also wonder how that would cope.
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No I haven’t to be honest. I still have over 100gb left.
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Base model Macbook air M1. 8gb memory 256gb ssd ......cheapest deal I could find when I brought it in January was from Amazon (UK)
Music on a Samsung T5 external SSD, controlled with a S4 Mk3
Traktor still needs to run via Rosetta, but it's working absolutely fine for me.
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