)The stated idea of the screens is to stop you having to look at your laptop quite as much. You would need a crowbar and Vaseline to accommodate the S8.I hope Novation reads this and seriously considers a Twitch MKII and resolves the short comings of the S8. And what I saw Phil do to adjust BPM’s looks tedious.
You can, of course, use timecode vinyl or CDs if you want to do scratching, old-school beatmixing and so on away from the touchstrips and Remix Decks. This toggle lets you look at decks C and D on the bottom fifth of the screens (only very basic information), but it’s well implemented, and coupled with a nifty shortcut on the performance pads that means you can easily trigger two samples of a Remix Deck assigned to those decks, means you don’t have to leave decks A and B (typically playing full tracks) to trigger Remix Deck loops and samples. I’d say their confidence is high. It’s currently state-of-the-art.
3. Until the Traktor software handles “elastic” beatgridding (the ability to beatgrid tracks that aren’t electronic, basically), this will be a deal-breaker for some DJs.But let’s assume you’re happy beatgridding in advance, your music is suitable for the way Traktor does that, and sync is fine by you: Here stuff gets much more fun. If that’s possible Im really into this!The reviewr need to make something clear for buyers. Delete the original “Traktor.Kontrol S4 MK3” default mapping or other older versions of this mapping (“Edit… -> “Delete”). I like how sturdy and flexible it is as a stand alone.
This is a shame, and could be easily rectified I’m sure in firmware and with a config option in the software.For manual beatmatching, if you disengage sync it’s all easy enough, notwithstanding the fact that you need to press two buttons and a knob to change the BPM, but as is probably becoming clear to you now, manual beatmatching using the hardware supplied is not top of the list for Native Instruments on the S8. Look elsewhere, it’s not for you, at least not right now.Finally, the price.
NS7 ii would be easy answer but those 2 things make me think should i get S8? It does not take long also makes mixing a little more accurate without necessarily being totally synced in. If you are using the S8 your only option really is Traktor. They can be used for classic jog wheel control, or switched into a beatgrid adjustment mode for quickly setting and correcting the beatgrid of tracks. To have it baked into the S8 is definitely interesting. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The issue I have with it (apart from the fact that it appears entirely unnecessary) is that the first thing it always tells you is that it has failed to update itself.
Finally, “shift” and the touchstrip is a fast track scrub, with the small blue / orange LEDs above the touchstrips showing you your track position.The mixer is great. Again, seriously consider it (even though many a scratch DJ would baulk at the width of the thing for having turntables on either side).
A notable thing here is that Midi in and out have been retained; Native Instruments clearly wants you to think of this unit as part of a wider ecosystem of its products, current and future.For the uninitiated, Native Instruments has a “ServiceCenter” that it forces you to install alongside the Traktor software. It’s not exactly cheap, is it?
I like the full colour display, but the cluster of tiny buttons around it would annoy me to no end.
Buy a Traktor Kontrol S8 and you’ll still be using it in five years’ time in ways you probably haven’t thought of now, I’m sure of that. Wing Fender - $52.95. Combined with the Flux mode, of course, you can recreate loop roll effects easily enough with this.One thing I couldn’t find was manual looping here, which is a shame if it indeed doesn’t exist (by this I mean the ability to define your own in/out points regardless of beatgrid analysis). You can even save FX “snapshots” for frequently used settings, which is cool.With key, this all works great, but with BPM I found it convoluted.
I like to do lots stuff to make my night special so those would be very nice and i also like that freeze/slicer mode. via the control elements (knobs, buttons, faders) of a hardware DJ controller.
It is effectively two F1s as well as all the other functions of a DJ controller in one box.
But it maybe a feature I wont use.And what’s up with the small buttons?!
Having said all of that, the configuration wizard got me to a working set of decks fast enough with no extra audio configuration necessary, although it did seem to have decided that I was using DVS and plonked a pair of decks right there on the screen. And it works out of the box with Traktor DVS. And apart from the currently limited library display (genre and comments at least, please, NI! Please help. CDJ’s audio and audio from Traktor they will not sync automatically, manual matching is your only option there. Don’t make it Big. Indeed, there’s a settings button that lets you tweak the red, green, blue and brightness of the screens, right there from the front panel. I mean like those functionalities you mention like sorting libraries can be done before the set.Sorry for all the questions, I’m new at controllers but this one really amazed me, seems like quite a piece of art and opens so many live mixing possibilities.Well this is not a beginners controller that is for sure. Folks at NI must have really tiny fingers.As much as I love Traktor software, S8 hasn’t won me over like the Pioneer DDJ-SX or SZ.If I were Novation I’d be dropping a handy discount on the Twitch right now to shift some more units.