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dattrax: Just bought about 25 new tracks from www.stompy.com and www.traxsource.com + a few older tracks and then banged out this mix. 3rd track in is "In Too Deep", which is a brand new Phil Collins tribute bootleg by Toronto\'s Jason B. Happy Retirement Mr. Collins.\\xa0

Hope you enjoy this mix, loved making it. Please comment & interact with us below on any mixes that you like.\\xa0

This is the 2nd mix made with the Traktor Kontrol S4 (pictured top). 1st mix w/ S4 is "DIRECT DRIVE" below. Starting to get used to the basic functions of this gear. Pretty good response time on the jog wheels (but not precise when you release the jog wheel for cueing), and nothing beats the tactile feel of time-coded vinyl set-ups whether with Serato-Rane or Traktor Pro2 DJ systems. I also really like the feel of Numark\'s NS7, so I\'d probably like the Numark V7\'s also since they\'re a grade above NS7s.\\xa0

Native Instruments (NI) made a good product with this Traktor Kontrol S4 midi-controller and their online support is top notch. I\'m not a tech person, so had to contact them often and read 90pgs of their 235pg PDF manual. Heavy duty construction, very cool black enamel finish, rubberized EQs and EFX knobs, spacing between knobs are not too tight, and an overall larger footprint than regular controllers, which I like. Cool to have an internal soundcard that records your mix right into your computer. I can stop lugging a mini-disc player to friends\' places for a while. Still be visiting my best friend and DJ partner, Jim\'s serato-rane-vinyl set-up. Still like that best.\\xa0

My main complaint about the S4 is that the pitch/tempo faders on either side & the crossfader are plasticky and too loose- not enough tension. I mean you\'ll get used to it eventually, but not ideal. The pitch faders also need to have a longer physical range (but I guess they think not too many old school DJs like us will use and every kid in their bedroom is just going to sync everything). And although the jog wheels have a slight magnetic weighting, it\'d be cool to be able to adjust the tension. And it would be amazing to have spinning platters that are a lot bigger (at least 7inchs in diameter), but that would defeat the purpose of what they want to do in creating this product to be portable. I wouldn\'t use it to play a gig though. Good for making mixes at home, but still not trusting of fully digital systems for live events. CDs are a more sure bet for now.

I also got tons of static system pops and clicks when attached to my laptop (Intel\'s dual-core2 at 1.67GHZ w/ 3gigs of RAM, 32bit Window\'s 7- Home Edition) and this is even after following NI\'s suggestions for optimizing computer for audio DJing. So now I plug into my desktop (Intel\'s quad-core at 2.67GHZ w/ 8gigs of RAM, 64bit Window\'s 7-Ultimate) and haven\'t had a problem since.

Haven\'t used the sync, hot cues, sampling, looping or any of that extra stuff yet. Don\'t have time to finish the manual and play with those features right now. With the type of house that we spin, probably won\'t be doing too much of that stuff anyways, but it is fun to have options.\\xa0

Still having a challenge assigning the EFX boards on either top corner to any channel. Right now they are locked to one channel each side, so I can only apply three effects to each channel instead of six to either channel. I\'m sure Native Instruments will help me with that. And they also gave me a BONUS Traktor Pro 2 upgrade in early april which is super cool and worth $80USD and multiple bug fixin\' updates since I bought it a month or so ago (much appreciated NI!!). Very happy with this company, Native Instruments\' support and quality of software/hardware is top shelf. Here\'s their site: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/traktor-kontrol-s4/

Hopefully this will tie me over till I can afford a real home DJ mixing system. This will be the dream set-up: Traktor Pro 2 DJ software & convertor box, Traktor control vinyls, Pioneer DJM2000 dj mixer, 2 Technics 1200s and 2 Pioneer CDJ-2000\'s, Traktor control CDs and kick butt JBL speakers & crazy powerful desktop computer w/ huge monitor. That would probably be around $10k, so it\'s still a pipe dream. Traktor Kontrol S4 is a poor man\'s version of a dream home DJ system at 1/10 of that cost.

BTW... if you enjoy this mix, then why don\'t you buy us a beer? There\'s a PayPal DONATE button on the top right side of this website. For Toronto or Global bookings: dattrax@gmail.com