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Traktor Pro feels much more intuitive than its predecessor.

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Traktor Pro is the successor to Traktor 3, and users of this version will be met with a brand new GUI on their first boot of this new software. The first thing you notice is that the waveform display has changed from a red-on-yellow overkill to a sleek light-yellow-on-lead-grey eye-pleaser.

Next big difference, and probably the biggest change in terms of functionality, is that everything associated with a deck is located around it. The Traktor 3 mentality of every aspect of each deck, apart from the most basic controls, being displayed on the top panel is no more.

Thank God for that too - the last thing you want from DJ software is confusion, and anyone who's used Traktor in the past will know that the Page layout was far from ideal in a live situation.

Now, your loops (which we'll talk more about later), BPM grids and cue lists (which have become much more advanced) are all controlled from the layout surrounding the waveform.

Moving to the mixer and, before you even read a single word, the size difference is immense. In fact, everything in Traktor Pro's new GUI is bigger. Again, it's not rocket science that you need to be able to clearly see everything that's going on in a dark club at 3am after many drinks

In creating this new mixer, it feels and looks like NI took all of the user-feedback as well as their own technical knowledge and combined the two very successfully. In a space previously occupied by the EQ and Master effects parameters now lies a 3-band EQ, a Key knob for transposing and a very convenient one-knob filter – a blessing when limited knobs are available on your chosen hardware controller.

Effects

The effects remain up top, but there's only one page and the new effects routing system provides each channel with FX 1 and 2 buttons. Simply put: the 1 button routes the channel to FX1 and the 2 button routes the channel to FX2. That said, there's no stopping you routing one channel to two effects sections for multiple effects on one signal path.

The familiar four-knob-four-button effects section remains, but with new all-important Advanced and Chained modes.

Advanced gives you the familiar effect section: select an effect and its parameters appear. Chained mode is where it gets interesting: this lets you 'chain' three effects together in one section with a simple Dry/Wet control for each effect.

Essentially, this means you can have up to six effects at once per channel. That's a lot of sound control. To top things off, there are now 20 effects to choose from, as apposed to the five in Traktor 3. There are some great additions too, including Iceverb, Gater and Mulholland Drive.

It sounds as if the effects are running behind the sound, rather than over-bearing it, which keeps things flowing (in fact, this seems to be the ethos behind the new Traktor). What's more, you can now save your effects settings as a snapshot that loads automatically when you select that effect – a feature sorely missing from T3.

Below the effects, the Browse and Search section has had a makeover, too, incorporating much bigger font sizes for track names and an eye-pleasing cover art addition, designed to make it feel like you're looking through a CD/vinyl box.

We're not sure how much DJs care about this, but it's a nice touch all the same and adds more chic and colour to an already stylish new look.