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In use

So, you get it – it looks great, but does it all work like it's supposed to? In short: yes. The interface has removed the visual confusion of previous versions and you are free to be creative.

The Cue Point section now sits happily below the track waveform rather than being buried in a Page up top. For those of you who shied away from using these in previous versions, you'll be happy to hear that, not only is their new location one hundred-times better, but they've also developed a new technique: quantise.

Each cue point can be quantised to a value of 1, creating seamless track jumps – not unlike another 'live' software package we know and love. You can store up to eight cue points per track these can be configured either before your set or on the fly.

We did have some problems with Traktor's BPM detect when we first started loading up tracks. It was convinced that our 128bpm four-to-the-floor tracks were 60-something bpm.

After some fiddling around, we found the 'x2' button, and we were rolling again. Thankfully, once you correct the bpm, it won't get it wrong again for that track.

Another issue we had was, when using a low-latency and searching through a track using Vinyl mode, we got a lot of crackling if another deck was playing. The latency had to be set quite high (over 20ms) for the crackling to stop. Not a huge issue, though, and it's likely to be user-specific (for this review we were using a 2GHz MacBook with 2GB RAM running OS X 10.5.5).

When it comes to hardware control, NI has included a bunch of pre-mapped TSIs (previously TKSs) for the most popular controllers out there. We tested the Behringer DDM4000 TSI with relative success, although the mappings were a bit awkward. However, the TSIs save a lot of time and are definitely adequate starting points.

Speaking of settings, NI have introduced Import and Export functions. Export saves every setting of your preferences (soundcard, latency, mappings, browser and deck settings etc) to a tiny file which you can then bring to the pre-installed laptop in the club.

Summary

The important thing to stress about this update is that it makes you feel comfortable. NI has done their usability homework and it's paid off in spades. It's a natural progression from the previous version, and a step in the right direction for Traktor and digital DJing in general. Traktor fans – get it. Now.

Hear Traktor Pro's Iceverb, Gater and Transpose effects: