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Everything a digital DJ could ask for.

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Another trick not possible with records is that you can set a loop, and then spin that vinyl back as it loops indefinitely. Chuck in NI’s quality filters and effects and the system can even serve as a sound editing tool. You can also route your mixer’s sends into the software and apply the effects to your music vinyls and CDs too.

With the in-built recorder and capacity to play back high-quality 24-bit and 32-bit audio formats, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use it in your productions. After all, the Audio 8 DJ boasts 24-bit/96kHz audio and high-grade Cirrus Logic A/D and D/A converters. It’s a serious interface, for sure, with eight inputs and outputs, MIDI ports, status LEDs and a headphones out. There’s also a ground lift and rumble filters for your decks, and it’s clearly built to last. If you only want the interface, you can get it for £300, and, conversely, if you buy a ‘Traktor Scratch Certified’ integrated mixer/interface, you can get the software, vinyls and CDs as an upgrade kit, making a full setup.

Waveform

One of the greatest luxuries of most digital mixing systems is the ability to see the waveform on the display screen. Whilst this is a very useful aspect of Traktor Scratch, we can’t

help but feel that this feature could be better implemented. It’s great that NI have included the option to alter the colour of the waveform, and that there’s a zoom function, but it

would be much more useful if you could blow the whole thing up even bigger.

Some of the buttons and fonts could also benefit from being larger or clearer, and even the largest of the available fonts just isn’t quite big enough for our tastes. Also, there will no doubt be some of you who are wondering why there are only two decks when software DJing has the potential to allow us to work with more. However, the fact that these are the biggest gripes that we have with Traktor Scratch should tell you that overall this is a very enticing package for the modern DJ.