DOWNLOAD TRAKTORPRO2 SAMPLE DECK MAPPING FOR KORG NANO KONTROL V1.1

*UPDATED* 7.11.11: I fixed one minor bug in Scene 1. Sample Deck 3 in Sample Slot 2 was missing the /2 and *2 loop length changes on the buttons. TSI is now at 1.1 inside the zip file.

Contents include the TSI to import into TraktorPro2 and a quick 2 page PDF explaining the mapping. I had to end up using two channels for a Sample Deck Slot in Traktor to get enough of the controls I wanted to tweak up font. That meant I required 2 Scenes for Deck 3 and then Deck 4. I suppose I could do some sort of lighter or basic mapping on Scene 4 as it is currently unused at the moment to fit both Sample Decks 3 and 4 .

Sample Deck Controls.

Scene 1 and 2 Control Sample Deck 3 and 4 Respectively.
Channels 1 & 2 on the Korg Nano Kontrol affect Sample Slot 1,
Channels 3 & 4, Sample Slot 2
Channels 5 & 6, Sample Slot 3
Channels 7 & 8, Sample Slot 4

Controls:
Volume
Filter Sweep
Mute/Unmute
Sample Start/Stop
Loop/1 Shot Mode
Loop Length
Double Loop Length
Half Loop
Length Reset

Channel 9, Loop Recorder

Controls: Loop Length
Dry/Wet Mix
Start/Stop of Looper
Record Loop On

The Korg Nano Kontrol’s Global Transport buttons, I mapped ‘Forward’ and ‘Record’ to Sample Deck 3 Group Play/Stop and Sample Deck 4 Group Play/Stop. These are available across any scene (1-4).

Scene 3, Clear and Load Samples and Filter On/Off
Each Channel represents one Deck’s Sample Slot. Deck 3 Slots 1-4 and Deck 4 Slots 1-4

Controls:
Filter On/Off
Store Loop In Slot
Clear Loop
Copy From Loop Recorder

The Korg’s Preset is the default mapping shipped from the factory, I did not alter any of the midi mappings using the Korg Editor at all.

Multi Touch Light Table: GERGWERK from GERG WERK on Vimeo.

UPDATE (08.14.10):
DJ Tech Tools have just published article going more in depth behind the scenes with this DJ Concept. The video is essentially a hoax and the actual audio you hearing is not tied to a fully working touch screen interface. So…. not quite there yet technologically yet.

“emulator” on töken concept from yöyen munchausen on Vimeo.

UPDATE (08.14.10):
Here’s a second video by the creator, Pablo Martin, being executed on a laptop.

I reckon it’s 1 of 1.

These Korg Monotrons are going really cheap too ($60-$80). I think I may just have to get me one to compliment my original MS-20.

Here’s Moby’s jam packed and functional studio with a mega load of Gear.
To one day be in a living situation where I’ll be able to do the same again (but on 10th a scale),
is mere fantasy right now. Much of my own gear is in dresser drawers and boxes.

We will meet again.

Anyway, Enjoy the clip.

I’ll begin posting some mix archives on here and every so often i’ll microblog to you all when I may be doing a live impromptu session here in the blancodisco.

I finally had a moment to work out a few more kinks from Mogulus’, now, Livestream broadcasting software. They have a pretty impressive array of tools. The software is now in ‘beta’ even though they offer a “Pro” version. The forums are a little light on info… as I was trying to figure out way to get express install working in case people didn’t have the right version of flash available to no avail.

I suppose my biggest technical feat was figuring out how to easily pipe in a good clean audio signal without creating an audio feedback loop. This is what I did… I took the digital optical s/pdif out of my Edirol FA-101 (it runs through a few other digital hardware boxes in my rack) and then route back into the native optical s/pdif digital input on my Mac (quad core tower). In the Audio/Midi setup under the Audio Tab, I created a new ‘aggregated device’ and simply only selected the digital input which does not have surprisingly map to the digital output. so, right here, this pretty much prevented a feedback loop with the audio occurring.

In livestream, under the audio preferences, I selected the aggregated device for my input source and adjusted the ‘mic’ level. when I went into live broadcast or record mode, i also turned off audio montioring.

Straight up: Akai APC-40, I WILL purchase for the studio. What else, build quality of the APC-40 IS totally solid. I do see complications in taking it to a gig, given the footprint of it. There’s room for Akai/3rd parties to develop a proper gig bag to hold this device along with your laptop, sound card, hard drive, cables, etc…. I reckon someobody will do this at somepoint.

Max for Live won’t come out til much later in the year. According to Dennis DeSantis, there are still many ‘kinks’ to work through.

SO basically, after you purchase from the iPhone App Store (no need to jailbreak) and install it onto your phone, you need to MAKE SURE you have a local working Wireless Connection so that the iTM DJ app can connect to your computer running Traktor (3/Pro). Or. you can use your mac’s built in airport card to ‘create network’. Give it a name..and voila…. fire up iTM DJ app on the iPhone and you should be good to go. Don’t forget to connect to this newly created network on your iPodTouch/iPhone as you may be connected to another normal wi-fi network.

HOOK UP
You will also need to download the iTouchMidi OS X app from the iTouch Midi site to your computer that will be running Traktor or the Windows version in order for your computer to complete its magic of wirless interface to virtual Midi Port/Interface. In Traktor’s Midi Setup, you will need to select ‘iTouch Midi’ as your Midi in/out Interface.

Just above is a screen shot of when you first start up the app on the iPhone, of what you see. Hopefully, you see your computer listed and you can just select your computer and then your off into the actual UI and fun of this app. The process is pretty damn simple. Launch the iTouchMidi app on your computer and then launch iTM DJ on your iPhone. It is pretty much as simple as that. It just works.

The Interface

So next up is the actual UI of iTM DJ. So this screen shot above is slightly different from the one at the top of this review in that it shows two knobs that drop down when you click on the ‘Gains’ button. Clicking the ‘Gains’ Button again and the small panel slides back up and you can fully see the volume controls for your two channels. For my own iTM DJ Templates, I’ve actually re-mapped these controls to Headphone Mix (master/pgm) and Headphone Volume inside of Traktor. I’ve also remapped the ‘EQ’ section a bit differently as well. The Deck A + B channels show 4 knobs in the interface and is quite natural for using the 4 EQ Mixer emulation, but I prefer using  3 Band EQ now as I’d rather apply the top most knob to a Filter Sweep control instead and then use Hi, Mid, Low for the 3 band EQ below that. Mapping is pretty easy in the Traktor Interface so you can modify to suit your own needs / style / use. You got two simple channel faders and 2 headphone cue controls that look fairly obvious for what they are used for. Below that are 3 controls for Load / App Settings / FX which I’ll explain a bit more in a moment. To the left and right of this you have your ‘sync’ button which will …. sync your track to the other deck. Again, obvious and then the ‘Loop’ button engages loop mode to whatever your default loop length setting is here. Unfortunately, there’s no real room here to have much more control with looping functionality like adjust size and position for instance. But, for the basics… dropping a 1 or 2 bar loop is there for you and works great to help you mix in/out of a track when looping is desired.

Transport controls and the crossfader take up the bottom portion of the iPhone’s screen real estate. The arrow buttons I believe are suppose to be mapped to ‘Tempo Bend’ forward / backward, but I suppose you could map them to other things like track seek, scratch, etc. These controls were not working properly on the iTouchMidi templates. ‘Cue’ I’ve mapped to ‘Cue/Pause’ and the ‘Play’ I’ve mapped to ‘Play/Pause’. Tapping the middle fader expands out the cross fader control. I’ve found through my use for whatever reason that even though I traditionally use a crossfader, I’m using the Channel Faders for volume instead, because, you still have access to the tempo bend buttons if your mix is starting to drift. But… if you must crossfade, it’s there and just know that you are blocked out of the other transport controls. Two small buttons appear to return you back and minimize the crossfader control. Smart.

Now, back to the Load / Settings / FX Buttons.

Clicking ‘Load’ offers up the track browsing interface and again obfuscates your transport controls. The two small up/down arrows on the left side are mapped to Traktors browser Tree..so, you can traverse through playlists, track collection, iTunes, Explorer…and the left two up/down buttons are mapped to the track selection browser. In my template, I’ve also added the ‘auto repeat’ function so if you hold down.. the selection will scroll through faster than rather having to click 1 to 1. That can be annoying when you have large playlists. Finally, you see two large ‘Load’ buttons. After finding your track in the browser, click load to load to the appropriate deck in Traktor. Right now, you have to click the small round load button below the headphones to return to the transport controls. Not that big of a deal.

The Settings button (what looks like a midi plug/logo) brings up a minimal amount of app settings.

I pretty much have left the values to their default and haven’t even bothered changing knob sensitivity. Feels pretty good as is. Click the logo again to return back to the dj mixer. And finally, there’s the FX Section.

This just replaces the 4 EQ knobs for 4 Effects knobs. Instead of being defaulted at the 12 O’clock center position, the FX Knobs default to a 7 O’clock position. For my template, I’ve mapped these as Effect knob Amount 1-4 for both decks A + B. There’s no way to enable buttons for FX that are often associated with the fx be it for Traktor 3 or Pro. A bit of a bummer, but, concessions had to be made given the small interface. I could for see dropping the Channel Faders in FX mode and adding 8 buttons instead. I may suggest this to the developer.

Conclusion
Well, that pretty much rounds up my thoughts on this nice little app. In use, I actually found it quite enjoyable to play around with. Seriously. I’ve previously used a faderfox DJ1 for many many years and this app almost totally replicates the functionality in software form. $6 vs. $250… From an economic standpoint, this app is a no brainer. If you need real tactile control..then, this app won’t work for you, but if you can deal with the touch screen control, you can dj and… do so well from the palm of you hand. If there’s a way for you to stabilize your phone/touch, you could probably muster 2 simultaneous controls in the interface, but for most of the time.. you are controlling one element at a time and you can jump around to pretty much anywhere you want with ease. The on screen display of numerical values when you move controls is a nice touch too (no pun intended). I could easily see myself in a situation where if I really didn’t want to lug my current controller of choice, the Vestax VCI-100 around, I could use this app instead as a ‘light’ alternative. It will be perfect for impromptu dj sets at the office. If you dj with Traktor and have the iPhone/Touch, I can’t hesitate to NOT recommend purchasing this app. There’s something special / cool /  geeky about being able to dj.. and dj house/techno style smoothness with this app.

Functional and Working iTM DJ Templates for Traktor 3 / Traktor Pro
iTM DJ Template for Traktor 3.4
iTM DJ Template for Traktor Pro

Blancodisco Traktor Template Control Layout
In default mixer mode with EQs…
I have the following top to bottom for Deck A + B
Knob 1 = Filter Sweep
Knob 2 = Hi EQ
Knob 3 = Mid EQ
Knob 4 = Low EQ

Gains panel been replaced with:
Left Knob = Monitor / Headphone Mix (Master / Pgm Cue blend)
Right Knob = Monitor / Headphone Volume

Transport Controls
Arrows left right are set to Tempo Bend Down /Up
Cue = Cue / Pause (no dropping of an active cue marker)
Play = Play / Pause

FX Mode / Window.
From top to bottom for Deck A + B
Knob 1 = Effect 1 Amount
Knob 2 = Effect 2 Amount
Knob 3 = Effect 3 Amount
Knob 4 = Effect 4 Amount

This will basically be the same in Pro, but depends if you are in Advanced or Chained mode. but basically controls the knob parmeters left  to right in the app and Top to Bottom mapped in iTM DJ app. I’ve already suggested the developer add 8 Buttons in place of the channel faders to give greater control. Hope to see in a future update.

Load Section
First set of up / down arrows (Left of center) browse traktor tree in left coulmn of Tratkor.
Second set of up / down arrows (Right of center) control track browse in main track selection window. added with auto repeat, so you can hold down and scroll through faster. Load buttons of course load into deck A or B.

That’s it!

My big gripe is the dropped support on initial release of the Native Mix Recorder. This is the functionality I use to record my Podcasts. It will be incorporated at some point, but just not on initial release. Shame.

Check out all the vids and stuff they made with Hawtin & Grandmaster flash and check out the warez, here:

http://www.listentopro.com

313er wrote:

Oh cool. I’ll be running it on PC, but I’ve been looking through the posts on the NI forum and it looks pretty discouraging, although 3.3 looks like it could be alright. Feature-wise it looks great it just still seems to be quite buggy. The reverse problem for instance sounds like a total mess. I just wondered if you’ve hammered it hard and how it holds up, and how it compares to Serato if you’ve used both.

I responded:

Waking up here this morning in nyc…

let’s see *sips coffee*

Traktor 3.3 is the upgrade for Traktor DJ Studio, that’s the version of Traktor that has all the bells and whistles, and, for v3.3., will finally incorporate the Traktor Scratch DVS implementation. Traktor DJ Studio had this setup for the Traktor Final Scratch partnership. Anyways, You would need to purchase BOTH systems, in order to have the Traktor DJ Studio 3.3 which encompasses everything. Sort of whacky, but, that’s the way it is. I’m fortunately, a looooOoooong time user of Traktor DJ Studio since the 2.1 days and have grown with that Product.

I decided to pick up Traktor Scratch for the following reasons. All my friends already invested in Serato Scratch, which is a GREAT product. For me, it took a little getting use to seeing Vertical Scrolling waveforms, as every other audio application in the past has had Audio Waveforms scroll horizontally, so, this was a new way to get adjusted too. As far as Scratch itself, It’s fast, Stable, CPU light, bare bones, and the software upgrades have been FREE so far. I’ve downloaded the app and have it on my laptop in case i show up to go a gig with the Hardware already installed, all i have to do is plug in the USB cable for the breakout box and I’m good to go.

Getting Traktor Scratch was a bit of a no-brainer for me. Crossgrade cost (owning traktor dj studio already) allowed me to pick up the system for about $400 USD. I basically felt like i was just picking up this great new Audio Interface, and got the software/vinyl for free. The Audio 8 interface is Awesome. I’ve even ditched my Echo Indigo DJ card i was using in my Traktor DJ Studio only sets for this audio interface instead. It just sounds awesome and is built like a tank. Comes with a nice travel bag too, so, you wont’ ding it up in your travels. The Multi-Core cables that come with the package are a great idea too. I just order a second set for the mixer portion to gig with, so, at home, i can have a nice permanent installation. The Audio 8 specs are just fantastic is well, the Cirrus chips used do some magic and making things sound real clear. Side by side by the Serato hardware, Audio 8 has got it beat in just about everyway. I don’t see anything that the Serato hardware would even match or beat the Audio 8 in. Granted, the scratch hardware is a few years old now, so, it shouldn’t be as good as something released here in 2007.

Software application wise, sharing my Traktor DJ Studio Library is the same one I use for Traktor Scratch. Therefore, I don’t have organize for two different platforms/systems. It’s all shared. which helps me out a lot, cause I already spend soo much time digitizing vinyl, encoding and tagging music, and backing things up as is. On my current Mac laptop, the specs are at the BOTTOM of the recommend system. A software update a few weeks later after release did help improve performance, but I have only about 80-90% confidence of Audio not glitching with my current laptop. I’ve since ordered an Intel MacPro… and i’m literally just waiting for Apple to send out to me. I have no Worries of performance woes on this machine (just re-read those forums) and I’ll have my 120% confidence performing with Traktor Scratch like I do NOW for… Traktor DJ Studio 3.2. (sans vinyl)

I feel that most of the gripe comes from people with older/lower spec’d machines. I understand the misery. If a company states their product will work on said devices, it should probably work no problem, but the fact is, NI could probably do a little better job at making their app a little more CPU conscious for both Platforms. Overall, I don’t feel that the performance woes most people are experiencing are coming from the PC side, it’s mostly the G4 Powerbook users that are taking the shortend of that stick.

I’ve experienced the “reverse” problem once. and, i just restarted my machine and rebooted the app, and I haven’t seen it come back to haunt me. Best way on my machine to have the best performance I’ve found is… Create a “DJ Only” user account, have the bare minimum of system bits n bops going.. and just have Traktor Scratch up and running. The other cool “feature” is, if say one of the cables slips out of the Audio8, or you have the crappy Ortofon cartridge issue where one of the channels goes out… Traktor Scratch will still playback.. and in Stereo. It’s pretty sick… in terms of some possible “real world” scenarios this one you can feel rest assured on while in the mix at the Club/Bar/Gig.

This hack is a step by step and looks fairly easy on how to finally install your own mp3 files and make them your ringtones on your iPhone.

http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/IFuntastic_easy_iPhone_ringtone_installation

iPhone hack, custom mp3 ringtone

VS.

I just started to digitize some vinyl using the Audio8 into Ableton Live.

I conducted a not so scientific test between Audio8 interface and previous my digitizing setup.

I was running Technics 1200 turntable (shure m44 cart) > rolls phono preamp > inputs 1+2 with gain control on an edirol fa-101 to the mac > input channel into ableton live with a Tracks Limiter plugin then bus output of that channel to a new channel to record the audio file.

New setup with Audio8 is almost the same.

Turntable > Audio8 > Mac. Since there is no gain control on the Audio8, I use the Utility Plug In in Ableton to boost level on the input channel (which I do need to do a little, and then adjust left/right balance with the width parameter on the Utility plug-in> still use the Tracks Limiter and bus over the output to a separate track to record the file to disc.

My basic testing of recording the same record with both setups, I tried to eyeball the peak level meters in Live as best I could to capture an even volume. In my listening tests of a/b’ing the tracks by editing the two files to play in sync and simply muting track 1 & 2 back and forth, i could certainly hear some sonic differences between the two rigs.

I did not employ any spectral analysis or any other measurement devices, it was just a pure subjective listening between the two files both recorded at 96Khz and 24 bit wav.

I preferred the sound of the Audio8 over the Rolls>Edirol setup. The Rolls/Edirol sounded perhaps a touch louder maybe in the midrange frequencies, but, it also had a tad more brittle or harsher tone. The Audio8 maybe a touch quieter in volume/punch, produced a bit more even/pleasing sound. Louder doesn’t always mean better, right?

So, in conclusion, for now.. i’m recording my Vinyl through the Audio8 into live at 96K and 24 Bit wav files. I then convert the wav files in iTunes using the Blacktree iTunes LAME converter to make 320kbps constant bit rate stereo mp3 files. I’m so far pleased with the results, until I find or hear about something better. Can probably hand it to the chips in the Audio 8 and a built in phono preamp and just being a newer piece of hardware that made me come to this decision.

So… I finally motivated and created a few blancodisco logo designs placed on various cafe press objects d’art.

View the Shop.

Start BUYING the blancodisco branded items.

HOT!

http://www.cafepress.com/blancodisco

here are some of the designs:

ENJOY!