The tail wagging the dog?

Although in general your logic is sound, the only thing I’d like to point out is the importance of picking the right software based on your (expected) workflow. While both will allow you to DJ, they have totally different workflows and – quite frankly – cater to different kinds of DJs.

And with a choice for Traktor these days pretty much dictating Traktor hardware (that doesn’t really support other software well or the other way around), it’s somewhat of a risk to dive in head-first. Pick wrong and apart from having to do all the prep work on your collection when switching software, you’ll have spent a lot of money on the wrong combo.

Not saying you shouldn’t pick Traktor, it may very well be the right kind of software for your intended workflow, just that it pays big dividend to do your home work. Your statement that you think they are pretty much able to do the same thing kinda days you haven’t done that yet (or not in-depth at least).

The controllers are often designed for a specific software, and include easy access to or the ability to use the latest features from that software – 2 examples:

Traktor – their recently released top-end S8 controller makes much use of their remix decks and is fully compatible to use with the new file format they are bringing out which separates out the different parts of a track.

Serato – newer controllers include support for newer features, such as Serato Flip, which needs certain pads/controls to be able to trigger them

So whilst what you are saying – you want to be able to keep the hardware you get now for a while – that is possible. But you will eventually lose mappings/support for your controller or they will release a load of new features that you then can’t use but want to.. So you will eventually have to upgrade.

And, because the software is constantly updating, changing, the controller market too is constantly changing to account for these new features. So, actually, whilst software does change regularly, the controller market is also constantly changing. I know there are differences – namely the cost of upgrading software vs hardware and that it is (arguably) easier to upgrade software then hardware – but that is the state of things at the minute.

And on the subject of workflow – download the demo’s for both. use your keyboard as a simple controller. Try them, give them both time.. One will click.. the other probably wont. For me, Virtual DJ clicked.. For Terry it was Serato and for Vintage it was Cross.. But that does not mean that all of us are wrong – it means that we are different, DJ in different ways and we are happy to agree to disagree on which one is best – because it is so personal.

bob6397

Some of the more creative options are significantly different. Traktor’s remix decks and soon to be implemented multi-track (stems) support are way different from Serato’s Flip feature just to name one.

Also beatgridding on Traktor is rather limited, the software does it gridding and if it gets it wrong you are pretty much done LOL. Seriously, Traktor does not have flexible beatgridding so any track with varying beat (hand-drummed tracks for example) or with beat jumps within a track are not it’s forte (to be mild about it).

The whole beatgridding thing was one of the reasons for me to move away from Traktor (in my case towards Mixvibes Cross).