Traktor S2 or Novation Twitch?

S2!

I was in the same boat (trying to make a decision on the Twitch vs S2). I bought Twitch and here’s my first impression.

Background: I play most for fun, nothing serious. I play deep house primarly, some tech house and downtempo as well. I don’t have much need for scratching, beat slicing, etc. Cueing, easy tempo-matching, filters and gating are more important to me.

I bought the Twitch mainly to try out Serato Itch. I do much prefer Itch to Traktor. I love the stacked waveforms and elastic beatgrid. It make mixing and looping a lot more foolproof.

Now onto the Twitch. I have to say the touchstrip is not great for cueing at all. With a touchstrip, you have to swipe repeatedly to get to where you want. Worse yet, Novation made the touchstrip very modal (it has about 5-6 modes of operation), if you’re in the wrong mode you could brake the record.

On the plus side, the hardware beatgrid control is stellar. i can fix beatgrid on a new track after it’s loaded very quickly as long as it’s BPM is steady (e.g. not a vinyl rip). Instead I waste a lot of time cueing back and forth using mouse + touchstrip while I’m beatgriding that would have been a lot faster with a jog wheel.

I don’t find much use for the beat-slicing since I play mostly deep house, but the autoloop and looproll can be fun with filters for house music.

So basically, I bought the Twitch mainly for Serato Itch because it’s the only Itch controller around $400, and gave up the jog wheel for 8 pads that I really don’t need. It’s a pretty big trade-off, so I must say if you’re not likely to use the pads or slicing, stick with a jog wheel controller.

Since you already said you’re using Traktor and happy with it, and don’t need sampling, I think the S2 is better for you. You can also add an F1 later if you need sample pads.

goofrider, post: 15328, member: 1530 wrote: I was in the same boat (trying to make a decision on the Twitch vs S2). I bought Twitch and here’s my first impression.

Background: I play most for fun, nothing serious. I play deep house primarly, some tech house and downtempo as well. I don’t have much need for scratching, beat slicing, etc. Cueing, easy tempo-matching, filters and gating are more important to me.

I bought the Twitch mainly to try out Serato Itch. I do much prefer Itch to Traktor. I love the stacked waveforms and elastic beatgrid. It make mixing and looping a lot more foolproof.

Now onto the Twitch. I have to say the touchstrip is not great for cueing at all. With a touchstrip, you have to swipe repeatedly to get to where you want. Worse yet, Novation made the touchstrip very modal (it has about 5-6 modes of operation), if you’re in the wrong mode you could brake the record.

On the plus side, the hardware beatgrid control is stellar. i can fix beatgrid on a new track after it’s loaded very quickly as long as it’s BPM is steady (e.g. not a vinyl rip). Instead I waste a lot of time cueing back and forth using mouse + touchstrip while I’m beatgriding that would have been a lot faster with a jog wheel.

I don’t find much use for the beat-slicing since I play mostly deep house, but the autoloop and looproll can be fun with filters for house music.

So basically, I bought the Twitch mainly for Serato Itch because it’s the only Itch controller around $400, and gave up the jog wheel for 8 pads that I really don’t need. It’s a pretty big trade-off, so I must say if you’re not likely to use the pads or slicing, stick with a jog wheel controller.

Since you already said you’re using Traktor and happy with it, and don’t need sampling, I think the S2 is better for you. You can also add an F1 later if you need sample pads.

Hi goofrider, ive been reading up on s2 and twitch and cant decide since they are both similar price, size and function(both good at different things from what i gather).
Im especially interested in your opinion because you’ve got both and I will be playing deep and tech house mostly, (ive never djed before and this is my first controller). Taking everything (itch vs traktor pro, twitch vs s2, and the fact that im a complete noob) into consideration, what would you recommend?
Thank you very much for your time.