Many of you asked the DJ experts in our online store some great questions about the new S4. We tried to answer them all here in a simple, understandable way: It's an extremely honourable offering. I'm just bummed I didn't grab it for €759 before it rose in price to €899! As such, while it wasn’t the explosive experience they were hoping for, it certainly was something interesting. Something I expect will become much more compelling as time goes on if it isn’t already the case now. And while it may take a bit of adjusting from the older design, it definitely has a professional and sleek design that does make you seem more “serious” about the DJ craft. Mixer FX It appears that Native Instruments is hanging on to supporting Stems, the open file format it pioneered that lets producers release their tunes in four constituent parts (drums, bass, melody, vocals) for DJs to have control over those parts in the mix, because the S4 does indeed have a Stems button.

Traktor Pro 3 – the supplied software – is very good at lots of things (loops and effects to name two, plus the new Elastique timestretch engine sounds awesome). It has been proven at the highest level. For the mobile crowd or DJs working with musicians, the controller has several mic input improvements that you will like. Things like the headphone outputs were much louder than the earlier S5 or S8 controllers, which often would get swallowed up if used in louder clubs. Can I use the controller as a stand alone mixer? Not right now, but you will be able to soon. When it is enabled in a future update, full functions include filter, EQ, mic input and phono input.The headphone outputs sounded louder to me, which was welcome as even the S5 and S8 controllers (the loudest of the bunch) still occasionally ended up maxed out in loud clubs. The Mixer FX allows immediate and simplistic effects with a turn of the knob. By turning to the left or the right, you can immediately get a nice sounding effect.

It’s simple to use and saves diving into the config panel in the software to choose external inputs – but at the time of writing, you do need to have the unit plugged into your laptop with Traktor running to use external inputs at all – in other words, no true standalone capability. A good side of all of the above, though, is that all lines, phono and mic inputs are routed through all of Traktor’s EQing and effects, just as if they were internal software inputs. Mixer FX They work exactly as they always have done – but we suspect they are going to get less use than previously due to those Mixer FX… Library controls Overall, the updates to mixer layout/spacing, components, and styling make the center of this controller look and feel a lot more like Pioneer DJ gear, like the ubiquitous DJM-900NXS/2 mixer. At first I was a bit annoyed at this new “Pioneer” look, but it’s growing on me and certainly feels more professional than the classic Traktor controllers. One section in particular is a welcome nod in that direction… The Mixer FX (Instant Gratification)

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Pro Mixer Layout with longlife Carbon Protect faders, dedicated cue section on top plate, and adjustable crossfader curve. 16 RGB pads for triggering Hotcues, loops, or samples The Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4 MK3, quite frankly, has a lot going for it. Native Instruments really went above and beyond when developing this controller and their hard work really shows. That’s a very personal question, but here are some clear groups that I think might really benefit from upgrading to the new S4, or staying with your existing system. When asked about it, NI said that the newly introduced limiter type (known as “Transparent”) utilizes much of the previous “Classic” limiter while greatly reducing the amount of clipping. Starting off with the faders, the Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4 MK3 uses the same technology found with the S5 and S8 controllers.