Upgrade to NI Traktor S3

Januari of this year I upgraded my Native Instruments Traktor S2 to a NI Traktor S3. Again this was a second hand deal, where all parties involved were happy after the deal. Sold my S2 to a student that wanted to pick-up on DJ-ing and was looking for a cheap way to start. The S3 came from a guy that got the S3 as a gift, but wanted to upgrade to S4, in order to be able to hook up his turntables. A got a very nice discount.

The upgrade to S3 offers me four decks, four extra performance pads for cue points, an improved layout and a very handy filter knob on all four decks. As you can imagine, the working is not that different from the S2, but there were some "hidden features". I had to search for it on the NI site and watch youtube videos of users that found out how to operate certain new features of the S3. I will share two of them: 

First one was getting the microphone to work. In order to get it working, press shift and the small line-in knob, It will switch deck four to microphone. NI Site: link

Second one had to do with the filters knobs: if you hold down one of the small filter selection knobs (four small and one large in different colors). Now switch on one of the filter knobs by pressing the "on" button below it. This way you can use different filters on different decks. Big thnx to Graham: link.

Good news is that I'm no longer the only one using the Traktor DJ set. Both my boys have a keen interest, now that they see other DJs at festivals. They use the S3 on a regular basis, to play with it, together with their friends. The benefit for me is that they find out other "hidden features" (iow unknow to me). Some examples: They disabled the cross-fader using the Traktor Pro 3 GUI. Trick is to un-select decks that are linked to the cross-fader (see link). They also use the "Slim track display" which enables you to show the track waveforms of deck A and B over the complete horizontal of the software window. NI site: link

They also introduced me to Soundcloud, as this links to Traktor DJ directly. Wonderful site to look for new tracks, beats and mixes. Below you find a first mix, with music from soundcloud and me using the Filter knob. Nothing special, but big fun to make it ;-).

Enjoy.

Track List: New Songs SoundCloud