TRAKTOR PRO 2.9. Manual Englisch (2015)

Editing a Selection of Tracks

►

If you want to edit a selection of tracks (e.g., all tracks of an album), select them and

choose Edit from the context menu, (just as you did when editing a single track).

►

In the Edit dialog you will notice that most of the checkboxes beneath the attributes are
unchecked.

►

At the bottom of the Edit dialog you will notice 3 new buttons called

Select All

and

. You can use these buttons to browse your selection of tracks.

►

The checkboxes indicate which of the attributes share the same value across the selected
tracks. The checks also indicate that anything written into the related field will be saved
to the metadata tag upon applying changes.

►

If you want to change an attribute globally for all selected tracks (e.g. to change an Artist
Name), make sure that the box is checked and press

Apply

►

If you want to edit your selected tracks one by one, use the

and

buttons at

the bottom of the dialog to step through the list.

►

Clicking

Restore

will undo your changes.

►

To abort editing click

Cancel

6.7

Track Icons

It is important to have an overview of your set when you are performing in front of an audience.
The icon column provides information about the status of a track. It can be sorted in the order
of the status messages.

• The letters

and

identify the tracks currently loaded into the Decks.

• A

Check Mark

means that the track has been played in one of the Decks.

• An

Exclamation Mark

identifies tracks not found at the file’s previous location. Some pos-

sible reasons for this could be that a storage medium is unavailable (external hard drive
for example), the location of the track has been changed or the track has been renamed.

The Browser

Track Icons

TRAKTOR - Manual - 65

• A

Lock

marks tracks with a locked Beatgrid.

• A

Triangle

marks tracks that have already been played live. Tracks that have been pre-

viewed will not be marked. This icon is only available in the History and Archive folders.

Sorting by this column orders the tracks as follows

• Already played tracks on top.
• Currently playing tracks in the center.
• Unplayed tracks below.
• Missing tracks at the bottom.

6.8

The Preview Player

TRAKTOR’S Browser provides a Preview Player to pre-listen to tracks without loading them into
a Deck. The Preview Player is designed for use with Internal and External Mixer mode. To pre-
listen to a track in the Preview Player:

►

Drag-and-drop a track from the Browser List onto the Preview Player.

►

Click the small Headphones icon in the

Pre-listen

column of the Browser List.

One advantage of using the Preview Player is that you do not need an additional Deck. Also the
Played State and Play Count of the tracks will not change. You can stop the Preview Player by
clicking on the small

Play/Pause

button. Skip through the track by clicking the small

Stripe

To use the Preview Player you need to assign an output to "Output Preview" (for External Mixer
mode) or "Output Monitor" (for Internal Mixer mode). Find these settings in: Preferences > Out-
put Routing.

The Browser

The Preview Player

TRAKTOR - Manual - 66

6.9

Cover Art

TRAKTOR has several Cover Art features at your disposal. Not only can you see Cover Art with-

in the Browser, but you can also freely assign your own Cover Art from image files on your hard

drive.

6.9.1

Show Cover Art

Cover Art Window

TRAKTOR provides a Cover Art Window underneath the Browser Tree. It can be activated or
deactivated within the Preferences window.

►

Go to Preferences > Browser Details and check or uncheck

Show Cover Art

List Window

There is a column for cover art in the Browser List. To activate or deactivate it:

►

Right-/[Ctrl]-Click on the Headline of the Browser List and check or uncheck

Cover Art

6.9.2

Editing Cover Art

TRAKTOR allows you to either import or delete .jpeg cover art from your track collection.
It works as follows:

Importing Cover Art

Right-/[Ctrl]-Click on a track and choose: Import Cover.

Use the dialog box to direct TRAKTOR to the cover art image file.

Select the image file and confirm the dialog.

The cover art is now stored within the file.

You can also choose several tracks and import cover art for all selected tracks at once.

The Browser

Cover Art

TRAKTOR - Manual - 67

Editing cover art is not available in LE 2.

Deleting Cover Art

To delete Cover Art:
1.

Right-/[Ctrl]-Click on a track and choose: Delete Cover.

The cover art is now deleted.

You can also choose several tracks and delete the cover art for all selected tracks at once.

6.10 Collection Maintenance

Working with the Browser before the gig or in a live situation can be intense. There are many
things to keep track of such as removing obsolete tracks or relocating tracks that have been
moved to another folder on your HD, etc.

6.10.1 Consistency Check

The Consistency Check Report provides an overview of your Track Collection by providing op-
tions to help you manage it.
1.

In the Browser Tree, right-/[Ctrl]-click the

Track Collection

Icon and select Check Consis-

tency from the menu.

Once TRAKTOR has run the check, the Consistency Check Report will appear showing the
results.

Show Overview / Missing Tracks / Tracks to Analyze

The Consistency Check Report gives you information about the following:

• Total Tracks: The total number of tracks in your Collection.

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 68

• Tracks Missing: The total number of tracks that have been deleted from your hard drive or

moved from their original location.

• Tracks Not Analyzed: The total number of tracks that have not been analyzed.
• Tracks Missing Stripe: The total number of tracks that have been imported and analyzed

but their Overview Waveform (Stripe) has been moved or deleted.

• Total Tracks To Analyze: The total number of tracks that need to be analyzed.

Relocate Missing Tracks

The Consistency Check Report also allows you to relocate tracks that are missing from your
Collection.
1.

Click the

Relocate

button.

Relocating tracks in a folder that contains many subfolders can be a lengthy process.
Don’t hesitate to interrupt relocation—this will not damage your Collection consistency.

Use the browse window to navigate to the folder where your missing tracks have been
moved.

To find multiple tracks in different folders, choose the top-level folder where they are stor-
ed. You can even choose your main hard drive folder.

Remove Missing Tracks

If you no longer want these missing tracks to be referenced in your Collection, delete their ref-
erences by clicking the

Remove

button.

Analyze Tracks

If you have tracks in the Collection that are not analyzed yet, you can analyze them by clicking
the

Analyze

button.

Show Consistency Check on Startup

The Consistency Check Report can be set to run each time you open TRAKTOR. Please be
aware that this feature can increase TRAKTOR’s startup time, thus can be impractical with
large collections in a live situation.
1.

Go to: Preferences > File Management.

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 69

Check the box labeled

Show Consistency Check Report on Startup

and close the Preferen-

ces.

The Consistency Check Report will now open each time you start TRAKTOR.

6.10.2 Analysis

TRAKTOR provides an Analysis feature to collect several important pieces of information from

your tracks (besides the information that gets pulled from a track's ID3 tags). These are:

BPM Estimate

The BPM Estimate is a tempo readout based on the type of music you are scanning. Read
more about verifying the BPM Estimate and about how to create a Beatgrid in

↑

7.8.6, Beatgrid

Panel (GRID)

Key

A new analysis feature to TRAKTOR version 2.6.1 is the introduction of

Key

detection. During

Analysis, TRAKTOR will detect the key a track is in, and place this information into the

Key

field of the track in the Browser.

Earlier versions of TRAKTOR provided a

Key

field in the Browser. That field has been re-

named to

Key Text

in TRAKTOR 2.6.1. If you have previously used third party software ap-

plications to identify the Key of your collection, you'll see this ID3 information in the

Key

Text

field of the Browser when imported.

TRAKTOR displays the

Key

information in either classic musical notation form (with the addi-

tion of an ‘all sharp’ option), or in Open Key format (you can select the appropriate displayed
form of key notation in the Analyze Options section of TRAKTOR's preferences; see also

↑

14.21, Analyze Options

Whether you are familiar with musical theory or not, the Open Key notation makes the process
of understanding how these relationships (key combinations) apply to tracks much easier,
whilst opening the door to developing more advanced DJ techniques. For a further explanation,
and example on using the technique of Harmonic Mixing, please refer to the tutorial in section

↑

16.11, Harmonic Mixing

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 70

Musical scales can be quite complex, and there will always be some compositions that re-
flect this. If a scale change occurs in a track, this will NOT be shown in the

Key

field—only

one key value will ever be shown. In this scenario TRAKTOR will select the predominant

key in the song, which may not be the key used at the start and/or end of the song.

Gain Value

Each track has a perceived loudness based on its musical properties. The Gain Value establish-

ed during the Analysis process, provides an estimate for the optimal setting of the channel AU-

TO-

GAIN

knob to match the loudness of a track to 0dB.

►

To use this gain estimation when loading a track into a Deck, enable the Auto Gain func-
tion by activating

Set Autogain When Loading Track

in Preferences > Mixer > Level. You

can at any time readjust the Autogain set during Analysis as described in

↑

8.3, Equalizer

Stripe

The analysis process creates a small representation of the waveform underneath the Waveform
Display, which is called the Stripe. If the Stripe of a track is missing it has not yet been ana-
lyzed.
To keep file size to a minimum Stripe is not stored in files. When moving your music to anoth-
er computer you should re-analyze your music on the target machine.

About Auto Analysis

You can set TRAKTOR to analyze your tracks automatically either when loading a track into a
Deck or after importing it into your Collection.

►

Open Preferences > File Management for options on background track analysis.

►

Read more about the analysis options in

↑

14.20, File Management

►

The Status Bar at the bottom of the Browser will provide a visual indication of the analy-
sis process and alert you to any problems.

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 71

6.10.3 Analyze (Async)

A further Analyze option is available for TRAKTOR users to apply to their music. This can be

carried out on a large number of tracks at Track Collection, or Playlist level. The same function
can also be carried out on individual tracks within the track Browser menu.
To test this:

►

Right-click (Windows) or [Ctrl]+click (Mac OS X) on a Playlist icon in the Browser Tree,
and select

Analyze (Async)

from the menu list.

Before TRAKTOR starts analyzing your tracks, you will be presented with the below Analyze
window.

The Analyze window

The Analyze window provides two main options:

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 72

• All: When selected, this analyzes tracks according to the default settings selected in

Ana-

lyze Options

in the Preferences window. The

All

option does not permit the BPM, Grid-

markers, Gain, or Key to be overwritten in locked tracks.

• Special: Here you can (temporarily) change TRAKTOR's default settings for track Analysis.

This option provides a more detailed range of analysis settings that can be performed on

tracks:

◦

BPM: Select a target range of the track/s you want TRAKTOR to analyze. In case you
are analyzing a large number of tracks with very different tempos, you can select
60-200; however, narrowing down the range will provide much better results.

◦

Set Beatgrid: By checking this option, TRAKTOR will place a Beat Grid on the track
and will align it to the nearest downbeat. If the track already contains a Beat Grid,
TRAKTOR will move it, if necessary, to the nearest downbeat.

Beatgrids cannot be set without checking the BPM, as the two options are interlinked.

• Key: Checking this option will detect the track’s Key. Further information on Key detection

can be found in sections

↑

6.10.2, Analysis

↑

14.21, Analyze Options

, and

↑

16.11, Har-

monic Mixing

• Gain: Checking this option will remove the current Gain values of the selected tracks, and

replace them with an Auto-Gain value during Analysis.

• Replace Locked Values: Checking this option will momentarily unlock tracks, so that the

options selected above are applied to locked tracks as well.

To add Key to your TRAKTOR collection, check

Key

and

Replace Locked Values

. Leave

BPM

and

Gain

unchecked to avoid altering any of the locked

BPM

Gain

information.

Parallel Audio Analysis

The option

Parallel Processing

at the bottom of the Analyze window enables faster analysis of

large Track Collections.
To enable Parallel Processing:

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 73

Enable the

Parallel Processing

option.

→ TRAKTOR PRO will now use multiple threads to process many tracks simultaneously.

Be aware that Parallel Processing mode will use all of the available CPU resources, which
may affect playback of tracks and cause audio dropouts. It is strongly recommended not to
use this feature during live performances.

To prevent you from accidentally using Parallel Processing mode during a live performance,
TRAKTOR will automatically disable this option after execution. You need to enable this
option every time you want to make use of it.

6.10.4 Data Directories

TRAKTOR has functions that create and reference certain file types. These file types are stored
in their own default directories. These directory paths can be changed in the Preferences win-
dow:

►

Open: Preferences > File Management > Directories.

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 76

You can change the directory path for the following file types by clicking on the button with
the exclamation mark (

…!

•

Root Dir

(Root Directory): the file path TRAKTOR follows for loading and storing Collec-

tion information and settings.

•

Sample Dir

(Sample Directory): the file path TRAKTOR follows for loading and storing

Sample information and settings.

•

iTunes Music Library

: the file path to your iTunes Library (this path has to be identical to

the settings in iTunes).

• Music Folders: use to specify the location of music to be scanned when using the Import

Music Folders function.

6.10.5 Other Maintenance Functions

• Reset Played State : Resets the play count and the Track Icon next to any track that has

been played.

• Relocate: Opens a dialog in which you can navigate to the folder containing the missing

track(s). This can be useful if you have restructured a Music Folder.

• Analyze (Async): Starts analysis for the selected track(s).
• Show in Explorer/Finder : Use to find the track in the Windows Explorer or Mac OS X Find-

er.

• Search in Playlists: Searches for the selected track(s) and returns with a report showing all

Playlists containing the selected track(s).

6.11 Working with Audio CDs

This chapter provides information on how to work with audio CDs.

6.11.1 CD Text

In the past, tracks of audio CDs were displayed as Track01, Track02, etc; however, if you in-
sert an audio CD with related information—artist, title, etc.—you will be able to see this data
in TRAKTOR’s Browser.

The Browser

Collection Maintenance

TRAKTOR - Manual - 77

Not all commercial Audio CDs show these additional info texts.

6.11.2 Audio CDs and Favorites

►

If you drag the Audio CD icon onto a Favorite, the CD will stay assigned to the Favorite

even if you remove the CD.

►

If you do not have an audio CD loaded in your CD drive, the Favorite will be displayed
with a Missing Icon, shown as a red cross.

6.11.3 Eject CD

You can also eject a CD from within TRAKTOR.

►

Right-click/[Ctrl]-click on the Audio CD icon and choose Eject CD to eject the CD.

6.12 Working with Digital Audio Players

TRAKTOR allows you to play tracks directly from your digital audio player.
1.

Start TRAKTOR and plug your player into your computer. TRAKTOR will then recognize
your digital audio player as a hard drive and display its icon in the Browser Tree—this
may take up to 10 seconds.

When first selecting the player, the message

will appear to let you know that

TRAKTOR is reading the track information.

When loading is finished you will be able to select tracks just as you would from any other
hard drive.

Plugging and un-plugging the player while tracks are playing may cause the audio to stop brief-
ly. Be careful not to unplug the player when playing a track from it!
You cannot play protected DRM files purchased in the iTunes Store.

The Browser

Working with Audio CDs

TRAKTOR - Manual - 78

The Decks

TRAKTOR provides you with four virtual Decks. The Decks can be operated in different modes

(called Deck Flavors in TRAKTOR). The available Flavors are:

• Track Deck
• Stem Deck
• Remix Deck
• Live Input

Only two Decks are available in LE 2.

The Remix Decks are not available in LE 2 and ME 2.

The Stem Decks are not available in LE 2 and ME 2.

7.1

Deck Flavor Descriptions

For each Deck you can choose one of the following Flavors:

• Track Deck: A Track Deck in TRAKTOR is the equivalent of a record player or a CD player

in a classic mixing setup. Use this Deck Flavor if you want to play back a particular se-
quence of tracks. Find an in-depth description in 6.1.1. For a tutorial on using Track
Decks, please refer to

↑

16.3, Playing Your First Track

• Stem Deck: The Stem Deck is capable of playing and mixing Stem Files (.stem.mp4). It

functions identically to a Track Deck, but just has additional sub-mix features for control-
ling the four Slot Volumes, Filters, and FX Sends for the Stem Parts. To make use of the

The Decks

Deck Flavor Descriptions

TRAKTOR - Manual - 79

sub-mix features of the Stem Deck you need the TRAKTOR KONTROL S8, TRAKTOR
KONTROL D2, or the TRAKTOR KONTROL F1 controller which natively support Stem
Decks. Alternatively, you can map sub-mix midi controls to another midi-controller.

Stem files must be analyzed before loading and playback. Due to the large amount of data

that must be read from a Stem File, it is currently necessary that Stem Files are analyzed
before loading into a Stem Deck. It is not possible to load and play a Stem File before it

has been analyzed. For more information on how to analyze tracks or Stem Files, refer to

section

↑

6.10.2, Analysis

• Remix Deck: A Remix Deck provides you with four Sample Slots, which you will use for

adding Samples (and loops) to your mix. With a Remix Deck, you can build and save com-
plex Remix Sets (which is the term for a saved set of Samples in a Remix Deck in TRAK-
TOR terminology), and arrange and remix Samples live in your mix. A Remix Deck comes
with a variety of Sample-related features. Find an in-depth description of the Remix Deck
and its elements in

↑

7.1.2, Remix Deck

. For a tutorial on using a Remix Deck, please re-

fer to

↑

16.8, Using the Remix Decks in Your Mix

• Live Input: The Live Input Flavor allows you to include live audio in your set, which can be

any audio input; a turntable, a microphone, or a synthesizer. Find an in-depth description

↑

7.1.3, Live Input

TRAKTOR LE 2 offers only two Decks and Deck Flavors cannot be changed.

Changing the Deck Flavor

To select a Deck Flavor:
1.

Click on the Deck Focus letter on the upper right of a Deck, which will open a drop-down
menu.

The Decks

Deck Flavor Descriptions

TRAKTOR - Manual - 80

TRAKTOR PRO 2.9. Manual Englisch (2015) - part 4