The Future Sucks?Ī debate I watch but hardly ever get involved in is the ‘hey that new things crap, you’ll never beat the old stuff’ or ‘there’s no skill in this anymore as the thing I learned is now automated’. Though there are a few variables to get the best results, NI’s Stems Creator is very easy to use and create your own Stems files which is a great boon for those who like to create their own performances from scratch.
This isn’t something I’d expect from a unit like this though, but the manual does claim it can be used for scratching so it’s important to make my experience clear on this point. Also the horizontal alignment doesn’t lend itself to being ergonomic for scratch positioning, so although basic push-push and let go scratching could work, don’t expect this to be the new turntable. Though variables can be changed in preferences, a big problem with static surfaces and scratching is the sensors tend to slip, so a baby scratch slowly looses its position after a good few bars of action which is very impractical for any serious cutting-sessions. Track seeking works as you’ve expect, but I wasn’t impressed by the scratching aspect. Nudging one track forwards or backwards with the ribbon allows you to find this sweet spot making it a useful tool. The nudge function works great and of course without pitch sliders it may seem redundant, but anyone who used to beat-match manually will know that there’s a phase sweet-spot between two songs when mixing which isn’t always achieved when you’re mathematically ‘in sync’. Below the eight pads is a touch strip ribbon controller which is designed to allow nudging, track seeking and scratching. There are also different behaviours for normal, looped and flux mode playback which when mastered, can offer a lot of creative potential. If you don’t already know, Freeze allows you to split a portion of a playing track and then trigger slices via the eight pads per deck. Like filtering, the Performance controls of Freeze and Remix also offer ‘music production’ like controls that can be used to musically control your material and express yourself. It’s also useful to immediately and therefore cleanly revert back to an unprocessed channel at the start of a new song section, regardless of the current filter position. These are great for creating builds and drops by alternating your filter increase/decrease in-between punching the filter in and out. Though there are a lot of features on the unit, highlights for me are the on/off buttons for each channel’s bi-polar filters like the S8 and D2 feature as well. Just make sure you keep it safe from being scratched! The S5 has the same footprint as the S4 which means it can realistically fit into a large carrier bag and be checked in as carry on luggage. Who knows, I m-ay be out of a job as a DJ tutor sometime soon as well! This unit is so intuitive to use, to the point that I can’t imagine anyone drawing a complete blank with it after having a mix or two.
In all fairness, although I’ve learned more of its features, my comfort level hasn’t changed since my first few mixes on it. Watch Liam O'Mullane tear it up on Traktor Kontrol S5:Īlthough I’ve had my S5 for over a week now, I had a good 20–30 minutes play with it on a stand at this year’s BPM show. The S5, S8 and D2 can all be used without any reference to the laptop’s display and better still, the display is concise and compact, so easier to read and navigate.
The DJ can’t keep the same amount of audience reading going as those who work on say CDJs of vinyl and the remedy of positioning the laptop on a stand in front just means the audience get to see less DJ and more glowing fruit logo for their money. It’s becoming a ‘thing’ for laptop DJs to have a sideways glance through their sets these days due to where their laptop is positioned and it’s not a great look. The S5 sports the same impressive hi-res displays as I first saw on the S8 which is a blessing for DJs and the audience alike.
As mentioned the S8 is big and personally I’m more interested in the portable side of controllers so the new S5 is very exciting. Since then the Stem format has been released which also works with four channels except these are all relevant to the same original song, e.g., drums, bass, synths and vocals.
After being shocked at how massive it was and that it didn’t have platters or pitch sliders, I quickly started to see the potential of how its four small faders aligned with controlling the four audio channels of Remix decks and the creative opportunities it could create. It was over a year ago that I first played with the then beta version of NI’s S8 standalone mixer and controller.