All that's left are the transport, sampling and looping.Ĭall us suckers for retro styles, but we love the old-skool seven-segment loop length display on the S4. Nothing new, but a very elegant solution and another example of NI doing all they can to avoid the shift button. The top plate is slightly elevated meaning you can push and pull CDJ-style or slightly push down and vinyl mode is activated for scratching or quick cueing. NI have shouted about the quality and sensitivity of the S4's jog wheels with 1,000 counts per revolution and a patent-pending braking system and after only a few minutes, it's clear why. Record a four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two-bar loop from the master, cue or aux outputs - nice for returning to sections and as the recording replays after the set length, it's a one-button affair. It's straightforward with controls for Record, Undo, Size and Play. One section that will be new to veterans is the Loop Recording section. However, you can use an effects slot for a filter and the FX assign or on/off buttons to cut it right on the money. Same goes for the EQ, as there is no 'kill' for any of the bands. Without an on-off switch though, it can be difficult to reset it in time for the drop, as the only reference for zero is a notch at 0º. The Filter knob works as expected - turn it left for low-pass and right for high-pass. We don't love the endless knobs in this case, as you need to reference the screen for your gain settings.

There's a three-band EQ and one-knob filter per channel, plus an endless Gain knob. If you're a user of Traktor Pro, or indeed have any experience with a traditional mixer, there'll be no surprises here. Once your tracks are loaded, it's time to take a look at the mixer section. We think this will be the more popular option, as Traktor Pro S4 can be a bit busy on smaller laptop screens, so seeing the whole library at once is a big plus. Use the jog wheels to select tracks and load them into a suitable deck using the 'Cue' buttons. There are two ways to load tracks via the controller, either by using the Browse knob in the centre to scroll through your tracks and Load buttons beside each jog to cue them up, or by pressing the Browser button, which instantly switches the view to 'Browse View', which makes your library full screen. Once connected, the S4 instantly maps to Traktor, without any preset loading or setups. NI have done a fantastic job of avoiding the dreaded shift-function as much as possible, while still making all the important functions easily accessible and all the controls clearly labelled.

Without getting too deep into every control atop the S4's panel, it's worth pointing out the sheer amount of options available to the user. The S4 will work over USB-power but will operate at half-brightness - quite an achievement considering the size. Though NI don't mention if Traktor Pro S4 will adopt the function, or whether the existing Traktor Scratch will adopt the Kontrol S4, it adds yet another feature for the outlay and could add another two decks of control. What's also worth mentioning is that the S4 will support time-coded vinyl and CD control 'in the near future'. What adds another level of self-containment to the S4 is the option of deck three and four inputs, one of which can be sent to the software to run through the effects or for resampling via Deck C or D or can be sent 'thru' to the outputs, a la any traditional mixer.Īnyone who raises their eyebrow at the price of the S4 should definitely keep this in mind as you also get an independent two-channel mixer for your dough. As previously mentioned, the main outs are taken care of either by two balanced quarter-inch outputs or over unbalanced phono cable. Speaking of connections, the S4 boasts a hefty amount. That being said, you won't need an extra soundcard so once you've got the S4 in place, it's a simple case of going from the phono or quarter-inch outs to the install mixer.

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