Serato Scratch vs. Traktor Scratch

[jessejames]

I sold my Serato for $400 and bought the Traktor Scratch upgrade. Haven't been able to play around with it too much just yet, but I like what I've encountered so far. Plus my friend, who is the biggest audiophile I know, swears by it.

I like the fact that I can play and record through the same box. I like the cable interface as well, so my comp doesn't have to stay hooked up when someone else plays.

[patrick bateman]

I like the fact that I can play and record through the same box. I like the cable interface as well, so my comp doesn't have to stay hooked up when someone else plays.

You don't have to do that on Serato either, just buy a cheap power adapter and use that.

[jessejames]

I've done that, sometimes the power drops out tho. Doesn't matter because I've already made the switch anyways.

After playing some more last night, I can state with confidence...

Serato FTL. TS pisses all over Serato and then some. Serato is child's play compared to TS.

My advice to anyone, if you haven't bought either system yet, buy TS. If you have Serato now, sell it, and get the TS crossgrade offer while it's still available. You won't regret it.

Almost every aspect of Serato and FS has been trumped successfully by TS. The sound is better, the control vinyl is better, the track filing system is better, there's built in effects that you can control with midi (that sound pretty damn good I might add)...I could go on and on.

For the record, I owned Serato for a year and took it to all my gigs. My friend had Serato, bought TS, tried it for a day and called me the next day to tell me to sell Serato. I'm glad I did.

[Todd Konix]

Final Scratch 2 was "supposed" to trump and be better than Serato in every way also, and we all know how that turned out.

If you like paying for updates and bug fixes, get Traktor Scratch.
If you like piss poor support, get Traktor Scratch.
If you like jumping through hoops with registration procedures and limitations, get Traktor Scratch.

Native Instruments' is great at that. Let's not even get into Traktor's reputation with stability. Sure I won't lie, Traktor/TS does have more "features" than Serato, that's no secret. But, I want something that works right every time. Serato has never crashed on me in 2+ years. In the short 2 month time I had Traktor Scratch, it crashed on me three times. Stability > bells and whistles to me.

And you would think that after the ass raping NI and Stanton gave everyone with both FS1 and FS2, people would learn. But hey, it's your $599 (or yes $399 if you can get the crossgrade), spend it wisely.

But hey, you never know, maybe NI has changed .

[jessejames]

The key difference is FS was Stanton and NI.

TS is just NI.

Please expand on TS crashing on you.

[dumbpitch]

I think it is indisputable that TS is technically the newer and better product.

Thankfully its not just about that.

SSL is just a sweet little piece of software and hardware engineering, the latter not at the peak of human capabilities, but if used intelligently- good enough to be fair. The prior (ie. the software) is key and sorry but Traktor is the inferior interface!!!

Come on, this is mnml.nl we stand for SIMPLE solutions- reduced to the essentials... On the other hand projecting NI as the "imperialist schwein of the industry" is also inappropriate. their pricing is fair, considering all the innovation and bargain offer...

[jessejames]

Admittedly, I've never used Traktor before now so I can't comment on previous versions. From what I've read online, NI has worked out the bugs and TS 1.1 is supposed to be very stable as long as your computer can support it.

I appreciate the extra thought they've put into TS, it definitely shows.

I like how with TS, you don't have to calibrate anything when you setup for a gig, it does it for you and does it better than SSL imo. The timecode tracking is tighter and seemingly more suited for beatmatching djs than scratch djs, which SSL admits it was designed for.

I'll give it some more time.

Todd, still interested to hear some details about your crashes. At home or at at a gig? What kinda specs does your computer have? etc.

[New Guy]

all i have to say is, NAMM is coming!
serato is gonna introduce the new features including the midi and auto loop stuff.

who knows, maybe NI will introduce something new too.