After a year since the last public update, Traktor has announced that they’re back in development with Traktor Pro 3.6 Beta. The news? The awesome mastering functionality of Izotope will now be native inside Traktor. Native Instruments support will possibly be added. This could change the game for both new and professional DJs looking to bust out something fresh. Here’s why.
Improved track mastering
As we all know, Ozone 9 Maximizer is pretty much one of the industry standards for bringing both volume and consistency to a mix. iZotope merged with Native Instruments in March 2021, and now their flagship mastering product will be natively deployed within the Traktor settings interface. This will allow you to select iZotope as the default clipping-safe live mastering plugin. Flip between the default Traktor limiter and the Ozone one to hear the difference!
Realtime stem separation
This won’t be the last of the features that iZotope rolls out within Traktor. EQs and effects presets shall rain from the heavens. But the real progressive functionality would be realtime stem separation. This allows a DJ to load a track, which then gets deconstructed into its component parts. Many of you already DJ with stems, but having it onboard prevents the need for importing stem banks and also allows effects (such as Nectar 3 for vocals) to be applied to individual components. Neat!
Native Instruments integration?
One last thing: there might still be space for Native Instruments plugins in the public version of Traktor Pro 3.6. Big win. Given that Ozone is already completely NKS compatible, there would be no good reason for the Traktor team not to provide a world of cinematic sounds and effects. Imagine running a Reaktor ensemble or even SFX plugins like Heavyocity Damage in your set. The result would mainly be a challenge for the design team to fit all that functionality into the interface!
Keep an eye on the Traktor community for updates on this story (Native Instruments ID login required). DJ programs like Traktor are starting to resemble fully functioning DAWs. Ableton has been straddling the two worlds for decades now, and there’s no reason for the German music software engineering we all know and love not to continue with leaps and bounds! There’s also no reason not to check out Nick’s Traktor course today.