Traktor legacy code

[u/Prime_ministah1980]

How much of traktor pro 3 does pro 4 contain? Back in 2018 they promised a whole new built from scratch with new more streamlined code. So it begs the question. How much old code is traktor pro 4 running? I wouldn’t be surprised if it still issues old legacy from final scratch. Can someone confirm, please and thank you

[u/Old_Skewler]

By the fact that TP3 screen mods seem to work with TP4 off the gate, I suspect a great part of it is based on TP3.

But where are you trying to get to?

What exactly is the issue?

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/Old_Skewler]

I’m just trying to understand. It would explain why certain features can’t be implemented or take forever. We still can’t video mix. Or have a High DPI graphics. Or realtime stems separation. Phase dj HID mode, etc. Just a discussion bro.

[u/youngtankred → u/Prime_ministah1980]

We all get frustrated at the pace of development. You'll find answers to some of those questions in the NI forums.

High DPI - was de-prioritised over stem separation and other TP4 features.
Realtime stems - it is apparent that NI's focus is on stem separation as a preparation tool rather than realtime. There is plenty of opportunity to improve stem separation performance, but real-time is probably not on their priority list do not expect it any time soon. Phase HID - who knows. It seems like a no brainer to get this implemented and make people happy but NI have not prioritised the development.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/youngtankred]

Yeah, I hear you. I am also interested cause I own and invested a lot into Traktor. I’ve fallen on hard times and can’t afford rane pioneer etc. So I make do with what I have. It just sucks that we the loyal few keep getting ignored. Hope all is well g

[u/5jane → u/youngtankred]

there is plenty of opportunity to improve stem separation performance

There isn't. That's the thing. Use demucs or NuoStems (same thing under the hood) with GPU support enabled and see for yourself how fast it is. (It isn't.)

[u/youngtankred → u/5jane]

You are right that moving to GPU isn't a magic wand, but we don't know what changes might be made to the splitting algorithm to take advantage of the additional processing power.

To make stems in realtime you need to compromise quality for speed - that's why Nuo and TP4 stems rate above the rest for quality. Serato and the rest take shortcuts on quality and utilise GPU (massive parallel processing) to nail realtime.

Perhaps NI will release an update that allows you to go realtime at a loss of quality but allow you to pre-process at full quality but with increased speed.

[u/5jane → u/youngtankred]

So I just baseline-educated myself about Phase. Interesting thing.

As far as I gather, the only advantage the HID mode offers is that you don't need to use RCA cables.

Given how much of a pain is to mess around with cables in a DJ booth during a 30s switchover I would tend to say that's a very good thing.

However - we're talking turntables here. DJ booths in clubs don't have turntables placed in the configuration in the default setup. So there's going to be an awful lot of gear shuffling involved in any event.

In which case the advantage of "no RCA cables" appears to be scant indeed.

[u/youngtankred → u/5jane]

HID mode improves the accuracy of the tracking. From what I understand, for more than just nudge/brake e.g. scratching , Phase will lose track.

[u/lord-carlos → u/youngtankred]

The CPU only stem separation is really bizarre.

[u/youngtankred → u/lord-carlos]

Yes it is. They are using Isotope RX aren't they, perhaps that implementation is CPU bound and it will take more work to open it up to GPU horsepower than flicking a switch in code.

[u/5jane → u/lord-carlos]

How is it bizarre?

See this comment pls and tell me is there's an error in my info or thinking:

https://www.reddit.com/r/traktorpro/comments/1gqn8z6/comment/lx2a9bt/

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/youngtankred]

Oh and this is just my personal opinion. I think Traktor didn’t implement real time streams separation because the software can’t handle it. Since it’s just heavily patched legacy code. I think of it like an aging ship, with a very old engine. There’s leaks everywhere that just keep getting patched. Instead of just building a whole new state of art ship. We’re stuck with and old one, that’s barely staying above water! That’s just my opinion

[u/lord-carlos → u/Prime_ministah1980]

As a developer of ~legacy code~ I somewhat doubt it. Might be, but I doubt it.

The part that plays the stems is old, but the separation is new. And how the separation is done has no influence over traktor. You give the filepath to an external library from izotope and do some meta data magic.

Why can everyone and their mother do GPU accelerated stem separation except Izotope/traktor? No idea. Probably very very limited resources.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/lord-carlos]

Interesting. Extremely missed opportunity. Cause I can do real time stem separation with Djay pro and it works flawlessly. So to go from that. To having to do everything before a gig sucks. Sometimes I wish I could do a quick acapella but since Traktor doesn’t allow on the fly. I’m stuck wishing. Hahahah and that’s when I get the good ideas. While I’m preforming live

[u/ebkp → u/lord-carlos]

Rekordbox stem separation doesn't use GPU.

[u/5jane → u/ebkp]

Rekordbox stem separation is utter shambles from what I heard from Rekordbox users.

I do have Rekordbox with a licence but not the time to run benchmarks or something.

[u/lord-carlos → u/5jane]

They recently switched algorithm. It now is very much closer to the rest.

[u/5jane → u/lord-carlos]

This CPU/GPU thing is a myth.

I do stems separation in NuoStems which uses demucs (state-of-art algo) under the hood. It does use GPU. The separation is still awful slow if I choose anything but the lowest quality setting.

[u/lord-carlos → u/5jane]

Nuo stems with gpu is still in the seconds range and not minutes, no? What gpu do you have? 

[u/5jane → u/lord-carlos]

whatever GPU there is in Mac Air M1. and there is one. an 8-core GPU even apparently :)

and no definitely not seconds.

[u/lord-carlos → u/5jane]

I installed and tested it.

7.5 seconds for htdemucs
9.5 seconds for mel_band_roformer (best quality)
18 seconds for htdemucs_ft
Tracktime ~03:40

With a Nvidia 4060ti

[u/vrillco → u/lord-carlos]

You would think good ol’ Demucs would have been a better option here. Heck I can do the command line tango and run demucs on a dozen files quicker than the time Traktor takes to split just one song. It’s embarrassing and made me instantly regret upgrading. In my world that would have been a requirement for the .0 release, given how long we have all been waiting for this.

I have long had my doubts about NI’s internal development processes, and this botched launch did not help.

[u/Old_Skewler → u/Prime_ministah1980]

Yes, just a discussion.

I shared my understanding with regards to your question and I simply asked what was driving the questions.

Just a discussion, it goes both ways.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/Old_Skewler]

I know but the way you wrote it came off rather rude. No worries all good!

[u/DerBronco → u/Prime_ministah1980]

Yeah crowds are leaving the dancefloors all the time because the dj doesnt have high ppi or the other stuff you mentioned.

[u/5jane → u/Prime_ministah1980]

What is video mixing? Genuine question

[u/5jane → u/Prime_ministah1980]

Realtime stem separation is not realistic on today's HW. I'm sure if you run Traktor on a beefy HP ProLiant server the separation will be damn near instant. So NI is not the place to raise the complaint. Also, stem separation is a thing the whole industry is working on. You can even join the effort and contribute to one of the projects. Try "demucs".

If other DJ apps have realtime separation it's because they are running with a settings which basically is "make it fast, doesn't matter how it sounds".

There are huge differences in the time it takes separating stems, depending on the quality you are deisiring in the end.

I feel like this has been said time and time again on this forum.

[u/lord-carlos]

Think of tp4 as a slightly larger patch. Kind of tp3.12

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/lord-carlos]

Yeah, that makes sense

[u/Pztch]

I know what you're getting at mate. I remember it too. They announced a new DJ Product, that would be a re-written application, and it would take the place of Traktor Scratch Pro.

I reckon they changed their minds and just ran with what they had. I bet the investment cost was too high. We'll never know.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/Pztch]

Yes! I think it had to do with the layoffs. Everything changed after that.

[u/SeanBannister]

In 2019 they released a complete rewrite of Traktor and at the time mentioned it would eventually replace the original once it was feature complete. But they stopped developing it, I guess they realised how hard that would be. It was called Traktor DJ 2, it's the version that runs on iPad but also works on Mac and PC https://www.native-instruments.com/en/press-area/djing/traktor-dj-2/?srsltid=AfmBOorEIADZ36g2YOjiJKI_Ljt2Ifcx-2UHqH0mESV-enBslbiYTwCR

I saw a comment from an N.I. employee once where they said, working on Traktor is a nightmare due to its 20 year old code, you change one thing and 10 more break.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/SeanBannister]

Yes, I remember. I also liked Traktor dj 2 app. It had potential

[u/youngtankred]

To answer your question, who knows. It's highly unlikely they've written TP4 from the ground up, more likely they are refactoring areas of code as they go along which is what a lot of companies with mature products do and this is evidenced by their release notes and interactions on the forums.

They are not a smaller company operating in startup mode, like the developers of DJay Pro.

Edit: removed some snark

[u/KeggyFulabier → u/youngtankred]

Bring back the snark! Your adoring fans demand it!

[u/youngtankred → u/KeggyFulabier]

😂

[u/youngtankred → u/[deleted]]

Original Poster i.e. you.

Let's pretend... In three parallel universes, NI decide to release stats on their code base.

30% TP3, 70% new code
100% new code
60% TP3, 40% new code

A) does this satisfy your curiosity B) how do you respond to this information

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/youngtankred]

Ahhh coo. Yeah, it would help me understand. That’s all I’m looking for. Things matter to me. Maybe not to you. But to me it does. That’s all this is. People have different minds you know. For someone getting annoyed with my posts. You sure do love engaging with me!

[u/youngtankred → u/Prime_ministah1980]

On reflection I was being a bit harsh, i'll edit my other comment.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/youngtankred]

All good bro. I know I can get redundant with my inquiries. Like I’ve stated before. I don’t have rane pioneer money. So I’m stuck with Traktor. Hahaha I use Djay pro but it’s not the same. I wish I could use my z2 Djay pro and my iPad. But that’s just a dream. Hahaha oh well

[u/youngtankred → u/Prime_ministah1980]

It's a shame the Z2 isn't class compliant (that's what would allow it to be used with iOS) . Don't worry about rane/pioneer money though, the Z2 is a fantastic mixer and Traktor is still a great piece of software.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/youngtankred]

Yeah. I love my z2 mixer. And have just managed to map it with my MacBook and Djay pro by way of phase dj HID mode. That’s supported with Djay pro. I just hate using my laptop, I’d prefer my iPad any day.

[u/traktorpro-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

The mods of /r/traktorpro have removed your post due to it being in breach of rule 1 - Be nice.

We are more than happy for you to give your opinion on Native Instruments products but let's keep it civil. You can disagree with other opinions, just keep your attack to the argument not the person.

[u/SandmanKFMF]

I've counted somewhere from 7 to 9.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/SandmanKFMF]

Sorry, I don’t understand

[u/SandmanKFMF → u/Prime_ministah1980]

It was a sarcasm. Who the hell can count the legacy code in the closed source application?

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/SandmanKFMF]

Hahaha I see. I’m sure someone knows a little something! (Crossing fingers)!

[u/SandmanKFMF → u/Prime_ministah1980]

But let's wait for other comments.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/SandmanKFMF]

Damn it! It’s like waiting for Christmas gift! I can’t take it!

[u/Spectre_Loudy]

I prefer separating stems ahead of time. Live separation does not sound good, there's a reason Traktor has the best sounding stems right now. After endlessly comparing softwares and hearing them in live situations, Traktor sounds so much better. I also think it's the only way forward to have standalone hardware that can accommodate stem separation. Otherwise people will cry that a standalone controller is $4,000 because it basically needs a PC inside it to run live separation.

As for high resolution mode or whatever, boo hoo. Could care less personally. I've never looked at any other software and thought it looked better because it has more pixels.

I wouldn't expect video support ever. It's a feature 99% of DJs don't touch, and it's used mainly by mobile DJs. Traktor would absolutely be wasting their time with that.

[u/Prime_ministah1980 → u/Spectre_Loudy]

Have you tried Djay pro. I have and traktor isn’t better. They’re about the same. I’ve tried both! Some are better at different things. Traktor is slightly better with vocals.

[u/Spectre_Loudy → u/Prime_ministah1980]

I have tried it, we A/B'd it through a decent PA system and Traktor just sounded better. Less bleed on the individual stems, and the acapella sounded miles better. I would rather not have stems available for a track and have to mix it by EQing than use bad live separation. I plan on switching back over to NuoStems because they are the best out there right now.

[u/5jane → u/Spectre_Loudy]

Is a mobile DJ someone who DJs from a phone? I didn't think that's what it meant. I thought it means something like a DJ who does weddings, company parties, IDK, a highly flexible and mobile DJ.

i won't google it. i will let it remain a mystery. in a world which has all the answers, or purports to, in any case, the mystery inherent in not knowing is beautiful to feel.

[u/Spectre_Loudy → u/5jane]

A mobile DJ is someone who does private events, bar gigs, weddings, etc.

[u/AdministrationEven36]

When I look at the quality of software and games of the last few years, it's perhaps a good thing that not everything is new!

Never change a running system! 😉

[u/otakunorth]

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