So, I'm slowly getting back to using Traktor DJ Studio. What's that?

TRAKTOR 3 is a versatile and comprehensive digital DJing solution designed to meet the most professional of standards.

Also sprach the homepage, but really, what is it? It's a virtual DJ setup. Imagine not having to care about turntables at all, but doing everything from a computer. If you've ever been a travelling DJ you know a few things bug you: the equipment might be dodgy or only one player is working, the space is cramped ((My best memory of that is playing at Victoria in Kungsträdgården, Stockholm; I was forced to stand on a metal plate appx. 50 cm's wide and 15 cm's deep in order to reach the DJ-equipment, and was placed in a corner where the dish-washers and waiters constantly moved, so they hated me for being in the way and said metal plate was constantly getting wet, so apart from having to mind the actual music I had to take great care not to slip and smash my face against the mixer.)), the weight of carrying your records, having to deal with idiots who don't think twice before dribbling beer over your records (or attempting to pinch them, which sadly also goes for other DJ's), having to sort out your collection before going, et.c.

I know I'm sounding like an ad for this product, but there are others, e.g. Virtual DJ, so pick your poison yourself. On the other hand, anybody who's ever had experience with products from Native Instruments know that they're masters of sound, so I wouldn't think twice on which setup to get.

So, you've got four virtual turntables, a bunch of different virtual mixers, effects and great ways of organising, sorting and searching your music, you can record and export your mixes, play it live in a club, broadcast it through Internet, connect physical turntables to your setup and incorporate that into your mix, plug anything that connects using MIDI and...do you want more? Oh yeah, I wrote MIDI, but imagine connecting one of these controllers to your computer - voilà¡, you've got a mixer that's integrated with Traktor. I'm definitely not very old school, I mean, I've never actually DJ'ed using vinyl, but these features blow my mind.

The only "problem" I've found so far is that the program is so vast that you really should check out a tutorial or, at least, this film (60MB), to see the basics in order to avoid getting frustrated and uninstalling the program before you're even able to tweak the sound to separate the audio-channels.

Here's a little mix I made using Traktor DJ Studio 3.2 for OSX and a bunch of tracks that were all remixed by Dave Clarke, yeah, it's got warts 'n' aw! You'll find that even though the software is ace, there's nothing to save the music to sound like shite if the DJ sucks... ;-)