In October 2014, Native Instruments Company released Traktor Kontrol S8, which is a follower of Traktor Kontrol S4. With 2 built-in high-resolution displays, S8 looks like a huge step forward. Its dimensions became much larger than those of S4, and the weight increased 1.5 times. This indicates that NI took care of the internal functionality, which allows you to work in a standalone mode of the mixer. The common interface has also changed significantly, especially for the deck section.
The platters were replaced with X1 and F1 controllers, with the added LED displays at the top. In the mixer section, changes were made regarding the control of the loops, which was no longer present, and instead of it cue, tempo, and monitor control appeared. In addition, on/off buttons were added for each mixer.
The controller has 2 scroll bars for navigating the track, 8 FX knobs for adjusting Traktor Pro effects, and 16 pads with 4 buttons: Hot Cue, Loop, Freeze, Remix for manipulating tracks. Hot Cue and Loop allow you to jump abruptly to any part of the song, cut samples for looping, while Freeze is responsible for the same functions, but more accelerated ones: cuts and splits into 8 samples/cue on the fly.
The most prominent feature of S8 is its displays. The browser encoder makes it possible to view the elements both on the display and in Traktor Pro software. Navigation on S8 is very simple, which is controlled with just a browser knob, and the reverse button. Here you can change the order of the playlist sorting with the help of the controls located just below. By default, the track names, artist names, waveforms, BPM, pitch, and track rating are displayed. 2 small buttons on the left side of the display open pop-up windows where you can make changes to the BPM and pitch of the currently loaded track.
The front and rear panels of S8 were updated as well. The front part has assignable crossfader switches for each of the 4 channels of the mixer, and also a knob for changing its envelope. Behind, you can find an impressive set of connectors: 8 RCA inputs, 2 mic inputs (XLR and 1/4), XLR or RCA outputs, and 1/4 for monitors. There is also MIDI In/Out and USB.
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