Photo CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by John Tolva

Nights in the lab as of late are being spent developing something APC40 users should really dig (hopefully). I took some time off of this project for a while – work, school, life, you know. But I’m back in the swing of things and it’s looking good.

Serato users have “The Bridge”, and ever since I first started using the APC40, I was conceptualizing something similar, but for Traktor. I wanted to control Ableton Live and Traktor from the same APC, in an uncomplicated way. I opted for the layered approach, where a simple press would shift between Live and Traktor, with corresponding layouts for each. Just exploring the idea was what determined the final architecture.

What is it? Traktor and Live run simultaneously on one computer, with synced tempos. The APC40 has a Traktor layer and a Live layer. The Traktor layer will allow you to use your favorite mapping, and the Live layer acts exactly the same way it does in native mode – meaning automapping, bi-directional communication, the whole lot. Just one controller, full access to both programs. Audio is routed from Traktor to Live, so set recording, automation recording, and full Live processing is available for Traktor and Live.

The idea sounds simple in theory, but in practice it isn’t. There’s two key pieces of the puzzle. One is that the Live midi controller script had to be hacked. The other is some software called Bome’s Midi Translator, which may be considered pricey. Both bits are required, so in order to make things easy to set up and inexpensive for the end user, I’m exploring a licensing agreement with the Bome crew. Ideally, my whole system will be an inexpensive download that uses a little runtime version of Bome’s MT with one click set up, and a good pdf that will explain set up in the main applications. It’s close to finished, I’ve just got to iron out a couple things, make the pdf, and (hopefully) a video tutorial. I know there is interest in a system like this out there, but I’m still not sure how much. Drop me a line if you think you’d use something like this!