Using The Numark NS6 With Traktor Pro 2: Yes, Please!

We finally got a chance to use the acclaimed Numark NS6 Serato Itch controller with Native Instruments flagship Traktor Pro 2 software, and the results were quite good.  Thanks to a foundation provided by Numark and a heavily tweaked re-fix by our resident marketing manager and controller mapping stud, Ariff Glick, we came up with a mapping that suited the NS6′s layout nicely with Traktor.

THE SCOOP ON MAPPING

The NS6 is basically a midi controller with sliders, knobs, and buttons that are assignable to virtually any function that your software requires.  Traktor has a controller manager within the preferences where you can do this.  You can download our .tsi file and import it to the controller manager.  Please keep in mind that this is just one version of many possibilities that can be used and you can definitely create your own mapping to suit your particular layout and playing style.  If you are well versed with Traktor and have midi-mapped controllers before then this will be an old hat for you.  If you aren’t, not to worry.  We put together a basic template and video tutorial so you can get up and running in no time.  We have included a link below of our mapping with the NS6 drivers included for good measure.

SET-UP

A. This is how you set up the NS6 with Traktor if you HAVE NOT already set up the drivers and/or installed ITCH 1.8.1.

1. Make sure the correct NS6 drivers installed on our computer. We also included them with our .tsi file below.
2. Plugged the NS6 into your laptop and turned it on making sure the power adapter is connected, then opened up Traktor Pro 2.
3. Import and apply the .tsi file.
   1. Open Preferences
   2. Select “Import” at the bottom
   3. Open the file called “UniqueSquaredTP2NS6Mapping.tsi” (sorry it’s so long)
   4. Make sure you select the box “Audio Device Settings” so that it is checked and click “OK”
4. In the controller manager you will see that there are 5 separate mappings that correspond to every function in Traktor for the NS6.  Select “Numark USB Audio” for the In-Port and Out-Port.

B. This is how you set up the NS6 with Traktor if you HAVE set up the drivers and/or installed ITCH 1.8.1.

1. Plugged the NS6 into your laptop and turned it on making sure the power adapter is connected, then opened up Traktor Pro 2.
2. Import and apply the .tsi file.
   1. Open Preferences
   2. Select “Controller Manager”
   3. Under Device select “Add”
   4. Select “Import”
   5. Open the file called “UniqueSquaredTP2NS6Mapping.tsi” (sorry it’s so long)
3. In the controller manager you will see that there are 5 separate mappings that correspond to every function in Traktor for the NS6.  Select “Numark USB Audio” for the In-Port and Out-Port.

You now have the NS6 controlling Traktor Pro 2 with relative ease.  Easy enough, right?

LAYOUT

The strawberries taste like strawberries, the snozberries taste like snozberries!  Right?  Well, almost. This particular mapping was for 4 decks and almost everything translates flawlessly.  The EQ knobs, crossfader, line faders, cue points, jog wheels, sync, pitch adjust, browse, transport and loop section work as the NS6 and Traktor is normally laid out. The most noticeable difference is in the Effects section and the Filter adjust.  In Traktor you have 2 ways of setting up your effects, single (advanced) and group (chained). On the NS6 you have an effect activate (on/off) button, parameters knob to adjust, effect select knob, and a wet/dry fader. We decided to map the Trakor effect in group mode with only the first effect active since the physical layout restricts more than 2 effects per deck to be active.  This allowed us to map the software perfectly to the NS6 .

We then mapped the filter adjust to the “strip search” section on the NS6 because it made the most sense. The filter can be adjusted using the strip and turned on and off using the “Bleep / Reverse” button, the red light indicator meaning it’s “on.”

Again, you have complete freedom to choose what works best for you and this worked well for us.

THE VERDICT

It was relatively easy to get everything up and running on the NS6, but keep in mind this controller was designed for Serato Itch and there are some features that we did not map to the controller.  For instance, we did not set up any of the record features like the internal mix recorder and the loop recorder.  Is it possible?  Absolutely, but we did a basic set-up just to show what is possible.  The other noticeable difference was the jog wheel response when scratching.  It was very good, but we found that the jog wheels were more accurate when scratching in Serato Itch.  Overall we were very pleased with the performance and response and we highly recommend using the NS6 with Traktor even if it’s just as an alternative to Serato Itch.  Check out the video and please feel free to leave us any comments or questions so we can help.  Thanks again to Numark for the foundation of this mapping and also to you all for requesting this particular video.  Cheers!

THE FILE

Unique Squared NS6 Traktor Pro 2 Mapping

 

Video Transcript:

What’s going on? This is Scott Magno DJ MadFlip here with UniqueSquared.com. Hey man, we’ve got NS6 by Numark working with Traktor Pro 2. You guys asked for it, we wanted to show a video of it, so let’s check it out, we got this done.

Alright, so the first thing you want to do is go to our blog and download this particular mapping. Go ahead and save it to your desktop or something and once you’re in Traktor, go to your preferences, you’re going to go to the controller manager too here, you want to add and then down to import and import that setting from the desktop here.

Once you do that you will find that decks C and D, decks A and B, the platters, the loops and browsers, and also the mix and main section all for Numark USB audio device.

Select that, make sure your port is on Numark for in and out and you should be ready to rumble it up.

Alright, so now we’ve got that up and running, and you can see the layout that I have here. We’ve purposely made it super wide, that way you can see every knob and every slider on all four decks.

You don’t have to have it that way but for visual feedback we wanted to go ahead and show it like that. Ok, so starting off you can see that we have line levels for all of our decks here. You’ve got EQ and all of that working, and our platters, we’ve got that going right here. Our pitch adjust.

So all of that is pretty standard, you can see we have it all working. We can even go into our files here, browse and load into each deck like so and switch that deck over, so we’ve got all four decks loaded as you can see everything is up and running.

There are a couple of things that I wanted to tell you guys about our particular mapping.

The NS6 has two effects that you can choose from and from those you can have the effects parameter and also the amount of dry/wet of that effect that you have.

So that is what we have, you also have the effects select. So we mapped it like this, with a chained selection within the effects, but in that chain you will see that we have no effect on our second and third effects for each side.

Now, we did that because we didn’t get deep enough to map this for an advanced effect because we wanted to show, basically, a very elementary level setup just to get you up and running. Of course, you guys can modify, this particular mapping and customize it however you need to.

That’s the beauty of Traktor Pro 2, it’s just always been that way where you can kind of just customize it yourself. So, those effects are going to be here, I can select through my different effects.

Right, and then I can turn that effect on and off on the NS6, then I can control the parameter of that effect, and also the dry/wet will be with your NS6, FX mix slider.

So, let me show you guys that that’s working, go ahead and put that loop on. So, I can select effect A, pick a different effect. Alright, so you get the idea.

The effects work, our looping section works just fine. The last thing that I wanted to tell you guys was the filters.

Now, the filters on Traktor are usually going to be controlled with a knob. In this, we have in mapped out to the strip search. If you guys can see that, we have each filter on a strip search.

It’s kind of our best option for that particular, I know it will take a little bit to get used to, maybe you guys can find a better way to map that, and feel free to share it with us.

Alright, so we have got the TSI mapping for this available to you. So, just check out the description below and we will have a link to our blog where you can download it for yourself.

If you have any other questions just leave me a comment here and I’ll be happy to answer it personally. This is Scott Magno, DJ MadFlip. Be you, be unique, at UniqueSquared.com.