I've decided to start a series on production & mix-down tips for producers. Each post will be a brief yet informative explanation & real world example of a mix-down or production technique. I'm hoping these can be efficient little tips you can all quickly glance at, learn, & then creatively use in your own productions. I'll start this series off with an old school delay trick. (modified for DAW's) If you use this trick tastefully it can really help to add a nice spacial touch to just about anything you're working on. Even though this trick has been used on countless records you can still make it your own especially considering we have the gift of simple automation in modern DAW's.
I'm a Traktor Gate whore. In fact I've used and abused her so many times during live sets I was beginning to wonder if our relationship was ever going to turn into something more. Well with the introduction of Native Instruments Traktor's 12 this relationship does indeed now have the beautiful potential to blossom into something much more serious. Native Insturments just released Traktor's 12, you can purchase it as a stand alone plug-in for your DAW by itself for $79.00 and it also comes bundled with Native Instruments Komplete 7. Traktor's 12 basically took 12 of the most popular effects used in Traktor and turned them into DAW plug-ings for use inside of their free Guitar Rig 4 Player. Wondering how to get those crazy DJ style breakdown efx into your production. Wonder no more, Traktor's 12 is here for you with some of the most well known DJ style efx bundled into a nice package that can run right inside of any DAW.
The effects that come with Traktor's 12 are as follows: Traktor Delay, Traktor Reverb, Digital LoFi, Mullholland Drive, Ring Modulator, Format Filter, Peak Filter, Beatmasher, GATER!!!, Reverse Grain, Transpose Stretch, Beat Slicer. Traktor's 12 also has 120 multi-effect rack presets from standard presets perfect for basic processing and remix tools to complex and dense crazy nuts madness preset effects. Since Traktor's 12 runs in the free Guitar Rig 4 Player, the Guitar Rig Factory Selection of 22 tools and effects also comes included.
As you can see nothing is different about the effects we all know and love, they still feature the same 4 knob control that Traktor features and look identical minus some color changes. I wasn't able to find any info about how these actually sound, quality wise inside of your DAW but I am on the hunt. I just asked on GearSlutz for a little review of Traktor's 12 from a guy who just got Komplete 7 so hopefully I'll have more to share with you all once he gets back to me. There is however a few sound examples on Native's website and the efx don't seem to sound half bad, very digital without any "true" character or feeling at all but what can you expect. If they are anything like the on board effects in Traktor Pro be careful because it is very easy to over do it with these, hopefully this next sentence sums that warning up for you. Long story short, the efx can be very unique, but, if you push them to hard this uniqueness turns to sound poo, bottom line. And although while in your studio you won't be in a live situation it's just a good thing to keep in mind so you don't feel discouraged when you are going crazy hard to the walls and end up with sound poo. The Traktor Pro Gate will always sound dope though, just don't over do the "noise" knob.
Beyond that there isn't too much to say about Traktor's 12. It's just a bunch of DJ effects from Traktor that now work inside of your DAW for use with productions. No more bouncing stems from your productions out and loading them into Traktor to re-record them using Traktor's efx. They can now all be neatly stored in your DAW's Plugin Menu, for more information on Traktor's 12 visit Native Instruments Website.
Here's a quick little video showing what the efx in Traktor's 12 can do:
