How good is Traktor? On paper it seems like a great product. Here's a screen shot below.

Impressive from the look of it! The screen is split up into several units. At the top you have the main unit to control the volume of your monitor and the master volume. The master volume being what your audience hears, and the monitor volume being what you hear on your headphones. You can choose the master BPM here. Traktor will keep the mix at this BPM. You also have several settings "Auto", "Live" and "Mix". Generally you'll need to put it "Live" mix at first (for most DJs they won't want an auto mix anyway). For "Auto" settings though you'll need to save the cue points and verify the BPM. You can save the mix as a WAV file like many other virtual DJ programmes. However, unlike other ones, you can save the movements of the switches throughout your mixes as a MIX file, it stores no sound info. MIX files are typically only several hundred kilobytes, thus meaning you save every mix you do. You can distribute the MIX file to other Traktor users, who also have the same songs on their hard disk.

You have the option of having several setups. If you have two sound outputs (typically either two soundcards or a soundcard with two outputs) and do not wish to use and external mixer, you will plug the headphones into one soundcard and the other will go to your speakers. If you want to use an external mixer, you'll plug the two soundcard outputs into it. You also have the added advantage of being able to use the mixer's crossfader this way. Most other virtual DJ programmes work like this. If you have only one soundcard output, you'll have to settle with dual mono, so the headphones will be on the left output and the speakers on the right.

What sets Traktor apart is the fact that it can help you mix. Not only can it automatically determine the BPM of a song, it can automatically beat match them, simply right click on the "=" button and it'll make it the same BPM as the other deck. Sometimes though you will need to manually override the system. Like BPM counters you also have "red lights" which indicate a beat. House music is simple to mix, but Garage music takes a bit longer to mix with Traktor which is to be expected.

It's best to find the BPM of all the songs in your set before beginning. Provided you cue up the track reasonably accurately (ie. within half a beat), Traktor can "sync" the tracks for you so it sounds perfectly mixed, but it is not necessary to use auto "sync" all the time. Like a real turntable, Traktor changes the speed of the music by changing the pitch. This is good, but it would have been nice to see tempo control, so that you could change the speed of the music without changing the pitch, like on some expensive CD decks. Maybe this will be in the next version. Obviously if you cue it up wrongly, the mix will still sound bad. The cue function is very impressive letting you cue to within a millisecond. You are helped by red markers, which indicate a beat and the graphical display, which gives you a lot of feedback.

The scratch function works well to. You can do rewinds and any scratch you want. Be warned though, just like with a real turntable, you'll need practice to get the scratches to sound good. Other features worth a mention, include the EQ. Like a real EQ you have control over the bands and also a "width" button, which lets you get that muffled sound, which slowly emerges. If you have a midi controller like PhatBoy or 4control, you can use it with Traktor, to get hands on control. If you get Traktor, using the mouse can be a bit difficult so make sure you learn all the keyboard shortcuts. Looping several bars of music is simple, just indicate where you'd like to start the loop and where to end it.

All in all, Traktor is brilliant. For less than $200, you get a fully featured DJ mixing programme, far better than any rival. It offers the convenience of CD, since you can play MP3s and the power of vinyl. Maybe now virtual DJing will be more attractive than CD or vinyl.