Pionner has now announced a new mixer in their ubiquitous DJM line of DJ consoles. Its the DJM-900 “Nexus” with direct Traktor support, USB connections and a multitude of new effects and features. At a price of $2000 its heavy on the wallet, but perhaps low enough to become another club standard. Read on for video, photos and more.

Traktor 2 is a new “generation,” says Native Instruments, of its flagship DJ software, along with upgraded hardware interfaces. The upgrade is so capable, simply calling it a “DJ” product may be inadequate. Just as Ableton Live’s user base grew to incorporate DJs, Traktor’s capabilities move easily into live performance and remixing, too.

Pioneer and Numark have just announced two new controllers for Traktor and Serato at the NAMM trade show. Numark has one dedicated to Serato; Pioneer is actually releasing two devices, one for Serato and one for Traktor.

Even though I do not have the full version of Traktor (yet) it is a pretty interesting video showing you how to sync Ableton Live and Traktor together.

This will mean that both pieces of software play in time with each other, opening the door for a load of new possibilities, allowing Ableton Live DJ sets to be mixed with the relatively traditional DJ set-up style software such as Traktor. This set-up has been used by other big names such as Richie Hawtin (of whom is amazing; his set-up has been shown on this months ‘FutureMusic’ magazine DVD and blows everything out of the water).

The video gives a run-down on how to set this up by using the internal MIDI clock to link them both together – this means that you are able to start a track in Ableton Live, and it will play in time with the current track playing in Traktor. Unfortunately, I do not have both pieces of software so I am not currently able to try it out for my self but it does look pretty good. Itch by Serato has already interested me with the release of ‘The Bridge’ – allowing for Ableton Live and Itch to work together, but the actual DJ set up for Itch never really inspired me as much as Traktor has.

Just got the #93 MusicTech magazine and have found a really cool article on on-line music making and collaboration. The article outlines the various ways that the internet is chaning the way that we share and create music. It mentions Kompoz.com, a website which allows users to share and edit each others music.