Is there a good manual for this program, or can someone teach me how do do anything other than make an absolute ungodly fucking racket with it, please?
i used to use it, before i stopped djing that is!
its good, but like most computer mixing programs the algorithim for beat mapping (which is the process of mapping each bar to the audio of the track to enable you to mix it properly) is a bit hit and miss. i find it works perfectly for house and techno, but tends to go nuts when confronted with some highly syncopated jungle.
i used version 2.5 so all this info is based on that.
essentially, you need to load your tracks into traktor and analyse them. this will do the beat mapping for you, and will work out the tempo of each song. sometimes it will get it wrong (obviously wrong, like 90bpm for a track you know is at least 130 bpm). if this happens, you can manually go through and set each bar start and end against the wave form.
once you've done this, you can sort your tracks by bpm and come up with a playlist. mixing the tracks is a cinch - you can set cue points at multiple places in your song. this allows you to start from where you want.
i think the strongest feature of traktor is the looping. you can dynamically loop exactly what you are playing at the time (and it will keep time with your other track automatically). you can also set loop points anywhere in the file beforehand. very handy for mixing out before a crap bit which is not so easy with vinyl sometimes.
i don't really rate the filters, but using those heavily is not really my style.
when you are djing, the tracks will go out of time just like vinyl (although if you prepare the tracks beforehand by analysing them, this will be mitigated). you can either use the auto sync button which will automatically attempt to pull the tracks in time - but sometimes it gets it wrong. or you can nudge the tempo slightly, again just like decks and this is more precise. usually, you have to keep tweaking this while you are playing. however, 2.6 might well have improved on this.
as regards set up, i like to route the two traktor channels via the outs on my soundcard to my analogue mixer - means i can combine traktor with a record deck via the mixer which is useful. however a lot of people use digital midi mixers with traktor which gives you more control but can introduce a slight lag.
hope this is helpful to you.