Reply to The S4, my first initial reaction and concerns.

Hello fellow S4 owners and DJTT'ers,

This is day one of S4 unboxing and testing.

Already, I have found some legitimate issues with it that I haven't seen any other user bring up, and then my concerns, and then likes and reactions.

First of all, the somewhat small, but there none the less issue in my unit. When the track I have cued in my headphones is playing with the fader all the way down it sounds fine, and when I put the fader up I can hear a sort of jet or flange effect happening in my headphones. WTF is up with that? It's slight, but still enough to throw me off. The sound becomes a tinge more metalic. I don't like this.

My concerns is that there is no booth volume gain control anywhere. How does one control the monitors in a booth if there is no club system to plug into? If the only option NI thought to leave us was to plug into a DJM800, then that really limits us when we have no choice but to remove the club mixer to squeeze in the S4. And then I guess I could mix completely in my headphones, but I would need to upgrade to something with better reference, and more isolated sound. I lost my pair of Shure 530's in Vietnam, I don't feel like buying another.

Do I like this thing. Hell yeah. I truely have never touched Traktor before, so there's a bazillion things I gotta learn and pick up workflow wise. But so far so good, I'm impressed with the unit. It just doesn't have the feel of a true mixer, built like a metal tank (such as a Rane 2-channel mixer), and therefore doesn't exude the confidence of being durable. My mixer I would feel safe bringing anywhere. I almost wish I had a rubber protective comdom for it like the common ones for an iPhone or Blackberry. QUICK, who's down to make a new product? But if it surprises me, and I never have to re-calibrate it again (which was as easy as pie, but still shouldn't be necessary more than once), and I can lugg it around and not worry about it, then it will be an absolute winner.

Now I gotta get learning Traktor.

-PL>Y