It’s important not to get swept away by the design aesthetic of the Z2, of course; there’s no point fawning over a mixer’s looks and allowing yourself (perhaps more aptly, myself) to get hypnotised without really looking at the nitty gritty. For instance, compared to the Pioneer DJM-T1 the Z2 is strikingly similar in many aspects. The basic layout is more or less the same, but on the T1 there’s a sense of things being squeezed in that just isn’t there with the Z2. To achieve the svelte feel of the Z2 Native Instruments have done a few things; the slimline tapering of the knobs creates the illusion of more space on the mixer, small but not cramped buttons for cue source and the like give an impression of spaciousness, and the tighter-than-tight integration with Traktor 2.6 has allowed NI to make better use of shift layers, colours, and their new built in macro effects to save on physical controls. Flawless integration of any DJ equipment is further supported by an integrated USB hub that allows you to connect TRAKTOR KONTROL F1 and X1 controllers to complement the eight color-coded trigger pads of the loop encoders. Seamlessly use the DJ mixer to launch music samples, loops, and cue points and expand your set up with on-the-fly remixing and sound tweaking.

The faders are made by Innofader, and feel great, the crossfader being loose without being in any way rattly, and the upfaders slightly less loose. All faders stop at their furthest reach without any kind of metal-on-metal noise, rather hitting home in a pleasingly dampened way, a bit like an Audi door thudding shut. I liked them. Setting upBuilt-in powered USB hub* for 2 add-on DJ controllers such as TRAKTOR KONTROL F1 or TRAKTOR KONTROL X1 Whether or not ultimately it is worth your while owning a Traktor Kontrol Z2 will depend on where you are in your DJing career / hobby, and what gear you already have.

TRAKTOR KONTROL Z2 puts our most advanced DJ controller in the body of a professional 2+2 channel mixer – TRAKTOR SCRATCH included. While the Z2’s two knob/one button FX sections give you rudimentary control over all of Traktor’s effects, it isn’t as complete a solution as on most DJ controllers. However, its killer performance feature is that it controls the new Macro FX, that have been designed especially for performing on the Z2. Macro FX are factory-preset combinations of Traktor’s existing effects, all put onto one knob for easy and fun incorporation into the mix. The two knobs control wet/dry (ie the mix of the effected sound with the normal) and effect intensity. The Z2 hardware functions as a Traktor-centric MIDI controller, audio interface, scratch decoder and conventional analogue DJ mixer" Mix with the best of both analogue and digital worlds. TRAKTOR KONTROL Z2 excels as a standalone club mixer alongside turntables and CDJs, and also as the hub of an advanced controller-based setup.

Hardware mixer and software controller in one

Just bear in mind you’re not likely to see many clubs installing it (I’ll bet they’ll continue to go for Pioneer or Allen & Heath mixers, as they always have done). At a basic level, though, mixers are mixers – if you can use this one, you can use any. Or connect multiple TRAKTOR KONTROL F1 and X1 controllers thanks to the Z2’s USB hub: Freeing up additional ports on your laptop, and expanding performance possibilities. The 48KHz audio interface is blazingly fast, and after speaking with many other scratch DJs there seems to be a general consensus – and as this is anecdotal please take it as such with the knowledge that we’re all prone to persuading ourselves things are true from time to time – that the Kontrol Z2’s method of controlling Traktor’s internal mixer actually makes scratching with DVS feel tighter as the small amount of latency added to the fader puts cutting more in sync with the software translated record movements. Feel In this case you’d be looking at a Rane mixer, of which the Sixty-One is the closest to this. Without even comparing features sets, bear in mind that the Rane Sixty-One costs pretty much double what this does.