How to play Traktor Pro 4 from an iPad
You can play Traktor Pro 4 from an iPad over a USB cable — no extra interface, no network setup. (If you're wondering whether you can run Traktor Pro on iPad: there's no iPad version of Traktor Pro itself — NI's Traktor DJ 2 is a separate standalone app — but you can play Traktor Pro from the iPad, which is what this guide covers.) The iPad becomes the surface you touch; Traktor stays the engine on your computer. Here's what you need and how it works.
What you need
- An iPad.
- Traktor Pro 3 or 4 on a Mac or PC.
- A USB cable to connect the two. That's the whole rig — it runs over USB MIDI.
How it connects
Plug the iPad into the computer running Traktor. The iPad shows up as a standard MIDI device, so Traktor talks to it the same way it talks to any controller — there's nothing exotic to configure. You import one mapping file (.tsi) into Traktor's Controller Manager, set the iPad as MIDI in and out, and you're playing. Moving a fader on the iPad moves it in Traktor, and Traktor's state — levels, hot cues, loop status — lights back up on the iPad.
The full manual walks through every step, and you export the matching .tsi straight from the app. Curious what's inside that file — or thinking of mapping something yourself? Here's how Traktor Pro 4 MIDI mapping works.
In other words, you're using your iPad as a MIDI controller for Traktor — but a finished one, mapped and ready, rather than a blank surface you wire up yourself.
Controller, or instrument?
Most ways to control Traktor from an iPad hand you a blank grid of pads and faders to wire up yourself. Interaktiv Tap takes the opposite approach: it ships as a finished instrument you play. The layout, the gestures, and the two-way feedback are already designed around live performance, so you open it, connect, and go. See how the iPad Traktor controller options compare.
The difference shows up in the gestures. Touch an FX pad with two fingers and it tracks three axes at once — X, Y, and the distance between them. Record that move, release, and it loops in time with the track. That's the kind of expression a fixed pad grid can't give you.
What you can do from the iPad
Interaktiv Tap drives the performance surface of Traktor Pro 4: track, stem, remix, and live-input decks, a 4-band EQ with kills, filter, four FX units, loops with size, hot cues, a key fader, master tempo and sync, and pre-fader listen. You record gestures and loop them, capture phrases with the looper, and freeze the whole app to take a parameter anywhere and restore it in one tap.
For the exact list — every command it maps and what stays in Traktor — see what Interaktiv Tap maps in Traktor Pro 4. Working with stems? Here's how to control Traktor Pro 4 stem and remix decks from an iPad.
Get it
Interaktiv Tap is free to download, with a 7-day trial — then a one-time unlock, $14.99 in the US. No subscription. It needs an iPad, Traktor Pro 3 or 4, and a USB cable.
