Set and save loops in Traktor.

Yes. Native Instruments sells Traktor Pro 4 as professional 4-deck DJ software and calls Traktor the go-to software for hundreds of thousands of DJs, at every level. It runs with club-standard mixers, turntables and CDJs, with the Traktor Kontrol S2, S4, X1 and Z1 controllers, and with Traktor Timecode Control Vinyl for DVS setups. Which app a DJ uses comes down to the booth and to habit, not to a quality ranking. A loop saved in Traktor lives inside the track; to cut the same section out as its own file, the audio looper exports it.

In rekordbox, set the loop with the Auto Beat Loop button or with the manual loop in and out points. During the loop, or shortly after cancelling it, click MEMORY in the function panel. The saved loop point then shows in the MEMORY panel, and up to 10 cue and loop points fit on one track. Saved as a Hot Cue instead, you get up to 8 per track. See our rekordbox guides.

Click the Loops tab in the virtual deck area. Set a manual loop with Loop In and Loop Out, or click an Auto Loop length, then use the Loop Slot button to add the active loop to a slot. Serato DJ Pro holds up to 8 saved loops per track. Serato writes them to the file, so it says they are not lost if the file is moved or renamed. More in our Serato DJ guides.

VirtualDJ keeps saved loops in a Saved Loops panel. Clicking the play button on an empty slot creates a loop, four beats by default, and saves it to that slot. Clicking the play button on a filled slot triggers the saved loop, and the X deletes it. On pad hardware, a Saved Loops pad mode stores the current loop to the matching slot. Saved loops can also be created, deleted or edited in the POI Editor.

Serato DJ Pro writes recordings to the Music folder in your user folder, inside _Serato_ and then Recording, on both macOS and Windows. Click Rec Location in the recording panel to point it somewhere else. Quit Serato without saving a take and it goes to a Recording temp folder instead. WAV and AIFF recordings are capped at 2 GB, and a longer mix continues into a new file. Full walkthrough: record your set in Serato.

On a Traktor Kontrol S2, press the LOOP encoder to start a loop at the current position in the track, and turn the encoder to make the loop longer or shorter, anywhere from 1/32 of a beat to 32 beats. To keep it, press any unlit pad: the loop is stored there and the pad turns green. SHIFT plus that pad deletes it. Other controllers follow the same pattern with an auto-loop encoder and performance pads.

Set both ends yourself instead of picking a preset size. On a playing deck in Traktor, click the Loop In button where the loop should start, wait as long as you want the loop to last, then click the Loop Out button. Traktor keeps loops beat-accurate, so the result still sticks to the beat. Click an empty Hotcue button and that custom loop is stored on the track.

Native Instruments defines a loop as a snippet of audio that repeats. DJs use loops to remix parts of a track, to build tension, and to stretch a transition when the next record is not ready yet. Loop length is counted in beats rather than seconds, from a fraction of a beat up to 32 beats in Traktor, and loops stay locked to the beat.

Every step on this page is checked against the current Traktor Pro 4 manual, so treat older button names as unverified. In Traktor Pro 4 the flow is: activate the loop, open the Advanced Panel, select the CUE page, then click an empty Hotcue button, or the STORE button to use the Cue list. On an older build, look for the same Advanced Panel and CUE page. Related: set cue points in Traktor.

First check that you actually stored it: an active loop on its own is not saved until you click a Hotcue button or STORE. Then check Preferences, File Management, where the option to save created loops and samples automatically decides whether loops you make are kept for later. If the audio file was moved or renamed outside Traktor, the collection entry can lose its link. See relocate missing files in Traktor.