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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Native Instruments S4 MK3
thinking of getting this controller but i dont see that Virtual Dj has mapping for this unit. It's been out a while , does anyone have one and what are your thoughts. I'm running a macbook pro 14 with M1 chip 16g of ram and 8 core processor
 
发表时间 Mon 08 Apr 24 @ 9:13 pm
It's has partial support, but the screens and haptic feedback won't work. They are locked to Traktor
 
Ahhh! do you own one of these?
 
No. Almost all controllers that you can get are fully natively supported in VDJ, so I personally wouldn't get one that isn't fully supported:

I own/use these:
Denon MC3000
Denon MC7000
Hercules DJ Control Inpulse T7
Hercules DJ Control MP3 e2 (no SC)
Hercules Starlight
Hercules Steel (no SC)
MixVibes VFX CONTROL
Numark DJ2GO2 Touch
Numark Mixstream Pro
Numark Mixtrack Edge
Numark NS7
Numark Partymix Pro
Pioneer DDJ-SB2
Pioneer DDJ-SR
Pioneer DDJ-400
Reloop Beatpad 2
Reloop Buddy
Reloop Terminal Mix 4
Reloop Terminal Mix 8
Reloop Touch
 
Jeez ! I thought I had a lot of controllers. Thanks for the advice! i really liked the features of this unit but i will never leave Virtual Dj
 
Hey everyone,
Short version: the S4 MK3's motorized jogwheels (Haptic Drive) and the round jog displays are locked by Native Instruments to Traktor only — officially "will never be supported" anywhere else. I got both running in parallel with VirtualDJ.
VirtualDJ stays in full control of everything that matters — audio, scratch, pitch, all button LEDs. A small background "bridge" (Python) only drives the two things VirtualDJ can't reach on this unit: the motors and the screens.
What works now:

Motorized platters: press TT → platter spins under motor power, soft start-up, encoder-regulated speed, real vinyl feel when you touch it
BPM-linked speed: 60 BPM ≈ 16 RPM · 128 BPM = 33⅓ RPM · 180 BPM ≈ 47 RPM — pitch affects it live
TT lamp lights red while the motor runs, always in sync
Jog displays: title, artist, BPM, running time, remaining time + progress bar (turns red < 30 s), PLAY/TT state — Deck A blue, Deck B orange
Autostart with Windows, waits for the controller, reconnects on its own

How it works (for the curious):

Motor via HID Output Report 49, P-controller with encoder feedback (≈ 4400 force value for 33⅓ RPM)
Displays via USB bulk on interface 4 (WinUSB through Zadig), 320×240 RGB565, rendered in Python
The bridge creates its own virtual MIDI port. VirtualDJ sends play/motor/BPM as CC and title/artist/times as SysEx text → the bridge renders the screens and drives the motors. Everything is script-driven from VirtualDJ; no second control surface fighting for the device.

Full credit to the Mixxx project — their reverse-engineering of the S4 MK3 HID/USB protocol is what made this possible. I built the VirtualDJ side (device definition, mapper, skin) and the bridge on top of that groundwork.
Known limits: built for decks 1+2 for now (4-deck is retrofittable), umlauts on the displays can show as "?" (SysEx is ASCII — fixable), and the installer/skin haven't been field-tested on other machines yet.
Happy to share the installer + a German step-by-step guide. If anyone with an S4 MK3 wants to test it on their own rig, I'd love the feedback — especially first-run gotchas on a clean install.
Video below. 👇
Cheers,

Stefan