The Lowdown
Looking for a bag to fit a controller that’s Traktor Kontrol S4-sized? This new bag from Magma fits an amazing amount of gear, is well-made and practical, and offers decent protection. We couldn’t see much use for the small zip pocket on the front, but apart from that, we think this is a great bag, albeit at a not insubstantial price.
Video Review
In Use
The front of the bag has two quite large, flattish compartments that can hold various items like a controller stand, a laptop, smaller controllers (there’s a compartment that’s configured for the size of a Traktor Kontrol F1 or Traktor Kontrol X1 Mk 2, for instance), headphones (especially if they’ll fold flattish), various leads and cables, and so on. The main action, however, takes place in the back compartment, which zips around three sides of the bag to open up completely. This compartment is very well padded, with a huge pad as a base onto which you put the Kontrol S4 and built-in padding on all sides for a decent amount of protection.
The Traktor Kontrol S4 fits perfectly, but Magma also provides various red nylon coated pads with Velcro on them to attach in positions within the compartment to reduce its size to fit controllers like the Kontrol S2, the Vestax VCI-380 and Vestax VCI-400, the Reloop Terminal Mix 2 and Jockey series, and other similarly sized models – even the Mixtrack Pro and Pro 2 fit fine.
If you remove the big pad from the “base” of this compartment, you can fit in deeper items, so you could feasibly carry pretty large pieces of gear like mixers and so on. Alternatively, you could use the whole bag as a leads and accessories bag for your PA system – for instance – making it flexible for those gigs where you’re taking everything including the kitchen sink with you! Frankly, it’d do fine for a quick week in the sun, too, as it’s plenty big enough for your holiday stuff.
Conclusion
You can’t go wrong with Traktor Kontrol S4 bags in your range, which is maybe why we’ve received a few recently from various sources (more reviews coming up). It’s such a popular controller, but also bigger than most in its class, meaning a lot of the legacy bags haven’t fitted it. This one does, though, and it’s strong, practical and good looking – in a workmanlike, get-the-job-done kind of way.
The real winning point is the amount of gear it’ll fit; compared to, say, the Traktor Kontrol S4 flight case from Native Instruments itself – which despite its size and weight will fit little more than a cable or two alongside the controller – this can fit pretty much your full set-up and still be appreciably lighter. Of course, you wouldn’t want to throw this into the hold of a plane (and it’s too big for hand luggage, at least on the airlines I use), but as a bag for moving your set-up from car to venue or on short journeys on foot, or of course by public transport, it’s ideal.
