Why use CounterTrace instead of LongTrace?

This is a question we get asked quite a bit so I thought I should put it here.

CounterTrace, CounterTrace II and LongTrace all acomplish the same thing (improve trace read length), but they are suited to different users and insturements. CounterTrace is designed to work with the phred base caller while CounterTrace II and LongTrace are designed to work with the KB base caller. The other major difference is CounterTrace can work with the ABI 3700 (KB doesn't exist for the 3700).

If you have a ABI 3730, 3100 or 3130 then we recomend that you use LongTrace as it doesn't require the use of the CounterTrace standard.

Daniel Tillett
Nucleics Support

One piece of interesting news is we have been able to develop a version of LongTrace that works with the ABI 3700. This means that now there is really no good reason to use CounterTrace.

Daniel Tillett
Nucleics Support

I should now add that we know recommend using our PeakTrace software as it has much better supports for the ABI 3700 sequencer than LongTrace. It also supports the really old ABI sequencers like the ABI310 and ABI377. You can find out more about the PeakTrace basecaller is you are interest in try it.

Daniel Tillett
Nucleics Support