@@Thegoat-pn5oy that's great advice. Also go through your music to organize everything from making a playlist and making sure you got all the cues you need set up.
I'm surprised you didn't emphasize probably the most important thing, have your music prepared ahead of time, especially beat grids. You may have to manually go through library and fix them one by one, but it will pay off when it comes to performance time. Especially if being your first time. Also setting a couple cues in the first 16/32 bars of a song because cues aren't gated like on a controller. These tips were useful, but can't stress enough how much a noob needs to have their USB prepared. Jumping right in with simple .mp3 files like you would plug into your car or something will work, but you will drive yourself mad trying not to train wreck. Not even the sync can save you lol. Having things prepared will give you some breathing room to get into the mix, not be stressing. I see this all too often at open deck nights. Even if you use Serato, VDJ or something else, get Rekordbox and use that for prepping USB. I would safely say 4/5 venues use a Pioneer setup if you aren't taking your own.
@@peacepuffz I gave your comment a thumbs up, because I agree, but preparing your USB is also very important in terms of making sure your tracks are available and can be found where they should be.
@@gekhond for sure I used to organise my vinyl creates all week long before the week end. I was open format so had stuff from 75 BPM to 185 BPM's in a box that needed to be slightly programmed.
same! I am always organizing my crates, adding labels, making "mini sets" with 4-5 records, etc. Organization is really key, and that's also true when you play with thumb drives.@@peacepuffz
being prepared is useful to an extent for sure. Especially if you can't beat match by ear. I can't help feeling though that it can become somewhat of a crutch and can lead to less spontaniety and artificially pre-prepared sets from some DJ's. I find it far too much effort (almost a full time job) to go through each track and set the beat grid, particularly as someone who will play anything from rock and soul, to funk or techno. So many songs where you have to go through and set beat markers throughout the song every 8 bars. I ended up just giving up and relying on my experience as a vinyl DJ since the mid 90's to beat match by ear and transition in more traditional ways.
Depending on where your at in the world you can hit up a pirate studio. They have rental rooms with lighting and CDJs. They're building one out by me in Chicago but it's taking forever lol.
You can test things in your headphones! As long as you have CUE on and the volume down on that channel, so you're a bit less nervous - this has helped me a lot
Maybe you can rent a dj studio - I live in London and we have here Pirate Studios - but try to find any dj studio for rent in your place. I can’t buy this gear, but I keep practice once a week in studio.
I think the best tip going back to posting clubs after years of only playing on controller's it's the quantizing and effects tips. Love this channel, lots of good alpha! I knew about quantizing, but it's a good reminder, as from coming from using the XDJ-XZ o didn't know about the tap tips and getting the BPM set correctly but I do now and I'm playing four sets this month on CDJs with DJM rather than my standalone controller. The only real difference for me is the fx on the mixer, but after a few shows, i can play on both.
Just got back into drone flying after a long absence. Wanted to check something about the version and differences. Thx for making this, great together with your kid
This video helped tremendously hopping on my first set for CDJ 3000s a few months ago. Your content has helped me tremendously for my professional DJ career! I've done some pretty epic things this summer! Keep it up Crossfader!
Pioneer DJ really needs to fix their effect section on the DJM. It was good 10 years ago but it’s 2022 and it’s still so complicated and easy to mess up simple things like on beat effects like echo. and don’t let me start with the quantize function 😂 this is so buggy and they don’t fix it. Try cut a loop in half with quantize off and you’ll notice that it starts the loop from the top each time pressing the 1/2 button. your mix will get out of phase and train wreck.
If you start the loop with quantize on, then turn it off before you cut the loop, does that work? And I agree, I can’t stand quantize but I guess it makes sense for loops
That's what happens? I was always so confused about this. Not how it works on the Denons I use. I'll have to remember this for my set tonight. Totally messed up my last set with that mistake.
One thing I haven't heard anyone ever talk about when it comes to the echo effect is the phasing that occurs when the timing is perfect. Before I turn the echo effect on i always nudge the time knob a little bit so phasing doesnt occur, yes its out of time, but to me it sounds so much better than perfectly timed echo that causes phasing to happen
Great video Jamie!!! I didn´t know that Hot Cues doesn´t work properly when Quantize is activated. I´ll take note of it because it´s very important if you want to do some quick tricks with the hot cues 👌🏼😁
Thankfully i learned/still learning on CDJS and havent really used controllers apart from the odd house party, i can see how confusing switching from a controller to CDJS would be... but i still took a lot from this video especially about quantizing loops, thanks for that ✌️
I did my first club gig last night and i when I plugged my USBs in all my files were collapsed which scared the hell out of me so I had to quickly ask the manager to copy my files onto his USBs and the fully they worked😂😂. They don’t tell you this at a DJ school or how to properly format your USBs for a set.
Making sure auto cue is on is also another Major, had a more experienced DJ turn it off at the end of his set just to mess with me and it threw me off so hard.
Well don't forget, once you have set-up the BPM on the build in effects unit, you turn on Quantize on the mixer effect unit to keep the effects in sync.
that crossfader mistake is not an imaginary problem. It happened to me in the first 15 minutes of a mix. I thought it was an error/defect in the mixer and kept adjusting the gain on the "low" volume channel to make up for the difference in volume. Sure enough I had knocked the crossfader to one side with the headphone cord during my set up. 🤣
This video is funny 😁 it tells people who are not djs how to dj basically what happen to learning first then setting up to the plate with the big dogs lol 😆😂.
One more: Load times. Especially on 2000 series, the time it takes for a track to load is much longer than a controller. Caught me out the first time I played live.
I'm about to start producing very unique decksavers /dust covers for selected dj controllers such as ddj1000, ddj 400 etc . I wanted something other than the perspex covers which scratch and look tired over time. They are a high end product which look elegant and have the custom gargoyle image that I will be using for each deck cover, embedded in the resin. Could I send you a sample to review? . Also if anyone wants to see an image of one I will be happy to show you.
Just picked me up last week 2 Pioneer cdj's 3000 and the Pioneer DJ V-10 trying to figure out how to cue up the effects in the headphones on the channel that you cue up can someone help me out
One time I was about to use the CDJs to do a live radio broadcast and someone left the "rewind" function on so all my music was playing backwards 😭😭😭. I literally had to look at and compare each button/knob on the deck on the left to figure it out which setting was incorrect in the 5 minutes before going live 😳
Opened for bijou and marten hoger a couple weeks back one of the transitions required a loop but I did not use quantize and it was easy to tell haha this video would have helped
Hey Mr crossfader I have a query on the most common problem I face and the one I thought you would cover I once went to a club where by the cdj takes a very long time to find the songs bpm after loading it So basically on the bpm Screen it goes blank like really black no numbers at all I had to guess the bpm in order to mix which I basically flunked and ended up fucking up my whole set can you make a video on how to find the bpm if there is a Tempo problem on the cdj🙏🙏🙏
for starters , DJs shouldn't be fixtures on a stage to begin with. The modern adaptation of what a "dj" is and does has become ridiculous, DJs should be out of sight out of mind, people should not be lined up like robots facing a DJ and taking photos. They should be dancing and interacting with EACH OTHER, and anyone who has been around the heyday of clubbing and raving knows exactly what I am talking about.
@@delvallo9652 things evolve. DJing is a performer’s game - if there’s a DJ that can hype up the crowd vs a DJ hidden away in the corner playing the same music, I think we all know which show would be more popular.
@@alexmason7103 that’s not how it works at all…you don’t go to a place to watch the dude, you go there to listen to the music they’re playing, seeing them is just how it’s painted as essential nowadays, but as mentioned above, you’re there to dance with each other and not stare at the person playing the music. Watch any interview with Moodymann and he mentions it all the time
great tips but there is another one that happens all the time when you press que and the there is this soud like tttttttttttt like its locked on loop ! can you explain why and how to fix it? thanks !
This will only work when the DJM is connected by "Pro DJ Link" (network cable) together with the players, so you have to put a network switch in between the CDJs and the mixer, connecting them all together. That maybe the reason why you often not find this connection in clubs.
About quantize, can you please tell me the reason why when it’s turned on, and I have it on a 1 beat loop, and when I try to half the loop (creating a buildup) and the halting will not take effect immediately and there is a delay? I find turning off quantize helps, but just want to know the reason why. Much appreciate it!
@@ramonrichie9683 thanks! Yeah that’s really annoying when it does that, but just as annoying when I forget to turn the quantize back on and it affects something down the line. I am trying to build the habit of turning the quantize back on whenever I finish an action. Sort of like taking the dishes back after I finished the food 😂
still wondering why you would pay so much more money for CDJs that have far less functionality, FXs, software bmp recognition. i'm happy with my RX3. Running my laptop to my RX3 makes it even more creative with FXs.
First and second part of the video was not even talking about the cdj but about a pioneer mixer effect settings or crossfader which I get that they have to do with djing but it has nothing to do with cdjs. Only time he talks about the cdj is at the end. Smh
AND the CDJ of choice seen hear is Pioneers top of the line-CDJ 3000 👀😲$$.. interesting pro’s at that level should not be making those mistakes you think🤔
One thing that I, as an engineer, want to add is: KEEP THE CHANNELS OUT OF THE RED. Understanding gain is very important and lots of DJ's just push everything to the max. The mixer will clip and that takes out all dynamics out of your music. When there is an audio engineer or a limiter installed, your maximum output will be set. There is no point trying to push past, you'll just ruin the sound.
I see people do this all the time. They seem to like to turn the gain past 12 o clock every time instead of just turning up the master. My only issues with levels is when I'm blending two tracks with each other and can't get a good output going while keeping from peaking the main out.
