FUNCTIONS OF THE PIONEER CDJ-3000

Play and Cue Buttons

The play button plays or pauses a track, and the cue button sets markers where playback will begin. These markers are known as cue points.

The behavior of the cue button depends on the context of its use:

• Pressing the cue button while playback is paused sets the cue point.
• Pressing the cue button during active playback returns the track to the cue point and automatically pauses playback.
• Holding the cue button after returning to the cue point continues playback for as long as the button is pressed.

Tempo Slider

The tempo slider allows you to adjust the playback speed of a track in real-time. Moving the handle in the + direction (down) speeds up the tempo, and moving it in the - direction (up) slows it down. When set to the middle point, the tempo is unaffected.

Pressing the “Tempo Reset” button near the slider ignores the tempo slider and always plays the track at its original tempo.

Pressing the “Tempo" button cycles through settings of ±6/±10/±16/wide. These values represent the range of tempo adjustment available, so a setting of ±6 enables you to speed up or slow down the tempo by 6 BPM (beats per minute) in either direction. The wide setting enables a range of ±100%.

Jog Wheel

Turning the jog wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise increases or decreases the tempo of the track. Once you remove your hand from the jog wheel, the tempo is no longer affected.

The jog wheel has two modes:

• Vinyl: pressing the top of the jog wheel stops playback. Turning the jog wheel while pressing the top produces a scratching effect. This is the most commonly used mode because it’s the traditional way of mixing dating back to vinyl DJing.

• CDJ: pressing the top of the job wheel does not stop playback, and turning the jog wheel while pressing the top does not produce a scratching effect. An advantage of this mode is that it minimizes the chance of accidentally stopping playback by touching the top of the jog wheel.

Beat Sync

To use beat sync, first set a track to be the master track. Next, press beat sync on a different track. That track’s tempo will be synced to the tempo of the master track.

Track Search

The Track Search buttons skip through a playlist of music. The forward button skips to the beginning of the next track, and the previous button jumps to the beginning of the currently playing track. Pressing the previous button twice jumps to the beginning of the previous track.

Search Buttons

The Search buttons fast-forward or rewind through a track as long as they’re pressed. While one of the search buttons is pressed, the jog wheel gains the ability to fast-forward and rewind in the direction it's rotated. This is a fast way to zero in on a location in a track.

Hot Cues/Pads

Hot cues are an extension of the cue button. They set different cue points and play from those points without having to scrub through the track. Hot cues are useful in fast styles of mixing or in other situations where you want to quickly get in and out from one track to another.

Loop

The In/Cue and Out buttons set the start and end points of a loop. Once you’ve set the loop points, that section of the track will automatically be repeated as a loop. The 4 and 8 beat loop buttons play 4-beat or 8-beat loops from the point where the button was pressed.

Beat Jump

The beat jump buttons skip through a track at phrase intervals. This is useful for aligning phrases as well as creating double drops. Performing double drops is covered in my DJ course.

Master Tempo

The Master Tempo button, also known as key lock, locks the pitch of the track regardless of the tempo slider position. Adjusting the jog wheel or move the tempo slider without Master Tempo enabled will change the pitch of the track, which is the behavior of traditional vinyl mixing.

Conclusion

Many controls on the CDJ-3000 are found on other CDJs and controllers. These industry standard controls tend to behave similarly regardless of manufacturer. For a deeper exploration of these and other features, check out my DJ course below!