3 Ways CDJs Will Ruin Your Sets

And how to avoid getting caught out

Hello there Gain Gangsters,

Whether you are a controller DJ or you play in clubs/bars, CDJ’s are often seen as the ‘pinnacle’ of DJ gear.

At least if you define pinnacle as most expensive. Or ‘has fewer features’.

They are also terrifying if you haven’t played on them before.

But I’m here to tell you that the scariest thing about playing on CDJs is not the CDJ itself.

It’s the strange little quirks that exist between the different models that will really trip you up - especially if you don’t know about them.

In today’s newsletter I’m going to tell you about the sneaky and underhand ways CDJs can destroy all your precious track preparation.

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You can take that to the bank(s)

The CDJ-2000NXS2 is still many DJ’s favourite CDJ - even though it came out over 8 years ago.

Speaking of 8, it has that amount of hot cues. That’s pretty damn generous, thanks Pioneer.

After melting down old water bottles, they only managed to fashion four buttons to operate all 8.

The 8 hot cues exist in two banks of four that you toggle between with the small buttons underneath the cues themselves. Finger drummers should exit the room slowly.

CDJ2000-NXS2 Hot cue banks

Bank 1 activates hot cue A,B,C and D. Bank 2 activates E, F, G, H.

The bank buttons do have a lame blue light to show you which is active. But it’s really small and easy to forget which bank you are accessing.

You press C, and get G. Kind of like my piano playing.

For this reason I recommend you only use cues E-H for secondary cue points that aren’t going to be critical for your performance.

And this is good practice in general, as you’ll see shortly..

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The incredible sulk

Before the CDJ-2000NXS2 came, rather unsurprisingly the CDJ-2000NXS. That’s actually not true, it was the CDJ-900NXS but this sounds better numerically.

Back in those days 3 hot cues was all you got. But at least we didn’t have those silly banks to confuse us, just like in late 2008.

If you are a more visual person like me, you may find it easier to colour code your hot cues for certain things. For example, I like to use red for the drop and orange for acapella sections.

I can just glance at the colour of the cue and know exactly what’s coming up on the track.

I’ve always liked green, though. I almost wish every hot cue could just be green and nothing else. You know, take out the middle man. Oh wait..

CDJ-2000NXS Hot Cue Colours

That’s right, all green. What this means in practical terms on the CDJ-2000NXS is you are going to need to rely on hot cue order rather than colour to communicate information about your track.

This is yet another reason why it’s really important to have a consistent cue point system in place for your library.

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Just the one, please

When talking about the OG CDJ-2000 it’s hard to choose only one way it’ll make you tear your hair out. And I’m not talking about the hair on your head.

So i’ve decided to talk about a very common scenario. That’s the one where you couldn’t be bothered to prepare your cues ahead of time before a gig.

You download a track 2 minutes before you have to leave. You shove it on your USB, hop in your Uber and hope for the best. Not only for your gig, but in terms of getting to your destination without ending up face first in a lamp-post.

Setting cue points whilst playing isn’t ideal, but on most CDJs it’s not too much of a grind. Especially when you have beat jump like on the 2000NXS2/3000’s.

But the CDJ-2000 will punish you hard for this lack of preparation.

Laughable waveforms on the CDJ-2000

First of all, I’ve seen higher fidelity waveforms at the local kids splash pool. There’s also no grid. Also the waveform doesn’t scroll. Oh yeah, and quantise only goes down to 1 beat.

That means if you like to set cues on transients (aka not on the downbeats) you are going to have to try your luck with quantise off. That’s if you can even find the point on the track to set them in the first place.

The way around this? Even if you don’t have time to do full track prep I recommend setting what I call your ‘critical cue point’. This is the one cue point you value above all others.

In some cases, it can be a point on the track that you can work backwards or forwards from to set other cues. A good example of this would be on a drop. It could also simply be the start of a percussion section on an intro.

We are only scratching the surface here. There are so many more ways CDJs can screw you over and ruin your sets.

And I’m planning to cover them all in a future YouTube video. So if you haven’t subscribed yet make sure to head over to the channel and click that button.

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In other news..

• I’ve mentioned a bunch that I think learning an actual musical instrument can be really beneficial to your DJing. It improves timing, musicality and just understanding the stuff you are actually playing. Having mastered the Ukulele (by which I mean I can strum along to Country Roads) I’ve begun my journey with the Piano - wish me luck.

• Beta testing for my upcoming workshop on cue points has begun and I’ve started working on the first module. Thanks to all my awesome beta testers!

Have your say

My goal is for this to be the most valuable DJ newsletter in your inbox. Let me know how I’m doing 🙏

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