DJ: CDJ-3000 Full Tutorial & Features

⚠️ Important

Despite the name, CDJ-3000s don't have a slot for CDs — you can't play music from a CD in a room with 3000 decks. 
You can only play music via a USB stick or a laptop, as explained in this guide.

🎧 Here's how to begin using the CDJ-3000s

1. Ensure all Pioneer Units are turned on and ready for use*

• CDJ-3000: power on/off button at the left-hand side of the rear panel.
• DJM900NXS2 4 Channel mixer: power on/off button at the left-hand side of the rear panel.
• XPRS10 speakers: power on/off button at the bottom of the rear panel.

2. Perform a Factory Reset — this ensures no software errors or preferences from the previous user remain.

• Press the [UTILITY] button to the bottom-left of the Touch Display.
• Press [SYSTEMS].
• Press [DEFAULT].

3. Insert your Music Storage Device into one of the CDJ Units

• USB: via the USB port in the top right-hand corner of the front panel. Make sure your USB stick is formatted correctly — see our guide on formatting and exporting tracks to a USB drive.
• SD card: via the SD card port in the top right-hand corner of the front panel.
• PC/Mac: via USB cable from your laptop to the USB port on the rear panel — see our CDJ-3000 laptop connectivity guide. Bring your own cables: 3 USB A-B cables for Standard rooms, or 4 for Pro rooms.

4. Select your Music using the Touch Display

• Press [SOURCE] to select your source destination (USB, SD, etc.).
• Press [BROWSE], [TAG LIST], [PLAYLIST], or [SEARCH] to display the track list.
• Press the play button at the bottom left-hand corner of the front panel.

You'll be ready to start mixing once you've completed these steps.

✨ A quick overview of the CDJ-3000's newest features

• Key Sync and Key Shift features to ensure all mixes are harmonic.
• A much bigger, much brighter 9" touch display.
• Lightning-fast load times with a brand new processor unit.
• Eight Hot Cue points.
• A smoother, redesigned jogwheel with an LCD screen displaying artwork in the middle.

🎹 Key Sync

Adjust the key of a track being played on the unit to match the key of a track loaded on the sync master. To use:

Press [KEY SYNC] when a track is loaded. The key is adjusted to the key with the least change among:

• Same key
• Dominant key
• Subdominant key
• Relative key
• Relative key of the dominant key
• Relative key of the subdominant key

Press [KEY SYNC] or [MASTER TEMPO] to reset to the original key.

🎚️ Key Shift

Shift the key of a track. To use Key Shift:

1. Touch [KEY SHIFT] on the Waveform screen — the Key Shift screen will appear.
2. Touch [-] or [+] to adjust the key. Each press shifts it up or down by a semitone.

Touch [RESET] to revert to the original key.

🖥️ Touch Display

There are three key screens at your disposal:

1. [SOURCE] screen: press the source button to display the source selection screen, showing all connected devices, device icons, names, and information.
2. [BROWSE] screen: press [BROWSE], [TAG LIST], [PLAYLIST], or [SEARCH] to display the track list. Browse the Rekordbox library on a storage device (SD, USB) or a connected PC/Mac.
3. [PLAYBACK] screen: also known as the Waveform screen, showing loop beat count, the enlarged waveform, beat countdown, and more.

• Use your fingertip to operate the touch display — don't press with excessive force.
• Don't operate it with hard, sharp-pointed objects such as a ballpoint pen, mechanical pencil, or sharp fingernails.

Read the full Touch Display instructions here.

⚡ Brand-new processor unit

This powerful unit enables many of the CDJ-3000's new features, with industry-leading load times and fine-tuned processing for the best sound possible. The new digital-to-analogue converter processes audio at 96kHz/32-bit floating across every file format, giving you an upscaled audio output regardless of your music's original quality or format.

🔥 Hot Cues

Quickly call up a Hot Cue point by pressing the [HOT CUE] (A to H) buttons to begin playback from that point in the track.

To set a Hot Cue: press one of the [HOT CUE] (A to H) buttons at the point where you want to set it.

To start playback from a Hot Cue: press one of the [HOT CUE] (A to H) buttons that has a Hot Cue set.

To delete a Hot Cue: press one of the [HOT CUE] (A to H) buttons while pressing [CALL/DELETE].

Read the full Hot Cues instructions here.

🎛️ Redesigned jogwheel

The jogwheel has been revamped to feel slicker than ever, with reduced touch latency for effortless scratching and smooth pitch bending. The LCD screen in the centre displays playhead position and track artwork, giving you a quick visual reminder of your loaded music.