Stepping up to your first set of CDJs at a gig? To many DJs who never spin on CDJs, this may sound super intimidating at first. Have no fear: there are basic functions that work just the way any controller does. If you can play on any digital controller, CDJs are no problem! Today’s tips will help prep you for your next big gig using the industry standard club rig.
Key features of using compatible djm mixers with traktor scratch pro 2. Intuitive DVS and scratch control. Plug your PC/Mac into your DJ mixer using a single USB cable and use the DVS feature to intuitively control and scratch the digital audio files stored on your computer.
1. Prep All Of Your Playlists + Tracks In Rekordbox
Rekordbox has made it easy for DJs to plug and play on any CDJ setup. Simply export your set to a flash drive, plug it into the CDJ, link them together, and you’re done.
Oct 02, 2012 A quick video on how to set up Traktor Pro on your computer, along with a brief description of the preferences in Traktor. All credit to a bangin' performance software goes to Native Instruments. Mar 01, 2015 Now click “ Link ” on the CDJs and select “ USB MIDI”, a Traktor icon should be displayed. Rotate the encoder to choose a deck, once you’ve selected the correct deck, press the encoder and the CDJ will automatically be setup with Traktor, nothing to map or configure. DJs can now view the track. Mar 15, 2012 Traktor Pro 2 with CDJ 900s I am just wanting to know if I can set up Traktor Pro 2 with my CDJ 900s and DJM 800. Would it be possible to set my two players up with my mixer and just simply connect it to my laptop to have a 2 way system that I can use all the features of my hardware and software with ease?
When using Pioneer CDJs to control TRAKTOR in Advanced HID mode, you may want to route the audio from each TRAKTOR Deck to a separate channel of your external mixer. With the following workarounds, you can use the built-in audio interfaces of your CDJs for this. Aug 05, 2009 A short video showing how to alter the midi settings on your PC in order to allow Traktor Pro to recognise both CDJ's and assign them to the seperate channels, therefore making Both your CDJ400s.
The first thing you must know when creating a set in Rekordbox is the importance of setting up your hot cues and memory cues.
Hot cues allow you to create 3 different cue points within the track to use on the CDJ while mixing. By selecting these hot cues when preparing a set, they will automatically save to your flash drive when exporting.
Memory cues are also great to set up while using Rekordbox. Use them to give yourself more options to jump around in a song. Memory cues help you decide which part of the song you want to mix into. Simply just click the section you want to place the memory cue on, and hit “Memory” in Rekordbox. When you get to your gig, just hit the arrows that say “call”, and the CDJ will scroll through your memory cues.
Remember, properly exporting your tracks from Rekordbox can take a lot of time! The software analyzes your songs and then writes them to your USB. Be sure you give yourself at least a few hours to let everything fully export.
Pro Tip: export onto at least two flash drives to be safe. You never know what could happen at the venue, so always have a backup or two of your set on hand.
2. Link + Loading Your Tracks
You get to the venue and finally see these beautiful CDJs. Drop in your flash drive – but wait, what now? How do you load a song? What is the deal with all these folders? Don’t panic!
Once you plug in your drive, your library will only appear on one CDJ. To access it from other CDJs, hit the Link button on other units and it will find your drive on the LAN connection. If Link doesn’t work, ask the sound engineer, and make sure the Cat5 cables are hooked up properly for linking them together.
Loading a track is simple on CDJs. All you have to do is use the scroll button to find what you want, and simply click down on it to load the track. If you need to go back into other folders for any reason, just hit the back button at the top right of the player.
The Pitch Fader’s Quirks
The CDJs provide endless opportunities to mix in creative ways. But for your first set, you don’t need to know all of these functions.The first important feature to know for mixing is where the pitch fader is. It’s right where you’d expect!
The pitch fader on the CDJs will allow you to find the BPM range you need for mixing into another track. Your BPM will pop up on the screen once you load a track. CDJs have “soft takeover” – so you won’t jump around in BPM if the fader is off. Instead it displays a message “Move fader to current BPM”, a good way to avoid a sudden jolt in tempo.
CDJs’ tempo faders also have a range that’s adjustable with the button above the tempo fader. You can keep it nice and small, or set it to “WIDE” for more dramatic changes.
Setting Cues
The most prominent and most used controls on the CDJs are naturally the play/pause and cue buttons at the bottom left of the players. Play/Pause is straightforward but it’s worth learning how the cueing system works on CDJs.
Once you place your cue and start to play, if for any reason you hit “cue” again, the song will jump back to where that cue was placed. For example: if the cue was placed at the beginning of the song, and you play 8 or 16 bars and hit the cue button again, it will jump back to the beginning – and pause the track.
Many DJs use this function to test out a new track as they’re bringing it in, tapping on the cue button in time with the downbeat to see if the songs are aligned and everything sounds good.
Loop Basics!
We won’t go too far into looping on CDJs, but it’s important to know how to set a loop quickly. This will vary my model, but on almost every CDJ the fastest way to set a loop is to hold down the LOOP IN button for a second. It will set a 4-count loop starting wherever you first pressed it.
If you want to quickly make it longer, tap the LOOP 2X button to double the loop size. You can do this multiple times for quick access to 8, 16, or 32 count loops.
Quantize: If you have Quantitize turned on, loops will always start on a downbeat. When you’re starting out, keep it on. You can always turn this function off once you’re more comfortable on the CDJs!
A big shout-out goes to DJTT Contributor Constantine K. for providing many of the excellent tips you read above. He is a producer and DJ from Grand Rapids Michigan and you can check out his latest work on Soundcloud.
What tips would you give to someone starting on CDJs? Share in the comments below!
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How To Use Traktor Pro 2 With Cdjs 4
- Hi guys, so so far I used my controller and I am still using it, but in may I am gonna play at a festival where there will be 1000+ people. There I must use CDJ’s which aren’t the problem. The problem is the source of the music, I have all my sets planned in traktor so is a good idea to connect the CDJ’s(probably 850 or 2000) to traktor as a midi controllers or to go to buy 2 USB pen drives and prepare the set in rekordbox?
PS: I fear that CDJ’s might crash in trakor or something similar.First of all get to know what really will be there.
It is not a matter of CDJs alone, but also what mixer is there etc. Maybe the rig at the festival is already Traktor ready.Then tell us what will be there (usually if a gig is really 1000+ people you should get what equipment you can expect to be on stage). Also if you have any decent controller you might even simply ask the Festival tech to bring yours. Last 10 Festivals I played this was ZERO problem, since most festivals have stage techs anyways and that gives them something to do and feel important 😉
Also booth size at festivals is usually huge, so you should not have any problems with setting up while the other guy still plays or even simply leave your gear in the booth ready connected.If you really need to use the CDJs make sure they are fully Traktor supported and possibly the mixer also and linked up. Then crashing should not be a problem.
Even if all that works, to have a Backup USB stick (or 2) as a safety net made in rekordbox is always a good idea. I always bring one, even when I have my controller setup, since if anything fails I just head to the main mixer and mix in from the CDJ.If you never had experiences connecting Traktor to CDJ 2000, Id say just to be on the safe zone, stick with the USB stick and bring a few good CD’s with youTheres a lil bit of learning curve to connect Traktor to the CDJ 2000, so unless you already did, its just gonna be a hassle, showin up with your laptop an dcant figured out why Traktor aint workin with the CDJ 2000I play often using cdj2000 in HID mode a few times with Traktor but lately mix vibes cross.
If you using a mac you need to make the 2 CDJ’s aggregated (combined into 1 sound card) or with windows you need the drivers installed beforehand.then only problem I’ve ever had with connecting CDJ’s is that it seams they always are sending the sound out of the wrong player so I need to go into audio setting and switch the outputs around.Gulli if the mixer is actually a DJM850 or DJM900 NXS there shouldn’t be a need to aggregate the cdjs as the mixers soundcard can be used. The CDJs are then just advanced HIDs, but I am unsure if CDJ 850s are supported as HIDS in Traktor.OP you need to clarify exactly what gear is available if you want to use Traktor otherwise just prep for using USBs is my advice. If you use MAC I suggest getting Rekordbuddy and sync your Traktor library with Rekordbox. Makes prepping your usb drives easy.Uhm … I think you do need to aggregate … since your tracks are indeed playing in Traktor, you need to tell Traktor that the output for deck 1 goes to CDJ 1 and for deck 2 to CDJ 2. And that only works if Mac knows both outputs.Same, but different way, in windows.CDJ2000 (NXS) work fine for me with mixvibes Cross (and I did use them with Traktor a few times before that). Hook them up, run the Pioneer aggregate tool, set the audio right and off you go.Greetinx.DJ Vintage I am pretty sure I did not need to create an aggregate device on my MBP for my cdj 900s , as I use a DJM 850 (which is what the OP says is available) it acts as the sound card not the CDJs so why aggregate their soundcards?, the players are just control devices.As the sound is being routed through the DJM850 the output from the Traktor decks are assigned to the mixer channels via Pioneer Setup Utility and within Traktors input/ouput routings.As the OP mentioned CDJ 2000s not just 850s there are two slightly different methods as far as I can see. The 2000s are advanced HIDs so when you hit the link button the player asks you which Traktor deck you would like to control from it so that is how the Mac knows which deck is controlled by the different players.The mapping is loaded automatically unless you want something that has been remapped for additional Traktor features.There is a different procedure for the CDJ 850s as shown in Terry’s link, I presume down to the fact they aren’t Advanced HIDs and therefore need the TSI files loading in manually.Which is why I suggested the OP find out what was available before going down this route as the work involved in setting up the CDJ850s is longer winded.I stand corrected. Missed the bit on the DJM. So based my response on using an analogue mixer.Greetinx.Need a fat, funky bass? Free analog vst plugins. Just click that combination of tags to get a short list from the across the entire library—or limited to just the virtual instruments you select. Find it in a flash by clicking tags to filter Analog Lab extensive sound library by Types, Characteristics, Instruments and more. - Posts
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