Pioneer DJ - CDJ-3000

The Evolution of a Legend
Since the launch of the CDJ-500 – the world’s first flatbed DJ CD player – in 1994, each new CDJ model has become the go-to player for many of the world’s most respected DJs and clubs. The revolutionary CDJ-1000 allowed DJs to use new techniques, such as scratching, that had previously only been possible on analogue turntables. Then the CDJ-2000 opened the door to rekordbox and Pro DJ Link. For the first time, DJs could manage their music before exporting it to USB sticks for use on multi-format players. Later features, such as Wave Display and Beat Sync, made mixing more intuitive. In 2016, the CDJ-2000NXS2 became the player of choice for clubs, festivals and DJs around the world who play from digital music files, thanks to its improved features and exceptional sound quality.

The CDJ has come a long way since the 1990s. And while the CDJ-3000 no longer has much in common with the original devices, it shares the same ambition and goal that has always driven the CDJ range: to provide you with an intuitive and enjoyable interface that gives you the power to manipulate music in any way you want (including ways you probably wouldn’t have imagined).

Discover the press release from Pioneer DJ France:
The most advanced player we’ve ever created
When you’re mixing in front of a live audience, you need to know that the decks will allow you to realize your creative vision, and that they can handle anything you throw at them. We designed the CDJ-3000 to bring you all of this and more. The unit’s new MPU is the first we’ve ever installed in a CDJ. It’s the heart of the unit, delivering stable performance and enabling advanced new features, and it works with the other parts of the player to create a smoother DJ experience. For example, you’ll notice that tracks and Hot Cues load faster than ever thanks to the capabilities of the MPU and Gigabit Ethernet connection. The CDJ-3000 is also a Hardware Unlock device, which means that if you want to use rekordbox’s Performance Mode, all you need to do is update the software to the latest version, even if you’re on the Free plan.

You put your heart into your DJ sets, and all that effort and creativity deserves to be seen. Your audience will hear every nuance of your set, and the richness of every detail in your mix, thanks to the CDJ-3000’s all-new audio design. You won’t just hear all these improvements in the CDJ-3000 – you’ll see them too. You can choose what information you want to see, and display it in pinpoint detail on the 9-inch touchscreen, which is larger and higher resolution than the CDJ-2000NXS2. We’ve kept the intuitive interface to make it feel familiar, but we’ve added handy new controls, like shortcuts to make it easier to jump between categories in your track library. New features like Touch Preview make selecting tracks quick and effortless, and with a host of other new features like Touch Cue, Stacked and 3Band waveforms, you’ll always find the perfect moment to play your tracks.

Want to show off your skills and create live remixes? With an improved control layout, the CDJ-3000 feels like a musical instrument. Eight Hot Cue buttons – twice as many as on the CDJ-2000NXS2 – are arranged from left to right below the waveform display for more intuitive triggering. Beat Jump with the new dedicated buttons, and press Key Sync to make harmonic transitions. You can also create a wider range of loops with the new 8-Beat Loop button, which joins the classic 4-Beat control.

Touch is so important when mixing – whether you’re tweaking the pitch of a track or performing a complex scratch technique. We’ve redesigned the CDJ-3000’s jog wheel to provide the smoothest action of any multi-player we’ve ever made. Touch latency is also better than ever, and you can use the LCD screen in the centre of the jog wheel to keep an eye on the position of the playhead, while also seeing the album art to help you find your way around. All this and more is detailed below.

To use the CDJ-3000 with rekordbox, update to the latest software. To play tracks from your iPhone, update to the latest version of rekordbox for iOS.

The all-new advanced MPU delivers improved performance and perfect stability: Trust your decks
In addition to expanded creative options, the CDJ-3000 brings even more stability and reliability to your setup.

• Advanced MPU
With the new MPU, we’ve not only revolutionised the way the CDJ is controlled, but also made it run smoother and more stably than any of its predecessors. The processing power of the MPU has allowed us to incorporate exciting new features that would not have been possible on previous models, and also gives us more scope to introduce even more via future updates.

• Pro DJ Link with Gigabit Ethernet
With Gigabit Ethernet for Pro DJ Link, you can share and play audio files from USB devices and SD cards on up to six CDJ-3000 units when combined with a 6-channel mixer such as the DJM-V10.

• Improved screen visibility
The maximum screen brightness has been improved by over 150% compared to the CDJ-2000NXS2, so you can increase it depending on the environment you are playing in to improve visibility.

• More robust components
The high-grade aluminium top plate and new Play, Cue and Hot Cue buttons are more durable than ever, and the V-Lock*1 locking power cable protects against accidental disconnections that could interrupt your set. It also comes with a high-quality digital cable that is easy to handle and perfect for use in clubs or professional installations.


Enhanced audio design: Let your audience hear the true sound of your music and every nuance of your performance
We’ve drawn on over 25 years of experience to create the ultimate DJ sound, faithfully reproducing the audio of each track as the producer intended, while highlighting the subtle details of your performance.

The CDJ-3000 unifies internal audio processing at 96 kHz/32-bit float across all playable audio formats. This allows the unit to capture the subtleties of the original sound source, including its depth and atmosphere, and even slight changes in timbre in the bass. Advanced audio processing technology, including variable speed playback, Master Tempo and the new Key Shift function, all contribute to delivering a more realistic spatial sound representation and more musical bass than any other Pioneer DJ multi-format player.

In order to achieve the best possible performance from the DAC (digital-to-analog converter), we carefully evaluated each part of the circuit that outputs the analog audio signal, and made several improvements. We also tuned the digital audio signal to achieve optimum sound quality from the player as a whole, testing many different components until we found the best possible combination of key parts. This significantly reduced digital noise, resulting in a natural sound that audiences will appreciate during long sets – even at high volumes.

9-inch high-resolution touchscreen with completely new features: Find all the information you need at a glance
Thanks to a larger and clearer touchscreen than the CDJ-2000NXS2, we were able to add additional information, shortcuts and buttons for frequently used categories and functions, such as playlists and search, so you can access them directly at any time. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) will look familiar if you’ve used the CDJ-2000NXS2 before, and you can customise the information you want to see and set preferences for various aspects, such as text size. You can now navigate by swiping the screen, and use the sort function to reorganise the track list simply by touching the screen. All these improvements make operations easier and help you navigate your tracks more instinctively. A number of new features also help you choose the perfect track, and the perfect moment to throw it into your mix:

• Touch Preview
Listen to any part of a track you want to prepare, simply by touching its waveform in the appropriate place in the navigation section. If you have multiple CDJ-3000 players connected to a DJM-V10 or DJM-900NXS2 mixer via Pro DJ Link, you can even listen to tracks that are on another player thanks to Link Cue.

• Touch Cue
Even as you play a track, you can listen to another part of the same track by touching the waveform, and the audience will not hear what you are doing. This function can be very useful when you need to familiarize yourself with the progression of a track in order, for example, to identify the best moment to launch a transition, such as when handing over between two DJs, or during duo sets. Link Cue (see above) even lets you listen to different parts of the track another DJ is playing on another player.

• Stacked Waveform
Keep an eye on the expanded waveform of the track playing on the main player and the track you’re going to play next, all on one screen. Identify the best moments for transitions or other actions, and visually check that beatgrids are perfectly aligned at a glance.

• 3Band Waveform Support
Understand how a track sounds without even listening to it. 3Band Waveform uses different colours to indicate the volume of each frequency band in files analysed by rekordbox, so you can see the composition of the music just by looking at the waveform. The 3Band waveform joins the previous RGB and Blue options.

Key Sync and Key Shift: Mix in Perfect Harmony
Press the Key Sync button and the CDJ-3000 will automatically adjust the key of the incoming track to match the current track on the main player, helping you create seamless, smooth transitions. And with Key Shift available on the touchscreen, you can manually adjust the key of a track up or down.

Our Smoothest Jog: Feel the Difference
Scratch with ease, and pitch-shift tracks seamlessly. We’ve reworked the mechanism inside the jog wheel to make it smoother than anything we’ve ever created. At the center of the jog wheel, the LCD display shows the current playback position and shows the cover art for an easier visual cue, as you can tell at a glance which track is loaded on each track.

Redesigned performance interface for an enhanced experience: Express your creativity without stress
Get to know the CDJ-3000’s redesigned controls and new features – all arranged in a way that lets you use the CDJ as if it were a musical instrument.

• Eight Hot Cue buttons
Intuitively launch Hot Cues by swiping through the eight buttons arranged from left to right below the waveform display. With this linear positioning, you’ll more naturally select cue points based on their position in the track.

• Dedicated Beat Jump buttons
Jump directly forward or backward from the current playback position of a track by pressing the dedicated Beat Jump buttons. You can set the quantized number of beats to 1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 beats.

• Advanced Auto Beat Loop section

In addition to the CDJ-2000NXS2’s popular 4-Beat Loop control, the CDJ-3000 offers an 8-Beat Loop button for even more creative possibilities. And if you want to make polyrhythmic loops, you can use the extended options to create odd-beat loops and remix sounds on the fly.

Flexible performance options: mix your way

Play rekordbox-analyzed music from USB flash drives via Export mode, or connect your laptop via USB-HID control to use Link Export mode or Performance mode. And because the CDJ-3000 is a Hardware Unlock device, you can use Performance Mode for free – no paid subscription required – and play all the tracks in your rekordbox library, including those from Beatport/Beatsource LINK and SoundCloud Go+ (subscriptions required for streaming services).

You can even connect your iPhone to the CDJ-3000 via USB cable*2 and mix music directly from the latest iOS version of rekordbox, which supports lossless file types such as WAV, FLAC, ALAC and AIFF, as well as MP3 and AAC files.

A forthcoming release of Serato DJ Pro will make the software compatible with the CDJ-3000. Stay tuned and we’ll let you know as soon as possible!

Pro DJ Link with enhanced Lighting compatibility: Take your sets to new heights
Sync your sounds with lighting effects thanks to the player’s compatibility with the new Lighting function of Pro DJ Link. The CDJ-3000 sends the analysis information of musical phrases to rekordbox (PC/Mac) so you can control the lighting effects via the RB-DMX1 (available separately) and take your sets to new heights.