A few months back the other DJ at my residency (I play 9pm - 1am, he plays 1am - 5am) decided to leave his new 2nd hand purchase in the booth, a CDJ-3000, adding to the clubs DJM-900NXS2 and pair of CDJ-2000NXS2's. This had meant that I have not been bringing in one of my own CDJ-2000NXS2's for the 3rd deck, although I still bring in my D2 for the 4th deck.
This has allowed me to test it out and see if a personal upgrade would be worth it at some stage from my pair of CDJ-2000NXS2 players.
Thoughts so far:
I like the ability to move the play head to the left of the screen - however not a setting you can change while Traktor is connected, you can change it when you load a track of USB and then it sticks when you change to Traktor control. There may be a way to pre-set it, but this one works for me.
Instant access to all 8 cue points is very handy, I know it's only 1 button to get to the other 4 but now I can access all sample points in a track or acapella.
Dedicated hardware buttons for 4 and 8 beat looping, and when you activate them it opens up the loop screen.
Dedicated hardware buttons for Beat Jump … however on the CDJ-3000 they are mapped to a fixed number of beats, where I generally set my beat jump to "Loop Size" so that I can vary it easily, so I've re-mapped them to "Beatjump -Loop" and "Beatjump +Loop". I did however re-map the on-screen "1-BEAT" buttons on the CDJ-2000NXS2 this same way to use my loop value.
The jog wheel feel is smoother … however took a little to get used to.
Obviously that larger screen is great, however there are some subtle changes and some things that simply don't seem to work!
The lower full track waveform does not always show Cue markers, or they show up in the wrong location. I am unsure why, and it is random on each track … however it does work on some tracks! Hopefully this gets fixed at some stage. Moving waveform shows Cue points just fine.
Speaking of the lower waveform, there are minute markers below it and on the CDJ-2000NXS2 these are fixed as elapsed time always giving you an indication how far into a track you are, even when you choose to show TIME as Remaining. The CDJ-3000 changes BOTH the minute markers and time countdown to elapsed or remaining. I never realised how many times I look at the minute markers on the CDJ-2000NXS2 to see how far into a track the drop is for example, while always having the remaining time count down.
The "Loop Size" in the lower right of the CDJ-2000NXS2 is not present on the CDJ-3000 … there is a "Beat Jump" on the lower left however because I use "Loop" for my beatjump, this does not show up properly. I may have the re-map the output from my Loop Size to it … however it does not show up as available in the "Add Out …" options …
When choosing which deck I want to control upon connecting, and the Device Target in Device Setup set to "Focus" on the CDJ-3000's, anything I have re-mapped with a Mapping Detail Assignment of Device Target does not follow the Focus (chosen) deck. This was an issue when shifting the CDJ-3000 from left most deck (that I assign as Deck C) to the right most deck (that I use as Deck D) … I could control all of the standard preset HID functions just fine on Deck D, however my changes to Beatjump and Loop Size Selector were still changing on Deck C. Very strange behavior, I should probably take a video and report as a bug.
The "Phase Meter" does not seem to work at all on the CDJ-3000's … where I traditionally use the "Type 2" setting on the CDJ-2000NXS2. Not a massive issue as I can beatmix just fine but has worked previously so why not on the new players.
Anyhow, for the moment the CDJ-2000NXS2 still work better for me and so while it's great to use the CDJ-3000 each week and get to know them better, it's not worth me splashing out even 2nd hand money for them.
I will however be keen to see if any of the things that do not seem to work get ironed out on the CDJ-3000X when it gets Traktor support …
Is there anyone else who has made the change and has some input, or is able to help fix up anything that I can't within my 4 hour weekly play time 😄
