How To Update The Firmware On Pioneer DJ CDJ-3000 Media Players

If you use the Pioneer DJ CDJ-3000s, or any Pioneer DJ media player, you’ll want to make sure the firmware is up to date. Firmware refers to the software that runs inside the machine itself, and up to date firmware is important for the latest features to work, and also as one of the things to check if you’re having issues of any kind.

Updating CDJ-3000 firmware

1. Check the current firmware on your CDJ-3000s

Hold down the Menu/Utility button (top right of the screen) for more than a second – the Utility screen shows, and the firmware number is shown top-right. Next, go to the Pioneer DJ support website (you’ll find it here for the CDJ-3000) and see if the current firmware there is a higher number. If it is, you’ll need to update it.

2. Download and prepare the firmware

Click the link on the website and follow your OS’s instructions to download the firmware. Once it’s downloaded, if it is a ZIP file, unzip it (it wasn’t for us on a Mac when we prepared this article and its accompanying video, so it didn’t actually need unzipping).

You’ll need to copy it onto a USB drive, and that USB must be formatted as FAT32, the same as when preparing a USB for moving music across to the CDJs. So do that: At this stage, you’ve got a USB drive with the latest firmware on it. Make sure it is not in a folder, just copied to the root.

Read this next: How To Format A USB Drive For CDJ Use

3. Update your CDJ-3000s

First switch the CDJ-3000 off. Then, hold down the IN/CUE button and the RELOOP/EDIT button (two buttons to the right of it) at the same time. Turn the unit on again with the other hand, and wait till you see the “insert USB” notice on the screen. At this point you can take your hands off the buttons.

Once that’s there, pop your USB into the USB slot top left of the unit, and wait until the unit tells you the firmware is updated – this can take up to a minute, although a few seconds is more likely. Now, switch the unit off, remove the USB if not needed, and turn on again – job done!

To check the update, follow the instructions above to see the new firmware number on your CDJ-3000 screen.

Finally…

If you have any issues, one thing to do is try a different USB drive. For some reason, we have a USB drive that works fine with a music library exported from Rekordbox, but which the unit won’t recognise when using it to update firmware – switching to a different USB drive solved the problem.

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Tip: Carry the latest firmware around with you, so you can update players in venues where they are running on older version, especially if you need the latest version of the firmweare for something in your set-up to work correctly.