The Pioneer DJ CDJ-3000 has today been announced. It’s a new flagship multi player, and a direct replacement for the previous flagship CDJ-2000NXS2.
Instantly recognisable as a Pioneer CDJ, it nevertheless boasts a host of improvements and additions, includes a much bigger screen, eight physical hot cues in a new position, a new audio engine, new key sync and key shift features, new jogwheel design, and an advanced MPU – the latter being probably the biggest leap forward here, as it will allow Pioneer DJ to improve the unit’s features over time via firmware.
Other new features include beat jump, the ability to preview tracks in-player, and the ability to jump ahead to listen to parts of tracks currently playing (even on other players). The unit can also layer waveforms so you can see the waveform of a deck you are cueing in parallel with that of the master deck.
Despite its name, though, the CDJ-3000 contains no CD drive, and at launch, there is no talk of built-in streaming services or WiFi.
Read this next: Pioneer CDJ-3000 Full Review, Video Talkthrough & Demo
There is also no multi-layer control (where one unit can play two music sources) – something many people thought would be a feature of Pioneer DJ’s next media player, not least because it is a feature of rival players from Denon DJ.
Also unlike its rival players from Denon DJ, the CDJ-3000 does not analyse tracks on the fly – track analysis for waveforms, key and so on needs to be done beforehand in Rekordbox on your laptop, as before.
As a new mixer has not been announced alongside the players, Pioneer’s preferred mixers for use with the CDJ-3000s are the DJM-900NXS2 and the DJM-V10.
The CDJ-3000 is, as per the CDJ-2000NX2 before it, targeted at pro DJs, clubs and festivals, and costs $2299 / €2399 / £2169. It is available now.
So that’s the headline stuff – let’s dive a little deeper into the features.