I'm going to show you how
to connect a pair of CDJs
Well, sometimes you get
to the venue and you step
inside a DJ booth only to find out that
there's no space for you to
place your DJ controller on,
or maybe you're playing at a
venue that doesn't allow you
to take along your own DJ gear.
That's getting rarer these days,
but those places still do
exist, so if that happens,
well you can still spin with your laptop,
long as you can connect to the gear
that they've got in the booth.
And, more often than not, the
gear they're going to have
is a pair of CDJs, just like
what I've got over here,
plus a DJM-900NXS mixer.
So, in order to connect all
of these to your laptop,
you're just going to need two things.
First off, you're going
to need three USB cables,
one for each of the CDJs
and one for the DJM mixer,
and then you're also
going to need a USB hub.
Make sure that the hub
has three spare ports
so you can connect all three cables, and,
as much as possible, get a powered hub.
USBs are finicky things, and
sometimes they don't work
because they draw too much power
and all that technical stuff that you just
don't want to deal with when
you're setting up the gear
and you're about to go
on stage, so please,
as much as possible, use a powered hub.
So, I'm going to show you how
to connect them right now.
First up, let's connect cables.
Okay, so now that you've
got it connected, fire up
Rekordbox DJ, let's make sure
we're in performance mode.
And then let's go to the settings
menu, go to the audio tab
and make sure that audio
is set to the DJM mixer
that you've got connected.
If you don't see it there,
click on the driver button over here,
and you're going to be
brought to this window
that has all of the drivers
for the compatible DJM mixers.
So you may have to do a bit of installing,
depending on whatever mixer
that you're going to be using.
Right now, again, I've got the DJM-900NXS,
and I've already installed the driver,
so I don't have any problems over there.
If you're using something
else, just double click
on whatever mixer it is, and
then you can install the driver
and you should be good to go.
So, let's close that, and
everything looks okay.
Let's go back to the main
menu, and then now let's go
to the CDJs, let's configure
them for use with our laptop.
So, I am going to press the link button
over here on the left CDJ.
That will take me into control mode.
Now it says USB MIDI, and push to connect.
I'm going to press the browse knob,
and now I am connected to my computer.
Now I am going to move
this clockwise one click,
and I'm going to assign it to deck one.
I'm going to press the browse button.
Now, this lets me control
deck one over in Rekordbox DJ,
so I can scroll through my playlists,
go through my tracks and all that stuff,
and I can even load a track if I want to.
Let's try this one.
So, it works just like a normal CDJ.
It's like a glorified controller, basically.
Now, let's move on over to our right deck.
Going to do the same
thing, click link button
press the browse knob to connect it.
We're going to move this clockwise.
Going to choose deck two so
that lets me control deck two,
or the right deck over
here in Rekordbox DJ.
Again, I can use this
to browse for a track.
Cool.
So, now that I've got the CDJs connected,
I need to make sure that the
output from the virtual decks
in Rekordbox DJ is coming
out of the DJM mixer,
and to do that we need to do
a couple of settings tweaks here.
Look at the top of the DJM-900
mixer, you're going to find
an input switching matrix over here.
Just make sure that you've got channel one
set to USB one and two.
So that means that the left deck
will come out of channel one,
and then over here, in
channel two make sure that
you've got USB three/four connected.
So, that means that the
right deck, or the right CDJ,
is coming out of channel two.
Now press play here.
You're going to hear that.
There you are.
(electronic music)
And, same thing with this one, deck two.
(electronic music)
Yeah, so that's all there is to it.
It's super, super easy.
It's quick to do.
Pro tip, if you want to
save time setting up,
you can connect all of the USB
cables to the powered USB hub,
so you just need to
connect the plugs over here
to the Pioneer kit, plug in
your USB hub to the power output
and then plug it to your computer,
so it saves you a bit of time.
And, also, if you know the kind of mixer
that you're going to be using at the club,
you may want to install the
driver for that ahead of time
so you don't end up installing it
right before you go on stage.
So, that's it for this short tutorial.
Please hit the thumbs
up button and share this
with other DJs who you
think might benefit from it.
My name's Joey, thank
you so much for watching.
I'm going to see you guys next time.
