When I had the opportunity to play at a top-notch venue at the last summer festival, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they already had the new Pioneer CDJ 3000 players. This certainly makes life easier for a mobile DJ, and I must say they work perfectly with Traktor Pro 3.

First things first, of course, all devices must have the latest versions of the operating system and software installed, otherwise it simply won't work. In my specific case, that would mean the latest firmware on the CDJs, the latest Traktor version, and of course the latest operating system on your chosen computer. Since I'm using a MacBook Pro, I can't say how it would work with a Windows PC, but that's not my business... 😉

The HID mode is already built into older CDJ versions and has always worked for me. There are plenty of guides and tutorials online explaining exactly how to control and play with the CDJ 3000 as a sound card within Traktor, so I won't go into it further here. Anyone who found my article can use Google.

Once I had everything connected and set up, Traktor worked flawlessly with the CDJs, and the new touchscreens on the CDJs are really great. But honestly, I don't really need them in my DJing routine. What surprised me, though, as a long-time tech enthusiast, is that the network connection now offers Gigabit (1000 Mbps) speed, and you can directly enter your Dropbox or Beatssources account to play music from the cloud.

Okay, in Germany, due to the lack of available fast internet in venues, this is only possible to a very limited extent anyway, but it's still nice to be able to get CDJ players in Germany where you can only use the "Cloud Play" function at home; we in the rest of Europe are much further ahead in that regard.

I think the players are very well done again; the feel and build quality are typical Pioneer, but as a Traktor user I don't necessarily need them, because for the price of one of these players I can almost buy three S4 MK IIIs, and in terms of audio interface, the two aren't that different... (and no, it's not the audio interfaces that determine the quality of a track, but the track itself and its quality).

But you never know, maybe I'll get some just for home use to prepare for club bookings. Attached you'll also find a video showing and explaining how to connect Traktor to the CDJ 3000 in HID mode...