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djDecks offers 3 methods for cueing. The first is djDecks native mode, the second is CDJ mode and the third is PCDJ mode.
In djDecks mode, the play/pause button plays the song. When the button is pressed again while the song is playing, the current cue point will be set to the new position and the song is paused. The stop button will return the position to the current cue point and stop the song from playing. When the stop button is pressed again the position will be set back to the start of the song.
In CDJ mode the play/pause button also plays or pauses the song, but the cue point is not altered. To set the cue point, first pause the song, and then press the stop/cue button. Pressing the stop/cue button while the song is playing will stop the song and return the position to the current cue point. When the song is stopped on a cue point, the stop/cue button will play the song for as long as the button is pressed, and return to the cue point when the button is released. If you want to keep the song playing, press the play button before releasing the cue button. (Of course this can’t be done with the mouse only)
PCDJ mode is very similar to CDJ mode. The exception is that when you pause the song, and then move the jog wheel on your controller, the song will stutter-play to indicate the current position of the cue point. In PCDJ mode A the cue point will be set at the beginning of the stutter loop. In PCDJ mode B the cue point will be set at the end of the stutter loop which is similar to other PCDJ products.
By default, the keyboard shortcuts are F2 for play/pause and F3 for cue/stop for deck 1, and F6 and F7 for deck 2.
To move a cue point, stop the song and right-click and drag the jog wheel up or down. If you want to use the keyboard, the default shortcuts are q and w for deck 1 and e and r for deck 2.
To store a cue point, first press the CueRec button. The CueRec button is now lit up. When you click on one of the numbers next to it, the current position will be stored in that position. When you want to return to that position later, simply click the number of the cue point you want.
The speed of the song can be changed with the vertical slider next to the jog wheel.
Left-clicking will simply change the pitch, while right-clicking will have the pitch sliding toward the new pitch. Use the ‘Reset’ button to reset the pitch to normal speed and the ‘Auto’ button to synchronize the bpm to the other deck. Again, you can use the right mouse button to slide towards the new pitch slowly.
The default pitch range is 8%. By clicking the pitch range button, you can select between 8, 16, 24, 50 or 100% pitch range.
You can seek to any position in the song by clicking on a position in the position bar. You will see a visual overview of the track in the position bar. A more detailed overview of the music is shown in the area above the position bar. If you have enabled the option ‘High Quality and Zoomable waveforms’ from the Visuals options, you can set the zoom level by dragging the detailed position bar up or down. Right-clicking will reset the zoom level to the default. Note that this option is only recommended for fast computers.
If you want to loop some beats, press the number of beats you want to loop. To deactivate the loop, press the number again. The loop will only work well if the bpm was successfully detected. By default, the loop’s end point will be the current play position, so that you have heard what you want to loop before you press the button. Some people prefer to set the start point of the loop when clicking, so if you want this you can configure this on the ‘General’ tab of the options dialog.
You can access the player menu with the menu button. Use the menu to edit/show tags of the current song. If you have external hardware such as a turntable or cd-player connected and configured in djDecks, then you will be able to select these external inputs from this menu. If you have installed the FinalScratch, SSL, VirtualDJ or MsPinky digital vinyl plug-in, then you will also be able to start these from this menu.
BPM means Beats Per Minute, and is an indication of the tempo of a song. This value can be used to correctly start loops and to synchronize the tempo of two songs. Usually the BPM is automatically detected, and no additional action is required to use it. Sometimes the automatic BPM detection may not be accurate enough. In this case you can use the ‘Beat’ button to tap the BPM manually. After a while you will see the number changing. Right-click the ‘Beat’ button to reset the leds on the first beat. This makes it easier to check if the BPM is correct. If the leds are moving faster or slower than the beat, you can make changes to the BPM by using the up and down arrows. For finer control, hold SHIFT while pressing the up or down button to change the BPM with just 0.1
At the top of the deck, you can see another BPM value in grey. This is the BPM that djDecks has automatically detected. The percentage next to it indicates the accuracy of the detection.
The Automatic BPM Detection is enabled by default, but you can turn it off in the options if you don’t want to use it. The detection is started as soon as the song is loaded in the deck. When the accuracy of the detected BPM is high enough, the displayed BPM will get a brighter color. Because beat detection isn’t always 100% accurate, you may still want to fine-tune the bpm yourself. After the bpm is set, it is stored in the ID3v2 tag so you don’t need to set it again later. The BPM Value in grey next to the track time indicates the bpm value currently found by the automatic detection, as well as a value indicating how accurate the detected value is. If it is greater than 50% then you can be pretty sure that the value is correct.
The jog wheel can be used to temporarily speed up or slow down the song to get it synchronized with another song. Use the right mouse button on the jog wheel, and keep it pressed while moving the mouse up or down to speed up or slow down the song. The more you move your mouse, the more the song will slow up or down. As soon as you release the mouse button, the pitch will return to where it was before. You can also use the left mouse button on the jog wheel to do some mouse scratching.
The crossfader can be used to fade from one deck to the other. Use left mouse button to set the fader to the centre, or use middle mouse button to fade to a position. Next to each VU meter you also have a volume fader for each deck.
To increase the volume even more for softly recorded songs, you can use the gain knobs in the middle of the window. If Replaygain is enabled the gain will be automatically calculated for each song so that all songs sound equally loud.
To hear the song through your headphones for pre-listening, use the ‘Cue’ buttons, or the volume slider next to the headphone icon.
The master volume can also be altered by using the master volume knob. The ‘Cue Bal’ knob sets the amount of master output that is also sent to the headphone output.
Each deck has a three-band equalizer. The left slider controls the low (bass) frequencies, the right slider controls the high frequencies, and the middle slider controls the frequencies in between. You can use the kill buttons to quickly mute/unmute the specific frequencies.
This tab shows the current crossfader behavior, a VU meter, the Master Volume (The bar left of the VU meter). It will also indicate clipping and limiter status, and if available it will show pictures of the loaded song or album. Click once on the pictures to increase their size, click again to go back.
You can select one of four crossfader curves as well as the time it takes to fade from one deck to another (in seconds). If you want to be able to quickly switch between one deck and another with the shortcut keys, it is recommended to set the slide time to 0.1 seconds. You can also configure the decks’ brake and start speed to create turntable startup/shutdown effects. (Click the numbers and drag your mouse up or down)
This will show the waveforms from both songs next to each other. This way you can check visually if the beats are synchronized. This view also helps if you want to manually create or modify a beat-grid.
You can use this tab to open the third deck, and to control volume and equalizer of the third deck.
This tab is used for mixing Video. See the documentation about video mixing for more information.
On the spectrum tab you can see a spectral display of the music.
Press the red button to start recording. It will ask for a filename, and you can also select the format to record to. djDecks can record in mp3, ogg, wav, aiff and flac formats.
After pressing 'Save', djDecks will start recording as soon as you start playing some music. While recording, djDecks also stores a .cue file, which stores the time and track names that you've played. This can be used with some programs to burn a cd with separated tracks for example.
When using external mixer mode, djDecks records from Input #4 as selected in Options->Sound. See the sound card configuration for more info.
If you want to use turntables or cd players to control djDecks using timecoded records, you can use this tab to quickly activate/deactivate vinyl control on each deck. This tab also shows some information about the timecode quality.
The Line button will activate the line input on that deck to play regular vinyl through djDecks. The MR button activates Mute Reverse, which will automatically mute the sound when the record is played backwards. Right-click this button to activate Mute Forward which mutes the sound when the record is playing forwards.
The FX button toggles the effect panels on or off, the PL button toggles the playlist window on or off, and the Menu button will show a menu to access the options dialog.
Right-click the Menu button to show options to load a VST effect which will be applied to the master output (only useful if you are using djDecks’ internal mixer)
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