SC5000 x Virtual DJ 2021 Walkthrough

I just recently decided to try out my SC5000s and X1800 with Virtual DJ 2021 and it really is amazing, therefore I wanted to share my experience with you guys. Since I’m totally new to VDJ this is only an overview of the default stuff.

Setup:

One SC5000 used as a USB-hub where the other SC5000 and the X1800 is plugged into. Following you only have to use one USB cable to plug into your computer. For connecting it to VDJ it’s recommended to turn on the players first and put them in computer mode before opening VDJ.

Main View:

There are three different options for the main view:

Controller Deck

Controller Deck + Master/Other Deck

With loaded second deck

You also have the possibility to zoom in or out of the waveform:

When you touch the key of your track you get the following options to change it:

Touching the BPM of your track will allow you to make some changes to the beatgrid:

(Quick tip: If you want to adjust the length of your beatjump, you can hold shift and then press the beatjump forward, on your SC5000, to increase the value or shift+beatjump backwards to decrease the value)

Pad Modes: To adjust the parameters of the pad modes you can use the arrows for PR1 and shift + arrows for PR2

Pressing the Hotcues button a second time: CUELOOP

Pressing the Loop button: LOOP

Pressing the Loop button a second time: SAVED LOOPS

Pressing the Roll button: LOOP ROLL

Pressing the Roll button a second time: KEY CUE

Pressing the Slicer button: SLICER

Pressing the Slicer button a second time: SAMPLER

Shortcuts Button

If you press the Shortcuts button on your SC5000 you can see your Sampler and have also the option to see some custom user buttons.

SAMPLER

USER

Browser View

Folders (Buttons on the left side, top to bottom: Folders, Playlist, Sideview, Settings)

Playlist

Here you have the options increase or decrease the font size, you can adjust the columns which you’d like to see and also adjust their width to however you like.

Sideview

The first time you tap it you get to your sidelist. Afterwards tapping will move you through all your lists, that you have in your sideview. At the moment I added some filter folders in my sideview.

Browser Info

When you are in a playlist you can tap the “i” icon on the left side to see the browser info in which you can also rate your tracks on the fly.

Settings

X1800

When connecting your X1800 all of the mixing will be done on the mixer, therefore you can use your effects, etc. like your used to.

A really handy feature of VDJ2021 is the stems feature. When you first startup VDJ it will ask you if you want to activate it and if you say yes you can set for example the EQ of the channels 3&4 to control the stems of channel 1&2. This allows you to use the stems feature while simultaneously equalizing the signal. You can still use your decks 3&4 as usual but when you load a track for example on channel 3 the EQ will stop controlling the stems and work normally. As soon as you eject the track from deck 3 the EQ of channel 3 will switch back to controlling the stems.

End

So that is all I have for my walkthrough. So far I’m extremely happy with VDJ2021, eventhough it’s a very hefty price to pay but in combination with the SC5000s it’s in my opinion well worth it, since I never really got used to the Engine Prime software. I would expect all of the above features to work exactly the same or similar on an SC6000 setup but I of course can’t confirm this myself.

I’m a former long-time Traktor user and as I said I never really got warmed up to the EnginePrime workflow and the workflow together with VDJ2021 is just exactly what I wanted, for example having the screens of my players “synchronized”, in terms of being at the same position in the same playlist, is something that I really missed when using the SC5000s in stand-alone mode.

At the end I also want to give a quick shout-out to the rekord.cloud app which made this transition from Traktor to VDJ extremely easy, and thanks to the app I can keep doing my library management and tagging in Traktor. @Christiaan is also very responsive and helpful if you have any problems or requests.

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Look so much cleaner than Engine OS

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I wish we could get a playlist view like that directly on the players. If I could view genre, label, key, and track title all at once, I would buy everyone at denon a bottle of wine.

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Nice walkthrough, thanks for the content and i look forward to giving it a spin.

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