DDJ-FLX4: 5 Hidden Shift Button Tricks

It’s day one of KNOWvember, our month of hidden tips, tricks and techniques for DJs on all kinds of gear, from beginner to pro. We’re starting with the most popular beginner controller there is, the Pioneer DJ DDJ-FLX4.

Every tip here uses the Shift button. Most of them aren’t labelled anywhere on the controller, and once you know them, you’ll spend a lot less time reaching for your laptop. I show you all five (plus a bonus) in Rekordbox in the video above.

1. Fly through a track with the jogwheel

Finding a point in a track usually means clicking on the waveform on screen, or playing the track and nudging your way through it with the jogwheel.

There’s a quicker way. Hold Shift and turn the top of the jogwheel. Turn it slowly and you can move through the track a little at a time; spin it fast and you’ll be at the end of the track in half a second.

2. Make the library full screen

Your library gets cramped fast. Switch on the effects panel, the sampler and the recording panel, and it’s squashed into a strip at the bottom of the screen, which makes finding your next track hard work.

Hold Shift and press the Load button on the right-hand deck. The library goes full screen, and you can browse with the rotary knob and load tracks without going near your laptop. Do the same again to switch back.

3. Change the tempo range

Out of the box, the tempo fader only moves your track up or down by about 6%. That’s nice and accurate, but it doesn’t let you speed a track up or slow it down very far.

Hold Shift and tap the Beat Sync button on that deck. This is the only one of these tips that is labelled on the controller (“Tempo Range”), but most people miss it. Each press widens the range, and you’ll see it change on the deck on screen.

Press it a fourth time and the range is so wide that pulling the tempo fader all the way down stops the track completely. Press it once more and you’re back to plus or minus 6%.

Bonus tip: hold Shift and tap Cue, and you jump straight back to the start of the track.

4. Zoom the waveforms in and out

The scrolling waveforms at the top of the screen show about two bars ahead and two bars behind. Hold Shift and turn the rotary knob in the middle of the controller to change that.

Zoom in when you want to put a cue point bang on the beat. Zoom out when you’ve got two tracks in the mix and want to see more of what’s coming up. Both decks zoom together, so you can still compare the waveforms if you’re beatmixing.

5. Start tracks with the faders

Fader Start lets you start a track without pressing Play. First, set a cue point on the track. Then hold Shift (either one, they both do the same thing) and push the channel fader up, and the track starts playing from the cue point.

Pull the fader back down and the track jumps back to the cue point, ready to go again. Let go of Shift and the fader goes back to simply controlling the volume.

It works with the crossfader too. In Rekordbox, go to Preferences > Controller > Mixer and set the crossfader curve all the way to its sharpest setting (the one that looks like a picnic table). Now the channel fader gives you a smooth start with full control over the volume, while the crossfader starts the track at full volume the moment you move it, which makes stutter effects easy.