Ok, This is a knows issues to me. And I have some info on how to work around it.

Firstly you shouldn't be able to access 8% well the CDJs are plugged in, when you boot up the CDJs they should go to 16% by default. Are you sure its not 6%?



Not possible. your choices are 6, 10, 16, and 100 %


That is part of your problem right there.

Something in the HID fucked up when you restart CDJ's in HID mode well another one is already connected. I have had it go to 8% once in a blue moon but your clearly doing something to cause it to do it all of the time.

There is a button on the CDJ to change the tempo range. What it says on the CDJ's should always match what its says on the serato screen.


Yes I do.
How are you starting up your decks and software? It doesn't really matter I'm going to tell you the way you need to do it.

Computer is powered on nothing is running. Plug your USB cables for your CDJ's in (into a powered hub, if its not you will have issues). Plug in your Serato Box USB (directly to the computer). Start Serato, Wait until Serato see the Serato box and both (or all) decks activate. Now click link on your CDJ's assign them to there own decks. Everything will be working correctly. The CDJ's will default to 16%. 2 clicks of the range button (which you will need todo on both deck's each and every time you start Serato). 1st click will set the CDJ to 100% pitch, 2nd click will send it to 6% where you want it.

If you have to for any reason shut off a CDJ It will fuck up when you connect it again if Serato is already running and another CDJ has been or is connected. The moral of the story NEVER shut of a CDJ, Never change it's source (to CD, SD, or USB). The only work around is to shut down serato and start again.

There is no bug to fix at this point as SSL is no longer under development. HID mode in Serato DJ is buggy as hell and is not ready for public use. So you will need to stick with SSL for now.

Hey Code:E, If I could send you a beer through the internet I would. Thanks for the reply. I have been using SSL and CDJs since their respective inceptions. Using cdj's with HID is pretty sick, (when not using rekordbox) but there are bugs galore. I wish Serato would clean up the bugs to completion.

The weird thing is, even when pressing the "tempo range button" to change the percentage, the cdj screen the percentage may read 6%, 10%, or 16% and the actual playing resolution in SSL can be at 8% (which is what I am aiming for) or it can play at 16% or 50%. It is very funky. The cdjs are still fully functional if one reads @ 16% (plays @ 16%), and the other reads at 16 % (plays at 8%). However, a lot of times, this isn't even consistent. It varies.

I am really aiming to turn both cdj's on and have it to read at 16% and play at 8%. The issue is that what reads on the cdj screen never correlates to what is "pitched" or calibrated in SSL. (However, I'm glad you see where I'm coming from.)

I am starting up the software "exactly" as you have written. It's funny you typed all that, because I have to start up SSL the "exact" same way when I want to start up my cdjs in HID mode. I thought I was the only one who did it this way. Ehh..

Hummm.... Your CDJ's are in HID Advanced Mode?

Are you using any other midi controllers?

Yes, advanced mode. Just a Traktor X1 (rev1). I've also contacted Pioneer, but from reputation seems like I shouldn't expect to hear from them anytime soon.

change the MIDI channel on your CDj's to CH 5 and 6.

Thanks for the tip, Just tried that. Didn't work. One cdj still defaults at 16% the other at 8% on startup.

What version of serato are you running?
YOu may want to try uninstalling re installing Serato.

hmmm...that isn't a bad idea either. will give it a shot. thanks.

here's what i've found...

it depends on what decks in scratch live you're using. i was experimenting with 3 decks in HID mode a little while back, and noticed that if i used decks 1 and 2 in SL i would have no issues with HID mode. however, any CDJ assigned to deck 3 or 4 would have different HID mappings for no reason. There is actually an extra pitch range in SL when utilizing HID mode on decks 3 and 4. My CDJ900 natively offers 6%, 10%, 16%, and 100%. SSL supplies 8%, 10%, 16%, 50%, and 100% for decks 3 and 4 only. As a result, the display on my CDJ900s will not match up with the actual pitch range in SSL, but will work fine anyway.

Another anomaly i found when assigning to decks 3 and 4 was the loop select buttons (CALL on the CDJ's). If i tried to change loops with these buttons on decks 3 and 4, they would actually change loops on decks 1 and 2. How miserable.

It's a shame to see something overlooked go for so long. It looks to me like a simple fix. I spoke with Pioneer about this over 2 years ago and (big surprise) they insisted i was doing something wrong.

Fucking Pioneer.


Thanks for all that info I'm going to look into that all also.

Good response TelosHedge, I'm glad to hear your findings. It makes a lot more sense to me now. I am finding the "exact same" thing with my setup. I have the cdj's hooked up to channels 1&4, the techs to 2&3. I don't know if this is on Serato or Pioneer to fix, but it doesn't seem like it is a complicated issue. If anything you would think it is the software, and not the hardware to blame.

On a different but similar note...I got a response from Pioneer. The only feedback/answer I received (after inquiring about this issue to Pioneer was "are you using SDJ?" Great...yeah...fucking Pioneer. Love the products (for the most part), fuck the customer service. That response took almost a week...Their CS is very disappointing. You figure they would give more than half-a-shit for something you pay a premium for.

I used to spend tons of time on the Pioneer forum, but I got fed up with their lack of caring. Unless you're a touring DJ pulling 100K a gig they don't want to hear anything from you.

The Pioneer mod/rep from Canada even told me most everything that gets said and complained about on there forum falls on deaf ears. The regular everyday user doesn't matter. It's all about the endorsements. And if you say anything they dont like they ban you.

That mod also said his job was just to give basic tech support he didn't even have lines to the high up's to actually communicate what the community wants. Only company worse than Apple is Pioneer.

It's kind of sad I haven't heard much of a response from Pioneer or Serato. And I did observe that about the Pioneer forums, they ban you & close forums posts left and right. Kind of ridiculous. It's like a full-on dictatorship up in there. It funny because a lot of other companies have been excellent about their "customer's" service. Rane, Allen&Heath, Novation, jeez...even Native Instruments. TelosHedge's response will probably be the closest thing to bring closure to my question. (Thank You both TelosHedge and Code:E)

In a way I'm glad that I found somebody else with this issue. It seems very very amazing to me that we've gone this long without anybody else noticing this very strange oversight. Why can't it just be 2004 again and we can just have Pioneer stuff that works? ;)

You figure that HID is one of the many amazing features/options that can be utilized from a cdj. Figured that someone would actually test/pick this up. After all, pitch is an important, crucial and needed component to mixing. The jump from 16% to 8%/6% is a significant change in pitch resolution. Utilizing an sl4, I would love if in a future update they fixed this or...gave you the option of pitch percentage per deck.

Has anybody confirmed if this is happening over on the SDJ side of things? Maybe i'll give it a go later and report back.

I finally received an official response from a rep at Serato. It is confirmed that the aforementioned issue cannot be fixed in SSL at the moment. It is something that they are actually aware of, and there is a possibilty of a fix in "SSL" in the future. (But not likely, as they are focusing time on SDJ...which is sad.) It would be great to see this fixed in the near future, however, hearing another answer adds to my closure.