could it be that you hit the keyboard shortcut for reverse play?

This. It's actually hard to tell onscreen at a glance that you've done it.

It happen to me also playing for 4 hours and one of the deck suddenly play on reverse i hit shift plus censor and it plays back to normal

Thank you all for the feedback. I will troubleshoot this later today and let you all know what I find out. From what I've heard, this is probably exactly what happened. All of the things that I thought were issues were easy fixes because it was due to my error. That's how we all learn though :)

I'll update soon.

***UPDATE***

So it was indeed my error on this one. The "Q" and "A" key on the keyboard do make the decks play in reverse. If you accidentally press one of these and aren't in the track search box, it will cause the track to play in reverse.

I hope this helps anyone who might encounter this.

Thanks for all the help and input.

Loudogg

This is why I check "playback keys use shift" and "lock playing deck"

These two settings have saved my hide many times.

Hey guys,

Just for future reference, if you ever find you are playing in reverse (either because you turned it on with Q/A or you did it from the SX hardware), then just press SHIFT + CENSOR on your DDJ-SX - this button is mapped to 'Reverse' and will toggle reverse play on/off.

Chairs.

I just experienced this last Saturday on my Gig! I accidentally hit the "A" on my keyboard.

Don't forget to choose the option in Setup that doesn't allow you to use keyboard shortcuts unless the shift key is pressed.

Cheers.

And make sure you don't have caps lock on.

Hi folks, I recently contacted Bruce on the Serato support with a similar issue. I was mixing track after track for a couple of hours and then boom.... The loaded track actually went backwards. Knight mare.

I have a DDJ - SB so can anyone of you veterans with SX 's explain to me how I combat/reverse this without shutting my program down and rebooting. I would go try hitting A or Q on the keyboard but I'm away from home at the mo. Any help and assistance would be appreciated peeps!

Cheers
H

Hey Hogi,

To change the direction of playback you can use they keyboard shortcuts Q (left deck) and A (right deck), or you can simply command/CTRL + click on the play button in the software.

Cheers.

Great stuff. Cheers Logan!
I will have a fiddle when I'm home.

That's gonna come in handy for that gig at the devil worshiper's summer ball!!

Kind Regards
Hogi

this happen to me why the fuck can't you just hit the damn censor button to turn i off??? this fucked up my last 2 nights smh AND IN THE INFO MODE WHY NOT NOTE THIS?!?!?!

Hi DJ Vegas

See comments by Logan D, it's as it says. Just Q or A and it's sorted.

No stress!

Cheers
H

Stop stressing people.
Long term Serato users have been caught out at least once as Logan said
Lock playing deck
Keyboard requires shift

Same thing happened to me last night. Right deck went to reverse, lock playing deck & keyboard requires shift were checked. I was using the SX. Very annoying....Why oh why is there even a reverse mode? Or for some silly reason if reverse mode has to be an option - you should have to go deeper in the settings to choose it.

This happen to me and I freaked. I didn't know how to make it play forward.

I think a setting for disable reverse would be great.
I never ever want to play a track in reverse so let us disable reverse play

Over the last 7 years that I've used SL & SDJ I've managed to hit it two or three times live. The first time I just freaked and shut the program down mid-set as I just had no clue which the correct buttons was to get out without calling up the help (which I didn't do due to sheer panic!).

I'll +1 a removal of it to stop newbies (and even drunk veterans) from ever hitting it again. It's such a rarely used mode I think we could use that key for something else, especially now controllers and CDJs have reverse/censor buttons.

The problem it's fairly easy to hit this when loading a track. My friend did the same thing at a gig one night. I quickly went to the forum on my phone to try to help and told him hit Shift + censor. After that it was good lol what a pain though.

SERATO

please allow us to disable reverse in "settings" forever
I and many many others don't want it
So let us disable it
It is disastrous when your track starts playing in reverse
Very embarrassing.

And the thing is reverse is way too easy to inadvertantly trigger

I meant inadvertently, lol.

Guys

A Big thank you! Half way through Night Fever in last nights set and it goes into reverse! Couldnt work out what I had done and couldnt get it to stop! As I usually only use a two deck set up on my DDJ-SX I stressed a bit and rather than kill it went through the last hour with one deck and lots of short links! Good thing the bar was shutting and the clocks going back as that was 2 links sorted. Got hoem and found this. Tried the control and click method and have locked my playing deck. All is now fine in my world. Cheers all!

I wish they'd give us an option in settings to DISABLE reverse play,

It does need to go off the keyboard now. A few years back I hit this issue and couldn't stop it.

If you have the SX plugged in "shift + censor" should reverse the deck.

This happened to me in front of a full floor. Oh my days. three mins to restart. Strong look

It's a killer. It has to go!

to be frank.. most of the key are in odd places not that useable or get in the way, I only find the ZXCVBN are placed good for using the SP6 sampler until you hit space changing your view or hit M jumping you away from your track list position .. SDJ great software just needs to work on the little things that make a big difference ..

now getting back on topic i hit A which reversed the track lucky i know that hitting A again will fix it but i did say to myself "i wish i could just turn it off alone with a few other unwanted things".

Work around...

Check the box (ENABLE) "Play in Shift Key" in Settings... And NEVER, EVER, search in All CAPS.

This, this, and this.

Thanks for the info fellows

Hey guys, if you have the "Playback Keys Use Shift" option checked in the SETUP screen then you won't bump the reverse shortcut by accident. You will have to hold SHIFT before playback keys will work.

This is a good way to stop yourself from bumping the keys if you are leaning over your laptop frequently.



Hey dj lashes, care to elaborate on this? I personally think the keyboard shortcuts are placed in a practical fashion..

1-0 = Cue Points
Q-[ = Left deck playback features
A-' = Right deck playback features
Z-N = SP-6

How do you think it might benefit from being laid differently out on a laptop keyboard? What would you change? Remember they have to be universal keys for both Mac and PC, as well as international keyboards. Keen to hear your thoughts!

Kind regards

ok am on the radio right now after here the club then ill get back to you.. plus i just a had a crazy thing happen bpm dropped down to 6.0 from about 104 ....!!!

Play/Pause W S
Reverse play direction Q A
i 1st dont like the idea of having both deck options on one side if i have to jump from the controller to the laptop my mind would be still thinking far left far right unless in stack mode which am sure most users have decks left and right..so i would of went for something like...
Play/Pause left deck Q / right deck P
Reverse play direction left deck W / right deck O
take note both play options are FAR right and left easier to find in the club ect.. unlike now you need to make sure you hit the 2nd key in or sh1t thats reverse ...

SP6 are cool but then the M WTF is with leaving the M just sitting there wait for you to hit it and BOOOOM you just lost the position in your crate.... why not make the M work with shift to change banks OOOPS NOOOO that not a good idea "we wont need remote anymore"

on a real keys shortcuts and actions will always come down to the users preference & style of playing some like it simple and other like to get deep.. with all respect stop being a nice big brother serato... and just let us map the keys ??

Just happened to me last night fellas in the middle of a Sweet 16 party. Everything was going fine, had a nice track playing on the left deck and was about to cue and load a track onto the right deck then, BOOM! Right deck was playing backwards!! Censor button flashing and I was stuck in the abyss. I tried hitting the censor button again thinking logically it would turn off. No such luck. All I could think to do under pressure was do a big shout out to the birthday girl while I shut down and reloaded Serato DJ. This seem to fix the problem until about 2 mins later it happened again. After reading this forum when I got home I realize that I was probably hitting the 'A' key while not in the search box and not having checked in the settings "playback keys use shift". To make matters worse after my second shutdown I think I somehow I instant doubled the track, now both decks were playing backward! After a third restart of Serato DJ and desperate apologies to a bunch of teenagers and their parents, all went well. Even though my crowd was without music for a good 60 seconds I guess the totality of the night was a success because I still received a $100 tip and a job well done from the Dad. My only question is why is there a keyboard shortcut to play a track backwards? Is it that hard just to push the button on the controller? How is a keyboard shortcut making this process any simpler?

This.

I think it has to be re-visited now as it's still a pain. I think in 2016 that doesn't need to be there now and just hope Serato can help fix it. I've been the victim of that twice in the past (many years ago) and it's awful when blind panic sets in as you have to then start looking at the help file keys to find which one is reverse all while it's going crazy.

FWIW, I also think having a reverse playback feature is pretty redundant but I also think the keyboard shortcuts have been around so long and used by so many people that changing them fundamentally (as was suggested above) is also a no-no. Also think of the manuals, keyboard covers, stickers etc.

So how about swapping Q & A for censor buttons instead of reverse playback? That way, the key layout would remain familiar and logical (to most people) and the Q & A buttons would still reverse the audio like they always have. But now it would only be momentarily and if hit accidetnally, not only would forward playback resume as soon as the key was released, but the playhead would be right where it would have been too.

Win-win?

I totally agree that would be a win-win. Great suggestion!

@DJ Lashes

cmd + l

will take you to the currently playing track

;-)

I actually really like this idea honestly +1

That's gets a +1 from me too. It's a logical solution that keeps functionality.

give us options is settings to DISABLE REVERSE PLAY
many people NEVER use it, and NEVER want to accidentally trigger it

Absolutely... I'm with you on this... Thank god this just happened to me at home and not at a gig. It took me 20-30 minutes of googling and experimenting to figure it out.

I can't understand why the hell anyone would WANT this as a feature at all, let alone one that is so easy to activate by accident and so difficult to figure out and turn off again afterward. By the number of results from my googling, I'm not the only one to have discovered this rotten easter egg.

REALLY BAD SW design guys... this qualifies as a BUG to me... not a feature.

See in ScratchLIVE "use shift for playback keys" was on by default. So we didn't get all this bollox. In SDJ it is off by default.

just let us turn it off, via checkbox in settings, so we NEVER trigger it via keyboard shortcut !!!
makes sense i'd think??

Already can just tick "use shift for playback keys"

no, we need dedicated check JUST for reverse,
i may want not to use shift for other stuff

I'm sure many other functions would mess your set up just the same as reverse.

Custom keyboard shortcuts is the real answer!

Or switch reverse to censor as suggested above.

I think putting the "Playback keys use shift" option ON for the first install makes sense.

Toast to all who has posted! Just finished a wedding! After activating reverse during the song FootLoose.

How do you mess up a full dance floor with your bride with reverse mode. It was said above, why is it there? Jeez.

I will finish my wings and beer now. But reading this made me feel so much better.

Never had I had his issue in years til I bought my ddjsx2 and it happened in the club I had to play left track for like three songs til I figured it out. I don't know if it was a new software update that took it off or what last night I was doing a sound check and again when I went to type in the name of the song my screen started changing the waveform wasn't moving it was ridiculous.

i cant use sdj anymore with my 62. using sdj with it makes whatever track loaded spin backwards at a super high rate.

the fix for me was to rename my midi folder name, but i just didnt want to do it each time

i just gave up on sdj.

I actually like the "reverse play" feature, but only for when I'm in offline mode (it makes tuning in spots to set cue points a little easier). I've never hit "q" or "a" by accident while playing or searching, but then again I keep "playback keys use shift" checked and ONLY use "Shift" when I'm in offline mode.

the culprit was that it "playback keys use shift" turned off i guess after i updated it unchecked it self. but i found something else thats been bothering me that i never had to worry about before. Im noticing that when i select a song and load a or b and then go to play it its the same damn song that was playing before i went to current song ( not to be confused with instant doubles. then i have to hit the load button like twice to get it on.

The better question is why was this function even invented? WHO THE FUCK WOULD EVER NEED THEIR SONGS TO PLAY IN REVERSE????!!!!!!!!!

...but how else will you know what Missy Elliot said in that part of "Work It" on a controller?

it is dvs, so it mimics vinly. internal brake trick in ssl is to hit A and A again to emulate a break with a slow back spin ala old hip hop mixing dj technique.

It just happened to me with my Vestax VCI-300 MkII. It suddenly started to go backwards. No way to reverse it. Had to unplug usb and restart Serato DJ. I noticed that both play symbles in the software were facing reverse. What happened?

Prob when you were searching for a song and hit reverse as a shortcut key on the laptop.

Reverse = Q/left deck A/right deck

Try not to hit those keys or the deck will play in reverse😉

You’re welcome😉 serato.com

My Friend Does This Alot.. I Tell Him everytime it does this.. Hold Shift on Your Controller to Whatever Side It's Playing In Reverse.. While Holding Shift, Press The Censor Button.. It Will Go Back To Normal.

Thank you! It happened only once years ago and I couldn't remeber the procedure.

Thanks for the advice!

Woah.. My Friend's Dj Name is Also Dj Frankie.. Without the Flower 🤣

I have a problem with the right side of my Serato when I connect my SL4 Box. I goes in reverse on its own and doesn’t respond when I press A. It only responds in the internal mode bout never in “Rel” mode.

How do I get it to work properly?