Iconic music brand Pioneer DJ has launched a new special edition fanzine to celebrate 30 years of their famous CDJ turntable.
Titled Deckades, the zine will be available both digitally and in print, and features interviews with some of electronic music’s biggest DJs, as well as the person who created the first CDJ: Kou Atsumi.
The CDJ (which stands for Compact Disc Jockey) was first launched in 1994 and went onto massively impact club culture.
Invented as an alternative to the vinyl turntable, it built on technology developed by Pioneer for car radios (specifically their ‘anti-skip’ technology) and grew in popularity as DJs transitioned from vinyl to CDs loaded up with tunes. As a result, mixing tracks in clubs suddenly became much easier, and as well as streamlining the process of speeding up tracks, the CDJ opened up all manner of gamechanging possibilities such as looping and beat matching.
These days, Pioneer DJ is one of electronic music industry’s biggest brands, bringing in over $200m in 2018, before it was acquired by AlphaTheta in 2020.
The zine itself examines the evolution of the CDJ, from the original CDJ-500 to today’s CDJ-3000, spanning 23 models over 30 years.
Those wanting to pick up a copy can go to blog.pioneerdj.com to get theirs for free; in the meantime, we’ve collated an exclusive list of memories around the CDJ from those interviewed within its pages.
DJs remember their first encounters with the CDJ
Fatboy Slim
“The change was born out of necessity. I was encountering shocking old 1200s [vinyl turntables] that didn’t work properly at so many shows. The turning point was a night where I was playing on a lorry at Carnival in Salvador, Brazil for five hours back to back with David Guetta. He was whupping my ass because his CDJs were louder and didn’t jump every time we went over a pothole… He absolutely blew me off stage that night and it hurt!”
TSHA
“Do you know what, I’d tried the 2000s, but only because I turned up to the club and that’s what they had and I’d never used them before, so I just winged it. But I was like, I really need the gear at home. I couldn’t afford the 2000s. The MK2s were the next best option because they were a little bit cheaper. When I got them, I was really excited. They had the loop feature, Beat Jump, a touch screen… it was pretty cool.”
Fabio from Fabio & Grooverider
“I remember reading about CDJs in DJ Mag. It must have been about 2004, so about 20 years ago. There was a dj called Paul Enson. He had a prototype of the CDJ. I was like, what the f**k is this? And they were like, ‘this is the future.’
I wasn’t havin’ any of it. I’m a vinyl guy. I’m thinking, ‘there’s no way I’m doing this anytime soon.’ Then, five years later, I went over to CDJs and never looked back.”
