Two diffusion points almost always sound better than 4, unless you're ready to get serious with the audio engineering stuff.

Dispersed speakers without proper delays and and planning work ok for background music at a low volume. Not so much for any sort of high volume / show application.

Use 4 speakers, place them in pairs.

Need more details to give more targeted advice, like the model of speakers and sub.

But, based on your description so far of harsh sound at previous events, and only 2 tops and 1 sub, my first reaction would be it sounds like the system is significantly undersized for the space.

Sounding harsh and "loud" in a bad way is most frequently a system that is too small being pushed to it's limit. You start getting distortion, and the lows and mids can't keep up so you end up with a very unbalanced mix where harsh, distorted highs which are very unpleasant to listen to.

My advice:

• Make sure you have enough sound to run tops at below ~75% max output . Subs can be driven a bit harder
• for 350 people, if a single sub, that better be a serious touring grade dual 18" cabinet with a serious amplifier feeding it. Otherwise, is I say minimum 2x 18" high end powered sub for open format or 4 for electronic music. Center cluster them for best results.
• I'd keep your tops co-located unless you are comfortable setting proper delays and such. It's much easier to get a point source system sounding good.
• for acoustics, place the speakers high and angle them downward so they cover the crowd and you minimize reflections off the back wall. Anything beyond that is probably out of scope for a 1-off event in a rented space.

You can "emulate" playing on CDJ2000s on the XZ by keeping sync and all that stuff off, and keeping the browse window open at all times so only the preview waveforms are visible.

I would say the no waveforms thing is the biggest difference from more modern gear. Your eyes get used to having them there, and being able to see how far ahead a drop or breakdown is. It's like backup cameras in a car... never really wanted/needed one, but then had one for years and now when I don't have it, I have to remind myself how to actually drive lol.

This is why you have to yell a bunch of stuff on the mic at every transition, so the crowd knows.

I play house and techno. I'll run two high end 18" subs minimum for 50 people house / boat parties. I've also done 2x dual 18" funktion-1 subs for 50 people and that sounded satisfying. This might be a tad overkill, but subs are an absolute necessity for electronic music.

No sub works ok if we're talking about 20 people in an apartment for a chill after-party, or music that isn't bass driven for a crowd that doesnt care too much about sound quality.

Yeh, thats a good idea. But, you should not just start spraying contact cleaner into the faders. You need to take it apart, and clean any circuit boards that are dirty/sticky.

As someone else mentioned, you don't want to clean out all the lubricant from your faders and leave it like that.

Seriously, you're going to plug a DDJ-FLX4 into a dB line array system and play to 1500 people? With 1500 person crowd, they can't rent some proper gear like a couple CDJs and a mixer?

The DDJ-FLX4 is not a pro piece of gear, it doesn't have balanced audio outputs, and its really not up to the task for this sort of scale. It's not going to sound good.

If you insist on proceeding like this, warn the audio tech youre using home/hobby gear and it only has RCA outputs. They'll need to place a satellite mixer or stage box or something that can convert that to a balanced signal and bounce it over to the main console. Dealing with RCA outputs is not something I would be expecting as an audio tech, and you definitely don't want a long run on the unbalanced line.

Well, its a flagship player.

I'm not sure if you're comparing to XDJ-1000mk2, or all-in-one XDJ... The XDJ-1000mk2 is the more direct comparison standalone vs standalone... well, I mean they are totally different. The XDJ is missing half the functions and buts a crap ton of stuff on the touch screen instead of having physical controls.

I mean I suppose they could have called it an XDJ-3000... but that would have confused people from a branding perspective since we have it in our brain CDJ = flagship and XDJ = entry level.

People havent been buying CDJs for the CD functionality for a while now.

Yeh this should be fine, you just wont get a balanced signal so may experience slightly more noise.

You can go XLR to TRS cables or RCA -> TS cables (make sure its not a RCA pair to 1/4 stereo TRS)

It definitely sounds like quantize is on. Are you 100% certain its off?

It's a very direct translation, I would have no qualms jumping on stage infront of a crowd and playing on 3000s never having seen them before if i've played on nxs or nxs2 players. Infact, thats just how it went for me when the 3000s first came out.

There are some new features that perhaps you won't be aware of right off the bat, and a couple other minor workflow differences, but honestly, nothing that is going to catch you off guard and trainwreck your set.

As others have said, no effects on the players. But, you'll have plenty of effects. It's just a different workflow.

Most likely you'll be using a DJM mixer, so you'll have beat FX and sound color FX. Its the same as more modern rekordbox DJ controllers. You can look up some videos and tutorials on how to use effects on pioneer gear.

Yeh it seems like there's a bug related to re-drawing the playlist UI after taking an action. Also happens when you try and sort columns and stuff, the display doesn't update.

Didn't realize it also happens deleting tracks, thanks for the heads up.

Yeh its just contact cleaner... if you've got a sticky mess on circuit boards / electronics, should do the trick assuming the electronics are still functional. But, not sure what your issue is, so whether it will fix anything is another question.

Yeh, i feel like this is a good spend money slower pathway. You can even do XZ + 1 3000, then later, another, then at some point buy a 3rd CDJ + a mixer and sell the XZ, and then if you really need, a 4th 3000. But I feel like 3 decks covers 80% of situations, with slightly less convenience, and more need for quickly loading new stuff.

It should only take a minute or so to re-sync the whole thing once you do it the first time. It won't re-transfer stuff that is already on there.

You can sync individual songs and playlists and save a few handful of seconds, but i find this a bit error prone because I can be forgetful.

Honestly, both work completely acceptably. I use MIK for the ability to write key and bpm to the comment tag, so i can see them both in a single column on nxs players.

The reality is its not really possible for these programs to be 100% accurate because not all songs are written in major or minor keys, and composers will "break the rules" sometimes (e.g., key changes, adding in out of key notes, etc.) So, usually when different key analyses softwares return different results, we're talking about edge case songs.

As someone else said, you can beat jump the loop & play head.

But, it might be worth asking yourself why you are doing this, and whether its a good idea, and go back to fundamentals. There are not very many situations where moving a loop is necessary or required.

If you are trying to exit a loop, and set a new loop in a new location without jumping anywhere, the normal workflow would be to exit the loop, and set a new loop when the new loop is required. The new loop can start within the old loop, just exit at the beginning of the loop and set your new in point where you want. But, the really the only time I would set a loop, and want to shift it over slightly is if i screwed up to begin with.

I think what you want is a memory cue. CDJs support both memory cues and hot cues.

Or maybe you wanted gated playback. For latter case, I think you just gotta hit the hotcue, then stop it when you want to stop it.

Additionally, If you want to replicate the experience of actually mixing, you can move the cue - master knob between cueing and listening to the live mix.

My advice is work on your fundamentals. Wave riding (aka staring at the peaks in the waveform to try and keep things matched) is a really bad habit that will stunt your progression as a DJ and slow your mixing down.

Personally, as someone who prefers to always mix in IEMs or headphones, I never use split cue. I prefer to just use the master/cue knob. This lets me lower the overall monitoring volume and save my ears (you need like +6db loudness to "hear" the same volume in one ear, and also i just hear more detail when using both ears).

XZ for proper mixer section, full size jogs, and pro link.

XZ feels like 2 CDJs and a mixer
RX feels like a controller

But, the XZ is a headache if you need to move it around a lot, or get on a plane with it. RX is small and light.

The newer software is to me is a much lesser concern vs nicer mixer and full size jogs.

I find having to mail stuff in for a warranty more headache than its worth most of the time.

If im worried I'll usually buy local with an exchange plan. Otherwise, I'll just fix the damn thing myself if it breaks.

But, this is from the perspective of someone who is fine with opening up CDJs and replacing boards and such.

As usual, the solution is more alcohol