XDJ Mod Studio: XDJ-700 Mods

Open-source mods for the XDJ-700 (firmware 1.15): RGB and 3-band waveforms, live key shift, stems, beat jump pads, live colour themes and more. Fully open source (MIT). There's also a Mac and Windows app, Mod Studio, which prepares your tracks, designs themes, runs your deck's firmware in a built-in emulator and installs the mods.

Nothing is ever flashed. Mods are loaded into the deck's working memory over USB through the deck's own service connection. Switch the deck off and on and it is completely stock again.

Independent community project, not affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by Pioneer DJ / AlphaTheta. "Pioneer DJ", "XDJ", "CDJ" and "rekordbox" are trademarks of their owners and are used only to describe compatibility. Use at your own risk.

Tested on a real deck

Working in the emulator, not yet tested on a deck. These run against the deck's real firmware in the emulator, so they should work on a real deck, but nobody has tried them on one yet:

1. Download Mod Studio from Releases.
   • Mac (Apple Silicon, macOS 14+): XDJ-Mod-Studio.zip. The first time, right-click the app and choose Open.
   • Windows (64-bit Windows 10/11, beta): XDJ-Mod-Studio-Windows.zip. Unzip it and run XDJ Mod Studio.exe (SmartScreen: More info → Run anyway). Every build is checked by CI on a clean Windows machine (the app starts, its pages load, the emulator engine loads). Running your firmware in the emulator and installing to a real deck from Windows have not been tried by a person yet (both are proven on a Mac). Emulator sound on Windows shipped 2026-10-24 (pygame mixer; the Mac uses CoreAudio) -- if it is silent for you, set XDJ_DECK_SOUND=1 and please report how it goes.
2. Add your firmware. Get the official XDJ-700 firmware 1.15 update file from Pioneer DJ's support site and give it to Mod Studio when it asks. It checks the exact file, then builds everything it needs in about 3 minutes. This project never distributes Pioneer's firmware.
3. Try the mods in the emulator, then connect the deck over USB and click Install. Power-cycle the deck any time to go back to stock.

The XDJ-700 only reads the old Device Library (PIONEER/rekordbox/export.pdb). Sticks written by newer software — djay, Traktor (via the public OneLibrary SDK) or recent rekordbox versions — carry the encrypted SQLite file PIONEER/rekordbox/exportLibrary.db instead, which the deck ignores.

The bundled converter turns that OneLibrary database into the file the deck reads (tracks, artists, albums, genres, labels, keys, colours, playlists with folder tree + entries, browse columns and artwork paths — analysis data and hot cues are not part of it; the deck will analyse on first play):

# Python 3.10+ with wheels available for macOS (incl. Apple Silicon) and Windows
python3 -m pip install sqlcipher3-wheels
python3 tools/onelibrary_to_pdb.py /Volumes/YOUR_STICK      # or any stick folder

It writes PIONEER/rekordbox/export.pdb next to exportLibrary.db and backs up any export.pdb already there. It never modifies the original files. Pass --dry-run to see what it would write, and run the test suite (add your own stick with ONELIBRARY_TEST_STICK=...):

python3 tools/onelibrary_to_pdb_test.py

Fields the converter cannot fill (documented in detail in tools/onelibrary_to_pdb.py, _FIELDS_DOC): play count (the OneLibrary database resets djPlayCount to 0 while rekordbox's own export keeps old counts), hot-cue/loop data, and a few per-track id rows that rekordbox renumbers into historically freed slots on its own re-exports (irrelevant to the deck — the link targets are the same). export.pdb is the first open-source writer of this format ever, built from crate-digger's documentation and verified table-by-table against real rekordbox exports.

python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install numpy pillow capstone hidapi pygame
.venv/bin/python -m emu.fwhome setup /path/to/XDJ700_v1.15.UPD --dev

--dev also places the generated files at the paths the research tools expect (work/, cache/, studio/assets/, tools/data/, all git-ignored). Run Mod Studio from source with .venv/bin/python -m studio.app.

Deck code is written in SH-4 assembly (tools/shasm.py) or C built with a local sh-elf-gcc (tools/build_sh_gcc.sh). Every mod has an emulator test that must pass before it touches hardware, for example:

.venv/bin/python tools/perform_pads.py emu
.venv/bin/python tools/hotcue8_test.py
.venv/bin/python tools/theme_switch.py check
.venv/bin/python tools/sh4test.py

• Writes only inside the deck's RAM window; the firmware-erase command never appears in any tool.
• Every byte is checked before it changes and read back after; anything unexpected stops the install.
• A read-only survey proves a mod's memory is empty on your deck first.
• Emulator before hardware, always.

No firmware, decoded firmware, emulator snapshots, screenshots of the deck's screen or artwork lifted from it are in this repository. They are all rebuilt on your own Mac from your own official update file (emu/fwhome.py); see SOURCES.md.

MIT for the code in this repository (see LICENSE). It grants nothing for Pioneer DJ / AlphaTheta firmware.