Guide

How to Use Hot Cues in a DJ Set

A hot cue is a memory button that jumps the playhead to a specific moment in a track — instantly. Every DJ deck has a bank of hot cue pads (Swagg Brown DJ gives you eight per deck). Press one, and playback teleports to that spot. That's it. What makes them powerful is how you use them.

How to set a hot cue

  1. Play a track (or park the playhead where you want the cue).
  2. Click an empty hot cue pad. The current position is stored.
  3. Pressing that pad from now on jumps the playhead back to that exact moment.

Shift-click a set pad to clear it.

Where good DJs put their hot cues

  • The first downbeat — always. This is how you cue up a track for its intro without hunting.
  • The drop — the moment the main groove hits. You'll use this for surprise re-drops mid-mix.
  • Verse / chorus / bridge boundaries — so you can skip around structurally, like a producer would.
  • Vocal chops — a specific word or phrase you can trigger for effect.
  • Breakdowns and build-ups — for jumping into an easy transition point.

Creative uses beyond "jump to here"

  • Re-drops. Cue up the drop on hot cue 2. In the middle of the drop, press it — you just restarted the drop. Do it twice for a stutter effect.
  • Live edits. Skip the second verse of a song by hitting the "chorus 2" hot cue as verse 2 starts. The audience never notices.
  • Vocal stab intros. Bring in the next track using only the acapella intro's first line — press its hot cue, let it play a beat, mute it, repeat.
  • Slip Mode + cues — with Slip on, hitting a hot cue jumps you there momentarily; releasing snaps you back to where the track would have been. Perfect for percussive cue stabs over a running groove.

Hot cues in Swagg Brown DJ

Swagg Brown DJ gives every deck eight hot cue pads with:

  • Instant, sample-accurate jumps.
  • Quantize (Pro): snap every hot cue jump to the beat grid, so cue stabs always land on the beat.
  • Slip Mode: press-and-hold a cue to jump temporarily, release to snap back — for live cue-juggling over a running mix.
  • Persistent per-track cues — set them once and they're saved with the song.

Practice drill

Load your favorite track. Set hot cue 1 on the first downbeat, hot cue 2 on the drop, hot cue 3 on a vocal you love, hot cue 4 on a breakdown. Now press them in different orders in time with the beat. That's the beginning of DJ performance.

Open DJ Beginner Guide