The fat ones are heavily processed with soft-clip limiters (aka they are contemporary or re-mastered tracks).

So does it have anything to do with sound quality??? Are the fat ones better or worse? I know the thin ones are harder to accurately set beatgrids / cues on. Is there a way to make the waveform look bigger?

No, sound quality can be very good on old ("thin") songs, too. Just raise the gains if it sounds weak in comparison with new hard-limited stuff.

The size of the waveform shows how loud a track is, no matter if you use ITCH, Scratch Live, Traktor, Torq or any othe DJ-software.

I started to allways send my files through MacMP3Gain before importing to iTunes and ITCH this year. And now all waveforms have the same size. This is not needed to do, it's just a routine I started and keep doing for myself.

Very interesting! Thanks!
I do not use itunes and do not use a Mac - stupid questions can I use this on a pc as well??

mp3gain.sourceforge.net

???

There's a million tools liek that for Windows and only a handfull for Mac.

And there's absoluteley no need to do this. If you try it, start with only a few old tracks, because most times there's no way back and it's better to use a low level like 89db - 93db in these programms so the music doesn't clip and get distorted. Stuff like MP3Gain is used at your own risk!

ok, thanks for the warning... I guess as long as the songs sound ok, no reason to mess with them and screw something up.....

I jus tested this software, I wish i had known about it a long time ago so i could have normalize alot of my tracks, I use to edit the song name and put ***GAIN*** so i kno that the gain is really high, so i remember to turn it down b4 i drop the track.

i make sure do a complete back up b4 i started. I tested it on some songs and i notice it really works. the wave form also got smaller. for those tracks that had a high gain.

i try mp3gain and didn't work for me, i first did some testing and everything look good, run mp3gain to all my mp3, went to work and notice that 80% of my song where mess up, it seem it level the song like the 1st third part of the song and then it will drop the gain a lot, it was not even and u could tell by the wave on the mp3 and the sound coming out, and the worst part because i did a trial run and everything was good i did not do a backup, do back up 1st b4 trying this program, just my thought i don't think this program work very well with latin music

Aftet using gain software like mp3 gain you need to reanalyze all your files in scratchlive/itch/dj intro again.

This is why I will never, ever use anything which has a permanent effect on my original files.

I've got 3 levels of backup - all files as originally ripped or downloaded, after tagging, and after analysing with SL/Itch.

Only downside is that I am now up to 12 external drives. When I plug them all in it feels like I've got Skynet in the corner about to take over the world.

phatbob trust me lesson learn

Get Platinum Notes software!

girls like thicker waveforms.