To me, as the population of djs increases, there needs to be ways to separate the pros from the ameturs. Using lossless audio is one way to do it. I think we should all be thinking about making this move. As the djs go, so will the fans. Lossy audio should be a thing of the past.


Also, all of the djs I look up to use cds and lossless files.

ive been doing that as well, and it seems to keep most of the info, although ive just started as well. you can convert from wav to aiff in itunes, just go to preferences and change to aiff in preferences. they do sound better, although everyone that uses crap files will say they dont.

people don't care what bitrate your music is encoded at. it's how you play and what you play that differentiates you from other djs.

256-320 kbs sound jus fine. I prefer 320kbs using aiff and wav while it may sonically be better it's no real audible difference as far as the human ear can hear. 320kbs is the way to go IMO. Wav and aiff files jus are to big and a lot of the time if I tag a wav/aiff file in one program it will not replicate in others like mp3

Another thing if a file is already a mp3 it will not sound better if you re encode to aiff/wav

You can use Apple Lossless with ScratchLive. That supports tags and saves a considerable amount of space. I have quite a lot of these files, and they work great in ScratchLive.

I do find that 256kbps AAC/MPEG4 sounds better than any MP3 files. With 320k LAME-encoded MP3, I can sometimes hear subtle differences between the MP3 and the original. Not the case with 256k AAC, encoded with best quality settings.

+1


you can't ad artwork


XLD - good for converting / ripping
tmkk.pv.land.to

Actually you can in iTunes.

At the moment, I get most of my files in .wav, and convert them to .AIFF, and to mp3 to listen on the ipod, I add a suffix to the album name to tell them apart and use the AIFF iles with SSL.

Actually to convert the .wav files, I normally use Roxio Toast to save a disc image of an album, then mount the disk image, iTunes then thinks you put a CD in and will try and get the track names from CDDB, succesful about 75% of the time.

Studio-

So I can't add artwork, but if I move by AIFF files from one drive to another, my album, bpm, comment fields, etc should stay the same?

Great news...

I have xld for ripping cds and started using it for WAV to AIFF... seems to work really well...

I can totally here the difference between 320 and wav on a good sound system he'll I can tell the difference with my earbuds

Hell*

actual conversation at guitar center I had about 3 months ago.

"MY mp3s sound better than any aiff or flac"

"really whats your secret"[with a helping of sarcasm]

"because I convert them all to 320...for a while..I was converting all my mp3s to
Aiff and they didnt sound good at all, so I went back to mp3...I dont know why everyone thinks lossless files sound so good"

>yup. serious.<

Never underestimate the Persistence Of Stupid.

Oh, and if you use Apple Lossless (ALAC) you have full tagging capabilities including artwork. Between that, the sound quality, and considerable space savings over AIFF, you have the best of three worlds.

Just don't convert from MP3 or any other lossy-encoded format, because all you'll be doing is wasting time and hard drive space.

so you think ALAC is the way to go? Im still open to trying different things.

I heard there was a sound quality difference between ALAC and AIFF...

You heard that where? Guitar Center? :-)

Do what I did...make a few test encodes of good-sounding tracks you're very familiar with, and see if you're happy with the results. Easy enough to also make AIFF copies and a-b them. I really don't think you'll hear any difference...ALAC is a lossless format, been around for 6-7 years now.

Oh, and before some lame-tard chimes in with something useless about ALAC being an "apple" format, therefore making it vaguely evil and unsafe for use by heterosexual males in Middle America, guess what that "A" in "AIFF" stands for? (Run to the hills!)

Back to reality...very highly recommended for batch encoding of ALAC (and many other formats) on Mac: sbooth.org If you use that to transcode from FLAC or other formats with tagging, your tags will be preserved.

Audio, as in Audio Interchange File Format.

Well, OK. Actually I've seen it described both as "Audio" and "Apple", the latter maybe more back in the 90's.

In any case, the format was developed mostly by Apple.

So Applephobes should still run to the hills.

I've been using AIFF files over WAV files when it comes to dance music for all my house music for the past few years due to the ability to do id3 tagging and artwork. Having said that, since Mark just mentioned the benefits of ALAC, I may switch to that going forward. I hope that places like Traxsource and and Stompy will step up and start offering these formats and not just mp3/wav.

no one is gonna offer those insanely huge file formats. 320kbs mp3 sounds just fine I know people are audiophiles and want the best sound but seriously they average speaker system will not respond to the frequency nuances that you gain from using AIFF/WAV. With 320kbs files and a proper drive rack for audio will produce more than ample sound. To each his own nothing is wrong with using AIFF/WAV files but as far as pools offering such formats I dont believe it will happen. Dependable Server storage space is still not cheap and cost a lot of money still. I work in a server room so Im not just ranting

i buy my music from beatport in wav format for quite some time
(although they charge an extra 1$/track for "wav handling")

dont you think that download speeds will continue to increase and storage space will continually go down in price?

@ mr. goodkat of course download speeds will increase and storage space will grow as well. I just dont see it becoming a common reality that the majority of music retailers and pools will service uncompressed formats.

Some of us don't wish to be stuck on "average".

And Beatport, Traxsource, Stompy and Juno (among many others) have offered WAV file downloads from their online stores for years.

If you're in a situation where you want better sound but have storage-limitation issues, I'd recommend getting your source material in AIFF or WAV (or FLAC or ALAC if offered that way), then encode with AAC/MPEG4 using highest-quality settings at 256 or 320k.

DJMark-

I like your style.

different strokes for different folks. Im good with my 320kbs mp3/mp4. Why would you encode a AIFF file to another compressed file format when the compressed format is already available? For anyone that wants to know the diff between mp3 and mp4

www.buzzle.com

If anything I would go with ACC over mp3 if you must have the best possible sound. Try doing a blind test. Take the same song and encode with mp3 and ACC put the songs on shuffle and listen to both. Let your ears be the judge. I only notice a difference between mp3 and ACC and bit rates lower than 256k. Bit rates at 256k and above I cannot, with my novice music ear which by the way I have been performing live music since the age of 9, cannot tell the difference. Hope this helps anyone who wants to know this information.

All in all we know uncompressed formats will yield better results that compressed formats

@ DJ Mark average is nearly an opinion depending your sound system. If my music career is made or broken by having 320k bit rates over uncompressed formats I clearly will always be average and will never achieve greatness because of my lossy audio formats. Silly me I guess thats why I dont have residency cause I use 320k files instead

no edit button damnit

just because you dont see it, doesnt mean its gonna happen. in 95 i couldnt believe people would ever dj on cd players, much less computers with crappy files.

quality of sound is very key in any club, it has been since the beginning of the modern disco.

why should we set for average ?

cd audio specs (pcm audio, 44.1 khz, 16 bits) have been around since many of us where even born !
why should we settle for anything less in the XXI century ?

impressive is the fact there has been no real interest in setting up new, higher quality standards (apart from the old dvd audio specs) despite the evolution of technology,
quite the opposite...

its like getting a quarter for a 1$.

First of all, sorry dude but the "information" in that link is pretty bad/inacccurate/incomplete. MP3 was most certainly NOT introduced in 1999, for starters. It was developed in the early 90's and the spec was set up in 1994-95.

Secondly, in your statement

"If anything I would go with ACC (sic) over mp3 if you must have the best possible sound"

you basically just reinforced mine:

"If you're in a situation where you want better sound but have storage-limitation issues, I'd recommend getting your source material in AIFF or WAV (or FLAC or ALAC if offered that way), then encode with AAC/MPEG4 using highest-quality settings at 256 or 320k."

And among other things, when purchasing lossy-encoded material online, you usually have no way of knowing how it was encoded. Not all codecs/encoding techniques give equal results.

Even if TODAY you're stuck having to use lossy-encoded files for DJ-ing, if you buy them uncompressed or losslessly-compressed TODAY you won't be having to repurchase them TOMORROW when storage limitations are less of an issue (and maybe your desire for quality has grown).

Very good point. I will always remember the first decade of the 21st Century as being highly regressive in many ways, including sound quality of music (especially mainstream stuff). Much technology has actually gone into degrading the experience.

I'm sure glad *somebody* does!

Thank you :-)

+1000
Mp3's are here to stay... just like jpgs, gifs, and old boob tube cat tv's. as long as youre playing stuff over say 68 & 90whatever kbps (128 @ a bare minimum) noones' gonna tell the difference. I don't plan on dumping my 1TB+ collection of mp3's ever. I spent better part of 2 years tagging, renaming and organizing everything on it and I still have work to do.

I do prefer v0's and 320's though :) I can usually hear/tell the difference in lower bitrate stuff

I will never play 128kbs at a gig I have to turn the channel gains up way to much to match the sound of 320 or 256k track

I'm totally confused by this post: you plus-1000'ed the earlier post, then proceeded to completely contradict it.

Am I missing something here?

i quoted the wrong one.



meant to quote that one...

I just completed 5 nights of gigs using all AIFF instead of my 320 mp3s...

What a pleasure it was. The sound is so much thicker and fuller, especially the bass and drums. Bathing in sound. Swimming. Floating.

Did my crowd notice? Maybe, maybe not. But I know.

And when the next dj went on, it was like the energy in the room was sucked out. It was thin, all high end, no body.

Im happy. That happiness is worth the extra work, and the extra dollar per track.

I mostly spin EDM all the tracks i buy are in wav format, i don't see the point in paying for a 320kbps mp3 from Juno or Beatport etc when for a small fraction of the cost more you can get uncompressed.

the problem lies in us mixed format kids that play a little EDM and a lot of 70s-90s and a lot of hip hop...

I can hear the difference, but I'm not sure my crowd can; especially when playing on a shitty club system. On MY system, i can hear it, but when my system is out, its usually super corporate and i'm an afterthought until people are drunk...

You mp3 DJs are settling for a format that occasionally sounds like shit over one that, by definition, involves no signal loss. Sometimes shitty is not as good as NEVER shitty.

I suppose you think youtube is "good enough" compared to blu-ray too!?

who would think you would get an argument for not using something better? its like you have ground beef and a filet, but somebody still wants a hamburger.

mmmmmmmmmmm.... hamburgers!!!!

Ugh, I was at a DnB night before christmas, most of the DJs we're pretty good, but one guy obviously had the shittiest quality MP3s I'd ever heard in my life, it's as if everything was in the mid range with a bit of white noise mixed in place of high hats. Bloody awful, people tried to dance, but eventualy he had to cut his set short.

Wow. Do any of you guys remember REAL VINYL?! shitty pressings with muffled highs or little lows. Digging for an old gem and the only copy you can find is beat to shit so you take it and clean it up best you can to play it out regardless of the pops and fuzz in some spots. DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO WORK AN EQ UP IN HERE? I've never had one single complaint in over 18 years of djing about my sound not being good. Your crowd doesn't consist of audiophiles, they are drunk party-goers. smh

I love the sound of my old jungle 12's from 92 -95 - cant beat a bit of snap crackle & pop, add's to the sound imo! Bit of EQ and your well away :) Im still playing dubs I got cut in the early 90's, ok they are not as clean as they used to be but they till smash a dance to bits, and the pissed up / pilled up ravers love it!

I think your spot on with your post Mike_P

Anyone remember the famous joints dubs....shitty pressed vinyl but they still crash a party up

++ @ Mike_P. I can hear the differences, but most can not. If you know how to EQ and adjust gain structure (serato mp3 gain, channel gain, channel fader) you can make 192-320k mp3s sound pretty good. Some are recorded/ripped/sourced better than others, and sometimes you need to keep replacing until you get a good copy (think Katy Perry California Girls, or any song from Criminal Minded). I think especially for pop and hip hop, high Q mp3's are ok. once you get into EDM/r&b/ and more melodic for the sake of the melody (no flame war) I think you notice more.

theres a huge in eq'ing a bad vinyl pressing and a bad mp3.

huge difference (why is there no edit button in this forum)

not really

Yep, that was pretty much an apples-to-avocados analogy there.

The sound-quality problems caused by lossy encoding have little to do with frequency response, and EQ-ing does nothing to restore the missing audio data in lossy-encoded files.

Attempting to use EQ to "fix" the sound of a low-bitrate MP3 is like polishing rust. Just to add an analogy that actually makes some sense.

Show me where in my post I said anything about using bad quality mp3s? :-/ point missed and still smh.

Oh, well okay then.

The rest of us were mostly having a discussion about lossy versus lossless digital formats.

Trying to keep any thread on-topic, reasonably focused and useful around here is getting to be more and more of a lost cause though. Way too many people just want to posture. Boring and pointless.

On the contrary, I believe my post speaks to the very core of this discussion. If you read back through the thread you'll see that no one is advocating for the use of bad quality mp3s. The discussion is mp3 vs aiff, wav and other lossless file types. My point is that switching to a higher quality file type than mp3 is pointless. Your crowd doesn't care. They didn't care when we were rocking vinyl and they don't care about the difference between an mp3 and a wav. Don't dilute yourself by thinking that they do. You may care but they don't. Simply put, it's masturbation. If people were so concerned for keeping the sound as close to original as possible, they would hire a cover-band.

lol +1. high quality mp3's won't die...

a) its deluded, like delusional, not diluted

b) there alot of shit doesnt matter to the crowd. i personally think that scratching and beat juggling doesnt add to the crowds enjoyment at a club, doesnt mean it has no effect, imo i dont think it adds much to the avg crowd. much like using a wav/aiff file or not. so i think what we are saying is that, with cheap storage, and fairly cheap files, IF you can, why not use aiff files. they surely arent going to sound worse than mp3s.

after a/b'ing wavs to mp3 files, there is simply no doubt that there is a sonic difference between files. of course im not redlining a crappy mixer through 2 mackie srm450s, but on a quality soundsystem, in this case about a 80k system, there is HUGE difference. in this case the highs and mids can get almost unbearable at times, and the wavs had a much smoother rounder sound. on commerical pop music, wavs made a huge improvement because of the ultra hot mastering that goes on now days.

just sayin.

i think it depends on your crowd. you're typical know-nothing horrible top40 crowd couldn't care less. if you played to more of an EDM crowd, i think it would definitely make a difference...

I care to disagree EDM crowds are just as dumb.

i mean theres probably more people that care in a EDM crowd but still most people just don't know enough about sound, encoding, and digital formats work I find myself amazed when people say Itunes is the best quality of sound you can get. Needles to say I've gave up on arguing.

how digital formats work*

given*

no doubt. in my case its just personal preference.

I think the crowd may not care if the file is lossless or mp3 as far as them being happy or not in the party because alcohol and atmosphere plays a part but on the subconscious level if they heard the highest quality music file being played along with the right effects, scratches and mixes they will notice that a certain DJ is better than others.

They may not know why they like a certain DJ because they aren't into the specifics of music but they know what they feel and over time I think this will help certain DJ's get a higher advatange over DJ's who just want to have a lot of songs. It will be quantity over quality. Remember we are conducting music and this works on the brain through sound we just don't see it like that because we are caught up in the image of the artist and other things being sold to us but at the root of all of this it's sounds(highs,lows,mids, fx) that are affecting our brains and the better the sounds(clear,full) as well as the manipulation of the sequence of the sounds(mix, scratches, fx) the more we feel the affects of the music.

I've notice years ago that if I look at videos on tv and the speakers are weak I'm not as happy about the song as I've been if I heard the same song on a better system. It's even better when I can equalize the sound. This makes it to where I don't have to blast the music. Raising the volume is just a simple way that the brain is signaling to let you know something is missing in the sound and turning it up will help notice the other frequencies but being that music is mastered bad now a days it's just makes everything worse. If you use high quality files and equalize the frequencies with the eq as well as having good mixes with not too much scratches and fx, I believe the crowd will love you but will give you different reasons for it but you know the truth.

I care to disagree too. Maybe your EDM crowds are dumb, but they aren't around here (quite educated in fact) and will call out shitty sound quality on any DJ at the drop of a hat if he/she hits them with sub-par material.

PS: Mastering is the key. A properly mastered 320kbps MP3 will walk all over a poorly mastered WAV/AIFF. Every DJ worth their salt who's performing for a paying crowd should be aware of this and analyzing and optimizing each of there tracks. Purchasing and playing the best possible file accessible to them. If not, stay home. Please. Because it makes every other DJ doing their homework look bad. And like someone said earlier, if/when another DJ goes on before/after you who has properly mastered files and you don't, guess how you're going to look (and sound) to the room.

I'd honestly be happy if we can create a global DJ Union and among other things discussed (rates, etiquette, etc), we can set a minimum format and teach to not redline. A guy I play after often plays horrible 128K files and redlines the system. It would be nearly impossible for me to not sound better. Lossless sounds better, but I'd settle for getting the game into 320 and properly optimized to start.

For me personally I'm at mostly 320 and once I get a new laptop with a larger HD (no I don't want to use an external) I will begin slowly replacing with lossless if possible.

i try to stay 320 but some files were ripped from vinyl before I knew what I was doing encoding vinyl I encoded alot of it a 128 I wish I would have known the difference yrs ago but I was new to whole mp3 thing. I didnt notice there was difference until about 2008.

I know lots of people who did this. One guy I know ripped all his old hardcore before he sold it all @ 128. We are talking about tunes were only 50 copies were pressed, mega rare bits so no other MPFee's are available.

no doubt about it - i'm only talking about select members of that scene (as opposed to the 0% of the top40 crowd)

Would never work, here's why: The majority of promoters and venue owners could careless about quality and will usually alway just hire who ever is the cheapest and/or will make them the most money.

I wish I had educated crowds :(

Turn that frown upside down and get after it then. : )

educated crowds are great but there's so little money in it (at least locally)

I'm more concerned with what is actually happening with the sound, than what an pissed up audience is oblivious to.
99% of people are in the club in an entirely different capacity to a paid DJ. Grasp that concept.

MP3's are a mess with amateurs around the world reducing file sizes with ZERO knowledge of what they're doing.
It would seem they're file sharing their libraries at the places some of you 'professional' DJs source your music from.

"if/when another DJ goes on before/after you who has properly mastered files and you don't, guess how you're going to look (and sound) to the room. "

i just went shopping at traxsource. the lossless files cost me an extra 7% cents each over 320, of which most of the extra charge came off because they constantly offer 15-20% discounts to members.

Nice.

Its not about about the crowd, or whether its worth it, or who notices. Its a subtle effect, but its there.

It is about you as an artist, and what your standards are for yourself and your music.

If I am going to Dj, I am going to live up to the high standards I have set for myself. What you do is your choice.

It was mostly a discussion about the logistics of tagging and organizing AIFF files vs WAV, and im happy to report I have had no problems with my AIFF files staying tagged and organized.

AIFF are better for tagging, and are easier to attach art work. They allow slightly more room for metadata than wav, but less than MP3.

WAV cuts off the file name at 24 characters so you miss out featured artist names if you move the songs around. WAV can't add album art.

Am I right in saying that WAV and AIFF are interchangeable with no detriment to the quality?
Obviously converting other file formats is a big no-no, but I remember reading that they are basically both PCM so they are interchangeable...


To everyone who says "The crowd doesn't care if it's MP3s"; well maybe they don't come up to you and say "you need better bitrate tracks mate, your compression ruined my night", but the difference is there. Using uncompressed files is the only way to go as far as I am concerned. I often play back to back with other DJs and my tracks are noticeably "cleaner" sounding, and have oodles more bass. If I'm playing on a £40k Funktion One rig, your damn right I'm using uncompressed music...

yea, you can convert wavs to aiffs to ALAC and back all day and not have to worry about sound degradation - unlike mp3, aac, or any other lossless files.

Really wish there was more support for ogg vorbis cause it sounded like it was the best sounding lossy file but it's pretty much all but dead nowadays - even though serato does support the format... I would use it if only it was supported in itunes...

Wav & Aiff are the same 1411kbps quality (uncompressed)
AIFF just has better tagging.

I wouldn't be so sure about ALAC. There is still some encoding & decoding with ALAC.

"Apple claims that audio files compressed with its lossless codec will use up "about half the storage space" that the uncompressed data would require. Testers using a selection of music have found that compressed files are about 40% to 60% the size of the originals depending on the kind of music"

Hello everybody if someone can response my doubt about Tagging .WAV files in Serato Itch, i really thank you !

1- I need to now if Tag the .WAV Files in ITCH this information will be saved correctly for only use in ITCH ,the tags will be not reccognized in other software right ??????? Like to fill the Artist Field, Genre Field, and use the Comment's Field like tags about the feeling of the track you know ?????

2- If i change the files to another computer for use ITCH in this another computer i will not loose this informations ????

3- What the benneficts i will have converting my .WAV files to .AIFF or other lossless formats, if i convert to .AIFF for exemple, i can do the Tags like Artist, Song's Name, Remixes, automatically via some Tagging software ???

Thanks ! i hope the things become more clarify for me in this subject :)

yes, just like mp3s.
i use itunes to tag.

but itunes will not recognize artist and song name because is .wav files converted to .aiff right ? i will have to do the tags manualyy file by file right ?

If the wav has the track info etc. in iTunes then it will write it to the aiff tags for you when you convert it to an aiff.

for some reason my comp started to turn aiff files into aiff-c and they werent very compatible with ssl.

i still cant find the reason for that

What do you think the best way to convert .wav to .aiff, i tryed with itunes but he converted to m4a

and


tagging the tracks via itunes, the tags will be read in Itch no problem right ?

Change your import settings in iTunes.

How ?

import settings

I can choose everything in Auto, how is the best way to convert and get exacklty the same sound quality of the .wav files?

preferences > import settings > aiff

If your wav files are from cds or albums, you can fool iTunes into doing the tagging for you with the cddb. Normally iTunes will only let search online for song titles and artists if you have the CD.

Get yourself a copy toast, (a cd burning tool), drag your album of wav files over to it in and make an audio cd, then save it as a disk image, (you don't need to burn a CD btw). then you can use toast to mount the disk image and iTunes thinks it's a new cd and tries to get the track names.

Don't always seem to work so well with singles or compilation albums.

It's a pretty longwinded technique, but I get my albums in .wav form, and it's the quickest way I have at the mo without having to type in all the track names one by one.

Hi all, I thought I might re-open this conversation to get peoples opinions on best practices for encoding AIFF for Serato DJ use from analog sources. I started a new thread here:

serato.com

If anyone cares to comment.

Thanks!

Great read, thanks to all who gave feedback.