Tracks you bought off iTunes will only play in iTunes and on iPods. In other words, you won't be able to use the tracks you have bought with SSL. However, there are a lot of other sites selling MP3s. Check this out www.scratchlive.net

Depends on what bitrate you have. Wav is of course the best if you can get that.

To get optimal results with MP3s record and encode yourself. MP3's from other sources often are at least bad quality or could be corrupted.

well ripped mp3's from CD's sound better then a record played through a scratch cart.

i like to play wav files off an external ... sounds WAYYYYYY better than mp3s no matter how they are encoded

i don't believe that, sorry.

2 votes NO. "no matter how they are encoded" - a high quality MP3 will not sound better than original, but it surely can be the same saved in a different format. ie. Same Car, different paint. Red paint don't make me car go faster than a blue one.

By this you mean you use a buff external hard drive that can hold plenty of the larger WAV files?

But overall, if I use MP3s with a reasonable bitrate, am I still going to be able to rock a big sound sytem and provide enough bass to shake booties?

My vinyl purist friends tell me MP3s in general won't sound good enough through a club sound system.

your vinyl purist friends don't know what they're talking about

someone is speaking sense, thank god.

Long story short-

Do Paul van Dyk or Sasha play mp3s? No.

Can you play quality mp3s in a club? Yes.

Are you as good as Paul van Dyk or Sasha? No.

Why not? Plays mp3s in a club.

--

worst 'argument' ever

Agreed. Doesnt sound very logically.

Those 2 internationally known DJ's probably have 'record bitches' to carry the records.
Secondly, the last time I saw PVD, he brought a standard record case that was half full, not heavy enough to warrant SSL and a laptop. He was so mechanical on the decks I coulda swore he was spinning a single CD anyhow.

Out of curiosity who the heck are these two people and what is it they do about DJing that makes them better than everybody else ?

Are their TT skills out of this world ?
Do they just mix song after song ?

Educate me some please ..

Both DJs have the amazing ability to make 10 records last 1 hour, I presume this is why they are so highly rated.

They are both highly noted internatinal Trance DJ's. They have been around a long time setting the bar very high. TT skills - both are seamless operators and mix that genre with excellence.

sasha and paul might be experts at trance, but trance still sucks!

as for the mp3 dilema, i use only wave and aiff files. i'm still able to fit a couple of thousand tracks on the hard drive, which is still a ton of music and it sounds just like the vinyl.

i try never to use mp3 if i can avoid it however, a good quality mp3 recording with a 320 kbps bitrate will still sound fine in a club. only the pickiest of music fanatics would know the difference. the average club crowd won't know the difference.

Well, anyway, to each his own.

I personally enjoy a lot of mp3 use, but I do think that in performance or serious practice, mp3 does not invisibly substitute wav or vinyl. However in most cases, it is a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot more convienient, hence the worlds love affair with it, and even the belief that it sounds just as good.

In fact it does not sound just as good. It sounds almost as good.

The example about Paul van Dyk or Sasha can show you that, yes, they wanted high quality, no they didn't find it in mp3.

And also, there are people out there who are at a higher level than many of you here aspire to be. When the lower among us at this forum present people who try to stay with wav or aif as ludicrous, they are basically pissing on what they can never touch. Annoying.

So, use what you want. You already know that mp3 is a simulation of the wav original.

Rollin' Cash above gave some solid advice:

"i try never to use mp3 if i can avoid it however, a good quality mp3 recording with a 320 kbps bitrate will still sound fine in a club. only the pickiest of music fanatics would know the difference. the average club crowd won't know the difference. "

And P.S. I don't particularly like Paul van Dyk or Sasha, just used them as some kind of well known example.

So, if you wanna impress your friends, go for those mp3s, playa!

If you want to perform seriously at a high level, don't play a set of mp3s.

If you want to slip in a few throughout a set, it seems no one will be the wiser.

However, during mp3 playback, listeners will not experience aural sensations as clearly as if it were a superior sounding source.

I know many of you will not care...

I expect there are some hopeless juniors waiting to flame..
Nevermind that, if you're talented, then try to stay with the best-sounding sources possible.

Good luck to everyone here with mixing, and music.

Serato Rocks.

hey guys with the discussion about mp3s arent as good as other formats. If i were to rip music from CDs. Which format is best use for clubs??? i got a gig at a club soon...
anyone can help?

Just finished practicing a set of mp3. Theres definately a difference between that and cd or vinyl, as I have known and heard for a long time. You know, its not as clear. Some good mp3s sound pretty good, but after an hour or so of mp3s that just don't get you as "high" from the sound, if you follow. It sounds more dead, flat, or grey.

The great thing about mp3s is the availability and size.

But they absolutely don't sound as clean, clear, sweet, deep, whatever.

So yeah, I'm just trying to be helpful to getting a pure sound. Didn't mean to be real negative or something.

So anyway, if someone really is deeply wondering about this topic, they might want to compare an hours set with CD or vinyl, and an hour with mp3.

So I hope this has been helpful.

I am very interested in pushing the envelope of sound quality in any way, so if theres anyone who has some good tips on that, then great.

I would hazard a guess that the reason why Paul van Dick and Sasha don'y play mp3s is because they had a go on FS when it came out and decided it was too unstable for serious use and gave mp3s a miss.

trance

These days Paul van Dyk plays all his sets on Final Scratch. I don't know if he changed to Final Scratch 2. If Final Scritch really blows like people say, then I don't know why he wouldn't use SSL, except for endorsements from Stanton or something. I wonder if stanton does pay him to use it. He's gotta be rich already, so I don't know why he doesn't use it. BTW, on final krutch he plays aif files. Who are some big name house or trancers who use SSL?

The 'big names' that are using FS are all still using the Linux version. That's the stable one, at least if you can get sound on all outputs of the scratch amp :-)

Might be, you used various mp3 from "unknown" channels, where you dont know which encoder and what settings were used. I highly doubt that you can hear the difference between a good self-encoded mp3 at very high bitrates and original wav files. Many tests (ABX tests) have shown that at very high bitrates its almost impossible to hear any difference in general, while there are some known problematic sequences in some songs, a very high percentage of audio does not contain those problematic sequences.

zzz you are talking total garbage, nothing about your argument stands up, when you start saying shit like ....'but after an hour or so of mp3s that just don't get you as "high" from the sound, if you follow. It sounds more dead, flat, or grey.'...you just sound totally ignorant.

I would take the sound 'quality' of a properly ripped MP3 with SSL over some misguided trance DJ using 'high quality' WAVs on the crappy scratch amp. With a decent MP3 you are NEVER going to notice the difference, other factors, ie correct levels, decent mixer, good sound system matter INFINITELY more then the inperceivable differences in WAV's and WELL RIPPED MPs's. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Stanton is endorsing a lot of big name DJs (Sasha, Craze, Van Dyk) too...

CS-80, you seem to be an idiot.
If you think mp3s of cd's or vinyls contain all the frequencies of the original, you're wrong.

You know that old, old legend that some people can hear the difference?

Thats not a myth.

MP3 = reduction of original source

Misinformation my ass...

You musta been playin some sad shit or been in a really bad not to get a little high from spinning. Don't take it out on the MP3....

Anyone can play what they want. MP3 or frickin toothbrush, I don't care. The point is a lot of people notice the difference and a lot of people don't.

Frankly, I prefer that the competition plays MP3.

zzz111 - I truly respect your opinion and I was kidding about you getting high..

But, I'd like you to find the fact that states the difference between a .MP3 and a .WAV to back your statement up.

I'll give you an idea of what I'm after. If a sampling of media using the same hardware to record from and the same source, how is it that SAVING in 2 different formats can make an audidle difference during playback.

It is my understanding from what you're saying, and I'm willing to be corrected here, that wave format is sampled at 1411 kbps and your highest version of constant MP3 sampling would be at 320 kbps. So, based solely on space taken you may mave a point, but why would I agreee if there is a BETTER way to collect data in an effecient manner?

And if you'd really like to explain sumtin. If I record air (nothing) for 5 seconds. Here are the results:
MP3 --> 210KB
WAV --> 928KB
Do you really want or need Jack Shit to take 4 times the space on your hard drive?

I guess you can pack more air in a wav ... :)

air that might make you get high too........

ya boyeeeee...

i'd like to know the difference in sound quality of toothbrush vs mp3 =P

all the times i've used ssl at gigs (mobile and club), i've had no complaints of people coming up and saying, "are those mp3's? it just doesn't sound right."

in numerous blind tests, there's plenty of people who can't tell the difference between a well-encoded 128kbps mp3 file and an uncompressed wav file. i'd be willing to bet that the effect worsens as well if you're intoxicated...

The point thats being discussed is that mp3's of the originals are not carbon copies of the originals themselves. They take on some loss of sound quality. Some examples of formats which do not take on sound loss are wav, aif, flac, or apple lossless.

When you take on loss, you take on loss. The lossy file will never be as good as the original. That is why they call it lossy. Examples of lossy formats are mp3, mp4, etc.

So what sounds better? The original, or the lossy version of the original?

Could somone say "hey man the lossy sounds just as good as the original" ?

If they did, they would be wrong, because the original sounds better than a version of the original with loss.

Heres a simple example:
Lets give an arbitrary number value to the original, say 100. Now lets give a number value to the lossy format say, 100 and some loss, so lets say 95.

100 - - - 95

Which is a higher number?

Believe it or not, 100 is a higher number than 95.

Past this its just beating brains, so life is too short an so on.

Good luck to all, and have a good time.

CS-80, no hard feelings.

P.S. Did you hear the one about the famous audio engineer who recorded straight to mp3?

He didn't.

By the way, I know people will just write in and say things like

"Mp3 DOES sound better than the original!"

or think of some other way to try not to lose face,

and I know some people just wanna argue.

So, thats it for me.

Sadly, its not possible for deaf ears to hear,

so I got a sign for you.

to those readers out there,

thanks for reading, and good luck.

Aren't you just stating the obvious, man?

I still love using vinyls but I love using mp3's more. Imagine this you can never have thousands of vinyl records with you when you spin, but on mp3 you can have thousands and thousands of song in your laptop think about that...more selection. Plus cool think about mp3's you can put pictures, bpm, album, genre, etc... on each file, think about how easy to find a song on that.

you know guys I thought mini disk back then was going to be the next one to replace the cds didn't expect that mp3s will be big. I always thought that mp3s will just be good for walkman but never imagine that companies can do so much about this file.

can you put pictures into wav files or aiff as well as mp3?

does ssl support images in the browser so you can scroll through seeing the pictures, like if you were looking thru vinyls in your record box?

Yeah, you can have album art...

Read again. 1st, no one here ever said mp3s sound better then the original. 2nd, yes there is a difference of lets say 5 units (though you should be aware of the fact you cant rate mp3s at a number, cause the quality/difference compared to the original is very dependent on the original source (complexity etc.)), but even that doesnt mean the listeners can figure a difference. MP3 compression is about psychoacoustic models and perception of course, the difference of 5 quality units may exist, but that does not mean that the difference is perceived by a listener. You should also notice that CDs or wav files are of course not a complete reproduction of the original sound, it might be rated at 90 whereas the original live sound is scaled at 100. You sample at 48kHz, which is of course not a complete 100% reproduction of the original sound, you sample with 16bit, which never comes close to the clarity and originality of analog sounds, BUT to the normal human listeners music at 48kHz/16bit is perceived the same as music at 19283745822kHz and/or 38938174bits.
Having that said, just to repeat some of my predecessors, mp3 tries to cut off music which is not really perceived/cant be distinguished.

Nik .. thanks for shedding light on this ... my temporal lobe was beginning to sizzle ..

nik - well done for schooling this idiot.

so playing mp3 in a club with a 256 kbps/joint stereo VBR medium quality and 44 khz is good enough for club use?

It may be for you, but not for me.

I use .wav files... with a few .ogg files. I am not a fan of the .mp3 format. Just my opinion...

Hey Selector Seth. Coupla things. If you are not familiar with the mp3 format do some research on how to encode and use a good source (ie rip from original CD or record from vinyl to create your mp3's). That way you are in control of the quality from the beginning.

hydrogenaudio.com is a great resource. There are also some good discussions on this board. LAME is considered the best encoder at the moment and iTunes ain't bad either.

The best mp3 you can create is a 320kbps file using a CBR (althought the difference between this and a 320kbps file using a VBR will be nominal. I recently converted my entire collection to 320kbps VBR. I have not heard them is a club yet but will report back as I have a gig this week. I was also skeptical about using mp3 but AIFF became impractical.

The best way to make a decision is to do some tests. Go to a club and play some mp3's and AIFF/Wavs and CDs/vinyl. See for yourself what you prefer.


Vicks.. short answer... most people would say yes to that. Again, depends on the original source of the music. How it was encoded, how many times (if any) it has been converted etc. If (for example) you ripped an orignal CD straight to 256kbps using a good encoder it would definitely be "good" enough for club use to probably over 95% of listeners.

Hey hey- zzz111, CS-80a- Insults aren't gonna get us anywhere. I've been studying classical piano for the past 15 years...since I was 6, and I've been djing the past 7 years. You (I)can oubviously hear a difference between mp3 and Vinyl. Whether it be psychological, or physically real- the difference is there. Do I care?? Fuck no. Mp3s can rock a club just as well as anything else. None of us are Sasha or Paul van Dyke, and most of us probably won't be- you see pvd or Sasha argueing on forums?? haha I sure as hell don't. Anyway- just cause a dog can hear the difference in frequencies, that doens't mean humans can't....and just cause it's technically different doesn't mean it's audially different. You all just need to get over it.

I'm not asking anyone to throw away their mp3s. I like them too.

I'm saying they don't sound as good as uncompressed.

If mp3 does sound just like the original,

then why don't any famous artists use them in their dance sets?

Because the originals sound better and they frickin know it!

P.S. I was seriously classically trained in cello between the age of 10-21. Then I switched to DJing for the past five or six years. I still play cello. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many classically trained people who can't tell the difference in quality between mp3 and cd.

I agree with Righteous above. I don't have the patience for this, because the fact is being refused that the originals sound better. I was telling you this cause you could improve the sound quality of your music. If you're too stubborn, then I suppose thats not my concern.

Anyway, to each his own, and have fun.

Have a ball.

If you don't know the difference, you can save a lot of money.

Kind of like that bacon for dogs...

"Dogs don't know its not bacon."

Nothing more to say.

If you don't wanna believe it, fine whatever.

What's the point in stating the obvious? If you're trying to teach us a lesson here, it's no good. You're wasting your time. No offense, but I've always hated people that play classical instruments. First of all, they think they're better than everyone else and are experts at sucking up to people. Second, very few of them are really creative. They're pretty much locked to their notes. I bet it's hard DJing if you can't improvise.

And do we really wanna be Sasha or this Paul guy? No...

zzz111 - still waiting for you to back your shit up with hard fact. You still insist on stating that same thing over and over, and it's mostly your opinion.
Explain to me how a zipped/compressed file is any different than a 4X larger uncompressed orig.. We're all waiting.....

Then you can explain how this 'shitty file format' amplified thru 50,000 watts can possibly sound different in a club environment.. Last orchestral concert I attended didn't have any amplification.. but, you seem to be a well versed guy in music.

ZIP is lossless compression, MP3 (and variants) is not. That means that information is lost when you compress the file, translating it from WAV to MP3. How much information is lost depends on the bitrate.

What to see the difference for yourself? Rip a favourite track to WAV, then encode it to MP3. Open both files, side-by-side, in an audio editor like Sound Forge. Look at the differences in the wave form - that is the information which is lost.

Now, if you are using SoundForge, use the Spectral Analysis tool and you will see the frequencies which are diminished or aggravated by the encoding. That is why MP3s on good sound systems often have harsh highs.

It really saddens me to see all the gains made through many decades of audio engineering, in pursuit of absolute sound quality, being thrown away by the geek-chic of crap like MP3.

LMFAOROTF



Heck no ! I for one, I don't know who these two clowns are. As far as I am concerned they are just blokes who can play "10 records in an hour" ( If you do not have this skill by now, you suffer from very fundamental problems that cannot be addressed on this forum at this time ... find a teacher)

We need creativity, the turntable is no longer just for song blending ( 10 songs in a hour? How long the fukc are these songs/records ... this was the in thing in the late 80's ..). The turntable is a musical instrument. It should be used as such.

I am not saying we all have to be Qbert nor worship his artform. The club/dance Dj needs to widen their horizon and go the next step. (Blending 10, 15 minute songs in a hr is hardly a leap for DJ Kind) We need to reach a "nirvana" and encompass all that the turntable is capable of.

When DJ Cheese went for his 1st DMC championship, it was just a boring mixing contest. He took it to another level changing the face of DJ competition. A new genre was unleashed to the masses and is constantly evolving and competitive. And what happened to the original contest ? ... To boring, no creativity to really warrant wasting anybody's time on. The so called dance DJ needs to STEP up and give the world something new.

Bill Gates once said "640KB ought to be enough for everybody". Thank heavens no one listened to him. These two blending clowns are NOT IT !! More can be done .. Some of us can blend songs till the crocodiles come home .. what's so big in that ? Pleasing a mob, with most of them so high on some mind altering substance that they cannot tell one song from the next (and the blender is not helping any with his 15 minute songs) is not something to strive for or look up to.

Now .......can we go back to MP3 sound quality ?
..

Really well put, s42000 ;)

Yeah the turntable is a really great "instrument."

People that can play that are really better at, you know, piano, singing, writing music..

But, I just have one question.
Which of the two notes are you gonna play today?

Or are you "superscratch?" I'll bet that could keep somone entertained for about 45 minutes!

And also, you're right. Mozart couldn't improvise, Outkast is definately where its at for that.

Yeah, turntablists are definately excellent musicians. You know with all that scratching and, oh yeah, more scratching.

They're really a lot better at music than real musicians. Also, they don't waste time by knowing anything about how to actually play or write music.

What a fascinating sound, the scratch.. Music is truly evolving. No more do we have to waste music on instruments. Now, the turntable is the only instrument we need. Why, I bet most movie soundtracks were composed from a turntable.

Did you know those turntablists Mixmaster Mike and Qbert record their tracks in wav?

But now I'm gonna recommend mp3!

Thanks a lot, guys.

Gotta love sarcasm...

And what the heck does this have to do with MP3s?

rev, please respect musicians. they have being working hard to learn how to play an instrument. we cant ask for respect as turntablist if we dont respect real musicians. in fact, we have to learn a lot from them...

Well, I play several instruments in addition to the turntables, so I guess I'm a musician myself. I can compose music. But then again, I don't play with notes and stuff, so I guess I ain't a real musician. Paul McCartney and others ain't musicians either then. Improvisation, my man.

serveral instruments- including the turntable...the coat zipper...oh yeah! and the skin-flute! they all make a nice forward and backward sound...hahahahaha

zzz you are a clueless piece of shit that needs to DIE PLZ

CS-80a ... just don't ok? I really enjoy how little banning I have to do on this board...

No problem, Josh

There are two ways to look at mixing styles. Good electronic DJ's usually harmonic mix. This is a hard to learn. Some Dj's just have it. Others learn to understand the key in the music and know how to change the tempo and the key to flow together. Then you have the battle sytle dj's that are incredible at what they can do with a turntable. Both styles are dificult to learn and both demand respect. However I have seen Dj's from both styles use vinyl, CD and Computer. Whatever it takes to rock the party.... What I don't like are people who pretend to be mixing vinyl and they are really mixing CD's or premastered mix's that they then mix over the top with some breakdowns. I was at ultra in Miami when PVD was spinning for 10,000 people. It was being filmed for a DVD. The mix was alittle to smooth. Then out of know where the "CD" began to skip. Then the CD just stopped and he was standing there like a fool. It would of been one thing if he was mixing with CDJ and Vinyl for everone to see... But to hide it just pisses me off.
I am thankful for Serato as it lets us use the Turntable with the convienance of the digital world but opens up possibilities that we could never do before. When I show people my setup they are amazed and cannot believe it. Thats all part of the show....

It's all about scratching during a trance set. (If only that would work...this whole argument wouldn't exist...) haha

who says you can't skratch during a trance set? the right technique with the right sound....could be something new...

Hello Guys..... I did not read the entire thread yet but I wanted to clear this up...

This thread was started on March of 2005....

Here is an article on Sasha from as far back as July of 2004 reguarding his mixing on a computer:

By Matt Seider
2004-07-13 09:22:16

With Involver, his new mix album for Global Underground, Sasha begins a new chapter in his career. He is utilizing technology to establish a different way of doing things. Although he has always been a big advocate of playing vinyl records, he has recently started to experiment with other mediums.

For some DJs, mixing with vinyl may be a matter of pride. But as one of the most respected live DJs in the history of the art form, Sasha’s mixing skills on two turntables are indisputable. As he stated, “I’ve proved to the world that I can mix seamless records.” After seeing what the Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD player was capable of, he started to explore other ways to manipulate sounds.

He used a computer program to cut and paste the basic elements of a piece of music very quickly. What used to require several minutes can now be done in seconds. This almost instant rearrangement creates a spontaneous remix. The method is great in the studio, but modifications still need to be made for it to translate to a club environment. He is currently developing a DJ-friendly controller to implement this process in a live DJ set. It is very important to him that a proper controller is built from a DJ point of view because “the idea of mixing with a mouse is sh_t.”

This concept is similar in some ways to the Final Scratch Pro software and interface first used by Richie Hawtin and John Aquaviva. In fact, the only other DJ mix album that I could compare to Involver was Richie Hawtin’s groundbreaking DE9: Closer To The Edit. When I offered this comparison to Sasha, he responded, “I’m not re-inventing the wheel. Richie has been doing this for years, but I am on his heels.” He also mentioned Coldcut’s Journeys by DJ mix album, 70 Minutes of Madness, as another example of an unconventional approach to the DJ compilation.

Sasha sounded renewed and revitalized by the new array of tools used for this project. He enthusiastically stated that they “allowed the creative process to flow...the magic moments happened when I was jamming and improvising.” Of the transition to utilizing this software in his DJ sets, he said, “Once I make that leap, I don’t think that there will be any going back.” He didn’t always view mixing with the use of computers so favorably. “Much to my detriment, I always looked down on it,” he confessed. “I regret not doing it sooner.”

Although he has since always embraced computers in his live sets, Sasha is no stranger to innovation. It was a compilation made by Sasha and his longtime partner, John Digweed in 1996 that provided an example of what was possible in a studio mix album. The first installment in the Northern Exposure series of albums was one of the first to employ computers to achieve mixing effects and segues that were previously not possible by traditional means. The end result was a breathtaking composition that was greater than the sum of its parts. It is still regarded by many to be the greatest studio mix album ever made.

Sasha is also an extremely talented and respected producer with his own distinctive style. His original productions and remixes, dating back to 1990, have been so influential because he has refused to repeat himself. His debut artist album, Airdrawndagger, was released in August of 2002. It is a genre-defying work of brilliance and another step forward in his maturation as a producer. He wanted to continue this progression when he began working on the new mix album for Global Underground. “I had made a more traditional mix and I just wasn’t happy with it,” he said. “A traditional mix would have been a step back from Airdrawndagger.”

For Involver, he chose records that may not have received a lot of attention when they were initially released but could possibly gain a new audience “…if they are presented in a different way.” He was impressed that the producers of these records gladly handed over their computer files containing all of the various parts of their work. One of the songs that he selected, Belong by Spooky, was produced in part by his longtime collaborator and friend, Charlie May (one half of Spooky). It is gorgeous, deep, progressive dance music. His love for this record was readily apparent when I asked him about it. “Once the Spooky track came out, I immediately wanted to remix it, but I didn’t have the time.” He has been playing it in his sets for years and now he finally had the chance to give it his own interpretation. This is an example of the unique nature of this project; it is a hybrid of a mix album and an artist album. It is why Involver begins a new chapter not only for Sasha, but also for the way DJs mix music.

Now my comments on Mp3 quality....

You will find individuals quoting: In fact, recent studies show that there is no human ear which can effectively notice the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps or 320kbps. (end quote)

This is in FACT correct information used in a very misleading manner... If an individual makes such a claim to sell their service its miss-leading....

Why? Because stating it in such a manner is to reflect you well have the same dynamitics as the original and that is factually wrong.

As an example, I used to DJ with MP3’s and I ripped them from the very beginning at variable bit rate 192 and all normalized when the majority were using very poor quality conversions and CD users were screaming you can hear the difference..

In actuality it’s not what you could hear that was making the difference depending on the music content when using lossy encoding which is mpeg type files, the soul or feel of how music is sounding is in the harmonics and that gets lost with lossy encoding, the reason for those harmonics is that perceptual coding only includes what you can hear, this is a fact that they stated which is correct, there is no human ear which can effectively notice the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps or 320kbps.....

"BUT" the fact is that what you can hear is also affected by the upper and lower harmonics of what you cant hear… In other words you lose the energy, the drive and that is why individuals state they can hear the difference, when its the loss of the harmonics they are feeling...

Good Luck...
www.computerdjsummit.com

Thats exactly what it comes down to. Loss of Harmonics and Overtones. (they're kinda the same thing...) Loss of a little soul.

Yup, I agree on that part. You cant notice the difference between good mp3 and wav with your ears, that doesnt necessarily mean that "the feeling" is not different. Like with snares/hi-hat settings in a track, its hard to hear the difference of maybe 3ms, almost not possible. But it feels different, and I think someone on this board said that good drummers can "feel" the difference of up to 2ms (bartaug?).

Now then, we have totally dissected the anatomy of a MP3 and a WAV. We have determined in our lab that we do have a minimal loss of musical data in MP3. We need to take our clipboards to the local club and make a further test to see if our LAB RATS complain or notice a difference.

Here is a small list of outside variables; all the different brands and manufacturers of Dj needles, decks, cabling, amplifiers, suppressors, woofers and tweeters. The people element with booze, the drugs, the smokers cough, the idiotic laughter, the screaming and dancing crowd, the scraping of chairs on floor and the pack of drunk girls doing that girly “Wooo!!!” & clappy thing sound after doing a round of shots. Further environment variables such as a rattling speaker cabinet, the blown woofer in the center stage speaker cab and just the general dynamics of sound pressure and sound staging.

Unless you have optimum settings and a control to compare by, the point is: NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW.

I cut a demo recently and pawned it off on a critical Dj buddy of mine that is very close-minded to MP3’s due to the ‘loss of music’ attitude expressed in this forum. If you perform well, spin with soul and breathe life into the music, that loss can easily be made up. He loved the set and never mentioned anything about what format the music was in.

word, kagen!!!!!!!

Kagen, haha, nice points :)

Kagen,

In the debate of Lossy vs Lossless format Lossless is the winner period..

Individuals incorporating a computer in the sound system are looking for facts and offering anything other than facts is self-serving... I've see way too many rationalize just as you just did the reason for using Lossy... My question is why? With as cheap as hard dives are now why use anything but the best or true CD quality?

I can tell the difference and I'm a pioneer in computer DJing.... Individuals should not take the comment of Lossy being of less quality then lossless personally! Jumping to rationalize that it does not matter or minimize the differences is truly self-serving... Your goal should be to learn the differences and grow with technology not sit back and watch it pass you by…. I respect your passion.

Respectfully Yours


www.computerdjsummit.com

Kagen, Preach man preach!

yes but... most online shops sell mp3, dont they?

in the next years, we will have larger storage devices and broader internet connections... then, compressed formats will be pointless.

but nowadays... you know, mp3 is the most used format to get music.

yeah the transfer needs to catch up to the storage, and then we'll be flying the friendly uncompressed skies.

I see where the speedbump is...

I don't download music and that is a major difference...

BassChamber... I convert all my own music from the source which enables me the ability to utilize Lossless... I have no interest in going back to Lossy....

Josh... Do you consider the use of Lossless useless without the ability to download?

mmm josh didnt say that man... we all agree that the more you use lossless, the better, but for a lot of people mp3 is the way to go because mp3 files are small files: easy to storage and easy to transfer from a online shop.

i hope in a future we will have not to worry about file sizes at all...

Of course not, I use it myself all the time, and transfer lossless files over the internet also.

Cool,

I was not sure by your response...

Digital DJ Factors to consider:
Hard Drive space - The WAV format will take 4X the space of the highest bit rate MP3. So, a 20gig MP3 collection would be over 80+ gigs.
USB Transfer rate is going to have to pass the info to the Serato box. If your collection is on a separate External Hard Drive, now you have 2 bottlenecks to pass your data thru. More processing, more strain, more apt for error.
Hard drives are designed to FAIL. You will never see the any manufacturer advertise the perfect, flawless, never to fail drive. Being in the IT for nearly 10 years now, I have swapped and backed up a shitload of data. I attempted to recover loads of data on jacked up drives. If you have valuable data on drive space, I highly recommend you start doubling up hard drives and stay on top of backups. You be squirting tears when hours of work vanishes in a blink. If you're working with larger files, you'll be accessing the drive more frequently per song, and thus shortening the life span of the drive. There are moving parts that get do get hot and heat is NOT data's best friend.

If you have moved your collection on to a hard drive in a lossless format, have shelled out the bucks and now, time for a backup, you are now truly going to be happy to know you have avoided “CUE BURN”. I will now welcome you to your own never ending “IT hell” taking care of that magnetic data and maintaining computers. Some days the pretty grooved plastic seems much easier and living in fear of house fire is less tiring.

The point I was originally going to drive home was this.

For the amount of time and energy and money you’ll have in the upkeep of data you may as well take the hit in quality. Just think of the GIGS in space you’ll collect in the next few years. The 800+ Meg recorded sets you’ll archive. And the day a hard drive does fail you’ll be thinking about how you have to toss away a hard drive of corrupted data, buy a new one and wonder if you had it backed it up. I will to carry the same burden, but I’ll have 4X less the work as you…… for a mere ~3% audible loss to an ever smaller percentage of people who could actually even hear the difference.

I'm not clear if you mean back-up is important and monitoring the back-up source is equally important or you only have a loss of 3% in audible in lossless vs. lossy... The first I agree the latter I do not.... The loss is more then 3% with the included loss of harmonics.... If you are saying Lossy is less work and takes less time I'll explain my opinion.

1st…. Lossless is not limited to wave, here is a list of Lossless as well as Lossy formats

Lossless

…Uncompressed….
AIFF
au file format
CDDA
IFF-8SVX
IFF-16SV
RAW (raw samples without any header or sync)
WAV - Microsoft Wave

…Compressed…
TTA free lossless audio codec (True Audio)
FLAC (free lossless codec of the Ogg project)
Apple Lossless (M4A)
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless (WMA)
Monkey's Audio (APE)
Shorten (SHN)

Lossy

MP2 (MPEG Layer 2)
MP3 (MPEG Layer 3)
Speex (Ogg project, specialized for voice, low bitrates)
Vorbis (Ogg project, free and similar in principle to MP3)
GSM (GSM Full Rate, originally developed for use in mobile phones)
Windows Media Audio (WMA)
AAC (.m4a, .mp4, .m4p, .aac) - Advanced Audio Coding (usually in an MPEG4 container)
MPC - Musepack
VQF - Yamaha TwinVQ
Real Audio (RA, RM)
OTS

One thing about using lossless you need a quality source which will require an original CD or Vinyl an individual using lossless is not downloading free or illegal music.

For an individual just entering CPS (computerize performance system)DJing I’ll give you one huge advantage of lossless audio, for archiving your music collection. One of the major benefits of ripping to a lossless format is that doing so will take much less time than ripping to a lossy format.

Let me show you some average encoded album size based with wave @ 100% and making the Ogg, Vorbis and MP3 files created at 256Kbit:

Wave = 100%
FLAC = 66.57%
Monkey’s Audio = 63.86%
MP3 = 18.20%
Ogg Vorbis = 17.60%

Clearly, the lossless FLAC and Monkey's Audio cannot compress music anywhere near as small as the lossy formats MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, and most people seem to create MP3 files using 160Kbit/sec or higher, which would give even smaller files. For portable storage, lossy formats are very clearly going to give you much more music to carry around at any one time but you will sacrifice the harmonics of the music.

Did you know that ripping CDs to a lossy format will take at least 50% longer than ripping to a lossless format. So archiving your CD collection in a lossless format will take less time than doing so in a lossy format. Why with the affordability of large hard drives, spend twice as long ripping at a lesser audio quality?

It’s been my professional opinion for going on two years it definitely makes sense, to rip your CDs to a lossless format if you have a big hard drive, and if you don't want to rip your CDs all over again each time a new format is necessary. (that’s a major advantage with lossless over lossy)

The next question would be which lossless format is best for ripping all your CDs to, to create an archive?

I will give an honest answer, there is no answer! It's all a matter of personal preference.

Using the uncompressed Wave format is quickest, but will produce very large files and limit your storage capabilities. Using FLAC will take about a quarter longer, but will reduce the size of files by about a third. Using Monkey's Audio will take about a third longer than Wave, but will reduce the size of the files by a bit more than FLAC. It all depends on which you value more: time or space.

In my eyes, FLAC offers the best mix of performance and features. The difference in compression size between it and Monkey's Audio is not huge. Even comparing FLAC's 'medium' setting (used to get the results for the tests shown above) to Monkey's 'extra high' setting (which was not used for the above tests) does not produce a difference of more than a few percent. Also, FLAC is very much open source “FREE”, using an OSI-approved license, so it should remain free and available without restriction. And FLAC seems to have been implemented in hardware devices (such as the Rio Karma, the PhatBox, and the Squeezebox) whereas Monkey's Audio has not. This could mean that you decide you don't need lossy audio formats at all, and simply keep all of your music in FLAC format.

As for actual sound quality, I found little difference between any of the formats used in this test when using home computer speakers, with my ears, each format sounded identical, however, they do not on a large PA system with no manipulation. That's not a reason not to use a lossless format for your archive, but it does mean there's no need to rush away from MP3 just yet. But if you are about to start ripping your prized music collection to digital form, you may as well use a lossless format, so you know that the file represents the original exactly.

I'm glad you brought up the toss-your-hard drive due to corrupted data and the risk of failed back-ups... We have seminars planned on both topics during the Computer DJ Summit....

Peace..

Computer DJ Summit - I think overall we are on the same page, and I greatly appreciate your factual statements.

Backing up is EVERYONE's concern. Having a single copy of purchased digital media on a hard drive is foolish. If I purchase an MP3 online, I wouldn't be doing any ripping, just the downloading and then again the MP3 format would be a saving of time and bandwidth. The ~3% of loss due to an MP3 saves you 4X the space. It would be a matter of personnal taste if that extreme jump in hard drive space would be worth it in the long run. For a person ramping up to digitaize a vinyl collection, you have to admit that you are asking for a ton of maintence in the years to come, since the records only collect dust sitting on a shelf.

Yes on the digitalizing a vinyl collection... I did that years ago, fist in mpeg then again years later in lossless....real-time is tough and takes nerves of steel lolol

----individuals just entering this format of mixing have no idea how good-they-have-it... The tools such as Scratch Live offers gives a creative edge into the mix.

For now, my lossless backup is my vinyl.
My 12" singles from 95 are still usable.
My Hard drives from 95 are not.
And for that matter neither are the 9m tapes.
This brings up a whole different problem.
I just moved a whole bunch of 9m tapes to LTO because the backup technology continuously changes. That sucks. Retrieve the data to a current server, then back it up again.
If this had been music I would have just re-encoded it.
And now that most of my vinyl is encoded (or soon will be), they will have less wear and tear on the grooves and hopefully last that much longer. Of course at some point the vinyl will start to deteriorate. But hey, I have a few 78s from my grandparents that still play.

Time is money.

In the future this will probably not be an issue because the size of lossless will only get smaller, Bandwidth of USB 8.0 will be 20X faster for the SSL 5.0, and the cost of two mirrored 900 gig drives will be 50 bucks.

This just isn't true, my 3GHz P4 is quite capable of encoding mp3s as fast as (if not faster than) it rips from CD when using secure mode. Using burst mode on the drive would negate the whole reason for using a lossless format as it only gives good quality on perfect CDs.

that brings up a good point. you gotta stay current with technology (and backup to recent media often). anyone thinking of letting their vinyl sit on a shelf has to worry about compatability with future formats. hard drives die; formats change. an original copy of the vinyl (analog) beats a digital copy anyday--especially in resale value.

nobspangle,

Yes it is true... Please do a bench test and give me your results... This has nothing to do with how fast or slow your processing capabilities are... If you do the same test I've shown above you will still discover a major difference in ripping times. Let me know what your results are…

SpinThis,

I have a small fortune in old and limited promotional vinyl... When I converted my vinyl I left many of the pops and ambient noises and the playback in nice and realistic.. You do know that analog starts from digital in the studio I'm sure, if I sold my vinyl collect I would have a breakdown, my wife would have a party lol... I've spent less on upgraded hard drives over the years then replacement cartridges and needles.

In your position CDS I would definitely archive without any noise reduction, that technology is still quite primitive IMO.

OK, I went and did some tests
EAC 0.95 prebeta 5 set on secure mode
NEC 3520 DVD drive
lame 3.96.1 at 320kbps CBR
Rip first 6 tracks of Incubus - Enjoy Incubus

Rip to wav 5:47
Rip to mp3 6:29

so it took 42 seconds longer to rip to mp3 which is 12.1% longer. I think I can safely say this is not "at least 50% longer." unless maths has changed a lot since I left school.

I can also say this is definatley to do with the speed of my CPU, the extra time taken by the rip to mp3 is due to invoking the encoder between each track and the time taken to compress the last track. If I had a slower CPU the time taken to compress the tracks would also come into play as it would be longer than the time taken to rip them.

Oh forgot to add
mp3 56MB
wav 246MB

1st…. Again Lossless is not limited to wave only. I mentioned it above as a reference and I listed both compressed and uncompressed (I’m not utilizing the source in a studio application and in merit have focused on compressed Lossless) - Wave is uncompressed Lossless - now use one of the "compressed" Lossless formats I listed. I did state I use flac not wave, download the FREE FLAC and then report back... You can download it free here: flac.sourceforge.net - I still stand behind my comment “Did you know that ripping CDs to a Lossy format will take at least 50% longer than ripping to a lossless format”. Try the other formats and you will find it’s a difference.

Let me clear this up again....

Your System = 100% time usage
My System = 100% time usage
Others System = 100% time usage

The time used will and can very between systems but you will see a difference between the completion time on “each” system.. Because my system is a powerhouse and can process faster does not mean the times of the different conversions will become “equal” the extra time between the formats will add to the over-all process. (Please note I never mentioned minutes in my post)

You know, I thought the big kind of hype with SSL wasnt to ELIMINATE RECORDS altogether, but rather to eliminate the NEED to have to carry ALL your records to your gigs.... At no point have I ever heard any SSL Mod's or spokesmen or whatever advertise Serato and say something like, "NEVER BUY VINYL AGAIN!!" ...

my point is, wich some others above me have said im sure, yea SSL is a great tool, convienent, etc. etc.... but don't think of it as a permanent solution to vinyl..... without vinyl, where would some of your mp3's come from? :)

I still play at least 30% vinyl in my sets... if not more.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying, you said
compressing to a lossy format will take at least 50% longer.
I compressed to mp3, a lossy format, this took 12% longer than ripping to a lossless format (wav). Ripping to wav has to be the fastest. 12 is not at least 50, therefore you are wrong about that.

That is my one and only point, I'm not being drawn into arguments about the subjective quality of lossless vs lossy, just that ripping to mp3 does not take at least 50% longer than ripping to wav.

nobspangle,

Test all the formats I listed above, if you don't find a Lossless format that will take at least 50% less time then the mentioned Lossy formats you are correct...

Until you test more than an uncompressed wave file this conversation is useless and only self-serving for you... I've tested them all and I've given you the findings... If just "1" of the formats I mentioned reflects the savings in time I mentioned you are wrong...

I agree that the uncompressed lossless "wave" will save you 12% which if you are converting an entire music library is still a significant savings of time.... With that said... I await your test of flac as the next lossless....

djtrippin,

I utilize Vinyl, CD and file formats in the mix. I personally don’t view one as a replacement over the other they are all creative additions for a unique mix… I agree I need the white-label and my UK presses to remain on edge…

Damn....this is one long thread.

I did not read the entire thing it sounded like everyone was saying the same thing in differnet ways.

I will just give you my experience.

I encode all my MP3's from the orginal source...my CD's.

I dont purchase MP3's or do P2P....those are crap because there is no quality control.

I do all of my importing/converting using iTunes at 256kbps CBR 44.100 kHz from the original source.


None of my customers have ever complained about sound quality. In fact they all praise me for how good the sound system sounded.

When I went to SXSW this past week I went to many clubs where DJ's were using vinyl, CD's, FS2 and SSL.....and the dance floor could not tell the difference.

At the Scion event they had DJ's side by side with their own set ups going and at one particular moment I remember one was live with strictly vinyl and the other was using SSL and there were no noticable differences to the fans/dance floor.

Also, when Jazzy Jeff rocked it last time I did not here one person complain about the sound quality at that club.....and the house was full of critics...."DJ's"


One thing I dont think anyone mentioned is the Scratch Amp...this is one thing everyone has to factor into all thier formula's..they actually enhance the sound more because of their quality.

I heard a little rumor....kinda like Pioneer and their Legato Link.

Think about it ;)

Ok.. I have a thought since I used to record on all analog equipment. Correct me if I am wrong. Everything will depend on the original source recording or the "Master" A CD has a sampling rate of 44khz. You are limited to the frequencies that a CD can produce. That is why Super Audio CD and DVD Audio were developed. I would assume most bedroom producers produce at 44 or 48 khz sampling rates then burn to disc to send away to get pressed to Vinyl and CD. So technicaly the CD and Vinyl should be of the same sound quality. The only way this could be differant is if the master was put to DAT at 48khz or recorded at a 96 or more KHZ and then directly pressed to Vinyl. This would give Vinyl a upperhand over CD as it can produce all frequency unless you use a rumble reducer "like the old days". My question is if we take a well mastered record that was produced at a higher sampling rate and bit rate what would be the best digital audio format to be atleast better than CD quality and still play on Serato?

Thanks
TREV

Not being thick I have no need to test any other lossless formats, wav will always be the quickest as it requires no conversion, it just needs ripping from the CD. It doesn't matter how quick the other formats are they will always take more time than wav. The only time this wouldn't be true was if your CD drive was faster than your harddrive and the writing of the wav file to disk was slowing you down. I know this isn't the case.
I don't know why you can't except that you are wrong. You can't make unsubstantiated statements on this forum, it's fine to argue the subjective qualities of different audio formats, but it makes no sense to just make stuff up to try and back up an argument.
You asked me to go and do some tests, I did the test and produced my results, if you produce some evidence that shows otherwise I will reconsider my standpoint.

DJ Trev, I think SSL plays 24bit 44kHz tracks but they play as 16bit 44kHz so I don't think there is an advantage to sampling at higher frequencies/bitrates unless you are going to do a lot of editing of the sample before playing it.

Is there a best way to convert flac to wav? I want it to sound as good as possible, so do all convertors give exactly the same quality?

Do all flac to wav or flac to aif convertors invariably give the exact same quality? Can somone reccomend one for pc and one for mac?
I downloaded some flacs from EDMdigital and I was expected the sound quality to be high and compare well to for example, Beatport. But after converting, I listened, and was kind of dissapointed. It was the same story for all 4 files, so I thought it somehow might have been the conversion.

Anyone know if its possible to lose quality in the conversion from flac to wav or flac to aif?

I would be pretty disappointed if lossless decompression did not always result in a pristine uncompressed file. Surely the only difference between convertors would be their efficiency/time taken ?

i think so too. i downloaded a flac file once, thought it sounded bad, switched to a different flac decoder the next day and thought it sounded great. but actually is was probably exactly the same! i guess its suprising how perception can change sometimes, like you think something you did sounds good then later it sounds not so hot to you. and vice versa. i guess that goes for sound quality too. the context of what you just heard before matters a lot i guess.

I just got into ssl and mp3's recently and I really enjoy the CONSISTENT good sound. Sure my records are #1 , but due to the fact of them costing 1500% more then mp3s and the sad diminishing sound quality after about 25 plays, I have now given them #2 status. Once my expensive record gets que burn ,it becomes a fetch frisbee for my pit-bull.
So much dance music is digital when produced, I think it is only natural to play it out digital.

Just wanna say something here, I work for a prfossional Belgian National radiostation, and I know from a lot of other radiostations, we work with MPEG layer 2 and it sounds good, yes, there is a loss, but unless you have three generations, you will not here the difference, meaning three oncodings in a row..

If you're Mp3 is largly encoded, atleast 192 it will really be fine!!

I think the quality of the soundsystem is almost more important and admit guys, most of them kinda suck, unless you play in a really very good club no harm done by converting to mp3..

greedz class

class,

It will sound the same but it's the loss of harmonics, the soul, that is lost.... What we don't hear and feel is as important as what our ears hear.

This turned into a nice thread...

stfu :)))))) trance lives!

oh.. PvD doesnt play trance anymore. Sasha neither... :(

very interesting thread.



.wav vs .mp3



wax vs cd



pc vs mac



internal drive vs external drive



to sit or not to sit.... that is the question www.scratchlive.net

Mike, your too funny with your "to sit or not to sit".