MP3 Sound Quality

[steve149]

I generally agree and it IS all about what YOU want and like. I am a big proponent of not having all of your eggs in one basket. On the computer side, I can use a Windows box just as easily as a Mac and others. On the music side, I can play out of whatever player I need to .. be it a computer based player (Serato, VDJ, etc) or hardware based (CD, vinyl, cassette, etc). If I want to break out the decks for some reason, I can. Rob still carries turntables (although he uses vinyl control media).

With today's technology, I only see a few places where turntables still make sense .. you actually spin vinyl (assuming you could actually get what you need), or you physically scratch (or scrub as some call it) and want the feel of the large controller .. otherwise, and only in my lowly opinion, it seems to be either a marketing spin (look I have big turntables) or an over-compensation for something.

I truly love turntables and the visceral feeling and symbiotic relationship you have with them .. have had them for 40+ years .. but it would never, ever occur to me to use 1 or 2 live .. Did I mention ever ..

CDs I still will occasionally use and try to keep one player (just bought the new Denon media player) with me, but there's just no going back ...

 

[DJ Bobcat]

I don't carry ANY CD's... Once ripped, I rarely ever touch them again. I have rack mounted PC's; all with full copies of my music library on internal hard drives, and I always take my laptop (with full music library on internal hard drive) as yet another backup. All of my computers (laptop included) have DVD drives, so I could play a CD if necessary, but it has never been necessary.
Yes... I've had the RARE corrupted file, but it's SO rare it's not worth my concern. And regarding USB; though I DO carry a USB drive with a backup of my music library, it would be the absolute last resort, even though USB 2 is plenty fast and reliable enough for playing music IMO. USB 3 would be more than sufficient.


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[ittigger]

With today's technology, I only see a few places where turntables still make sense .. you actually spin vinyl (assuming you could actually get what you need), or you physically scratch (or scrub as some call it) and want the feel of the large controller .. otherwise, and only in my lowly opinion, it seems to be either a marketing spin (look I have big turntables) or an over-compensation for something.

I don't disagree .. but there are those that still use them.

I truly love turntables and the visceral feeling and symbiotic relationship you have with them .. have had them for 40+ years .. but it would never, ever occur to me to use 1 or 2 live .. Did I mention ever ..

Same here - but there are those that do.

CDs I still will occasionally use and try to keep one player (just bought the new Denon media player) with me, but there's just no going back ...

I still have a dual deck with me at all times.

 

[ittigger]

I don't carry ANY CD's... Once ripped, I rarely ever touch them again. I have rack mounted PC's; all with full copies of my music library on internal hard drives, and I always take my laptop (with full music library on internal hard drive) as yet another backup. All of my computers (laptop included) have DVD drives, so I could play a CD if necessary, but it has never been necessary.
Yes... I've had the RARE corrupted file, but it's SO rare it's not worth my concern. And regarding USB; though I DO carry a USB drive with a backup of my music library, it would be the absolute last resort, even though USB 2 is plenty fast and reliable enough for playing music IMO. USB 3 would be more than sufficient.

I carry some CD's but they only come out of their home in an emergency. My library does reside on an external drive.

 

[Scott Hanna]

Don't carry any cd's at all. Haven't for years.

The weight of carrying cd's and players is probably the least important advantage to me.

Biggest advantage for me is how quickly I can find and load a song compared to cd's.

Makes all the difference in the world to me.

 

[steve149]

I don't disagree .. but there are those that still use them.

Agreed .. though I'd love to know why (unless playing vinyl or scratching) .. I think they look cool .. maybe that's an effect many want .. same with the bigazz controllers out there. I never had an issue cueing up on the mini DJ2GO, and the size of the MC6000 or HD2500 is more than sufficient to cue.

 

[ittigger]

Agreed .. though I'd love to know why (unless playing vinyl or scratching) .. I think they look cool .. maybe that's an effect many want .. same with the bigazz controllers out there. I never had an issue cueing up on the mini DJ2GO, and the size of the MC600 or HD2500 is more than sufficient to cue.

Ask Rob. He is one, of many, that uses them.

Like you, my controller is rather small too (VCI-300).

 

[steve149]

Ask Rob. He is one, of many, that uses them.

Like you, my controller is rather small too (VCI-300).

I would if he'd come visit us every once in a while ...

 

[MIXMASTERMACHOM]

Simple question if it hasn't been asked already. Can the client and their guest tell the difference? Another question. Have you had a song that was downloaded that was so bad that you couldn't play it?

 

[steve149]

Simple question if it hasn't been asked already. Can the client and their guest tell the difference? Another question. Have you had a song that was downloaded that was so bad that you couldn't play it?

Can they tell? Assuming you use the standard from the pools or rip from CD to a 256K or better format, then NO, I don't believe through a PA system people can tell.

The times I've used YouTube to download parts of music, I have had some crappy files .. but I don't use those for playing music .. merely as 5-10 sec "theme" intros (client specified and if I can't get them another way" - usually from TV shows or movies.

 

[Scott Hanna]

Simple question if it hasn't been asked already. Can the client and their guest tell the difference? Another question. Have you had a song that was downloaded that was so bad that you couldn't play it?

Considering variables as sound card, EQ setting, amp, ambient noise, and speakers,I'd be amazed if someone in the crowd could hear a song, hear subtle differences, and know that it's a cd or and MP3 or any other file or media.....and then understand that a quality issue exsists.

I'm sure it's possible, I've just never seen it in the 16 years I've been using computers to DJ with. Just about every song I've ripped, even at 128 years ago, sounds fine. Today I rip at 320, but I can't hear a quality difference unless I listen to the songs back to back, very closely, with headphones. Never had an issue with an MP3 I purchased either.

I'm talking about minor quality issues of course. Downloading something off YouTube or any other user uploaded site and you can easily get a terrible sounding file that anyone can tell is bad.

But with a legal, trusted source, you'll have no issues.

 

[rhythmgj]

"Legal, trusted source..."

This is actually the very issue I have, Scott. iTunes quality control sucks pretty badly, and almost all of my issues have been with files from "legal, trusted sources."

GJ

 

[soundinmotiondj]

Simple question if it hasn't been asked already. Can the client and their guest tell the difference?

No and yes.

No. I have never had a member of the audience notice (or maybe "comment to me" is a better description) that I was playing from a laptop through a "reasonable" quality sound interface -v- playing an original CD through a club standard CD player. The laptop can play wav/flac or an mp3 @ "reasonable quality" (this has varied over the years with sound interface technology, but generally >224kbps today). This includes the "reasonable" use of tempo changes and FX while mixing.

Yes. When doing anything beyond "trivial" editing of a piece of music, starting with a CD or other "lossless" format makes a difference that is noticeable to the average client. Editing in a DAW can be a MUCH more intensive transformation of a piece of music than what is typical in a live DJ set. When editing, I have a STRONG preference for starting with all "lossless" (wav/flac) source music.

Another question. Have you had a song that was downloaded that was so bad that you couldn't play it?

Focusing only on "sound quality" issues, yes. BUT, I do acknowledge that in every case, the fault was "exceptional," and not a general condemnation of any specific download store.

 

[Scott Hanna]

"Legal, trusted source..."

This is actually the very issue I have, Scott. iTunes quality control sucks pretty badly, and almost all of my issues have been with files from "legal, trusted sources."

GJ

To each his own. Maybe iTunes does suck. The fact that they sold 25 billion songs in a little over 10 years suggests no one cares. I truly don't believe a client or guest would be able to tell the difference between any MP3 I've purchased and a cd.
Even people that consider themselves audiophiles. They come up and talk to me at shows and talk about my equipment and sound on a regular basis. Yet no one has mentioned anything about an imperfection they noticed on an MP3. I'm pretty confident they would say something, even if they just imagined it.

I've bought relatively few songs off iTunes. Majority of stuff I've ripped myself. Last several years has been mostly MP3 files from prime cuts. But I'd be very confident in using a file from iTunes, Amazon, Google or any other legit source.

Being able to find and change a song quckly far outweighs any possible imperfections, in my opinion. I've found that playing the right song next is even more important than mixing. With little time left in a song, I can change up the next one and have it mixed if needed. Something that wasn't possible for me with cd's.

 

[soundinmotiondj]

iTunes quality control sucks pretty badly

That's an overly broad statement. The iTunes upload/conversion process is VERY well documented. Individual content owners can download and use the "iTunes Store" converter as a stand alone process.

Apple also provides a list of approved aggregators who are experienced at supplying content to iTunes (for a fee).

Given the tools that are available, the content owner can take all reasonable steps to understand EXACTLY how the resulting song will sound when downloaded by a consumer from iTunes. In general, any sound quality issues with a song from iTunes is the SOLE responsibility of whoever uploaded that content.

iTunes - Working with iTunes - Sell Your Content - Music Provider: FAQs - Apple

 

[rhythmgj]

>>>>Maybe iTunes does suck. The fact that they sold 25 billion songs in a little over 10 years suggests no one cares<<<<

Yes, I guess that's what I'm saying, which is unfortunate.

>>>>That's an overly broad statement.<<<<

Perhaps, and if so, fair enough. "iTunes quality has been, in my limited but intense experience, pretty suck-y."

>>>>The iTunes upload/conversion process is VERY well documented. Individual content owners can download and use the "iTunes Store" converter as a stand alone process... And... other stuff...<<<<

They can document and pass the buck all they want. It is _someone's_ fault, that is definitely _not mine_ as the consumer. It aggravates me that they are the world leader in digital retail, but about 100 of the 200 files I purchased needed _serious_ repair, no matter who they want to throw under the buss about that (see what I did there? Little audio joke). It also aggravates me that a special wedding song that I had downloaded, put in a playlist, and checked several times the week of a wedding crashed on the gig, and wouldn't play at all! Thankfully, I had a little time and some very spotty Wi-Fi to try and fix the situation, but if it wasn't for the fact that I'm amazingly anal about stuff like that on a gig, I might be starring in one of those "Don't hire this guy for your wedding" YouTube videos.

CD's have never failed me. Never ever ever once. Just sayin'. FOR ME (and I know my experience may be a-typical and certainly is not the popular opinion), digital files have been more trouble than they're worth. Of course I still use a percentage of them on gigs for convenience, but I lean on the CD's, rather than the other way around. And anything critical? On CD. If not purchased from a major retailer, often ripped or vinyl transferred and remastered by myself. Then I _know_ it works, or I know who to blame!

GJ

 

[Scott Hanna]

I've had cd's fail on me plenty. CD players too. Doors jam. Lasers fail. Scratch on the cd.

To be fair, it may have been that I was not super diligent on putting the last cd away right away. It was a lot of times at smokey bars.

Plus I made CD-R mix CDs of popular songs.

I also was not using high end CD players back in the day either. So I'm sure that added to it.

But today, I use $800 computers and good software that work flawlessly. In 16 years, I've had one computer that didn't work on start up. Used the back up. I've yet to have a song skip on a computer. it's not apples to apples though, as I upgrade my computers on a regular basis. Back in the day, I was buying used cd players off of people. I don't buy used computers today. I'd probably use better CD players today and take better care of the cd's. Just have no reason to go back.

 

[DJ Bobcat]

I digitized my CD's so long ago, I can't remember exactly when.[emoji4] I've been running a home media server longer than anyone I know, and have over 100K tracks. Never had any idea I would become a DJ back then. I can only remember one track that was corrupted in all that time, and I'm still not sure if it was corrupted because of a bad sector on the hard drive, or if it was corrupted when it was created. One thing that has happened TOO MANY times is that the songs on an album are mislabeled (wrong song titles). This has happened on CD's I've ripped (automatically acquired MP3 tags) and electronic purchases/downloads. Fixing them is a PITA! [emoji3] I know it's better to create the MP3 tags manually, but when you're ripping a bunch of CD's at one time, it's very time consuming. I still find mislabeled songs in my library from time-to-time.


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[ittigger]

One thing that has happened TOO MANY times is that the songs on an album are mislabeled (wrong song titles). This has happened on CD's I've ripped (automatically acquired MP3 tags) and electronic purchases/downloads. Fixing them is a PITA! I know it's better to create the MP3 tags manually, but when you're ripping a bunch of CD's at one time, it's very time consuming. I still find mislabeled songs in my library from time-to-time.

This is why I stopped using the online databases long ago. I have manually keyed most of mine. It is time consuming, but it is better than having to come back after the fact.

 

[DJ Bobcat]

This is why I stopped using the online databases long ago. I have manually keyed most of mine. It is time consuming, but it is better than having to come back after the fact.

I hear ya! [emoji4] At least now, if I automatically acquire the MP3 tags, I compare them to the list on the CD's insert. Can't do much about the ones that are wrong when you download an album, though. And sometimes I don't even listen to the whole album, so I may never know if there's a mislabeled song unless someone requests it. I do listen to every song I put on a playlist, so at least I know those I plan to play are correct.[emoji4]


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