Is it a bad idea to play "free download" tracks on a big system ?

[Kwal]

It's quite easy to tell weather or not the song is shit quality. I play plenty of free bootlegs from some of my favorite producers and they're just as good of quality as their signed tracks. If you're getting them off of weird, 3rd party Youtube ripping sites then of course you shouldn't even bother.

[b1sh0p]

Here's the issue IMO... You get a tune that's shit hot from a new producer from soundcloud. He produced it on shitty monitors and doesn't know anything about mixdowns. You play it on house speakers or in head phones and it sounds solid. Then you play it out on a big system and it sounds like ass. It really comes down to trusting your ears and running it through proper monitors to know where it's at. Not a big deal for the experienced, but something new dj's should be aware of.

[Cook]

Here's the issue IMO... You get a tune that's shit hot from a new producer from soundcloud. He produced it on shitty monitors and doesn't know anything about mixdowns. You play it on house speakers or in head phones and it sounds solid. Then you play it out on a big system and it sounds like ass. It really comes down to trusting your ears and running it through proper monitors to know where it's at. Not a big deal for the experienced, but something new dj's should be aware of.

If you play it on a decent set of monitors any bad mixdowns should be instantly noticable,

Best way to tell, put your dj headphones on, play a commercially mastered track, play the other track then compare, if you cant tell from direct comparison, you probably shouldnt be a dj

[johney]

i don't get how this got to pages

if it's not loud enough (which it probably won't be) turn up the gain
if it's muddy, turn up the highs/mids, or turn the bass down a little
if it sounds tin, turn up the bass
if it still sounds bad, don't play it next time

[Cook]

i don't get how this got to pages

if it's muddy, turn up the highs/mids, or turn the bass down a little
if it sounds tin, turn up the bass

i dont see how this would help.. a badly mixed track would be unfixable on a DJ mixer once its been bounced.

[Patch]

Yup.

[stinky]

Tracks given away for free by producers, are they mastered ?

Sometimes the are mastered by the producer himself, sometimes they aren't. Considering the overcompressed crap you typically get off Beatport nowadays, it's a good thing when you get a track that hasn't been "professionally" mastered. While a mastering engineer can theoretically improve a track (by fixing stereo image, doing a bit of EQing to balance frequency response, etc.), in practice they rarely do anymore. Due to the loudness war, their main job is to increase loudness. The tools they use to increase loudness are destructive in nature.

Are they safe to play on a big system ?[/COLOR][/B]

Yeah, sure. While an unbalanced frequency response (something a mastering engineer would fix) of a track has the potential to damage speakers, nowadays it's mostly an academic concern. In installations of PA systems, there is technology in place which makes sure nothing blows...

[TCMuc]

if it's not loud enough (which it probably won't be) turn up the gain

By turning up the gain you raise the peak level

Loundess =/= peak level.

The RMS level of a track is responsible for how loud it is perceived. If you turn up the gain of a track that hasn't been properly mastered to match the perceived loudness of a mastered track, chances are you're increasing the peak level to a point where you will clip the system.

[stinky]

By turning up the gain you raise the peak level

That's true, but I can still turn up the gain to on the track with lower loudness. There will be a positive gain level where the perceived loudness of both tracks is equal.

If you turn up the gain of a track that hasn't been properly mastered to match the perceived loudness of a mastered track, chances are you're increasing the peak level to a point where you will clip the system.

Well, the limiter should be turned on. Remember that limiting is nothing but a special case of compression. And DJ software like Traktor has a soft limiter built-in, it's not all that different from a compressor DSP.

In my experience, just cranking up the gain of the track with lower loudness (or reducing the gain of the louder track) works well in a club situation. One can also EQ the louder track a bit by taking out some Highs. In recently mastered releases, the highs are often lifted a bit as that makes the track perceptually hotter.

[DJLiteral]

Check the quality of the track. 320 mp3s work well, though some people release free wavs no worries there at all .