Could I mix at a party gig with 320 kbps MP3 ?

[fellis]

what do you guys recommend as a minimum quality for a set-up like 2 Mackie 450's?

[Nosferatu]

if you've got a bangin' track that you KNOW will fit perfectly within your set, but it's 128kbps... Play it! nudging the eq a bit wouldn't hurt either.

It's not uncommon for some of the larger club sound systems to be configured in mono...so right off the bat, you're losing the stereo separation...and in the end, you're only going to sound as good as the final output... crappy system = crappy sound 128kbps or 320kbps. although 128kbps might make your ears bleed if the system is REALLY crappy.

[wrong chris]

128s don't even sound good on my headphones let alone a club system, what on earth are you guys smoking?
(and where can I get some?)

[Nosferatu]

I think the trend appears to be...

320kbps=yes (as much as possible)

128kbps=no (as much as possible, but bad quality could be acceptable if you really need to play it... not having the track could be worse than dealing with sub par sound...although make a note for yourself to rip it to 320kbps CBR yourself, or buy a high bitrate copy somewhere)

[Sherlock Ohms]

Mate of mine (seriously talented DJ, one of the Ninja Tune 'house' DJs) managed to bag a 128kbps version of Rappers Delight revoxed by loads of UK Rappers that he played when supporting Mos Def - sounded great. Right place, right tune, no one noticed it was slightly ropey quality.

Don't make a habit of it, but if it's *that* good - fuck it, just play it

[wrong chris]

yeah i guess one 128 tune in an entire set wouldn't scare everybody away, especially if it was some ultra rare hard to find tune that would blow everyones socks of regardless. you fellows make a compelling argument

[pepehouse]

128s don't even sound good on my headphones let alone a club system, what on earth are you guys smoking?
(and where can I get some?)

Hahaha! yeah! tell us! that weed might be great if you don't notice the difference.

[phantomine]

I wouldn't consider anything less than 320 except it is a bedroom or a party described in the first post.

What files do the "BIG GUNS" use? Like Richie Hawtin, Luciano etc. ? In every videos seen from their laptops the metadata seems to be proper so that would be mp3 then? It's kinda odd thinking these guys playing compressed music over Funktion One soundsystems. I would play wav everytime if there wouldn't be those stupid extra packing costs for .wavs.

Also different sound systems are optimized for Vinyl and some to digital. If you play vinyl in a digital music optimized sound system that would sound crappy too.

[josh@firestorm]

as JesC said, there's plenty of legit high bitrate mp3's on offer that are bad in quality... but 320 blog mp3's are notorious for being terrible (usually low quality mp3 re-encoded at high bitrate) so make sure you listen to everything thoroughly before heading out to your gig. dont trust the meta data and id3 tags - trust your ears!

[xtianw]

you know the only person that can hear the difference is other dj's.

and those guys want my gigs.

so eff those guys =p