192 kbps mp3's - should I delete them?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

192 kbps mp3’s - should I delete them?

Well the title says the basis of my question. Asked this on another forum (so sorry if you guys find it there too, but looking for as much information as I can on the subject)

Alright. So I’ve done my homework, and I’ve really tried to read up on this subject. I know for a fact that mp3’s are not “the best” file format in general, but they are one of the most readily available and decent on space usage.

As I am just getting into DJing, I’m prepping my music library at the moment. It’s a crazy task, and I plan on really getting dirty with the ID3 tags and really making sense of it all.

I have a lot of music which I’ve mostly bought, grabbed a few tracks from friends, and downloaded some illegally in the past. (I know that’s bad news, but a lot of it was when I was in college before I went out and got a “real” job). I now buy all of my music, generally settling with about 5 tracks per week so I don’t kill my budget.

But my question is, I have a few songs I’ve downloaded/just have that are 192 kbps. I really want to keep my library semi-professional, and most places I’ve looked or read say 320 kbps or bust.

Now I’m talking about 2/3’s of my collection. Some of the music is stuff I burned from CD’s that I don’t even own anymore (lost/scratched in the car/given to friends since I had copies of) before I knew what the proper bitrate was to copy over.

Should I just delete my 192kbps files and start “fresh” so to speak? Or could I get away with playing them at house parties?

I guess what I’m asking is what is the line? I’m not spinning in clubs anytime soon, I’ll probably mess around on my own and bring my gear/computer over to friend’s houses, but that’s it for the near future.

Thoughts and suggestions?

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For house parties I think 192 is gonna be alright. Maybe you could save your 192kbps not-so-legal tracks on an external device (cds, external HD, secondary HD) and just not use them for DJing. I’d recommend going for 320kbps but if you don’t have any thing else then 192 is not going to get you in massive trouble. Just listen to your tracks on studio monitors or proper headphones and if it sounds good, it’s good.

If you feel bad about your illegal tracks, I’d say don’t DJ with them or buy them now (possibly in 320 or wav).
Good luck mate

also, you speak of 2/3’s of your collection. How large is your collection?

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My collection is about 3000 ish songs. Not including some stuff I have saved on an external from way back when.

I actually do plan on buying the tracks I really want and going through and getting better quality, but wasn’t totally sure if the 192’s could get me through in the meantime. I plan on having a full 100% legit setup, but it’s difficult sifting through bad cd burns and illegal downloads and figuring out what I have bought at this point. I’ve been buying music for just over 2 years now, but I still have a lot of which I haven’t. But a lot of that I don’t listen to anyhow, so… yeah.

I’ve honestly needed to do a big cleanup for awhile now, and this is me getting my act together and doing it. For most tracks I can’t really tell a difference on my personal setup, but that’s not saying a whole ton.

I mean the logical/legal standpoint would be, delete everything that isn’t high quality and I haven’t bought legit. Thing is, I plan on doing this honestly, just a matter of it’s a metric fuckton of cash that I don’t have at the moment to replace about 2k songs.

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I’d suggest you start organizing the tracks you are bound to spin first. Legit or not.
Delete any songs that you don’t play/like and which aren’t legit.
Its a bitch to order all those 3k tracks so maybe the best option is to just jump into it and not worry too much about the 192 tracks :wink:
just my 2 pennies worth though..

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I would make a smart playlist in itunes. That separates all songs under 256 kps.. (or just under 192.. ) Then listen to every track.. And all songs you dont like (and want to delete) give dem 1 star. So you can delete them from itunes later on..

You can also make a smart playlist that only have 320 mp3’s…

Just my 1€ though.. I will send you my paypal link later :stuck_out_tongue: (joke)

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Burn em

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heh I already went through and deleted everything less than 320. Never used itunes before, and seems like the tracks download at 256 (just downloaded the Tactix / Wicked So - EP). I’ve been a beatport fan for awhile, looks like I’m going to stick down that road.

But yeah, trying to go legit from a past history of illegal downloading is a pain in the ass, and I suspect the reason why many people don’t. I’ve been downloading legally for awhile now… just never got to the cleanup.

On the chance someone knows, what does a bitrate tag like 192 kbps (VBR) stand for? as in… what the hell does (VBR) mean?

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variable bit rate, means the bit rate changes, lower for silent parts higher for more complex parts

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Ah thank you. Looks those ones will be replaced sooner than later >.<

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tbh i’ve never noticed a real difference between the two, maybe digital and vinyl, but not the various bit rates shrugs

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I sometimes wonder how we managed with acetates and vinyl. All the clicks and hisses.

:roll_eyes:

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I wouldnt totally dismiss 192’s. They could be good for listening references to catch inspiration or what ever. Also you can easily get away with playing good quality tunes and throw 192’s in over the top for like the vox etc, but not actually let the tune drop on its own.
I dunno if you’re into the production tip but you could always hang on to the 192’s for sampling. And before anyone says “yeah but they are poor quality”, a smart man will use that to his advantage. You know that horrible under water washy type sound that MP3’s produce, whats stopping you from exploiting that sound and making it part of your track? After all its sound at the end of the day. Maybe even run it through some fx to really exaggerate that MP3 sound and get some really off key frequencies peak through, bounce that shit down, resample, bounce, resample etc etc.

There’s no rules, only guidelines.

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I’ve spun 192 kb/s tracks on large club systems and it might take a volume boost and some EQ manipulation but they can sound solid, as long as they are solid tracks. I wouldn’t get rid of anything until you replace it, just put a comment in the track like “LOW BITRATE” or “DO NOT USE” so you can keep it fresh in your head for personal listening.

I don’t think there really is a hard fast rule. Some 320kb/s can sound like SHIT, and some 192 can sound just as good as 320

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arghh
VBR doesn’t take a lesser bit rate for silent parts!
Basically during encoding, VBR ‘looks’ at how many bits are required to describe that little part of the song. Then it chooses the right amount of bits for that part. It will vary but stick around the amount of bits you entered (e.g 192)
volume has nothing to do with it I think..

Yeah DvlsAdvct’s idea is good :wink:

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+1 on DvlsAdvct, some 192 are really noticably poor, but other are alright, I don’t understand why though…

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i blame it on shitty mastering during the production/post production process prior to being converted.

if you fuck the mastering up, not even ‘flac’ can save the sound. inversely decent mastering shines through even at 192

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It’s also the path the track has gone through.

SOmeone sends me a WAV file. I bounce it down to a 128 kp/s track. Then I send it to my buddy who likes to spin WAV files so he bounces it down to a WAV file. Then he decides to send it to some friends, but the file is too big so he bounces it down to a 320kb/s. Then one of them decides to put it on their mp3 player but doesn’t have room so they bounce it down to 128kb/s. THEN they decide to seed it on a torrent, and someone downloads it, ups it to 192kb/s and you have a track that will sound like shit.

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Thats why getting music straight from the source is key! Also depends on the genre, I have some 192 EDM tracks that sound very tight, no need to ditch those. If it sounds good, it sounds good.

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which is why i buy everything first hand, even my 192s sound better than some of the wavs out there.
(i know for a fact juno download convert everything themselves from a wav, some sites require the label to provide all the conversions themselves)

even if someone puts me onto a track i’d still prefer to go buy it so i know it hasn’t gone through needless amounts of conversion

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i delete most my 192s, i only make an exception for older music like classic rock etc. when it can be difficult to find copies at higher bitrates.
As far as new music goes, unless it’s a ‘must-have cannot live without’ track, i garbage bin that shit unless its 320… saves time in organizing my folders.