Dice Roll: Getting good bit rates from non-beatport sites

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Dice Roll: Getting good bit rates from non-beatport sites

I know there’s a lot of threads on this, but…

I need to get together a lot of non-techno, non-house music for a ‘techno DJ’s doing other genres’ lounge event. Mainly going funky hip hop, and maybe some indie pop since I’m doing, effectively, two sets. Beatport is damn good for the latter, but for the former, fuck me in the goat ass… there is some SERIOUS wading through shit to get to the good stuff.

From what I’ve read (here, mainly) it looks like even iTunes and Amazon are a grab bag when it comes to the bit rate. They say they aim for 256kbps, but apparently it isn’t always the case for either. I would fear for the older stuff the risk is much greater. To boot, you don’t get to peak at the details before hand.

Emusic is VBR from the get go… and I’ve heard mainly good reviews from tracks bought there, but some shit ones as well. I’ve had an eMusic account for years, but I’ve never DJed with any of my tracks from there. For this gig it’s probably not an issue as it’s in a little bar. But, let’s say I get booked to a sold out Yokohama Stadium… it’s going to be a problem then.

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Buy from places that tell you what quality you’re getting, or offer lossless. CDs are another option.

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junodownload.com .wav format

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I find Juno’s selection a bit better, but it’s a last resort: they usually don’t have what I want.

I am indeed grabbing some cheap CDs where I can, but there’s obviously a limit to what I can find… time… and all that other shit. :smiley:

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I don’t recall having ever bought anything off iTunes when buying tunes for weddings etc. and thinking “that’s not good enough to use”. I’d probably wing it and reevaluate my collection when I get booked to play Yokahama Stadium.

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Probably the most healthy way to approach the issue, indeed. :wink:

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iTunes might only be 256kbps but they use a much better compression method than most other places. ie. It sounds just like a 320kbps MP3.

I play a few Top 40 sets where I need to buy a lot of crap from iTunes etc… I never notice any real difference in quality between stuff from iTunes and normal 320 Mp3s.