I’ve seen some DJs on this forum that either exclusively use Flacs for their sets or include them in their sets, and I was just wondering if it makes a notable difference compared to mp3s. I just got myself a S4, (thanks to those who recommended me to get it. I’m really happy with it) and I’m about to start organizing my music collection for DJing, and was trying to decide between mp3s and flacs.
For those who DJ with flacs, 1. do you notice a significant difference when playing your set with flacs? Is it worth the extra step? 2. How do you go about tagging/organizing your music (with Traktor) and 3. what are your main sources of new music? - what do you do if you can only find mp3 version of a certain remix?
I gotta admit, I don’t really hear that much of a difference between a FLAC and a good encoded 320kbps MP3, but whenever I rip stuff from CDs I turn them into FLACs anyway. And that’s pretty much it for me. Some download portals let you buy their tracks as FLACs too, but I’m a cheapskate and usually don’t spend the extra € I have to pay for that.
Although I can barely notice anything I’ve got a better subjective feeling playing FLACs.
Maybe its just the Placebo-effect, but everything is allowed which makes you feel better.
I even spend the last week some extra bucks on Beatport for some Wave-files.
As more storage becomes available we DJs should embrace FLACs and shift towards it.
I myself will offer my songs in the FLAC-format starting today.
The average untrained ear probably cannot distinguish any difference. Most people claiming to are probably experiencing a placebo effect.
To be honest, you could probably even DJ with MP3s encoded with LAME at the V0 setting. The difference in quality is nil, but the V0 file size is much smaller.
I can’t really hear a difference in my monitors, so there’s not going to be a difference on club systems.
But, anything I get on CD I still rip as flac. I don’t use iTunes, and the media player I do use will read them just as well as anything else…so, why not?
The only reason I would ever use FLAC is for archival/backup purposes. That way if your ‘portable’ copies got destroyed somehow you would still have the true originals.
I buy mp3 and after processing in PN/MiK I import into Audacity for flac export. The only reason I use flac so I don’t re-encode the songs as mp3 and lose even more data. It’s a bit of a PITA to go through all that but wtv and I also don’t recognize any difference because i’m starting out with mp3 anyway.
Tagging the files from Audacity is pretty easy if you drag and drop the original mp3 into the app’s window the close the mp3 before exporting the processed track. The tags from the mp3 auto-populate into the flac file when you export. You also need to add .5-1 sec of silence at the beginning of the track. Like I said PITA.
Space Monkey and kami have the right idea in making sure that you won’t lose any more data.
But for those of you who don’t already know, if you’re buying mp3’s and converting them to FLAC, it will definitely NOT make anything sound better. A song can only ever sound as good as the source where you got it from, or worse depending on how many times it’s been compressed down.
As an example: If one downloads an mp3 that’s 192kbps 44100, and converts it to a 320kbps 192000 FLAC (why?!), it will sound EXACTLY THE SAME.
However if you compress it down to a lower bit rate, sample rate, or even more compressed audio file type, you can definitely make it sound worse.
The best source for a high quality song will either have to be bought for a lot more than your average mp3, or come from the producer him/her/themselve(s).
My personal opinion, if you really feel that you want to DJ with high quality sound, wav would be the best compromise of both quality and price worlds. Even then, you’d have to have your soundcard spitting that stuff out at a higher sample rate (depending on which sample rate it is), which wouldn’t be very likely unless you were DJing with a decked out desktop computer.
However to be perfectly honest, on a big sound system (even your general house party stuff), the only person who is going to actually hear the difference would be the audiophile in the corner listening to your mix through headphones from a “record out” on your mixer (and even the you’d have to consider the quality of the mixer).
I kind of feel like the speakers are your worst enemy regardless of file type. You’re working the EQ regardless so the sound is never going to be perfect. There is a line between a terrible file and a good one but I always felt that 192 kbps and above mp3 were good enough to play at most places. Everyone is drunk and just feeling your mix anyway.
It’s interesting to hear that there isn’t much difference between mp3s and flacs.. As a sound engineer, (my background) in the studio environment, the difference is quite huge, so I was expecting similar responses, but when factoring in the club environment, I guess it makes sense..
So if you mix between Wavs, flacs and mp3s, it would flow without much notable difference in perceived sound?
FLAC .. Fantastic quality obviously but generally not really practical (size wise) for djing with, unless you either have a small library or a massive HD!
Also, think of it this way … You record a set in traktor using your FLAC files, it gets recorded in WAV and then you convert it to .mp3 for uploading and ipod purposes..
To answer the initial question, no I don’t think it is worth it. Honestly for club/djing purposes the difference between wav/flac/320kmp3 is splitting hairs.
However for recording audio in a studio I would never record to anything other than wav, and then the best quality my gear can muster. However then it suddenly also becomes about your board, the converters, mics, cables and lots of other variables that color an incoming audio signal.
But for anyone who insists on DJing with flacs or wavs if that’s what makes you happy more power to you, myself personally I see it as nothing more than a waste of HD space.
My main problem with DJing with flac files is that traktor always cuts off half of the first beat for some reason. If I transcode it to WAV it works fine, just doesn’t like the FLAC format for some reason.
I’m the audiophile in the corner, and it does irk me that every mix I make is a bunch of 320/V0 MP3 files that’s been mixed and recompressed into another MP3. If you are personally worried about how good your mixes will sound, then go pick up all of your songs in WAV, otherwise 320 and the sort will do just fine.
http://www.mediafire.com/?95bj3lf1lc2q900
Here I got two short soundclips, ripped directly from the CD. One is a FLAC, the other one a 320kbps MP3. For those of you who are interested if they can hear a difference and how big it is.
Most of the club/festival/etc. systems I’ve heard (even the ones people obviously spent money on) are more about loudness than fidelity.
They’re usually so loud that you need earplugs to not damage your ear every time you go out.
No one in their right mind spends the money on actual flat earplugs…they just get close for $20, if that. Or they’re already losing their hearing.
Seriously…you can’t hear a difference between mp3s, wavs, flacs, CDs, or Vinyl unless you’re looking for it. Even then, if the mp3 is encoded correctly, I would bet money that even a good number of DJs would do worse than random in a blind test.
Not even that, you’ll actually make it worse because you’re encoding from one lossy format to another (transcoding).
Encoding TO mp3 should only be done from .wav or .flac files, because those formats are lossless.
I don’t know, about everything I use for music supports it. Traktor, Ableton, Foobar and even my iRiver Spinn supports it. I can only imagine more Hardware and Software supporting it in the future
I once did tests on my nice Revox HiFi equipment and there are noticeable differences, but definitely not significant. I did the test with Fun Lovin Criminals CDs, which have good dynamics and acoustic instruments. That was like 5-6 years ago, so can say that I had better hearing then.
As base, I did 320 mp3. It was noticeably flatter than the WAV. Most of the dynamics were gone, part of the “soul” of the track have disappeared.
As next test I did “ogg” rip with quality = 7. Much better than the MP3. More dynamics, more pleasure. Still lacking when compared to the WAV
I found that ogg 9 & 10 were almost the same, with barely noticeable diff between each other. The diff with the mp3@320 & ogg7 was with the details - it’s rich … and much more on the “sense” side, then on what I was hearing. Big diff was present.
The Flac encode I did is even fuller than the ogg 10. A bit more dynamics, a bit more detail, a bit more sensible. Hardly noticeable when it comes to presence of frequencies and sound, but boy, it feels better. And compared to the MP3/ogg7 it’s times fuller and sensible.
WAV to Flac compare was not noticeable in my test.
I think FLAC is better, those who say they don’t make diff on studio monitors - I would understand that. On hi/mid-end Hi-Fi equipment diff is distinctably present. Both on the hearing side and on the sensing side.
At the end, I like to share a side fact. When recording витх my Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder I find sensible difference between the 7 1/2 vs the 15 inch (19 vs 38cm) speeds. It’s amazing there’s nothing that I miss as freq or detail in the music. It’s just that it FEELS better. It’s like to room IS FULL OF SOUNDS, I sense it with my skin, my organs and the harmony of all those small vibrating particles inside of me.
Don’t know if my post would make any difference … what I’m telling is very subjective, but I hope that many of you do realize that in this world, not everything is absolute and can be considered a fact. There are truthful things which just vibrate truthfully and that’s simply enough. It similar wit the music - it just vibrates in harmony with us and we sense it, not only hearing but also sensing it.
