How do I burn my music onto cd’s for djing? So I keep the quality good.
Hi everybody,
I’ve a question about how to burn my music on to cd’s so I can mix on cdjs. Normally I always use my midi controller.
Only tommorow I’m going to play on cdj’s 1000 and they don’t have usb ports. So I need to burn my music on cd’s. I know how to burn normal cd’s but would that keep the sound quality of the songs good?
I hope some of you guys can explain it to me.
Glen
Yeah. If you normally buy wav, aiff, flac, or alac, burn audio CDs. If you normally use a lossy compression format (e.g., mp3) then either burn audio CDs (but you won’t recover quality) or mp3 data CDs with no additional data compression (they’ll still sound like crap but won’t get worse).
As long as the mp3 comes from a good source and is of a good bitrate it’ll sound just fine. CD quality is noticably better, but mp3’s are acceptable in my book. It may be better to burn audio cd’s for organisation purposes though. 500 tracks on one disc is really difficult to sift through.
Once you learn to hear it, mp3s will never sound good enough again.
I can tell the difference, I just cannot possibly get everything in FLAC of AIFF. It’s not reasonable in terms of storage space or price. I still buy CD’s to listen to at home and I’ll take a CD over an mp3 all other things being equal. But they’re not and that’s why I choose mp3’s for djing.
mp3 data cd is fine , sure .wav has a higher bit rate and a bit better quality but , its more practical to go mp3’s.
In the end it all boils down to , where are you playing. Are you doing world renown festivals or simply a night club at a local venue.
Even guys touring the world with their music use mp3’ 320’s because its practical and you have the ease of access to all your music at your finger tips.
So, your quality standards are lower for your performance than your living room?
That doesn’t make any sense to me.
Also, I really don’t understand why people keep talking about storage like it matters. 6TB hard drives cost about $250 and can hold about 10,000 hours of uncompressed 44.1/16 audio files, or a bit over a year of uninterrupted playback. Granted, that price more or less tripples when you start to consider backups and the likelihood of unrecoverable read exceptions, but I’ve never heard anyone else talk about that in relation to music…so that can’t be the reason.
That argument is complete garbage.
It wasn’t really an argument Mostapha, i am speaking from the fact that I see many guys who play around the world using mp3 320’s. I didn’t say anything about “my standards are lower for your performance than your living room?”
I think you might have made that part up all on your own. I am saying 320’s are fine and there are guys who are highly trained producers still using 320’s as they travel and play their music.
Don’t know whats garbage about the fact that I have questioned these guys and got answers from them saying 320s work.
When you’re travelling and need to pack light(all your shit in one bag and maybe a backpack too) certainly storage matters. To deny this is absurd. We got guys coming down from the uk touring our area to play shows. You think they’re going to come plug a big ol hd into the decks instead of a USB stick?
Don’t gotta go around telling people their posts are garbage , especially with as many posts you have and how long you’ve been on these forums. You’d think you would have a certain level of respect across these forums from a veteran like you.
You have you opinion, I have mine. I’m not trashing you with my posts so what’s the point in belittling someone on here other than you satisfying your personal needs and trying to make yourself feel a bit better in doing so.
I’m just here to give advice from the knowledge I’ve obtained , not shoot people down.
What’s your motivator to be here?
The same.
The sooner people will accept that mp3 compression is audible the sooner we’ll get access to better formats. And, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think that storage is that big of a deal. No one tours with their entire collection, and if they do, they’ve got problems.
No club DJ needs more than a few hundred songs. A 256GB USB key will still hold 400 hours of uncompressed music.
I used to buy the “mobile jocks need everything” argument until I actually started paying attention to what gets played at those kinds of events. There’s more truth to it for them.
And I’m sorry. I’m nobody. But it irks me when I hear the cloud of birds or the terrible reverb tails that mp3 compression causes. I don’t understand the “junk is good enough for my audience” mentality. There are a lot of things going on to fight sound quality in a typical club…why a DJ would want to compound it at the first step is completely beyond me, especially if it’s just to fit another 500 hours of music they’re not going to play onto a usb key.
Its the underwater Hihats that I hate hearing from hack DJs.
If I’m imagining it correctly, yeah…that’s the same kind of thing I described as a cloud of birds. If we’re talking about the same thing, I think I like your way of describing it better.
The guy who taught me to hear it referred to it as a cloud of birds. I think he got it from someone else, though.
Nah man I wouldn’t call you a nobody, you got some good stuff on your mixcloud. I’ve listened your stuff over in the past and our tastes are rather similar in terms of music. Everyone has worth my friend, you are working on a craft that you enjoy and putting it out there for people to listen to, that has value.
With todays day and age you would think that .wav or .flac etc would become an industry standard but the reality of it is we already have internet providers complaining about bandwidth use and a government that is threatening to make the internet area based and restricted.
I don’t think the mp3 will ever “not be” the standard for the fact that it is compressed & a lot more efficient in terms of space on servers etc. I’ve read a lot of what you have to say through these forums are you are a good contribution and certainly helpful over all. You seem like a very intelligent individual and I have agreed and disagreed with points you’ve made, I do my best to maintain a good composure on these forums and treat everyone with respect. Sometimes I fall out of place but we all do at one point or another.
Keep on contributing what you do because as I stated previous, the value of what you do is there. You are not a nobody by any means.
I simply cannot pack another piece of kit into my bag. All my USB ports are taken, my entire bag is full. I go to my gigs either by public transport or by bicycle. But apart from that, I cannot afford it. I get almost nothing from my gigs and have accepted that I will never even come close to breaking even. Sure there is a better quality alternative to mp3, but here in the real world, I cannot get to it.
Get me a regular gig that pays for my expenses and I’ll switch to wav, flac, aiff or whatever you want. But until then it’s mp3’s all the way.
Sorry to jump on this thread but there’s a chance that I’ll be playing some gigs on either CDJ 1000s or 800s. I normally use USBs but obviously I’ll need to burn some CDs to use.
I have my USBs synced with Rekordbox, meaning that all my cue in/out points are saved etc and I tend to write the key of the song as well as mix out info in the ‘comments’ section (eg. “9A - mix out 5.39 secs”). Is there any way I can burn CDs that will still allow me to view that information?
Apparently some people PREFER mp3s to CDs…
http://hometheaterreview.com/does-generation-y-like-the-sound-of-mp3s-over-cds/
For a LONG time my “reference sound system” was in my car. It is, apparently, a common affliction among teenage boys. I didn’t have rims that were worth more than the car…I had a stereo that was 75% of the value of the car. 
Obviously, even in a “best case” scenario, the ambient noise floor when going 80mph (did I mention I was young?) on the highway with the windows down created a “challenging” listening environment for the stereo to overcome. 
Even so, that background has provided me with a particular perspective about music that is part of how I listen to this day. In much the same way, there is a generation (and a half) that uses $15 ear buds for their “reference sound system.” I am sure that will have some effect on their emotional connection to their music that will last a lifetime.