How to acheive the best sound quality

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

How to acheive the best sound quality

Hi everyone

How do you get the best sound quality for your recordings?
I have started to use Traktor 3 with Numark DJIO soundcard. I am using WAV files but when I play back the recordings from Traktor the quality is about the same as an old tape! I know nothing about latency and have played about with the settings in traktor and the support for the numark but nothing seems to make it much better.
Is WAV CD quality? Are there different WAV sizes like there are for MP3?

I figured that if I used WAV files and a low latency setting that that should be good enough but its not as clear as I would like and not as good as vinyl.
My laptop is using in intel core processor with 2.13gHZ of power

How do I get it crystal clear? Any suggestions would be gratefully received!

Also I have another issue with the crossfader on traktor, when the fader is over to the right with two channels playing traktor only plays the track on the right. Nothing strange there but when I move it completely over to the left it still plays both tracks, one louder than the other but blatantly both!

(This is using just the traktor crossfader not an external mixer)

Thanks!:confused:

2

Sounds strange, where did you get your copy of Traktor from?

WAV files should be really good quality, is it the same with all of the tunes or just certain ones?

3

turn down the recording gain if it’s only recordings that are crackling, I’ve noticed it’s particularly susceptible to clipping.

If you’re hearing crackling all the time, turn the latency UP not down and lower the sample rate to 44,100.

4

OK I’ll try that thanks a lot, are WAV files normally clear enough to play over a club system?

5

absolutely, WAVs are way better than average. Most people use 320kbps MP3s.

6

Ok thats great so I’m on the right track at least!

7

well, as long as you have a fucking big hard drive.

8

why does the OPs name keep yelling at me??? :disappointed:

9

IMHO, run traktor’s output into a DAW and use it to EQ and limit the track after the fact…and pay attention to your gains…that’s where you’re going to lose quality.

I used Live for recording sets long before I switched to using Live to DJ. It worked very well. If you want to go cheaper, Audacity will work, though I don’t know how well it handles the limiting you’ll want (think of it as re-mastering your whole mix…it works great if you don’t go too over the top). Pro Tools would actually be my first choice if you don’t specifically want Live, and now you don’t need a digi/avid interface to run it. Unfortunately, that also made it more expensive.

10

Maybe your wav file was originally converted from a bad quality mp3 file.

You will be fine if you use 320kbps mp3, i think even 256kbps mp3 is enough…

But if you want to play in a big club, you must buy a better audio interface, Numark DJIO is not so good, it’s enough for practice at home but for live play I would invest more money
(I have a DJIO and I dont bet on his quality to play live)

Also try to get the last traktor pro version, I don’t know if the traktor 3 recording feature is as good as the traktor pro 1.2.x

11

the DJ IO is ok when starting out. its what i had. but you will find that it doesnt push enough signal. i played in a big festival and was mixing internally, the output for the headphones was so low i couldnt hear it over the main speakers. and i had it maxed out.