Last night I get involved in a hot discussion about sound quality. There were four persons around a bar table talking about music, a traditional dj that allways use vinyl records, a musician, a sound technic and a music fanatic (this is me). Then the conversation derivated to the formats, how the industry had been changing them along the years allways to cheap formats, but not for the public, and worst sound quality . How the last created technologies are trying to set the mp3 as a standard, although it has a very bad quality, specially when it’s used in professional equipment and high volume levels, like for example in a club.
It’s true, all of us that had been traditional dj’s before digital had felt it, and if you didn’t there’s a thing that you must try and could confirm it playing your favourite release in a good vinyl record or an original cd and the same music in mp3. Let me to set the mp3 example in the best codification anybody can get in order forget the worst (downloaded from any mp3 legal download site or wherever anybody get it). The difference is notable, but today more and more people, like in this site, are playing mp3, with the knowledge that this is not the best sound. (and many people in the crowd don’t fell the difference or don’t matter about this questions).
What do you think guys? For me, sound quality is more important than tricks, i feel very bad when I find some VERY GOOD music that is impossible to play in a gig due to its bad sound. At the end this is only a thing to talk about. Don’t take me so seriously because I’m only a music fan that appreciate very much sound quality and get very angry with people that not take care in it.
Thanks anyway.
They are NOT trying to set the mp3 as a standard… It is already a standard.
There are a few formats that are far superior than MP3, some withe loss-less sound quality. (OGG, FLAC are just some examples)
Professional equipment that utilizes MP3 format, usually (although not always) recommends using the best quality as possible, hence 320kbps. They can really not be blamed for someone using a 64 - 128kbps file.
I agree with you that sound quality is a priority… although there is a LOT more going on with the MP3 format implementation in equipments than many people out there imagine/know about.
That being said.. I would be on your side in that “musical debate”.
I have to admit that I used to be a bit obsesed with sound quality in my pre DJ days I was into HI FI ( was a bit of a geek) & I speant a lot of time researching my equipment & buying the right cables & connections etc.
But since the invent of the internet & the mp3 the quest for quality has been taken over by the quest for quantity.
I try never to play anything less than a 320kbs mp3 but in a recent set I played with a friend on a 4k system, my freind was using any ol mp3 & the crowd didnt seem to mind, it was more about what the tune was than the quality.
To me one of the essential things of being a DJ is what you play!
If the quality of a tune isnt up to scratch (itunes download) I will take it into sound forge & try to get the best out it!
BTW: to me a good old D&B vinyl on a 1210 still sounds great!
320kbps 44khz is the way for me(or if it encoded well enough 192kbps VBR minimum). If you hear anything wrong with it, I might point to the encoder of the MP3.
You will not hear the difference between MP3 and CD if LAME was used with the Insane setting.
As a DJ the sound quality is important, of course, but the standard is set a lot lower. I don’t go to clubs to selectively listen to music, I go to clubs to dance. 320kb/ps running through a good interface sound fine. Might need some creative EQ, but that’s easy.
The issue, to me, comes down to casual listening. The entire experience of the ‘album’ has been destroyed. What used to be dropping a record onto a player and sitting on your couch and listening to it has no become throwing on a pair of shitty ear bud headphones and blasting it with no care for hearing damage or sound quality. There will be people soon who have never listened to music on anything other than crappy headphones and in AAC format.
I agree with you on the last part. Yesterday I was thinking about how long ago it was, I went to a record store and bought me a CD. Nowadays I just purchase downloads… And some this causes me grieve.
it does make a difference to sound quality, but let’s face it. 99% of all sound systems in London clubs are bollocks - mix that in with shit sounding rooms and you have a recipe for mush to start off with.
And your generic clubber isn’t really going to be able to tell the difference between a 192 or a 320 k/bits mp3.
Does it make a difference? Probably not to the average clubber - but there’s no denying that a good recording can kick more on a big PA than a shit one.
Having said that - if you’re hyper compressing stuff like most modern mastered dance tracks are, i’m surprised there is such a thing as “kick” - it just becomes a wall of noise. Loudness does not equal more bass.
I think that is true for all around the whole world !
Id like a dollar for every time i have heard that those logitech sound systems are “awesome” or that the buds that come with ipods are “fantastic”. Really the average joe doesnt have a qlue about sound quality so in general i wouldnt worry about only playing 320kbps files or files in wav format.
The minimum i try to mix with is 192kbps VBR recodings, but i try to get 320kbps where ever possible and if availible recently i have been getting flac files - hard drive space is cheap and internet connections are becomming faster and faster so now i think is a good time to start changing over to flac.
Like has been said before is more about what you play, not the quality of the recording as such.
OK, mates, all of us are agree, after find a “minimum” (320kbps, FLAC,…) high quality, the question is in WHAT is being played, not in HOW it sounds.
Let me say to you the last sentence that said the musician and the sound technic in the conversation that start this thread: “Recorded music is a placebo for the absence of live music, so the big trouble is to find this real option, corporations are getting the control into law, and now, in Spain the owners of little venues can’t offer to their clients any kind of live music, like small bands, neither a solo show, because they don’t have the services that are mandatories for a theater or a concert hall (backstage cabin, private bathrooms, etc, etc) and this is ridiculous, is like a prohibition to read if you don’t wear glasses, this is the problem, they want the people from home to work and go back, and if you can pay for it, you can stop at a big commercial centre were you can find that what i sell”
Don’t think that I am saying that creative people like you aren’t real music, 'cos this is not true, music with machines is another kind of live music although you were using part of the work of others like musicians use what they learn from other musicians. Thanks for your kindly answers and keep grooving, please, keep grooving and giving good sounds to the people while you can. Thanks again.
I just had a meeting yesterday with some SF producers… we had this exact conversation. I didn’t admit that I use MP3s exclusively… But they succeeded in making me feel inferior and that FLAC and WAV are the only quality formats. Ah well… I’ll use FLAC if I can get it, but WAV just takes too much space.
The space is a factor… while dollar to byte ratios are still really low, if my collection was all in WAV format… I think it would be in the terabytes of space, as opposed to under 200 gigs. And will the crowd notice the difference? I don’t think so
Ive read on a number of occasions thats 320kbps is audibly indistinguishable from WAV formats - not sure how much truth there is in this though i can honestly say i havent tested with decent equipment.
Also another reason that MP3 will remain the standard for sometimes is companies such as beatport will charge you extra for .wav (because they can/ more data being sent leads to them useing more bandwith)
Just to not deviate too much and hijack the thread… the main reason you can actually “hear” a difference is because in MP3s, depending on the encoder and settings, there are many frequencies that can be filtered… this is especially true on high and very low freqs.
To make a good compression algorithm for sound, a technique called perceptual noise shaping is used. It’s “perceptual” partly because the MP3 format uses characteristics of the human ear to design the compression algorithm. For example:
There are certain sounds that the human ear cannot hear.
There are certain sounds that the human ear hears much better than others.
If there are two sounds playing simultaneously, we hear the louder one but cannot hear the softer one.
Using facts like these, certain parts of a song can be eliminated without significantly hurting the quality of the song for the listener.
Therefore you can immediately notice a dull, flat sound… also lacking some punch and bass freqs as well as missing high freqs.
If you want, we can open another thread regarding this explanation..
what i’ve heard is that 320kbps is ALMOST indistinguishable from WAV and if a dj were to compare the two, they would see that for a DJ, there is no point in getting WAV files that take up over 2000% of the size of your collection just to get a slightly better (if noticeable) sound quality and play it at a local club or whatever that has a less than par, if not decent, sound system.
From what i know, you only want the very best quality (WAV), if
a: you’re a producer
b: you’re an audio fidelity geek
but i reiterate that the noticeable difference is not enough, IMO, to account for the increased disk space.
*i have bought another copy of a song off beatport in the wav format and tested it on my Tapco th15a speakers, and i have to say, “i don’t hear the difference at all” my speakers aren’t the best in the line, but for my occasional parties that i throw at home sometimes, i’m confident the drunks won’t hear the difference.
. How the last created technologies are trying to set the mp3 as a standard, although it has a very bad quality, specially when it’s used in professional equipment and high volume levels, like for example in a club.
