**format wars** vinyl ? mp3 ? cd ? turntables ? ableton ?

[dirty_bass]

:lol:

right..from now on we have tune after tune with a pause between each one.

Works for Jah Shaka, and his parties homp n hump more than any techno bash I`ve been to.

[massplanck]

Betamax video is da Phuture.

[Mindful]

with remote controlls with wires

[Aratron]

i much prefer vinyl.
i hate cds and mps totally soulless and the quality of music is shit.
i also hate ableton - computer controlled djing or what eva - i think that will just destroy the scene.
i think the technology companies should make soem records players which are just brilliant but not as heavy so they can be made more portable - or maybe im just stuck in the past.

[dirty_bass]

Hang on, ableton is destroying the scene.
I thought it was minimal this week?
Oh hang on, no, I think this week it`s fergies job to destroy the scene.

[rhythmtech]

i much prefer vinyl.
i hate cds and mps totally soulless and the quality of music is shit.
i also hate ableton - computer controlled djing or what eva - i think that will just destroy the scene.
i think the technology companies should make soem records players which are just brilliant but not as heavy so they can be made more portable - or maybe im just stuck in the past.

yup... well stuck in the past :lol:

[Symmetric]

the interesting question, in my opinion, is: are DJs manipulating mp3s or other digital media bring something to the table that vinyl DJs don't already, or is it just a cheaper, smaller storage medium and that's it? and what's being lost in return?

What is being lost in the use of MP3's is sound quality. Why as a producer and an audio engineer would you want all the hard work you've put into making your music wasted, as the final product is a compressed piece of crap. Why spend the money on good gear? Why bother? MP3's sound like crap, they hurt my ears, especially on a big system.
I beg every Final Scratch dj I know to play wav's, and I think as storage space gets bigger, we might get there soon. I'm not opposed to any uncompressed digital format, but please use the best quality files you can!!

[Jay Pace]

Utter shite mate.

MP3s can be far far superior to vinyl in terms of audio fidelity.
Low bitrate mp3s sound poor, high bitrate are indistinguishable from WAVs.

Why as a producer and an audio engineer would you want your music to be carved into a piece of plastic and played and amplified through a vibrating stylus?

320kbps is as good as a WAV, smaller and easier to store and indentify with tags.
WAV is the way it will ultimately go (hopefully 24bit96khz as well), but in the mean time upwards of 256kbps mp3s are fine and dandy.

[rhythmtech]

the interesting question, in my opinion, is: are DJs manipulating mp3s or other digital media bring something to the table that vinyl DJs don't already, or is it just a cheaper, smaller storage medium and that's it? and what's being lost in return?

What is being lost in the use of MP3's is sound quality. Why as a producer and an audio engineer would you want all the hard work you've put into making your music wasted, as the final product is a compressed piece of crap. Why spend the money on good gear? Why bother? MP3's sound like crap, they hurt my ears, especially on a big system.
I beg every Final Scratch dj I know to play wav's, and I think as storage space gets bigger, we might get there soon. I'm not opposed to any uncompressed digital format, but please use the best quality files you can!!

as jay said.. absolute bullshit. a 320kps mp3 would be no differant on a rig than a wav file. i play wavs but thats because ableton uses up memory converting mp3 to wavs in a temp folder...

[Symmetric]

Are you guys serious?
Listen, really listen to an MP3, even at 320kbps, and the original .wav on a GOOD system or headphones.
There's a difference. Compressed files are inferior to uncompressed. You can hear it in the hi-hats. Everything above 4KHz is brittle, even with the best codecs.
I'm not the only person on this forum with good enough ears to discern the difference, am I?
With today's technology, 16-bit 44.1KHz should be considered inferior, but unfortunately the consumer standard has gone backwards in quality. In what other industry has that been the case? Your DVD player in your living room has 24-bit 192KHz D/A converters, but you're playing shitty 320kbps files for your fans? If the music is the centerpiece of the experience, treat it as such. Don't skimp on quality for the sake of convenience.

[rhythmtech]

Are you guys serious?
Listen, really listen to an MP3, even at 320kbps, and the original .wav on a GOOD system or headphones.
There's a difference. Compressed files are inferior to uncompressed. You can hear it in the hi-hats. Everything above 4KHz is brittle, even with the best codecs.
I'm not the only person on this forum with good enough ears to discern the difference, am I?
With today's technology, 16-bit 44.1KHz should be considered inferior, but unfortunately the consumer standard has gone backwards in quality. In what other industry has that been the case? Your DVD player in your living room has 24-bit 192KHz D/A converters, but you're playing shitty 320kbps files for your fans? If the music is the centerpiece of the experience, treat it as such. Don't skimp on quality for the sake of convenience.

like i already said. i play wavs.

but on a large system there is NO discernable differance.. anyone that says otherwise has obviously got steve austins ears. anyway its all irrelevant anyway because no two tunes end up sounding the same. be it vinyl, wav, mps, ogg whatever.. theres always gonna be tonel differances. for eg: i tend to go for a lot of gain on my hats, gives em a crunch. some people like them clean. so theres already a differance before the file is encoded.

[Jay Pace]

Are you guys serious?
Listen, really listen to an MP3, even at 320kbps, and the original .wav on a GOOD system or headphones.
There's a difference. Compressed files are inferior to uncompressed. You can hear it in the hi-hats. Everything above 4KHz is brittle, even with the best codecs.
I'm not the only person on this forum with good enough ears to discern the difference, am I?

If, and this is extremely unlikely on any system, you could hear a discernible difference between a 320kbps Mp3 and a WAV you would be unable to tell which was "better".

And even if you have steve austin ears, you are in the 0.000001% of the population who can hear these frequencies. Or even care. Most people happily listen to shite. You have to train you ear to even notice the difference.

[Miromiric]

Are you guys serious?
Listen, really listen to an MP3, even at 320kbps, and the original .wav on a GOOD system or headphones.
There's a difference. Compressed files are inferior to uncompressed. You can hear it in the hi-hats. Everything above 4KHz is brittle, even with the best codecs.
I'm not the only person on this forum with good enough ears to discern the difference, am I?
With today's technology, 16-bit 44.1KHz should be considered inferior, but unfortunately the consumer standard has gone backwards in quality. In what other industry has that been the case? Your DVD player in your living room has 24-bit 192KHz D/A converters, but you're playing shitty 320kbps files for your fans? If the music is the centerpiece of the experience, treat it as such. Don't skimp on quality for the sake of convenience.

oh dear.

[Aratron]

i much prefer vinyl.
i hate cds and mps totally soulless and the quality of music is shit.
i also hate ableton - computer controlled djing or what eva - i think that will just destroy the scene.
i think the technology companies should make soem records players which are just brilliant but not as heavy so they can be made more portable - or maybe im just stuck in the past.

yup... well stuck in the past :lol:

PISS OFF

[robin m]

anyway its all irrelevant anyway because no two tunes end up sounding the same.

I agree - and even if there is a tiny difference in the very top end if you stand in front of your rig and strain your ears for it (which I'm still not at all convinced of) you're going to be putting it through a mixer and playing other music on top of it and EQing it and generally f*cking with it anyway - that's kind of the whole point isn't it? So what if it only sounds 99.9% identical to the uncompressed wav - that's surely utterly immaterial when you've got something else's bassline underneath it and some looped sample running over the top... or maybe I'm missing the whole point of mixing.

[dirty_bass]

erm, using that argument you could say why bother producing to any standard at all.
And then things descend into a mush of badly produced tripe.
Kinda like....things......are.......now
oh

I`ll get my coat.

[Symmetric]

I suppose you're right that most people don't care because everyone's walking around with their Ipods listening to MP3's.
I'll just keep jamming my earplugs in further whenever a Final Scratch dj takes the helm, or head to the second room or take a breather!

[dirty_bass]

erm
final scratch DJ`s can use wavs you know

[robin m]

erm, using that argument you could say why bother producing to any standard at all.

Weeeeeell, I suppose that's the case if you take that argument and extrapolate it to the extreme - I'm not saying that though, I'm just saying there's a time and a place to worry about exact faithful reproduction of the original sound and it's not when you're mixing tunes together through a rig. 99% quality is good enough in that situation surely?

Obviously quality is essential in the studio and every effort should be made to maximise it elsewhere... but I don't think it's realistic or important to expect absolute perfection on a rig, you should have other priorities at that point - like playing the right tunes at the right time and doing a good job mixing them together.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your opinions on production standards but I think perfect sound quality belongs in the studio, and good quality compromise belongs on a rig.

[rhythmtech]

erm
final scratch DJ`s can use wavs you know

;) ohh can they? sorry steve, what with the way every goes on around here, i thought the only option for us "digital djs" was 96kps mp3. :lol:

must be where we're all going wrong. thank fvck we know that now.. was that printed in the ableton manual?