Vinyl dying (for DJ's)

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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
roskas set sounded a bit distant/crap at xoyo the other week. not sure why cos champion sounded hard/bassy. might just be jamie george on the mic who ruined it. but it sounded like he was djing from a system down the road, from 320s (or maybe 256s).
 
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denoir

Well-known member
Cuz Roska uses Serato + timecode cds and Champion just cds?

I also find the Traktor/Serato sound a bit lifeless at times, but it's a matter of soundcards, not mp3s
 
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benw

Well-known member
its pretty well documented that the later serato and traktor soundcards have better quality AD/DA converters than the earlier ones. But then I'm pretty sure Jackmaster would have a pretty recent serato soundcard so that's not that relevant here.
 
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Phaedo

Well-known member
not all that convinced that 320s are the problem. have heard plenty of digital sets where the sound quality was great (id consider myself a sound quality geek too btw). obviously the later serato and traktor boxes have a noticeably better sound though.

never heard a digital set up that has the same warmth and low end that vinyl does but guess that goes without saying.
 
Sectionfive

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Posted this from Francois K a few weeks back if anyone missed it. Not applicable to everyone obviously but good to hear from one of the real pros

Shit in, shit out basically
 
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denoir

Well-known member
Btw I find the Traktor soundcard uncompromising - if the mixdown/master is not good enough, tune will always sound weak, while cdjs tend to be less revealing...I play out wavs, flacs and 320s and can't say there's much difference, but that obviously depends on the mixdown/master quality, as well as compression/codec quality and the club PA...

The vinyl warmth is irreplaceable, no matter what digital setup or format you use ;)
 
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denoir

Well-known member
I hate the fact that lots of uk funky tunes are available on itunes only and they usually sound rubbish
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Which do you think has more resolution to describe the sound when you scale up? (to use another analogy, would you take a jpg image from a web site and blow it up to billboard-size advert that's 4 meters wide?... same thing basically)
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funny that francois k says that as in plenty of papers now you see pixellated photos. even that new charles saatchi book, its got a lot of really awful jpegs that clearly werent meant to ever be published in print used as the images.
 
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Esp

Well-known member
denoir said:
I hate the fact that lots of uk funky tunes are available on itunes only and they usually sound rubbish
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Its probably an obvious point but Apple are hugely responsible for the cultural shift towards disinterest in sound quality. I watched the first ipod presentation when Jobs died and the way he is lauding 160kbps is laughable, its like watching a used car salesman. Apple get so much credit for the exhaustive quality of their product design but in terms of sound reproduction they are terrible, listening to a 160kbps track with ipod headphones is definitely a joyless experience.
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
thats just modern gear in general. everyone wants the most discreet, tiniest thing possible, they dont care about whether it actually does the job well or not. eg - flat screen tvs - why is the sound so shit? i shouldnt have to pay 300 quid extra for a speaker system (a tv is not a bloody painting!)
 
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Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Esp said:
Its probably an obvious point but Apple are hugely responsible for the cultural shift towards disinterest in sound quality. I watched the first ipod presentation when Jobs died and the way he is lauding 160kbps is laughable, its like watching a used car salesman. Apple get so much credit for the exhaustive quality of their product design but in terms of sound reproduction they are terrible, listening to a 160kbps track with ipod headphones is definitely a joyless experience.
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Not much better with 320 and quality headphones on an ipod classic which has an even poorer DAC than they used on older ipods. How I miss my iRiver H340.
 
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UFO over easy

online mahjong
asked an engineer for his opinion recently - his response was that the act of cutting a digital master to vinyl in the first place introduces far more artifacts/"degrades" sound quality far more than a transfer to 320kbps using a decent codec

a poor vinyl rip will sound bad to anyone though. when records are released exclusively on vinyl, all it means is that inevitably DJs play out rips they've sourced online - and the likelihood is that someone will have recorded it straight into their macbook soundcard through a budget mixer
 
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UFO over easy

online mahjong
buying older music digitally can be dangerous, particularly older stuff that's been licensed and re-licensed loads of times

the only thing you know about the file you're going to end up with is what bitrate it is, and that doesn't really tell you that much
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
my own personal experience is that none of this ends up mattering so much to the punter as the fact that so many club sound systems are so mediocre and/or the acoustics of the space are unsuitable, so that even if what is being played is top quality, then the experience listening at home (even on rubbish mp3s) is way better. Why somewhere like Plastic People stands out, you can actually hear the music properly, and that's rare.

Agree 100% with the below too...

Benny B said:
I agree. The best nights out I've had have been dancing in a circle with mates to hip hop, RnB and pop chart fodder played by an anonymous DJ. I think its weird being on a dancefloor with everyone facing the DJ, its better if they're just tucked away in a corner somewhere. Its half the reason I don't really bother going to see 'name' DJs anymore cos everyone just stares at them, whether they're doing anything visually interesting or not.
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outraygeous

outraygeous

Well-known member
UFO over easy said:
buying older music digitally can be dangerous, particularly older stuff that's been licensed and re-licensed loads of times

the only thing you know about the file you're going to end up with is what bitrate it is, and that doesn't really tell you that much
Click to expand...

This is true, unless someone is going back to the DAT tape (or mastering medium of choice) then who knows what you are getting?
 
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Webstarr

Well-known member
UFO over easy said:
buying older music digitally can be dangerous, particularly older stuff that's been licensed and re-licensed loads of times

the only thing you know about the file you're going to end up with is what bitrate it is, and that doesn't really tell you that much
Click to expand...

Classic example was those old Wiley tunes that came out on a compilation a couple of years ago, the quality of them's terrible.
 
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