File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

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RWise
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File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by RWise »

Was curious to know peoples opinions on file quality when playing out on a club system?

I personally always get a wav when i can and have been happy with 320kpbs MP3s on a system in the past. But sometimes i cant buy a digital file of an old vinyl track i want but usually through my mischievous ways, i can download a digital rip. However, a lot of the time these rips are below 320 mp3 and are usually 256-192 kbps...

Would a 256kbps mp3 be acceptable to play out on a club system? I care about sonic quality with my DJ sets and have yet to test the waters below 320kbps.
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by dubdub »

AFAIK most people can't tell even 192 vs. lossless apart in blind tests. And clubs are not clinical listening environments by any means with all the soundsystem distortion and background noise.

When dealing with vinyl rips, the quality of the rip is much more important than the bitrate. There's so many factors that can influence it: the cut and pressing of the vinyl run, the condition of the actual copy the rip is made from, the turntable, the stylus, the preamp/mixer, the converters/soundcard, the way it was recorded, how much headroom etc. It's basically an artform and the quality of the rips you'll find online varies wildly. Some of them sound great and sound very close to digital files while others are total garbage.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by winston »

i would stick to legit 320. trouble is if one uses dodgy sources then what is called a 320 might not actually be 320. i have some tracks that are 192 because they are old and you can tell the difference even on home speakers when in a mix.

of course, using high quality tunes is a privileged position and if you have the right party then you don't need to worry about the audio quality of the tracks.
The bit-rate matters less when audio is only one part of a multi-faceted experience. KUNQ parties are interactive—full of acrobatic dancing and audience participation. Rizzla compared this to the sometimes more solitary, inside-your-head vibe of the average house or techno dance floor. "They're not there to do something together over music or with music," he said. "Even just the pleasure of hearing people scream over a scratchy vocal track when they recognize it—there's something sonic that happens there. You can hear their voices yelling over your bad MP3 and it makes that bad MP3 more powerful."

"The deteriorated quality of it makes it more special," Battyjack said.
"The deteriorated quality of it makes it more special," Battyjack said.
Image

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2645

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RWise
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by RWise »

winston wrote:i would stick to legit 320. trouble is if one uses dodgy sources then what is called a 320 might not actually be 320. i have some tracks that are 192 because they are old and you can tell the difference even on home speakers when in a mix.
I mainly get old vinyl rips from dodgy sources. Hence why sometimes the quality can be shot.. However, some of the rips that are 192-256 still sound good when comparing on different monitoring set ups i have - which makes me ask the question.
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by BG++ »

Personally I wouldnt want to see or hear a DJ play a low bit rate vinyl rip downloaded from some dodgy website. You should have a bit more respect for the craft and the artists who made the music. Especially if people have paid money in to hear you play and you are getting paid yourself. Buy the vinyl or lossless digital file, if its not available then dont play it. If you care about the sonic quality of your sets this should be the standard you set for yourself & forget about the easy/free option.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by ZenoSupreme »

I also would stick to the 320, always go for the best quality.

That being said, we should go back to reality to check out how thing are actually done ;). It depends on the soundsystem and the quality of the rips. I've played with youtube rips myself (shame on me) on a shitty sound system (shame on the owner). No biggy, whole night went fine and no complains...
The soundsystem wasn't good, so it didnt translate the lack of details well enough to be noticed by the audience... Would the soundsystem be good enough, my best guess would be that it would be noticeble in the higher frequencies first...

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by SHIDZO »

BG++ wrote:Personally I wouldnt want to see or hear a DJ play a low bit rate vinyl rip downloaded from some dodgy website. You should have a bit more respect for the craft and the artists who made the music. Especially if people have paid money in to hear you play and you are getting paid yourself. Buy the vinyl or lossless digital file, if its not available then dont play it. If you care about the sonic quality of your sets this should be the standard you set for yourself & forget about the easy/free option.
+1

There is definitely a difference in quality, the lower bit rate contains less information/detail to explain it in my own words. When I used to record from vinyl I just did it the same way as if I was recording a set. wav or 320 mp3 in a decent volume and then have a look in audacity..

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by buffered »

BG++ wrote:Personally I wouldnt want to see or hear a DJ play a low bit rate vinyl rip downloaded from some dodgy website. You should have a bit more respect for the craft and the artists who made the music.
I would. firstly i don't know if i could tell. secondly if a dj can play a noticeably low bitrate rip in a set and make it work, fuck, then well done. Good Dj. used low quality source material and still had the skill to carry a dancefloor. well done.

I agree to buying music. not even a chore. a pleasure.
But in a club. all is fair if you have the skill and hours put in to carry it. Make it interesting. sandpaper on the decks. no problem.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by Amøbe »

I think it would be a rather limited number of people who would stop up and say "hold on - I think the bit rate is a tad bit low in this track!", but that doesn't mean that the quality of the music isn't suffering when you lower the bit rate, so out of respect for the music, I would go as high as possible, and I will still dance to your set if you had to use a lower quality version of some track.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by dubdub »

I dunno, I find this fixation on bitrate a bit weird when talking about vinyl rips. Someone that truly cares about sound would buy a mint (!) copy and then rip it himself on an audiophile setup that's going to cost several thousand dollars (rips done with Technics and a Xone/Pioneer mixer are just never going to sound particularily great). Anything else is going to be a compromise in sound. So either you buckle up the cash and get a proper ripping setup or you accept that we are merely talking about the grade of degradation ;)

And the fact of the matter is that bitrate (as long as it's 192 or more) has relatively little impact on sound quality compared to the condition of the record and the ripping setup. Btw many (far more than you'd think) "official" digital releases of old records are actually done from vinyl because the DATs got lost. These can sound great but also terrible. Just because it claims to be an "official" "digital" "high quality bitrate" release doesn't mean it actually sounds any good. Use your ears instead of just looking at bitrates.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by Plyphon »

I've played shit rips/transcodes on club soundsystems (whilst empty and closed.) and IMO you really could tell.

But maybe it's different when the club is full and you have the chatter of the dance over the top, idk.

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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by Lost to the Void »

So many shit rips out there, more worried about that than the mp3 bit rate.
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by nomadjames »

Yeah man, I can hear low bitrate / shitty transcode stuff right away on the monitors or a decent system. I'm cool with 320, been trying to get more .wavs these days, if I intend on actually playing them out.
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by RWise »

dubdub wrote:I dunno, I find this fixation on bitrate a bit weird when talking about vinyl rips. Someone that truly cares about sound would buy a mint (!) copy and then rip it himself on an audiophile setup that's going to cost several thousand dollars (rips done with Technics and a Xone/Pioneer mixer are just never going to sound particularily great). Anything else is going to be a compromise in sound. So either you buckle up the cash and get a proper ripping setup or you accept that we are merely talking about the grade of degradation ;)

And the fact of the matter is that bitrate (as long as it's 192 or more) has relatively little impact on sound quality compared to the condition of the record and the ripping setup. Btw many (far more than you'd think) "official" digital releases of old records are actually done from vinyl because the DATs got lost. These can sound great but also terrible. Just because it claims to be an "official" "digital" "high quality bitrate" release doesn't mean it actually sounds any good. Use your ears instead of just looking at bitrates.
Lost to the Void wrote:So many shit rips out there, more worried about that than the mp3 bit rate.
This is the the kind of mindset ive been thinking in. Ive got plenty of vinyl rips that are slightly below 320 but they are good rips and sound nice. Ive also got wav vinyl rips which are shit rips and i wouldnt play.

I also do believe that playing a GOOD 256-192 mp3 vinyl rip in a set isnt going to hinder the set in anyway, as people wont notice that. Especially if majority of the set consists of 320 and wav files.
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Re: File quality: How low should you go? (For a club system)

Post by Amøbe »

dubdub wrote:I dunno, I find this fixation on bitrate a bit weird when talking about vinyl rips. Someone that truly cares about sound would buy a mint (!) copy and then rip it himself on an audiophile setup that's going to cost several thousand dollars (rips done with Technics and a Xone/Pioneer mixer are just never going to sound particularily great). Anything else is going to be a compromise in sound. So either you buckle up the cash and get a proper ripping setup or you accept that we are merely talking about the grade of degradation ;)

And the fact of the matter is that bitrate (as long as it's 192 or more) has relatively little impact on sound quality compared to the condition of the record and the ripping setup. Btw many (far more than you'd think) "official" digital releases of old records are actually done from vinyl because the DATs got lost. These can sound great but also terrible. Just because it claims to be an "official" "digital" "high quality bitrate" release doesn't mean it actually sounds any good. Use your ears instead of just looking at bitrates.
This is important. My job in the danish broadcasting archive is to digitize vinyl and shellac records for the radio hosts. We have had a whole group of sound engineer helping us to put together the most transparent setup (our vinyls cost something like 6-7000 € and 10.000 €). Even so it isn't completely transparent (the two needles I use works best at different type of music, so I will use one needle to music with loud drums and one to music with lot of ambience). This is a lot more audible than the compression rate.


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