Dj with mp3's or wav?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
zahnerj
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:04 am

Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by zahnerj » Fri Mar 04, 2011 6:59 pm

I had my whole dj set setup and perfect with mp3s, but i was sadly using computer speakers now i got the yamaha hs80's and it does not sound that good, i love the way it was setup but i dont know where to start in making it sound better, the songs sound dull and pretty cracky, there not clipping i made sure of that, any advice??? also if i should use wav where do i get them??

kanuck
Posts: 622
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 5:29 pm

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by kanuck » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:28 pm

vinyl and turntables is where it's at.


where do you get wavs? maybe instead of buying them off itunes.. (or pirating them) you should just buy the cds.

ARDJ
Posts: 740
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:40 pm
Location: San Diego

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by ARDJ » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:29 pm

welcome to owning HS80's lol, they sound like shit :)

Tarekith
Posts: 19072
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by Tarekith » Sat Mar 05, 2011 1:18 am

Always use wavs. Come visit us over at AbletonLiveDJ.com, there's thousands of helpful people there. :)
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

zahnerj
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:04 am

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by zahnerj » Fri Mar 11, 2011 7:18 am

I just switched to wav. and i could not believe my ears, sounds AWESOME!!!

starving student
Posts: 7129
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:13 pm
Location: right here

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by starving student » Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:24 am

:|

fisto
Posts: 354
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:06 pm

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by fisto » Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:14 pm

on my studio monitors I hardly can tell a difference between mp3 and wav. I'm also djing with mp3s, so I can't tell which is better as I'm on the other side of the PA :-). I can't imagine that it makes such a big difference when there is nearly none on my good monitors. Even would say that the diff on a bigger PA is even smaller as the highe are not so clear on PAs as in monitors.

Can you guys clearly distinguish between mp3 and wav or is this more of a placebo going on?


edit: if course no difference only between 320k and wav, the lower rates are instantly recognisable :-)
Last edited by fisto on Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

savyurrecords
Posts: 320
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:38 am
Location: Fredericksburg, VA
Contact:

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by savyurrecords » Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:22 pm

Disclaimer:I am not a DJ, just a musician who also listens to a bunch of other peoples music.

To me it depends on the bitrate of the MP3. 96k of course sounds very...fuzzy? 128k passable for background listening. 192k getting better, 256k good enough for my purposes. 320k probably what I should have encoded my library at but not worth the effort now to go back to my boxes of CD's and re-encode.

Sure if I A/B them .wav always sounds better. It is what I use to track, mix and master. Then after that I burn CD's for locals and encode 256k mp3s for the Internet.

Rich

freshdrumma
Posts: 575
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:33 pm
Location: italy
Contact:

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by freshdrumma » Sat Mar 12, 2011 12:42 pm

+ 1 for vinyl and turntable

dj = Disc Jokey

neither wavs or mp3 are discs or round :twisted:

Forge.
Posts: 5828
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:16 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: Dj with mp3's or wav?

Post by Forge. » Sun Mar 13, 2011 3:35 am

freshdrumma wrote:+ 1 for vinyl and turntable

dj = Disc Jokey
what about 'hard DISC'? :wink:

the others have mostly answered everything, but I just thought I'd add that I've noticed problems in the past with dodgy MP3s and warping - even though Ableton decodes to WAV behind the scenes, sometimes dodgy MP3s can do the weirdest things and make warping a nightmare.

so if you must use MP3s, sometimes it is actually worth converting them yourself to WAV or AIFF before loading it into the set... sounds weird but I've seen it happen loads of times.

Also, for me personally I like using "repitch" warp mode - it is just like using CDJs or vinyl in that as you change the tempo the tracks change pitch - sometimes you can get some nice mixes that way

if you need control over the pitch then the only option is complex pro, but it uses a lot of CPU as it is always processing.

Post Reply