DJing with WAV's or MP3's??

[The Empireal Formula]

Okay so the other night i noticed all my Decoding Cache got deleted somehow so i spent the whole night converting all my MP3's in my iTunes library that i plan to use in my DJ Set into WAV's so that way i wouldn't have to worry about my decoding cache getting deleted again and also because if ableton is going to convert my MP3's to WAV (or create a WAV file of the MP3) anyways then i figured might as well just work with WAV's in the first place so that i wouldn't have multiple duplicates of songs thus doubling hard drive space (mp3+wav versions of a song).

So is anybody else doing it like this? or are you just working with MP3's?

and my next question is if im only using WAV files of my music how does that work with my iPod? now my library isn't gna fit on my iPod and i don't even know if iPod can play WAV files. Can anyone that is goin the WAV route shed some light? Or anybody else got an idea of what i can do with all this mess?

[Da hand]

WAVs for Ableton, MP3s for iPod.

[Ninja-Matic]

Interesting... so... if Ableton creates WAVs - why even bother using another program to export? Just drag a bunch of MP3's and let ableton bust the wavs out for you, lol.

I don't seem to have a problem with MP3s or cache - I just checked against 8 songs playing at once - loading up 1 track with a clean cache took about 4 seconds - of which - I could still play while it was loading.

Now 14 straight tracks playing and loading another 14 MP3's with a clean cache without audio hiccups, etc.

So... is it a bad thing to DJ with MP3s? I mean... it's as simple as hitting the clean cache button, right?

I'd rather just have ableton take the 5 seconds to cache a track as I load it up vs having my HDD filled up like mad.

I'm already about 1.6tb of music in 320 MP3 so... converting that collection into WAV is a no-no.

So... if i'm minding my cache and don't have an issue with 4-5 seconds to load a song... is that a big deal? I load up sets ahead of time with about 2hrs of music and then swap on the fly, etc.

[sparkletone]

A few things:

1) Um... Why not just let Ableton decode stuff again? The cache is just a cache. It's meant to hold things temporarily by nature. In fact, if your cache hits the configured limit, or you run out of disk space, it will start deleting stuff as it can to make room things you need right now, not things that aren't even in the set you've currently got open.

I tend to manually clear my cache whenever I switch between using Live for DJing and for production work. Sometimes, I'll even switch it when changing projects. While I'm not currently hurting for disk space, there's no reason to leave 5GB of cache files around that I'm not going to use for days, if not weeks. Especially since it only takes a few seconds (depending on track length) for Ableton re-decode something that's not currently cached.

2) MP3 is a lossy format. To make the files smaller, it analyzes the file and throws out stuff you are less likely to notice is missing (though obviously, the more it throws out the easier it is to tell). Converting your iTunes library to WAV won't get you the lost sound quality back. It's gone for forever. And reconverting those WAVs back to mp3 is going to make it throw away even more data. Think of it like making a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, where the first one looks pretty good, but as you keep doing that (making mp3s out of mp3s) ... After a while it gets pretty ugly.

However, despite #2 there is no problem with making a WAV from an mp3, losing/deleting that WAV and then doing the MP3-->WAV conversion again. The WAV will be an exact copy of the mp3 every time. It's only when you use a form of lossy compression that you have to worry about losing fidelity.

EDIT: To be clear, I DJ with FLAC or 320 mp3s as much as I can, and never play anything below that unless it's something that I just plain can't get in higher quality and never, ever, ever, ever not even in emergencies anything below 192 (and those I'll only use if it's a dodgy soundsystem where you won't notice anyway). I wouldn't worry about keeping 2 complete copies of your library around. No reason to. Just open Live a few minutes before it's time to start playing so that it can decode everything in your DJ set and be ready to go in time.

[ChiDJ]

I find it insulting that anyone who claims to be a DJ / performer doesn't have a clue when it comes to mp3's VS a full file.

Go back to your bedroom and stay there. You don't deserve to be playing anywhere else.

[re.mark]

Wav.wav.wav.
Not necessarily for 'improved sound quality' but just ease. and HD space! Despite wav being bigger file sizes, if youve got more than 100 mp3s in a set, you're decoding cache will have 100 wavs for those 100mp3 so you're loosing hd space for no reason. May aswell just use wav and save some space (and stress)

[The Empireal Formula]

Okay first things first

I find it insulting that anyone who claims to be a DJ / performer doesn't have a clue when it comes to mp3's VS a full file.

Go back to your bedroom and stay there. You don't deserve to be playing anywhere else.

im not sure if your referring to me but if you are its totally uncalled for... you don't know me. I think being a musician/producer and opening up for artists such as Ludacris, Bone Thugs and Harmony, and Juvenile and many others gives me a lil credibility to be out and about. But nonetheless i dont need to tell you my whole life story to ask a question on a forum now do I? and yes i do know the difference between an MP3 and a WAV. Now i might be kind of new to ableton (been on it for a few months) i'm not that new to it and i know just enough. Hell i think i know a good deal actually now if anything that i say sounds stupid it could be something small i missed when learning the program. Now get outta here unless you got something usefull to say Now if weren't talking to me you can disregard this

Now back to this situation.

Even before my cache got deleted with my APC40 when my live set was indeed a whole bunch of MP3's I noticed that when i triggered a clip from the APC it would lag a bit because the whole decoding thing, so i would trigger a clip and it wouldnt playback right away when it was supposed to (and no it wasn't the global quantization!!) it was Ableton trying to decode the MP3.

Now ever since I been using WAV's i haven't had this problem and my set has been SMOOTH its just this whole iTunes and iPod rut i came across.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

don't bother.
Live convert in .wav
So just drag and drop and that's it.
And for the audio quality, people are drunk, they will not notice the difference.

[The Empireal Formula]

Wav.wav.wav.
Not necessarily for 'improved sound quality' but just ease. and HD space! Despite wav being bigger file sizes, if youve got more than 100 mp3s in a set, you're decoding cache will have 100 wavs for those 100mp3 so you're loosing hd space for no reason. May aswell just use wav and save some space (and stress)

See thats exactly what i'm talkin about!!

Now im trying to do this

WAVs for Ableton, MP3s for iPod.

but not quite sure how to go about this.

a thought was to go back to the mp3 route but just move my mp3 decoding cache to my external hard drive. That would solve my WAV for Ableton, MP3 for iPod situation. But it wouldnt help my APC40 and my laggy clip launching situation (Goin back to MP3's would bring back the clip launching latency because Ableton takes time to decode the file even if i load the set 5 minutes early.)

[pepezabala]

issue is that the asd-files are referring to the mp3s - when just replacing with the wavs from the decoding cache you need to re-warp your stuff.

Solution: Crop or consolidate your clips, this will generate new wavs into your projectfolder. You can then delete or move the mp3s and the files in the decoding cache.

[The Empireal Formula]

issue is that the asd-files are referring to the mp3s - when just replacing with the wavs from the decoding cache you need to re-warp your stuff.

Solution: Crop or consolidate your clips, this will generate new wavs into your projectfolder. You can then delete or move the mp3s and the files in the decoding cache.

ya i already took care of all that.

I don't mind the HD space from the WAV files i mean if Ableton is gna create WAV files anyways i mean might as well

my main question is this......... read this.

http://www.abletonlivedj.com/index.php? ... 8&Itemid=2

now what does this mean for our iPod's?

my library in WAV format wont fit on my iPod Touch 32GB maybe my old 80GB iPod but even then im not even sure if iPod play WAV files.

[re.mark]

issue is that the asd-files are referring to the mp3s - when just replacing with the wavs from the decoding cache you need to re-warp your stuff.

Solution: Crop or consolidate your clips, this will generate new wavs into your projectfolder. You can then delete or move the mp3s and the files in the decoding cache.

Or if your on OS X - Fire up automator, get it to look for all files with .mp3.asd in a specific folder (Ie where all your ready warped mp3s are - then get it to find and replace 'mp3' with 'wav'.
Very handy if you've got 300+ unwarped wavs replacing your warped mp3s.

[SubFunk]

I find it insulting that anyone who claims to be a DJ / performer doesn't have a clue when it comes to mp3's VS a full file.

Go back to your bedroom and stay there. You don't deserve to be playing anywhere else.

+1

do your homework and school time before you go onto any kind of stage, damn it.

[The Empireal Formula]

I find it insulting that anyone who claims to be a DJ / performer doesn't have a clue when it comes to mp3's VS a full file.

Go back to your bedroom and stay there. You don't deserve to be playing anywhere else.

+1

do your homework and school time before you go onto any kind of stage, damn it.

uhh......I don't know where all this heat is comin from honestly but if its directed to me then i guess your not understanding my question.

[pepezabala]

I can not hear a difference between a properly encoded mp3 and a wav-file.

I find it totally normal and OK that people use mp3s as ressource for djing or live PAs or even production.

I love the fact that a complete universe of music that is not available for purchase exists on the webs.

I totally encourage everyone to mashup music found on the webs and have fun with it.