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-- y is it that burnt cd's sound shit in clubs?
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y is it that burnt cd's sound shit in clubs?

hi. im yet to spin at a club, but i have cd decks as well as turntables and they sound good through my system, but ive herd alot of ppl say 192k on a club system would sound shit. y is this? what makes it sound so shit? how bad does it really sound? and what bit rate would sound good?

thanks in advance

i think because the music is being played really loud and hard. So the bass would be to hard that it sounds like sh*t. Anyway i think you should confirm your own files to wav (if you produce yourself) and dont make them to mp3. If you convert them first to mp3 (192) and then to wav, you already lost all your quality. Or if you made a bootleg/mash up with mp3's it would also sound like sh*t when you used mp3's for them. Always use wav or original songs is what ive learned when im making mash ups for the local clubs :-)

regards,

Bram..

the algorithm behind compressed MP3 files takes away the inaudible frequencies in the music that the human ear cannot hear (our range of hearing is from about 20Hz to 20kHz). CDs and vinyls and .wav files all have those extra frequencies outisde of our hearing range that beef up the sound wuality in a club. an MP3 file has nothing under 40Hz usually, and so there's nothing to drive the low-end and sub-woofers at the club, so you have to ride your low-end eq on your mixer or final outline eq. You'll also notice that the hihats frizzle out at the top end of the frequency range and that just sounds like shit on hi-quality club-size tweeters.

(aaahhh... education pays of)

as he said
(have a degree in this gubbins but that about sums it up)

One of the reasons i rarely play downloaded stuff unless its impossible to get hold of or im not sent it

i play mp3s in clubs and they sound fine. of course i do run them through a spectral enhancer first.

quote:

Originally posted by VIO i play mp3s in clubs and they sound fine. of course i do run them through a spectral enhancer first.

If you don't mind me asking, what the f*ck is that?

it's a plug-in i run in wavelab. it's like an eq but the logarithms it uses are much more complex. it has the ability to "open up" whatever frequencies you want. it affects the stereo imaging, the phasing of the channels, the eq and a bit more. it's really nice. it can make a track sound "bigger", more realistic, more alive.

whoa. hook me up with some of that shit. sounds good to me

quote:

Originally posted by VIO it's a plug-in i run in wavelab. it's like an eq but the logarithms it uses are much more complex. it has the ability to "open up" whatever frequencies you want. it affects the stereo imaging, the phasing of the channels, the eq and a bit more. it's really nice. it can make a track sound "bigger", more realistic, more alive.

Fair enough, but the bottom line is when you compress to mp3, you're losing part of the original audio -- no plug-in can restore that.

Actually, compared to a well-ripped .wav, it's impossible to get an mp3 to sound *exactly* like the .wav...

Lots of you have high quality recording sound cards (ie, ones from M-Audio or Terratec and the like...)

Take some CD's, rip them into .wav's with Exact Audio Copy, and try encoding them at different bitrates with different mp3 codec's... and then listen to them with some studio monitoring speakers or headphones (the Sennheiser HD280's are a great, inexpensive studio monitoring/dj headphone), and pay attention to the high notes... even with a 320 kbps mp3 encoded with LAME, the best encoder, and play it back on Foobar2000, you *should* be able to tell the difference with the hihats... the fact is, mp3 throws away audible data. Period.

Pretty much what everyone else has said here but one more thing...

Mp3 compression has a very distinct sound, you all notice it when listening to internet radio at like 64k or something. along with dropping frequencies outside 20-20k Hz, it also drops out sounds that are too soft and it deems it unnecessary. So in just the midrange, (not gonna mention the hi's and lo's since it already has been) you'll notice the dynamic range has been compressed and there's a distinct noise to it. not noise as in distortion, but since everything has been mashed down, it's no longer crisp. you can even tell the difference between a mp3 @ 320 kbps and a real wav. but that's usually on studio monitors. as for in a club, its truly the bass range that craps out and gives it away that you're listening to an mp3. there's no rumble from the subs and there's something missing in the air.

oh well, my two cents. back to studying i go. :P

Freak-

Do you have a link to that video thats in your avatar?

That thing cracks me the fuck up.

Thanks

dont record them as mp3, record it as wav.

quote:

Originally posted by xKaoSx Freak- Do you have a link to that video thats in your avatar? That thing cracks me the fuck up. Thanks

erm....its the old levis advert (stating the obvious but i dont know if you got the same advert in the states..) with flat eric...that tune went to number one in the charts over here actually...lol

Erm...i *might* have the whole ad/video on a cd somewhere- seem to remember it was included on a covermount disc a few years back...ill have a look.....

quote:

Originally posted by Freak erm....its the old levis advert (stating the obvious but i dont know if you got the same advert in the states..) with flat eric...that tune went to number one in the charts over here actually...lol Erm...i *might* have the whole ad/video on a cd somewhere- seem to remember it was included on a covermount disc a few years back...ill have a look.....

Thank you sir-

quote:

Originally posted by starglider Fair enough, but the bottom line is when you compress to mp3, you're losing part of the original audio -- no plug-in can restore that.

you're right. no plug-in can ever restore what's been removed for the compression technique. however, it can produce and fill those missing frequencies. it uses a combination of effects and enhancement logarithms. of course it won't sound like the original recording once you run it through the plug-in. it will however make it sound pretty damn good as compared to the mp3 un-enhanced version, especially in the low end and high end frequencies. enough so that you can play it in a club and it will sound good. you see once you apply effects to say an mp3 that has nothing below 25 hertz, which is ultra low bass, even though there is nothing in that frequency range the effects you apply will still produce results in those ranges if you set them up to. things like flange, bass enhancement and especially chorusing. a spectral enhancer just takes that 2 steps further. there's a lot you can do to an mp3 to make it sound good if you actually know how to produce, downmix, master and properly use an eq. hell, i've been doing stuff like this for years and i'm still learning all the time.

Is there only a loss of quality for mp3's or does it also include Cds purchased from the store? or are you just talking about burned Cds? And what would be the difference between a Cd purchased at the store and a burned CD? Is it because the difference in the quality of a song is lost when it is encoded into MP3 format? Basically I am just interested if anyone could explain to me how a "real" CD is made differently from a burned CD. Please only reply if you know what you are talking about... thanks in advance

it's just the mp3s burned to a cd. the mp3 encoding/compression process removes information. you have to convert the mp3 to wav and then manipulte it with eq's and such to get a decent sound. if you just convert the mp3 and burn then it will sound pretty crappy. cheers.

quote:

Originally posted by Localsky Is there only a loss of quality for mp3's or does it also include Cds purchased from the store? or are you just talking about burned Cds? And what would be the difference between a Cd purchased at the store and a burned CD? Is it because the difference in the quality of a song is lost when it is encoded into MP3 format? Basically I am just interested if anyone could explain to me how a "real" CD is made differently from a burned CD. Please only reply if you know what you are talking about... thanks in advance

Well, with a burned CD, you don't know what you get.

Has the music been compressed (and lost information) at any point during the process? How well was it ripped? Were the songs ever turned into mp3 format at any point in time? Were they even ripped properly into .wav's in the first place?

With a store-bought CD, you have the original source that is as good as the recording engineers and studio engineers made it.

What is the original source or format before it is pressed by the manufacturer? Is it wave format? Will wave format even fit on a CD? Hypothetically, if someone ripped a CD perfectly could the quality almost equal a store bought CD? Thanks in advance.

Greg

quote:

Originally posted by Localsky What is the original source or format before it is pressed by the manufacturer? Is it wave format? Will wave format even fit on a CD? Hypothetically, if someone ripped a CD perfectly could the quality almost equal a store bought CD? Thanks in advance. Greg

a .wav format will fit on a cd. the tracks on cds *are* in the .wav format. they are 16bit 44.1khz .wav files on a proprietary formatted file system.

quote:

Originally posted by VIO a .wav format will fit on a cd. the tracks on cds *are* in the .wav format. they are 16bit 44.1khz .wav files on a proprietary formatted file system.

not to nit pick.. but tracks on a cd are not in .wav format.. .wav (WAVeform) is a audio format party created by microsoft.

audio cd's (CDDA) is actually its own format. .wav is just a common way to transfer audio between the windows os and cdr media(since .wav maintains 44.1 kHz sampling at 16 bits ).

where can you get this plugin?

quote:

Originally posted by qfx not to nit pick.. but tracks on a cd are not in .wav format.. .wav (WAVeform) is a audio format party created by microsoft. audio cd's (CDDA) is actually its own format. .wav is just a common way to transfer audio between the windows os and cdr media(since .wav maintains 44.1 kHz sampling at 16 bits ).

you're right, i didn't write that post correctly. both the wav and cdda are just different implimentations of the "pcm" format and are virtually identical. this also holds true for the mac aiff files. while cdda can only be encoded using pcm, wav and aiif can also be encoded using dpcm and adpcm formats. both of which are a compressed form of the pcm format. nice catch qfx. way to keep me on my toes! cheers.

quote:

Originally posted by VIO nice catch qfx. way to keep me on my toes! cheers.

no worries . Since it sounded like Microsoft (.wav) had any part in CDDA creation it needed correction! (we cant have them owning everything...)

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