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In a predicament...

After noticing Darren switch to CDs, and hearing Dirk's story about selling out, I have been doing some serious thinking. The big question comes to mind:

Should I do vinyl or CD?

Despite the fact that vinyl has the old traditional feel and whatnot, I have come to the conclusion that vinyl purchases do in fact kill a lot off my wallet. I'm all for supporting your favorite artist, but when it's only one side of a vinyl that you seek, the other side is nothing but a waste.

I could really care less if I do get a gig or not, but it's the fact that the difference of vinyl and digital purchases will add up to a lot. I could sell out like Dirk did, and spin circles around the freaking Julio DJs who have a Nuno-approved skill level of mixing in an attempt to lessen the blow to my funds, but that would require buying even more vinyls to buildup a decent set.

However, digital downloads cost less, meaning you can buy a lot more of what you like without the bullshit. You get the song you like, put it on CD, then you're good to go. I also love editing songs, whether if it's cutting down buildup for a newbie who's getting into the scene, or even for myself when I feel if a song needs more buildup or cut down on unnecessry parts.

It would seem that going digital would be a no-brainer. However, I feel like I have invested too much into my new progressive style of EDM to go back. Luckily for me, I still have one CDJ in my posession. Which means I just need to save some money for one more deck.

Give me your 2 cents on this.

Chroma uses all digital as well, and by now most people should know I use it. I use it because I am on a limited budget, and ordering wavs from beatport and other sites for only $1-2 is very inexpensive. Also..alot of the tracks I play out have been personally remixed or remastered to have the tracks come off sounding the way I want them to; as well as getting more into producing my own material. For remixing/producing...digital is pretty much the only solution because I certainly dont have the access or the resources to create vinyl pressings of every single track I put together.

Bottom line is you should stick with the format which is the most convenient for you. Vinyl has its advantages and disadvantages over digital. The advantages vinyl has is that its the most accepted among the peers who have been in the scene a while, and most of them assume vinyl will always sound better...therefore chances of getting booked are much higher. There are other reasons why people consider vinyl better than digital..but these are mainly subjective reasons and I wont go into them..because everyone has different outlooks.

On the issue of sound quality however, I will just share what I have learned. Not every vinyl is going to have the "perfect" sound. Depending on the setup, you could have distortions such as feedback, grounding issues, noise if the needles are dirty, and the fact that each and every time a vinyl is played (depending on the weight/pressure from the tonearm) vinyl will gradually lose sound quality every time. The high frequencies will give out because of the decay of the waveform and the introduction of pops, clicks and such noise into the grroves will be introduced. It doesnt happen quickly, but say if you wanted to bring back that track that was big in 98, yeah it isnt going to sound as clean as the track you just picked up from the record store. Also..alot of tracks on vinyl...are taken from DIGITAL recordings when they are produced in the studio. Protools, Cubase, etc...its all digital. Im not going to write down how exactally a vinyl disc is mastered, cut, and mass produced..there are books on that if anyone is interested. But the old days where tracks were recorded, mixed down, edited and mastered on pure analog tape machines are over.

Which brings me back to using digital. The WAVs one can order from beatport and the single CD-Rs you can purchase, promo cdrs etc, are synonymous with the digital masters of the tracks as they left the studio, so they really will not sound too much different over a club system. I'm willing to bet that I could drop vinyl and digital version of tracks over Eternal's sound system, and not one would be able to say which was which. Now...if one is planning on using digital...DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND PLAY OUT MP3s, this is where people who use digital get a bad rep from. You can order 320kbs mp3s from beatport, but any sort of data compression on a waveform, will compromise the sound, so I recommend against using them. If you must use mp3s like say for Final Scratch, I would say use nothing below 256kbs..or the higest quality VBR. I dunno enough about MP4 except that like MP3...its a compressed format, and thus inferior to WAVs.

Digital's drawbacks are these..as well as my recommendations for getting around them. For anyone using digital and has a computer...go out and buy a 180GB external harddrive and back up all your WAVs on it. You will thank yourself later. CD-Rs are extremely vunerable to scratches and nicks which will cause a track to skip on you if the CD is damaged enough. Another thing is if your case with all your music happens to get stolen. Its happened twice to me already; while at marco v in houston my music and my headphones were stolen from my car, same thing happened at Gabriel and Dresden friday night (they dumbasses missed the headphones thank god) forcing me to drive to houston and back to replace them. Luckily, I had every last song backed up on the harddrive so I was able to show up saturday night with everything I needed to play. Where vinyl is concerned...my heart truly goes out to any artist whose ever had a record crate stolen.

On a final note, I will not say either medium is better. I use digital soley for budget and producing convenience. It doesnt make mixing any easier (actually much harder if you dont have the CDJ 1000s or something similar). Finally..they wont prevent you from getting booked as in the past. I have had to deal with alot of ignorant promoters and musical peers who basically..had their heads up their asses. It wasnt until recently, after seeing that every last headliner was showing up with digital, many promoters finally figured out that digital was becoming more commonplace at clubs. In other words, if you can mix..and have a solid demo to hand to the promoters, and your CD-Rs or final scratch audio doesnt consist of shitty sounding MP3s (below 256kbs at the very minimum) chances are you can be booked, and possibly asked back.

I know this is rather long..but just saught to inform I do realize they may be people on this forum who support analog 100% and likewise condemn digital in the same fashion...thats okay. As I said, its all about preference and whatever works for the individual artist.

Re: In a predicament...

quote:

Originally posted by DeviantxPete I'm all for supporting your favorite artist

When you order tracks from beatport, i-tunes, or whever you can find them...you still pay for each track...just not as much as vinyl. You only pay $1-2 for the tracks..and the artists get just about the same or maybe more of a royalty for each track as specified in the deals they made with the distributing paysite.

This is probably an incredibly lame analogy-- but whenever people pose the question you asked I think about the scene in "Caddy Shack 2" when Jackie Mason is playing golf.

In the movie he uses a "twelve gauge shotgun" driver and putters with laser guidance systems. Granted, he is able to play a better golf game, but their is a purity in playing golf the way that it has always been played.

quote:

Originally posted by Travis Dose This is probably an incredibly lame analogy-- but whenever people pose the question you asked I think about the scene in "Caddy Shack 2" when Jackie Mason is playing golf. In the movie he uses a "twelve gauge shotgun" driver and putters with laser guidance systems. Granted, he is able to play a better golf game, but their is a purity in playing golf the way that it has always been played.

Just kindly pointing out the mixing on CD-R isnt necessarily any easier than mixing on vinyl. you still have to beatmatch, phrase, and hope to god the tracks stay aligned during transition (not too mention the proper EQing qith the mixer) none of that..to my knowledge anyway..is done automatically. I will say the CDJ 1000s have a bpm readout...but it is even more inaccurate than the DJM 600s is lol.

We all have our opinions though

Matthias, your first post pretty much covered everything on the benefits and details of using CDs. Don't burn mp3 to cd and play em out, but if you're using wav sources from beatport (do they offer wavs?) or from promo CDRs, I can definitely see a lot of advantages of CDs. As far as mixing CDs vs vinyl, both are just as easy/difficult imo. It's just a matter of knowing the equipment, but all the concepts are the same and very easy to adjust to. Personally, I prefer the hands on interaction of mixing with vinyl, though I love the idea of being able to play harder to find tracks through the use of CDs and a QUALITY source.

One major advantage to playing CDs:

CD decks don't drift...

quote:

Originally posted by DJ_Octane One major advantage to playing CDs: CD decks don't drift...

+190201932980329032093290

that is the one thing I really love about my cd decks over my turntables. the accuracy and hold on the pitch is far superior to vinyl. I love vinyl, but I really hate making small adjustments during the transitions. With my cd decks, I usually only have to tweak the pitch once during a long transition just because the pitch control is not analog. With the records, I find myself tweaking over and over to keep it perfect and it makes me lose concentration on the mix itself.

Play the best music possible... whatever the medium.

Vinyl does reproduce sound better than any other medium. And I've been told by several women that manipulating vinyl is sexy.. just an added bonus. Mixing vinyl will always be an art form...

I play both CD-Rs and Vinyl. Live (Ableton) is cool, but a bit on the geek side. Given, I use it as well

You have to look this way... You want to have as many tools at your disposal as possible while playing, so you have options.

MP3s sound like shit on a good system, so get FLAC or WAV versions, they will sound better.

best
-lance

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ but if you're using wav sources from beatport (do they offer wavs?) or from promo CDRs,

they send you the WAV on a cd

quote:

Originally posted by DJ_Octane One major advantage to playing CDs: CD decks don't drift...

Sure they do

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ Sure they do

I am almost positive that they do not.

Wow and Flutter is the measurement of drift that one would expect from a new turntable. Vinyl tables have that measurement, but CDs do not. What happens when you load a CD into the table, at least with my Technics, you can hear it read it very quickly, throw it all into memory and then everything from there on is controlled digitally which means that Wow & Flutter can't happen because it is not relying on anything "mechanical".

Besides all of that, I have noticed no drift on my CDs while my regular tables do a little bit.

I've had mixes go for minutes without drifting on my decks. Maybe its a mental thing, the wow and flutter on Technics is so small its not very significant.

quote:

Originally posted by Dirk W. I am almost positive that they do not. Wow and Flutter is the measurement of drift that one would expect from a new turntable. Vinyl tables have that measurement, but CDs do not. What happens when you load a CD into the table, at least with my Technics, you can hear it read it very quickly, throw it all into memory and then everything from there on is controlled digitally which means that Wow & Flutter can't happen because it is not relying on anything "mechanical". Besides all of that, I have noticed no drift on my CDs while my regular tables do a little bit.

It's really not as complicated as that. The fact is you have to beatmatch, whatever equipment you are on. Analog pitch control allows for infinitestimal adjustments in pitch, digital does not. That's not to say that digital pitch control is not practical, it's just a technical fact. Tracks are going to drift apart after a while because you are never going to get them exactly matched, it makes no difference if you're on a cdj or a turntable, it comes down to your abilities at beatmatching. If you find that tracks don't drift when you're mixing, either the transitions aren't long enough for you to notice, or you're very good at beatmatching, or both, or you're riding the pitch.

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ It's really not as complicated as that. The fact is you have to beatmatch, whatever equipment you are on. Analog pitch control allows for infinitestimal adjustments in pitch, digital does not. That's not to say that digital pitch control is not practical, it's just a technical fact. Tracks are going to drift apart after a while because you are never going to get them exactly matched, it makes no difference if you're on a cdj or a turntable, it comes down to your abilities at beatmatching. If you find that tracks don't drift when you're mixing, either the transitions aren't long enough for you to notice, or you're very good at beatmatching, or both, or you're riding the pitch.

agreed. i was just saying that there is no wow and flutter with a digital turntable and it is only limited to its most precise adjustment. With a turntable you can have the pitches exactly lined up to the infinite decimal place, but the motor itself has a degree of error that won't allow the tracks to stay in time (that degree of error is decreased with nicer tables)

to put it better, if you have two records and two cds and you push the reset 0 button on all the tables, the cds will stay together perfectly while the vinyls can drift

quote:

Originally posted by Dirk W. to put it better, if you have two records and two cds and you push the reset 0 button on all the tables, the cds will stay together perfectly while the vinyls can drift

Agreed, I was gonna say this also. But in practice, with good turntables, W&F is neglegable in comparison to the inaccuracy of a human adjusting that pitch control... riding the pitch owns you.

quote:

Originally posted by Screen Matthias, Excellent post on the pro's and cons of digital buying My question is, what�s the difference in sound between a wav & a 320 mp3? As we know beatport wont let you download wavs, so the easiest predicament is to download the 320 (in my case) haha I don�t have the room on my hard drive to store wavs 2nd, When you burn mp3/wavs, is there a certain program you should use? I remember you telling me when you burn mp3's sound quality is lost Is that still degrading even If I paid for the mp3 in the first place? ------ Sorry for the bombardment of questions. I�m just trying to get a fair & balanced opinion (something fox news could never give) -darren

hehe, I will clarify this. Quite honestly, I havent heard a 320 MP3 from beatport over a club system. Although, I pirchased an mp3 of one of the WAVs I ordered just to do a comparisons over my moniters. Honesty both sounded largely the same because I am pretty sure beatport made the MP3 from the WAV they send out...in that respect, they WAV they get comes from the stereo master of the track (dithered to 16bit, 44.1khz PCM) In other words..the red book master of the wav (commercial cd quality) I hope I didnt confuse anyone there...but I think it may be safe to use beatports MP3s over a club system without too much audio degredation, as I understand they encode all there MP3s at 320kbs now.

Let me clarify what MP3s I do NOT recommend playing out. MP3s downloaded from free peer-to-peer sites such as kazaa, soulseek, limewire, WINMX, or any of those...even the ones that are 320kbs may not sound good. Here are a few reasons why. 1) The track may have been ripped from a radio broadcast set, or any sort of live set. You cant mix those because the first and last minutes of a track are either cut off, or mixed with the tracks before and after them. In those kinda tracks..you will have unexpected tempo variences where a track may play the first 30 seconds at 128bpm, then shift up to 131, and at the end of the song change again. You dont want those...not too mention radio rips will sound HORRIBLE and probbaly have a jingle in there, imagine listening to a DJ in a club...and hear a track go "ID&T....essential..." in the breakdown. I would probably laugh my ass off.
Second of all...most the people ripping the tracks from vinyl on soulseek or wherever, are complete idiots when it comes to recording quality audio, and then encoding it to mp3. Complete fucking idiots. The only way to properly rip a vinyl, is to run the rca's from the turntable (which has an Ortofon nightclub needle/stylus) through some sort of tub amp, youll probably need two tubed amps since most of em I have seen are mono. Set the input output levels on the amp identical and make sure your not sending an overdriven signal...and record that signal in Pro Tools at 24bit or higher, 192kbs. Normalize the wav (peak not RMS) then dither it down to 16bit, 44.1kbs format...and THEN encode it to MP3. WHen you encode the MP3, use a LAME encoder or the latest Fraunhofer (they invented the first mp3 encoding algorithm) and encode to 320 stereo (no joint stereo or any of that shit...just plain old stereo) and set the inidicator to highest quality rather than encoding speed.
I realize the above sounds like a long and drawn out process, it is. And most of the people who think they know what they are doing when they rip tracks to MP3, actually have no idea what they are doing. Which is the main reason why they sound like utter shit. If you are converting a CD to mp3, all you have to do is rip it using Audiograbber, and convert to mp3 in the same manner I explained.

To sum up your question Darren, it may be safe to use beatport's 320 MP3s over a club system...but I have yet to do that. They sound good over a pair of Genelec moniters...but club systems, havent listened to one yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ The fact is you have to beatmatch, whatever equipment you are on. Analog pitch control allows for infinitestimal adjustments in pitch, digital does not. That's not to say that digital pitch control is not practical, it's just a technical fact. Tracks are going to drift apart after a while because you are never going to get them exactly matched, it makes no difference if you're on a cdj or a turntable, it comes down to your abilities at beatmatching.

I will say that where the CDJ 1000s are concerned, they are the only decks where I have been able to get 2 tracks lined up to the point where I would only have to make the most minimal of adjustments with the jogwheel. The pitch faders, are accurate down to 0.02% increments (when the range is set at +/- 6%). This is 5 times more accurate than what alot of CD decks allow...which are (0.1%) I must agree though while this will allow a profession DJ who understands the concepts of beatmatching to get a near perfect layer/transition; it isnt foolproof from an amatuer who does not. The only time you will get two tracks that wont fall out of phase, is you perhaps you have 2 tracks that are the same exact tempo set at the same pitch. I think thats only possible if you're mixing in Ableton Live tho.

quote:

Originally posted by Screen 2nd, When you burn mp3/wavs, is there a certain program you should use? I remember you telling me when you burn mp3's sound quality is lost

didnt see this question.

okay...when you burn MP3s...you dont lose sound quality. You are buring the decoded WAV (of the encoded mp3) Sound quality is lost..when you encode the original WAV into MP3.

For burning I use Nero while at home, and Adaptec Toast at school (Mac program). When you burn a CD, I would set the burner to the lowest speed possible 4x or 2x if available. Its time consuming, and if wont make the wave sound better...but it will ensure there are no skips in your audio when the CD is played. It will also prevent skips if your CD is lighty scratched because of the way the data clusters are written at slower burn speeds. I also recommend using the slower speeds if you burn on a PC because well...PCs suck Make sure no processes are running, your computer is free of spyware, and hell..after you start the burn...dont even move the mouse pointer. That should do it.

quote:

Originally posted by Screen haha I don�t have the room on my hard drive to store wavs

Long story short...here's my recommended solution for that:



This, my friend, is a LaCie 160GB firewire hard drive. Portable, small, and it was designed for people who edit video (making it more than suitable for audio). I got mine around $180...and in my opinion its the best investment I have made. Currently I have around 400 16bit WAVs, 80 24bit WAVs of different sizes for the music I am currently working on, and an assload of MP3 mixes that range from an hour to 5 hours. And the best part....Im only using lil under half the storage space.

Thansk for the advice guys, I didn't know I could be enlightened so much by a bunch of SELLOUTS!!!! LOL

J/K seriously, thanks for spreading the knowledge.

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ Agreed, I was gonna say this also. But in practice, with good turntables, W&F is neglegable in comparison to the inaccuracy of a human adjusting that pitch control... riding the pitch owns you.

Riding the pitch owns everyone.

werd.

the only thing I enjoy riding more is Jacob's mum.

Matthias - just to point out somethin, there are ripping groups in the warez scene (piracy scene) who specialise in ripping promo vinyls and such, so kazza, soulseek, etc etc are not the only source of illegal mp3 downloads. The major groups do this very well, and know what they are doing. I doubt they go to the trouble of using tube amps when ripping from a phono source but the decent ripping groups go to a reasonable amount of trouble to release their mp3s. CDR promos of course are also very common and much easier to rip by comparison, so you see those around a lot. That said, the standard among mp3 release groups is 192kbit CBR MP3, or high quality VBR MP3 (not as abundant).

Regarding the discussion about beatmatching accuracy... I guess I'll conclude what I was saying - The accuracy of Technics 1200's, or CDJ1000mk2's, are more than enough for an experienced DJ to make a flawless transition. The fact is that if you can hear what you need to hear in the tracks you're mixing, and have enough experience, you can ride the pitch sufficiently without the crowd being any wiser. If you can't ride the pitch during a transition (and I myself have far from perfected it) and you're the kind of DJ that makes lengthy transitions, it's something basic that needs to be learned through experience (and forcing yourself to do it) in my opinion. Riding the pitch is as essential to a trance DJ as rice is in asian diets.

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ Riding the pitch is as essential to a trance DJ as rice is in asian diets.

That should start some good fights.... that one belongs in the "is it just me...." thread. Right idea, wrong thread

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