I know what you mean, I've had the same thing too. It's all to do with the way the DJ has EQ'd the track in the club, but more so on the actual ambience of the club. These sets are recorded with mics rather than direct from the mixer, so you get the ambience and you can hear the crowd noises etc. So, you get the effects of the club's sound system, the effects of the music reverberating through the club, etc. i.e., a track off a live set will sound pretty much like you would expect it to sound in the environment of a nightclub full of people rather than in your bedroom.

Cool.. that is what I kind of thought too, ...that it may just be how it was recorded, and the location, etc.
I did not know however if they used any type of EQ/effects processors to exemplify certain parts of the track, to improve the quality of it.

Is there anything us little guys can do to get a better sound?? Granted, the music always sounds good, but to us hardcore listeners, we're spoiled when we know how good it can 'really' sound when the big guys from Europe throw down....

I'll tell you what, nothing beats the sound quality of an Ortofon Concorde cartridge hooked up to a Technic 1200. I am positive that has a lot to do with it, so if you arent using the best equipment(sonically), then you cant get the cleanest output. But yeah, i totally agree about the EQ adjusting and live recording from a good sound system makes a big difference as long as the recording isn't peaking past 0 decibals.
Kev

Actually, does anyone have any ideas how to properly record crowd and overall environment noises? I mean, do u just hook up a mic to your mixer and use that, or do u need a different mic and a different recorder that's not connected to the mixer at all? Anyone have any ideas? I'm gonna be spinning next week at a party and wanted to try recording the liveset....

I think you would need to mix multiple recording sources. If you just use a mix, you will get the crowd noise, but you will get awful music quality. So my idea would be to pic up the signal coming out of the mixer for good sound quality and add crowd noise over a mic to this.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how you could accomplish this, cause you'd need a second mixer for recording

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RetroActive 4

In JJ @ Qontact, Altitude - Excession is on about a 2-3% higher pitch. Strange thing is, since I've listened to that set so much, whenever I mix it in, I almost always have to use backspin and pump up the bpm in order to satisfy myself.