This final scratch thing has got away from the subject I feel. This is a competition about how you DJ, not HOW you dj, if you get my point . I would like to cover some points though. Maybe another thread could be started on the following subjects.

Anyway, I always had my dad playing vinyl when I was young, then I learned about computers. I got into sequencing and got a lot of stick for my admiration of electronic music in the late 80's and early 90's. The analog vs. digital argument has being going on longer than that. The technology has advanced, and sure, many people who are prepared to put in the work are making very good use of digital technology in the DJ'ing field, but I agree with DJ Madness. I only recently started DJ mixing. I started with Traktor, which I hated. Then when I tried vinyl (for the second time, the first time I wasnt interested) I thought, wow, why didnt I enjoy this before.
Sound wise, vinyl sounds much better than CD (CD's can be scratched and poorly produced too). Analog at the moment sounds better than most digital audio. The reason is the same as why SLR cameras with film take better quality pictures than digital cameras. The reason being, you can't draw a perfect circle on a screen with a computer. Its made up of pixels which are square, but the eye can be fooled, just look closely at your tv. The ear however is very much more than people think. Why do you think that you sometimes get more pleasure listening to music when you close your eyes. I'll tell you, it's because there is less distraction. You can close your eyes but you can't close your ears.......You may not see what an artist or DJ is doing or playing, but you will hear it.

Im studying sound engineering at the moment and analog always sounds better, how do you think microphones and record needles work. The only thing that is digital is the recoring process and any complimentary processes which may or may not follow, but if some of latest dance tunes aren't released on vinyl its a tragedy. DJ'ing has always been about vinyl and if you ask most people that's what they will tell you. Their image of a DJ is someone who plays records E.G vinyl.

Computers IMO should be for sampling, sequencing, synthesis etc, not DJ'ing. I suppose I should move with the times but i've had computers in my life for 12 years. I was sequencing with a Commodore Amiga when I was 12 and most of what I was sequencing was recorded FROM vinyl and I guarantee that most of what was on that vinyl was recorded via a microphone. There would have been no question of the Amiga being used for any sort of DJ'ing purpose.

So technology moves on and now this is becoming the norm. So be it, but I will always mix with vinyl and compose/produce with a computer. Call me old fashioned but that's what I like and it sounds better. If you won't listen to anybody, at least listen to someone who listens for (or who will listen for) a living. A sound engineer.

Incidentally, the rules specify that no mp3 mixes are allowed. Call me daft but final scratch uses/plays mp3 tracks only, albeit a generic vinyl disc is used as a conduit for the final scratch system to apply the users hand movements etc. to whatever mp3 track or tracks that have been selected. Therefore no musical content is recorded from the vinyl itself, it's like a midi interface ,for instance my midi controller keyboard. It dosen't generate sounds by itself, it merely sends signals to another device, or in this case another medium. Why is this acceptable Luke? And does anyone else agree with me?

P.S, Sorry for the long wind .

Last edited by Kev K on Aug-01-2004 at 02:37

Hey Man,

Right on, and right to the point. I like to hear input from people who know what they are talking about. Being a sound engineer certainly qualifies you.

One point about final scratch you left out though, it will play wave files. I guess you could record all your vinyl onto your PC and then play it back and have a similar affect as playing vinyl. WHY??? Just think about how long it would take you to record a stack of vinyl onto a PC. I did 100 records of 80's retro for a guy and it took me forever, not to mention how much space it ate up on my PC. So thats why most people do use mp3's to save space, which goes along with your comment. You could record all wave files but it would eat up a lot of space, and laptops generally don't have huge hard drives. I have an ALIENWARE 51M and it has 60G which is good size for a laptop. However, that would go quick when you start adding lots of wave files.

So this is my question or argument. Is it really worth the small convience of having your music compiled into a laptop (or desktop) vs. all the time it takes to do it??? Seriously, if you are an up to date DJ, you go through tunes like no tomorrow. I was spending on average $200-400 a month on vinyl at one point and phasing out my tracks every couple of months (except for the megahits). Man I would hate to have to record that much vinyl or rip CD's to use FINAL SCRATCH, seems pointless to me. I would much rather carry my vinyl bags with my top 50 to 100 songs and play those. I would compile some older but favorites and have those on CD's in case of a request. I could see FINAL SCRATCH as a useful tool for a resident club DJ that plays a variety of music, but as for a DJ that plays at big venues like raves and massive parties, I feel vinyl or CD's even is the way to go. Besides if your DJing in a rave or big event, your set isn't going to any longer than 2 hours, so why go thru all the trouble. Also one other point, FINAL SCRATCH is kinda a pain in the butt to set up, especially in cases where it is hard to get behind the mixer and plug in your inputs.


Maybe we should start a another thread on this subject, LOL

((DJ MADNESS))

___________________
DJ MADNESS
Spinning music for dance & music with attitude.

.wav files, hmmmmm

.wav files aren't the same as mp3 I agree. .wav is what is on a cd, sampled and recorded onto the compact disc medium at 44.1khz 16bit. You can record a .wav file from any source, mic, vinyl, line etc but you always get 44.1khz 16bit which is standard cd quality sound. This is in my opinion phafff (the recording quality not the medium). Mp3 can now be recorded at up to 320k 48000hz Stereo (which is what I use). Now that is a serious amount of info being recorded which takes up massive amounts of memory be it ram or HD space. .wav is nowhere near this but on the same token it is recorded and i'll say it again "RECORDED" at a lesser quality.

The requirements for this competition do state that no mp3 mixes are allowed but there is no mention of .wav. In my opinion if you are using a file with the .mp3 OR .wav extension you are using pc OR mac and should as such be disallowed. This comp should be about playing back from vinyl or cd DIRECTLY which means no music FILES should be used if the file is being played back by a computer.

Incidentally, I could play a mix Live using purely vinyl and record it onto my puter using an mp3 encoder and sample it @ 320k 48000hz stereo. I would get a really good recording BUT, when I burned it back to cd for other people to listen to, it would only be 44.1khz 16bit which is a serious drop in sound quality and or file size (less file size means less quality which is something we learn early in college). All of this quality stuff is a different argument though. Computer playback (keywords: computer + PLAYBACK) of music files should not be allowed in this contest even where final scratch is concerned and not for recording or musical quality reasons.

How about that Luke????

Last edited by Kev K on Aug-07-2004 at 02:45

quote:

Originally posted by Kev K Incidentally, I could play a mix Live using purely vinyl and record it onto my puter using an mp3 encoder and sample it @ 320k 48000hz stereo. I would get a really good recording BUT, when I burned it back to cd for other people to listen to, it would only be 44.1khz 16bit which is a serious drop in sound quality and or file size (less file size means less quality which is something we learn early in college).

Sorry, but I have to correct you on this!

First, the important thing with MP3 is the bitrate. 320k really stands for 320kbps (= kilobits per second)! So we have 320000 bits per second in that MP3 file (or 327680 bits to be exact, cause 1k = 1024 when measuring bits in a computer, but that's another thing ). A file with these specs and 1 minute in length would be 60(secs)*327680(bits/sec)=19660800(bits) -> 19660800(bits)/8 = 2457600(bytes). Note that this is regardless of all the other specs like sampling rate (48000 Hz), quantizer rate (16 bit), channels (mono/stereo) or whatever, these specs just say what is being reproduced when decoding this MP3 file.

MP3 compresses the recorded sound to fit more music into less storage space. But it uses some algorithms to do this in such a way that you hear as less difference to the uncompressed sound as possible. To explain it in a simple way, it "cuts off" the parts of the sound which we humans can't even hear (certain frequencies).
With a higher bitrate, there is (obviously) more space for the compressed sound to be stored, so regarding ONLY MP3 files your statement "less file size = less quality" is correct, cause with MP3 compression, using the same algorithms:
less bitrate = less file size = more compression necessary = less sound quality.

But you can't compare this to WAV files, cause there is no compression on those! The important specs on WAV are sampling rate, quantizing rate and number of channels. Let's say we have a WAV with 44.1kHz sampling rate and 16 bit quantizer rate in stereo (your example). Then we have 44100 sound samples per second (=Hz), and for each sample there's a 16 bit storage space reserved to store the value of this exact sample. That means, if we use the sound file from above (1 minute length), we would have 60(secs)*44100(samples)*16(bits)*2(channels, stereo!)=84672000(bits) -> 84672000(bits)/8 = 10584000(bytes).

You see that the WAV file is over 4 times the size of the MP3 file, even despite the fact that we have "only" 44.1 kHz sampling rate in the WAV file compared to the 48 kHz in the MP3 file!

So if you burn that 320kbps mix of yours down onto a CD, the quality doesn't drop at all! However, of course, the quality won't improve either, since obviously the copy can only be as good as it's master recording.

It's in fact the other way around:
If you have a CD, which was recorded directly from the source (say, a classical concert for instance), it's quality would degrade if you convert it to MP3 files on your computer! But with a high enough bitrate (common thought is that this is starting with 192kbps), you won't hear that lesser quality because of these compression algorithms that I explained earlier.

*phew*
Sorry for this long speech, but I've studied all those things and couldn't help myself...

___________________
The world we knew is gone.
The conditions which framed and taught us our standards have gone with it.
Our needs are now different, and our aims must be different.

Thanks Yoko, I obviously got a couple of things wrong and I don't mind being corrected as I love finding out more about this sort of thing. I am going to ask my college tutor to clear up a couple more things for me when I start back college next week and will do a bit more research before opening my yap again lol.

Hey no problem! Nobody knows everything

If you want to read a bit more, check the second page of this: http://www.howstuffworks.com/mp3.htm



...and to get back on the original topic: any results from the judges in yet? Luke?

___________________
The world we knew is gone.
The conditions which framed and taught us our standards have gone with it.
Our needs are now different, and our aims must be different.

Once the results have been announced will we then be able to download or share each others mixes. I'm sure everyone will want to hear what beat their mix. I know I will .

quote:

Originally posted by Kev K Once the results have been announced will we then be able to download or share each others mixes. I'm sure everyone will want to hear what beat their mix. I know I will .

w3rd!....

what's the progress like anyways? I've been sick, so I haven't seen the thread in a while.

___________________

'-.SgtFoo.-'
My SoundCloud

quote:

Originally posted by SgtFoo what's the progress like anyways? I've been sick, so I haven't seen the thread in a while.

It appears that some competitors got their mixes in really late, and therefore the judging of the mixes has been moved back to closer to Sept 1st. Somewhere in the thread that was stated. Personally I feel if the DJ's couldn't get their mixes in on time that they should have been disqualified. A month is plently of time to put a mix together and get it uploaded. Unless there is a problem getting it to upload, that would be an acceptable excuse.


((DJ MADNESS))

___________________
DJ MADNESS
Spinning music for dance & music with attitude.

Last edited by DJ MADNESS on Aug-10-2004 at 00:21

Too true Madness. What is the point in having a closing date if it keeps being moved back. The comp should be closed, judged and announced. Then another could be started.

P.S Hope you feel better SgtFoo.

Well it is 5 days until September 1st, and I surely hope that thge results are posted by then. I am all for this competition, however it seems to me that it isn't taken seriously. Deadlines moved back because people can't get their mixes in on time, no responses to questions asked by several people in this forum. It just seems to lack interest compared to the MP3 competition. Their forum is really alive which is good, lots of input and responses. Its sad that this one doesn't have the same amount of enthusiasm. Just an example on this competition, look at the lack of judges here


The MP3 competition has 7 judges and only a mere 3 here, what is up with that. This is supposed to be a competition for amatuer and bedroom DJ's using real equipment, but were is enthusiasm and the aura of competing and judging???????

Anyone else agree???

((DJ MADNESS))

___________________
DJ MADNESS
Spinning music for dance & music with attitude.

I've marked over the last 3 days, will send my results over to luke when he's online