Lodewijk
Do people in here prefer to load cd's in their cd-rom when needed or rip everything to harddisk? I can imagine it's easier to have it all on your harddisk, but on the other hand it's easier not to go to the whole ripping process with all of your cd's, and it's probably easier to flip through a box of cd's instead of a list of mp3's.
or is that just me? :)
or is that just me? :)
Inviato Sat 10 Jul 04 @ 11:35 pm
DJ Walkers
I prefer to have them on my hard drive!
Inviato Sat 10 Jul 04 @ 11:59 pm
vbjack
It is definitaly worth ripping the CD's to your hard drive. Here are a few reasons.
1. Rip them at a high bps like 320 and you get a very good quality MP3.
2. Less stuff to carry and worry about when moving from place to place.
3. If you really invest the time to get all the BPM's for each song, the information is saved.
4. If you take the time to organize the songs in one folder and make a sub folder for each catagory of music VDJ works awsome for searchin for songs.
5. I would have you believe even though not much it will be somewhat faster loading each song to a deck.
6. You can rename each MP3 to display what you like.
7. You can include comments for each song that are saved.
All in all I believe it is much better to have the songs on the hard drive
just my opinion.
-JaK
1. Rip them at a high bps like 320 and you get a very good quality MP3.
2. Less stuff to carry and worry about when moving from place to place.
3. If you really invest the time to get all the BPM's for each song, the information is saved.
4. If you take the time to organize the songs in one folder and make a sub folder for each catagory of music VDJ works awsome for searchin for songs.
5. I would have you believe even though not much it will be somewhat faster loading each song to a deck.
6. You can rename each MP3 to display what you like.
7. You can include comments for each song that are saved.
All in all I believe it is much better to have the songs on the hard drive
just my opinion.
-JaK
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 12:11 am
clax
HD
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 7:31 am
audio000
I prefer my hard drive over a cd. You may get some skiping playing from a cd
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 8:12 am
bagpuss
It is really a nice luxury to have all your music on your hard drive, this is (for me) the best selling point of digital dj'ing... amoungst many more of course, and once you've got all you music at easy and fast access you wont go back..., i never could..., call it lazy but it's nice and buys you time!, time in dj'ing is very important...., while on that note... congratulations for buying virtual dj as it's the most time efficent method and program for dj'ing..., another reason why it's the best.
Personally i think that to rip, store and organise your collection is a very fun thing to do (if your passionate about music), if time consuming..., however it really pays off and looks great to see all your songs on screen and people love that..., believe me, and of course it will take you a minimum of 5 secounds to find, drag and drop, load the song...that's pretty damn fast!!
With a cd, it's hard to say how long but looking for a particular cd, track number, getting it in the drive, vdj loading that song (being a wav cd)...., it's gonna take you much much longer under any circumstances.....
I would carry a few cd's for back-up, and use your drive for the event of someone bringing along their own music...
another thing to consider is that their is hardware on the way by numark (and others) that are implementing hard drives on their playback devices..., for the use of mp3.
With regards to one of the user comments above on conversion quality i would opt for 16 bit stereo 192 kbps (or at least i do), this is classed as high quality and is reasonably economical on your hard drive space.., although it wont take long before you are using tens of gigs just for mp3's!!
So maybe 320kbps is a bit too much, Whether the quality is good enough at 192kbps is purely a matter of opinion and preference....
What bit rate are you guys currentely using?, would be useful to know?
Regards, Bagpuss
Personally i think that to rip, store and organise your collection is a very fun thing to do (if your passionate about music), if time consuming..., however it really pays off and looks great to see all your songs on screen and people love that..., believe me, and of course it will take you a minimum of 5 secounds to find, drag and drop, load the song...that's pretty damn fast!!
With a cd, it's hard to say how long but looking for a particular cd, track number, getting it in the drive, vdj loading that song (being a wav cd)...., it's gonna take you much much longer under any circumstances.....
I would carry a few cd's for back-up, and use your drive for the event of someone bringing along their own music...
another thing to consider is that their is hardware on the way by numark (and others) that are implementing hard drives on their playback devices..., for the use of mp3.
With regards to one of the user comments above on conversion quality i would opt for 16 bit stereo 192 kbps (or at least i do), this is classed as high quality and is reasonably economical on your hard drive space.., although it wont take long before you are using tens of gigs just for mp3's!!
So maybe 320kbps is a bit too much, Whether the quality is good enough at 192kbps is purely a matter of opinion and preference....
What bit rate are you guys currentely using?, would be useful to know?
Regards, Bagpuss
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 7:55 pm
vbjack
I agree about the BPS of 320 is a little high and most of the MP3's are around 10mb each which can be bad for smaller hard drives, but I must say I invested in a 80gb hard drive for the laptop and I also have a 120gb external hard drive to hold all of my MP3's. I also have all my MP3's on DVD's which is awsome since each DVD holds 4.7gb of data so I could even bring 1 DVD and just use that to hold enough music for 1 night. I also have a few regular CD's with mixes pre-made on them incase the system fails (which has not happened yet).
-Jak
-Jak
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 8:11 pm
bagpuss
Hi jak,
You use 320kbps...., have you honestly noticed a diference between 192kpbs?....
I was just checking over my collection, and found a few songs at 80kbps, so i must re encode these few songs, because this is obviously far too low, I also noticed that many of my songs are 128kbps...., these sound just fine too me, and and equal amount at 32okbps....
The majority of my music is 192kbps which i consider good, but i don't know how i got songs with lower and higher bit rates....,
bearing in mind that a a music cd is 1411kbps and an average mp3 is 192kbps..., that to me sounds like a huge loss in data and i think the quality of mp3's is going to get quite controversial in the future as it becomes more popular in club land etc.....i must dmit i'm starting to get paranoid over the quality when mixing and it's putting me off..., not so sure if i can tell the difference but something is making me uncomfortable................
You use 320kbps...., have you honestly noticed a diference between 192kpbs?....
I was just checking over my collection, and found a few songs at 80kbps, so i must re encode these few songs, because this is obviously far too low, I also noticed that many of my songs are 128kbps...., these sound just fine too me, and and equal amount at 32okbps....
The majority of my music is 192kbps which i consider good, but i don't know how i got songs with lower and higher bit rates....,
bearing in mind that a a music cd is 1411kbps and an average mp3 is 192kbps..., that to me sounds like a huge loss in data and i think the quality of mp3's is going to get quite controversial in the future as it becomes more popular in club land etc.....i must dmit i'm starting to get paranoid over the quality when mixing and it's putting me off..., not so sure if i can tell the difference but something is making me uncomfortable................
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 8:47 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
hehe... dont worry
u CAN NOT tell any difference, on a regular speaker... some claim there is less dynamics on a really really expensive hi-fi speaker (that are not present at clubs), maybe so... but not very relevant for dj use....
and also, mp3 compress "sounds" from cds that are not possible to hear... (of of the range for a human ear)...
sure there are loss, but its not noticable... its like a photo... if u see a jpg file at the net, it looks perfect :) its acutally not, its compressed a LOT!!! so are mp3's... they sound perfect.. so dont worry :) if u use 196kps or more.... :)
only hi-fi users/listeners would have more... or classical music. Even cd's are digitalized..
i have used mp3 for dj-ing for years (burnt over to cd's) - and now use them from my laptop.. never had any worries, any complaints or anything...
:)
u CAN NOT tell any difference, on a regular speaker... some claim there is less dynamics on a really really expensive hi-fi speaker (that are not present at clubs), maybe so... but not very relevant for dj use....
and also, mp3 compress "sounds" from cds that are not possible to hear... (of of the range for a human ear)...
sure there are loss, but its not noticable... its like a photo... if u see a jpg file at the net, it looks perfect :) its acutally not, its compressed a LOT!!! so are mp3's... they sound perfect.. so dont worry :) if u use 196kps or more.... :)
only hi-fi users/listeners would have more... or classical music. Even cd's are digitalized..
i have used mp3 for dj-ing for years (burnt over to cd's) - and now use them from my laptop.. never had any worries, any complaints or anything...
:)
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 8:58 pm
Lodewijk
great to hear everybody's opinion! I'll start burning then.
Seems like a good idea to have an external harddrive just for the mp3 files. Is there no noticable delay in loading songs from an external harddrive?
And another thing, I use CDex for ripping my cd's, and it does not only ask if I want 192kbps, but also if I want MPEG I, MPEG II or MPEG II.5
any thoughts on that? :)
Seems like a good idea to have an external harddrive just for the mp3 files. Is there no noticable delay in loading songs from an external harddrive?
And another thing, I use CDex for ripping my cd's, and it does not only ask if I want 192kbps, but also if I want MPEG I, MPEG II or MPEG II.5
any thoughts on that? :)
Inviato Sun 11 Jul 04 @ 10:54 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
i use an external harddrive for my mp3's, and it works like a charm ;) no problems what so ever...
I even think it might work better, to have mp3's on a different drive than vdj/operating system (windows) ..
as of mpeg I and mpeg II etc, I thought that was for movies...
I even think it might work better, to have mp3's on a different drive than vdj/operating system (windows) ..
as of mpeg I and mpeg II etc, I thought that was for movies...
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 1:08 am
clax
I prefer 192kbps. At 128 the soudn seems sometimes beeing "wet".
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 5:56 am
Homeboy
I would agree with 192 mp3 or best with wma setting. 320 is too much.
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 6:59 am
audio000
I would use a external harddrive usb 2.0 or fireware my mp3 at 192.
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 9:18 am
Damocles
Also, the quality does not only depend on the bitrate, but also on the encoder you use.
See, mp3 is just a file format that tells you how to organize the data in the file so that it can be read by any mp3 compatible reader. It does **not** tell you how to compress the data, i.e. what part of the data you should safely put aside and what other part you should keep in order for it to sound well.
So basically one encoder could select to put away only parts of the original signal your ears are actually deaf to (ideally), and one other could just take the wrong frequencies out (that is, frequencies that you would have heard if they were still present). In the latter case the difference between the original song and the compressed version might be obvious.
All in all, a good psycho-acoustic model (the algorithm that tells you which frequencies a human ear is most aware of) is essential for a compressor to choose the right frequencies at a selected bitrate. So 192kbps with Lame Enc (which is widely considered as the best mp3 encoder) is not 192kbps with some other encoder.
A very good thread either here or on Atomixmp3 forums showed that 192kbpbs and Lame Enc was the best solution in terms of quality/space ratio.
See, mp3 is just a file format that tells you how to organize the data in the file so that it can be read by any mp3 compatible reader. It does **not** tell you how to compress the data, i.e. what part of the data you should safely put aside and what other part you should keep in order for it to sound well.
So basically one encoder could select to put away only parts of the original signal your ears are actually deaf to (ideally), and one other could just take the wrong frequencies out (that is, frequencies that you would have heard if they were still present). In the latter case the difference between the original song and the compressed version might be obvious.
All in all, a good psycho-acoustic model (the algorithm that tells you which frequencies a human ear is most aware of) is essential for a compressor to choose the right frequencies at a selected bitrate. So 192kbps with Lame Enc (which is widely considered as the best mp3 encoder) is not 192kbps with some other encoder.
A very good thread either here or on Atomixmp3 forums showed that 192kbpbs and Lame Enc was the best solution in terms of quality/space ratio.
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 2:59 pm
bagpuss
Well I use a program called "ejay Mp3 station", While this software wasn't expensive like say nero it does the same job as ay other encoder...., to me anyway.
Maybe their are some encoders to stay away from but surely th proggramming can't diifer that much?.
plus it would be a hell of a shame if you converted your whole collection with a poor encoder....., not so sure if i've come accross one of these yet......
Maybe their are some encoders to stay away from but surely th proggramming can't diifer that much?.
plus it would be a hell of a shame if you converted your whole collection with a poor encoder....., not so sure if i've come accross one of these yet......
Inviato Mon 12 Jul 04 @ 4:20 pm
clax
I use CDex to rip and convert at 192kbps.
Inviato Tue 13 Jul 04 @ 6:39 am
ElofdeNeve
I only use 192 kbps to encode my MP3's. I have a licensed version of MusicMatch Jukebox Plus (version 9 or something). Now I read on another forum that the encoding of this is not so good. Any thoughts on this?
You know what is funny? People who see me using Virtual DJ always 'nag' about the sound quality "ouch, this sounds so harsh, vinyl is so much better".
Two weeks ago I had my first "retro edition" on my radioshow at TopRadio (Belgium). I made mixes with Virtual DJ.
After the show, the boss of TopRadio called me to ask "how did you get that superb sound quality on the radio?". It seemed that my music was sounding so clear and fine.
Personally I usually hear the difference between 128 kbps & 192 kbps. But not between 192 kbps & 256 kbps. To keep things at a tolerate level (length of MP3, quality, ...) I would suggest to maintain 192 kbps as a standard.
What I strongly disadvice (hmm, is that an English word?): NEVER use variable bit rate. Not even in the highest level of encoding. Virtual DJ (and all other programs) have problems reading it and determing the correct BPM.
You know what is funny? People who see me using Virtual DJ always 'nag' about the sound quality "ouch, this sounds so harsh, vinyl is so much better".
Two weeks ago I had my first "retro edition" on my radioshow at TopRadio (Belgium). I made mixes with Virtual DJ.
After the show, the boss of TopRadio called me to ask "how did you get that superb sound quality on the radio?". It seemed that my music was sounding so clear and fine.
Personally I usually hear the difference between 128 kbps & 192 kbps. But not between 192 kbps & 256 kbps. To keep things at a tolerate level (length of MP3, quality, ...) I would suggest to maintain 192 kbps as a standard.
What I strongly disadvice (hmm, is that an English word?): NEVER use variable bit rate. Not even in the highest level of encoding. Virtual DJ (and all other programs) have problems reading it and determing the correct BPM.
Inviato Tue 13 Jul 04 @ 7:19 am
Superstom
DJElof,
I read also some tests about mp3 encoders and the encoder shipped with musicmatch jukebox were worst. Sorry to tell you, but some 192kb/s encoded files with musicmatch have less quality than the same wav encoded with 128kb/s bitrate with the lame encoder.
This test was about a year ago, so the encoder might be improved right now. I thought that you are also able to load your own encoder in musicmatch. If this is possible I recommend to use the (newest) Lame encoder
Ewout
I read also some tests about mp3 encoders and the encoder shipped with musicmatch jukebox were worst. Sorry to tell you, but some 192kb/s encoded files with musicmatch have less quality than the same wav encoded with 128kb/s bitrate with the lame encoder.
This test was about a year ago, so the encoder might be improved right now. I thought that you are also able to load your own encoder in musicmatch. If this is possible I recommend to use the (newest) Lame encoder
Ewout
Inviato Tue 13 Jul 04 @ 8:46 pm
clax
CDex - 192kbps and very high quality options seem to be good. Anybody could confirm or not ? Else I'd try another one
Inviato Wed 14 Jul 04 @ 9:56 am
