sound quality | Digital DJ Tips

December 17th, 2012 Training

7 Rules For Great DJ Sound Quality

by Tony Andrews

The switch from analogue to digital has introduced a whole host of potential pitfalls when it comes to keeping sound quality high. But it needn’t be that way. These seven rules will help you ensure your DJ sets sound as good as they can.

I think we can all agree that music is a powerful and wonderful thing, liberating both the mind and body. In my experience, the cleaner and purer the music, the deeper one’s consciousness can engage with it. Pure vs distorted sound are as different to the mind as 2D vs 3D images are to the eyes. We have a duty of care to our listeners to ensure that everything in the audio chain is as clean and transparent as possible. Distortion hurts and drives people away from your music, particularly in today’s clubs where sound systems are loud.

So more than ever, it’s important to understand what’s involved, in order to strive to deliver a clean signal when you’re DJing or producing music. That’s what these 7 Rules For Great DJ Sound Quality are designed to help you with.

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November 12th, 2012 News & Opinion

Virtual DJ 7.3 Released

by Phil Morse

Virtual DJ 7.3 is available now and adds a new more flexible search, better EQ and improved sound quality among other features.

Virtual DJ 7.3 has been released. This time the update majors on improving sound quality: Virtual DJ 7.3 boasts an improved sound engine, an automatic limiter, and an optional parametric EQ among its headline features.

While Virtual DJ’s users wait patiently for Virtual DJ 8 to go public, Virtual DJ’s 7.x upgrades seem to be coming thick and fast, with today’s Virtual DJ 7.3 being the third such update in just a couple of months.

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August 5th, 2012 Training

Over To You: Why Does My Digital Gear Sound Worse Than CDJs?

by Phil Morse

The Traktor Audio 4 (since replaced by the Audio 6) is a fine audio interface, and is capable of producing excellent results.

Digital DJ Tips reader Andrew Potter writes: “I have recently been doing some gigs on Wednesday evening here in Tokyo. Every time I play my digital set up through the club’s system, and then compare sound quality from that of the DJs using the clubs CDJs, I notice a perceivable difference.

“Somehow the sound quality from my Mac, Traktor and Audio 4DJ doesn’t have the clarity or ‘presence’ that my CDJ counterparts achieve. I am completely stumped, because it’s all wired correctly into the CD line in on the mixer. The filters are in neutral position too. I thought that digital should always sound better, but I’m not hearing this in reality. Have you or your readers had a similar experience?”

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May 5th, 2012 Training

Your Questions: What Are VBR MP3s?

by Phil Morse

It's a dry subject for sure, but it's worth understanding VBR if you want to get the best quality/size ration from your MP3s... or if you want to make sure you only use the best sounding MP3s in your DJing.

Digital DJ Tips forum member Eledamiri writes: “I was watching your video about digital music quality the other day and then I wondered what exactly variable bitrate (VBR) is? Every now and then I encounter files with 205 VBR, 240 VBR and so, especially when I download DJ sets from SoundCloud.

“So do you know if they are so much different from 320kbps MP3s? I’m more of a listener than a DJ, by the way, but this community is great, I spent a lot of time reading the stuff here.”

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March 25th, 2011 DJ Culture

6 Ways To Win The Loudness War & Play Better Sounding DJ Sets

by Phil Morse

Turn it up! Dynamic Range Day aims to promote better sounding music.

Today is Dynamic Range Day, which is dedicated to making music sound better by promoting the understanding that dynamics are more important than volume in music. It might sound a bit obscure, but if you want your digital DJ sets to sound great, you absolutely need to understand this.

For DJs, it is a simple enough lesson to learn and one that can make your DJ sets sound better forever more – but you have to understand the basics first. In this post, we’ll give you five simple steps to remember to make sure you always come out a winner in “The Loudness War”.

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February 2nd, 2011 DJ Culture

How To Earn Your DJ Stripes, Part 2: Why Connections Matter

by Chris Cartledge

Understanding what the lights and meters are telling you on mixers, controllers and amplifiers is essential if you want to maintain high sound quality.

This is the second part of a fortnightly guest series by Chris Cartledge of ohdratdigital.com.

No, this episode of How To Earn Your DJ Stripes isn’t about using Facebook or Twitter, but rather about the more fundamental subject of electrical connections. There are multiple stages between whatever it is that makes music and the sound that hits the dancefloor, but it can be a bit tough to picture exactly what’s going on with your sound, especially when many of those stages nowadays are “virtualised”. Unless you can do this, however, all kinds of pitfalls await you.

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October 30th, 2010 DJ Culture

Your Questions: Will My Entry-level Kit Sound Rubbish in a Large Venue?

by Phil Morse

While getting on a bit now, the budget Behringer BCD-2000 is fine for DJing in public on.

Reader Grafton K Palmer writes: “I’m a beginner DJ and I’m using a Behringer BCD2000. This hardware has been used in a bar once or twice and has sounded quite poor although I wasn’t manning the controls (someone else was using it), but at the same time the bar PA was pretty rubbish. This device is fine for recording straight to wav, but the quality of the sound that comes out of it while live is not perfect from what I’ve witnessed.

“I’m not a professional DJ and know little about sound systems and much of what I’ve read [in the comments of the Digital DJ Tips post DJing in Nightclubs with Controllers and Laptops] has put me right off doing my first gig with it. It’s only entry-level equipment and I’m now worried that it’ll sound rubbish in a large venue. Wish I hadn’t read the above, but it’s still good to know!”

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