Randomness: DJ Set Ups (Inspiration for Annex Redesign)

So I let it slip that I'm moving. Thus the Annex will be going under a wild redesign, apart of all home ownership are dreams of pie in the sky and what you will do with "your space".

Here is a little bit of whats inspiring my dreams for the Annex 2.0:

Got to love dreams

RANDOMNESS: A DJ’s Guide to Audio Files and Bitrates

This posting is interesting yet is does not talk about the conversion. What are you converting your files with? What are you using to play them back? So many questions... and I dread the idea of encoding all those records again. Grumble.... 

REBLOGGED: From DJ Tech Tools
Source [www.djtechtools.com]

As Serato’s DJ software programs gained FLAC support on Monday, we decided it’s time to write an article that discusses the best options of the variety of formats that digital audio files come in. Many DJs don’t notice a big difference in file type and bitrate until they’re blasting the track on a high-end club system and find the track just isn’t hitting hard enough. Read on to find out the best practices and how to be ready for the future.

LOSSLESS AND LOSSY AUDIO: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

While the image above makes it pretty clear as to what the results of different compression can do to an image, Here’s a quick refresher on the two groups of audio files out there:

Lossless audio files are files that are used as masters. They can be uncompressed or compressed, but their compression retains all of the original data of the recording or final master. Lossless formats include WAVs, FLACs, AIFF, and Apple Lossless. Their file size tend to be large, and it’s not uncommon to see an compressed WAV that’s 30-40MB for a song that’s about 3:30 long.

Lossy audio files are compressed versions of tracks that have parts of the data removed to reduce the size of the file. The more compressed, the more data is missing. The most common form of lossy audio is MP3, although other less-supported and/or older formats like AAC, WMA, OGG, and MP2 still haunt many a music library. With lossy audio, you’ll want to pay close attention to the bitrate (see below), and a typical size for a 3:30 long song is just over 8MB.

WHAT DJS SHOULD USE AND WHY IT MATTERS

Here’s the key section for most of you. For many casual, non-DJing uses, a lower quality audio file is completely acceptable – when you’re listening to YouTube videos on laptop speakers, you’re not exactly pushing the requirements of audio fidelity. But when you’re playing at festivals or clubs with nice sound systems, you’ll want to make sure the files in your setlist will not limit the potential of the sound system.

An overwhelming majority of performing DJs have a library of 320kps MP3 files – as even on large club PA systems the 320 MP3s will sound solid. (Funktion One systems – like in the image below – will eat 192kbps MP3s for breakfast).

But when you’re making adjustments to the the audio, changing the tempo, pitch, and/or key, and processing it through your software and hardware and ultimately out to the mixer – you’ll really start to notice very quickly the level of quality you’re dealing with, and any artifacts will start to be noticeable, especially on a really nice system.

One of the biggest differences in quality happens when you start to change the tempo of the song. Whether in your DJ setup or DAW, you’ll notice that the higher the sample rate, the more information there is to “pull apart” when you slow it down, resulting in fewer artifacts and the closer to a master it will sound.

As a result, many DJs and audiophiles insist that there’s a lot of territory beyond sounding “solid” – and on the right system, there is a difference, it may not be the difference between good or bad, but it could be the difference between good and “freaking insane.” Two such artists committed to lossless audio include Sander Van Doorn and Loco Dice, as interviewed on Beatportal earlier this year:

DJ extraordinaire Sander van Doorn prefers “playing lossless files only,” he says. “As I want to guarantee my fans the best audio experience for every set.” And he’s definitely not the only one. Loco Dice echoes the sentiment, saying, “I play lossless files because the format contains uncompressed audio, gives me the maximum audio quality, and doesn’t fail when I combine digital files and vinyl records.”

As a digital DJ, your primary job is to deliver great sounds to the audience – so there’s little reason why you shouldn’t start out with the highest quality audio so that you preserve as much of the original quality as possible.

WHERE CAN A DIGITAL DJ GET LOSSLESS AUDIO TRACKS?

The reason that many digital DJs prefer 320 MP3s to a lossless format has more to do with file size and access/cost rather than audio quality.

While we’re rapidly approaching an era in where storage and bandwidth aren’t limitations that will hold back lossless audio – but there’s still an associated fee and stigma found in a number of online music stores that makes it that much harder of a purchase.

The iTunes Music Store continues to be the behemoth in the legitimate online music world, but lacks any lossless download options, most likely due to potential server costs – but comparatively smaller services like Beatport, Boomkat, Juno Download, and others do offer lossless files at an increased rate. On Beatport, almost all tracks are available in AIFF and WAV formats, but you’ll need to pay up an extra dollar at checkout per track - which could easily make upgrading your entire library very unrealistic.

A note about tags: WAV files do not support ID3 tags – meaning that it’s harder to store information to be parsed apart in your DJ software like tempo, key, artist, album, etc. That’s why Beatport also offers files in AIFF format, which allows for full ID3 tagging!

File size should rapidly become less of a problem as disk space continues to get cheaper and cheaper, but it still takes about the same space to fit hundreds of 320s as 40 high quality WAV files. That reason alone saves big digital stores millions a year in hosting storage and data transfers!

BEWARE FAKE QUALITY TRANSCODES

In the dark world of online music piracy*, there’s a higher value placed on files that are tagged as 320s or lossless audio – but just because a files is tagged as such doesn’t make it actually that quality. Bitrate is very easily to “fake” in file names or by transcoding (converting or re-recording) the audio file to a higher rate.

Oftentimes tracks ripped from YouTube or Soundcloud streams will be of 128 quality, but the actual recording tool is set higher – so you end up with a 320kbps or WAV file that still sounds pretty mediocre.  The fakes will be easy to spot in a audio editing program – like in the example on the right, the compressed file is cut off, whereas the WAV waveform looks way more dynamic.
One of the simplest ways to instantly tell what type of file you’re getting from a friend or as a free download from an artist page is to look at the file size – if you’re expecting a 320 MP3 for a standard length track and the download is only showing a total size of 2 to 4 MB, it’s probably not legit.
*DJ TechTools in no way endorses music piracy – but we’re equally not fans of people playing really low quality audio files in clubs.

TEST YOUR EARS, FUTUREPROOF YOUR COLLECTION

Want to see if you can tell the difference between a lossless WAV file and a 320 kbps MP3? In 2010, Noise Addicts made a great-but-simple online blind test for you to compare the playback of two files and hear the difference – so pull out your nicest set of headphones or speakers and see if you can tell the difference.

If you got rid of all of your CDs after ripping them to iTunes at 256kbps (or even worse… 192kbps) ten years ago and now you’re looking to upgrade your files to 320 or a lossless audio format, bad news. There’s no program out there that will magically turn your old rips into lossless audio – which is part of the appeal of having a completely lossless master file in the first place. For this reason its super important to make sure your iTunes’ “import settings” are optimized. Its a bit tucked away in the preferences, but you’ll want to create a custom setting because what iTunes calls, “high quality” is actually 128kbps (not high quality at all). Depending on your storage capabilities, we’d recommend using a lossless format, although if you do want to stick with mp3, you’ll want to make sure you have 320kbps selected and a 44.1 kHz sample rate.

If you’re ready to start building a lossless library, we recommend upgrading in a track-by-track, set-by-set fashion – building out your most played tracks and favorites is the best way to actually see if you can detect the difference. This will ensure that you have a great batch of easily-mixed songs if you suddenly find yourself offered a chance to DJ a set on your city’s nicest soundsystem.

BONUS: MAD ZACH’S PRODUCTION ADVICE

Many of our readers are budding producers – and we’ve already started to see original productions start rolling into the contest we launched last week. Audio quality matters immensely in the production process – so I asked Mad Zach to share his thoughts on what the most important production considerations are:

It’s important to set your DAW at the right audio quality, otherwise you might realize in the future that you’ve limited yourself by recording the best sample, synth, or vocal session of your life only in 16 bit! If at all possible set your system to 24bit and no lower than 44.1 kHZ. If your processor allows, put the sample rate up for super pristine sound. Most new machines can handle 48 kHz, which is what I usually run my computer at, although on days when I’m feeling extra smooth I’ll bump it up to 96 (which sounds crystal clear but definitely taxes my processor). The same principle applies to your VSTs and all of your various FX plug-ins. Whatever sample rate you are operating and recording your DAW at also determines the resolution of your VSTs. And don’t forget about dithering!

Dith-what?

Deep in the world of professional audio optimization is something called “dithering.” You’ll notice when you export a track from your DAW that you often get to choose whether or not to dither, and what type of dithering to use. Fatlimey, a longstanding member of the DJTT community, explains dithering the best below:

“Dithering is the process of shuffling around information to make the best use of the number of bits in each sample. Every sample in a stream of audio is represented using a fixed number of bits (e.g. 16-bit for CD, 24-bit for studio recordings, etc.) and a fixed rate at which those samples appear in time (e.g. 44.1 KHz, 16KHz, etc), so if you want to increase the quality of a signal the only thing left to play with is the placement of information in time. After quantization we take a little bit of the error here and move it over there, trade off a little bit of overshoot with reducing the adjacent sample a little. That’s essentially what “Error Diffusion” dithering does, it distributes the error throughout the signal making an overall better representation of the original signal using less bits. “Random Dithering” works by using specific forms of statistical random noise to do the same job of distributing the error.

In the diagram, the fine computer scientist’s neckbeard is quantized to the maximum extreme, just 1-bit per pixel and the results are pretty terrible. Apply some dithering to shuffle around the error and the resulting 1-bit per pixel image is a much better representation of the original. Do the same process with more than 2-, 4- or more bits per pixel and the results are practically indistinguishable from the original. That is until you start stretching it and the differences start to become apparent…” - Fatlimey

To Dither, or not to Dither, that is the question

If you’re scratching your head wondering “so… what do I do with all this information?” This means that you should use dithering any time you’re going from a higher quality to lower quality i.e. if you mixed your track in 24 bit 48 kHz but you want to export at 16 bit and 44.1 kHz (for burning cd’s). You’ll find the option to dither in your export menu. The various dithering styles refer to different algorithms that prioritize different elements of the mix. When it comes to the practical application of dithering your exports, Ableton provides a very helpful explanation:

“If you are rendering at a bit depth lower than 32-bit, choose one of the dither modes. Dithering adds a small amount of noise to rendered audio, but minimizes artifacts when reducing the bit depth. By default, Triangular is selected, which is the safest mode to use if there is any possibility of doing additional processing on your file. Rectangular mode introduces an even smaller amount of dither noise, but at the expense of additional quantization error. The three Pow-r modes offer successively higher amounts of dithering, but with the noise pushed above the audible range. Note that dithering is a procedure that should only be applied once to any given audio. If you plan to do further processing on your rendered track, it’s best to render to 32-bit to avoid the need for dithering at this stage. In particular, the Pow-r modes should never be used for any material that will be sent on to a further mastering stage – these are for final output only.” – Ableton
The difference comes out in the headroom and harmonics. While an MP3 might cover all the bases, it’s still going to squeeze that frequency range into as small a package as possible. But just as you wouldn’t put a plant or a human in a tight little space, when the waveform is allowed to “breath” it can also retain the harmonics that give it that extra character.

LOSSLESS IS THE FUTURE

With faster internet, larger drives, and constantly improving audio hardware, there’s no doubt that 320kbps MP3s may very well start to feel archaic to DJs in just a matter of years. The human ear and our ability to perceive sound likely won’t improve (fictional cybernetic implants excluded), but making the move to lossless will ensure that your collection has a dynamic range that sounds and feels great in the mix well into the future of your DJ or production career.

How lossless is your DJ library? Let us know if you can hear the difference in your sets, or if you think that 320 MP3s will be the industry standard for some time to come.

REBLOGGED: From DJ Tech Tools
Source [www.djtechtools.com]

Economy + Popular Music = The Rise of Electronic Music (again)

So I've been MIA from the blog for a second because I've just bought a house and I'm dealing with the mental nightmare of being an adult, navigating the process, packing my old house and managing the love of my life who is currently a little over loaded with her job and everything else.

Thus I've been exposed to a lot of popular music recently. Generally my slim diet of NPR / Fox News and Hospital Records podcasts keeps me charging through life like a bull in a china shop. But when your calling banks, realtors, contractors you often get posted on hold so I've been listening to a barrage of top 40 tunes. This is better then smooth jazz but I've been curious to see of there was any research on our current economic status. and our new found love for 1990's techno repackaged as pop music? Also how did dubstep capture the attention of the American rock and roll youth?

I'm been pushing this idea around for a hot second. Looking at how popular music right now is a wash in minor cords and trying to run down popular tracks that were released during our last economic down turn.

However yesterday while I was listening to NPR while digging records for my next gig I caught a report on now the Economy effects popular music! I damn near broke my neck bolting over empty boxes to get over to the stereo to turn it up. Paraphrasing the report because I can't find the report on their site (grumble). Popular music is focusing on the escapism and super luxury life styles. The basic ingredients of 80% of house / club tracks. Which explains the rise of the electronic sound. They had a few points on why dubstep has taken America by storm but I've forgotten already. Ba Ha.

So I'm still curious about my own theory on major VS minor keys during economic times of trouble.

Some additional thoughts on this topic can be found here. The Futurist a "magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas about the future" had some interesting thoughts on the matter.[www.wfs.org]

What do you think?

In the mean time if you have any suggestions on how to move a epically large record collection cross town I'm all ears. hahahaha

The Librarian

RANDOMNESS: An Evening with RobOne & Surface Noise Productions

I spent an evening with Rob One from Surface Noise Productions, during which made a few things abundantly clear.

A) I'm a DJ not a sound engineer
B) I can have a great idea and have all the ground work started but I will need people like Rob One to make the most from my sound.
C) I really need to give Logic a second look. Ba Ha



Rob One gave me a preview of Logic and "scratched the surface" of what it can do evidently. From everything I saw Logic is a beast of a program with a lot of power. Especially when it comes to drilling down on a track and isolating the bass sounds that are overloading the mix. BA HA.

By the end of the evening we made a few tweeks to the track ended up spending a great deal of time just catching up and referencing books, records and talking about the use of major and minor chords in Jungle / Drum & Bass tracks. Which was totally needed as my brain was swimming from all the new program data I was trying to take in.

Big Props to Rob One at Surface Noise Productions for having me out and tearing apart my project.
Respect
- The Librarian

RANDOMNESS: How Clubbing Changed the World

RANDOMNESS: All rise for members of 'The Jungle Council' by Jamie S23

The Jungle Council, probably one of those undisclosed subjects only to be talked about in secret locations or at the back of your local record shop. A name the majority of under 30’s currently into the upfront Drum & Bass scene will probably never come across and a topic that nobody really knows too much about.

Cast your mind back to the glorious days of Jungle, where quality control was pretty high, record shops were in abundance and only a handful of producers, DJ’s and MC’s existed. It was this controlled environment that everyone seemed to thrive on, the ravers knew the big name artists, the bedroom DJs knew the labels to buy and large scale event promoters could be counted on one hand. The Jungle scene had pretty much exploded soon after its evolution from the Hardcore scene and while some DJ’s were still fusing the two styles it was clear which paths artists were going to follow. But the big question was, who was actually in control?

I think this is where the idea behind ‘The Jungle Council’ came in, that’s if the event actually happened but this is how I assume it went..

M-Beat featuring General Levy released ‘Incredible’ on Renk Records in the summer of 1994 which proved to be incredibly popular, both with the Jungle ravers and an unsuspecting commercial crowd. But who is this General Levy and why is he on a Jungle track? Why did he then go on to break the top40 sales chart and remain in the top 10 for 3 weeks? What was he doing on Top of the Pops? These questions surely need answers?

The story starts with members of the Jungle elite arranging a meeting to discuss General Levy, this probably happened around the time when he proclaimed, or so they say, that he ‘ran Jungle’. I picture the scene something along the lines of Rebel MC, Grooverider, Fabio, Shy FX, Goldie, Ray Keith, DJ Rap, 5ive-O, Moose and others getting together to bring down this ‘Incredible’ tune.

This was the first time that Jungle had seen commercial success, granted the likes of Smart-E’s rocketed the rave scene into the charts in 1992 with a rip off of the Sesame Street theme tune but in terms of Jungle music this was something unseen. Levy’s track was banned from sets across Jungle raves, even promoters were roped in on the act to ensure that ‘Incredible’ wasn’t played. You would be hard pressed to hear the track being played by any of the assumed members of the Council during the summer of ‘94.

5ive-O in true fashion famously ranted about General Levy at a Roast event in July 1994, the set can be found on Youtube here. Moose joins in on the action on the full set but 5ive-O is clearly dedicated to the cause of burying Levy as far into the ground as possible. It’s superb in some respect to hear the passion in his voice, his dedication to the cause as such - you have to give him credit for his public service announcements, even the one about the stolen jacket will go down in Jungle history.

It was documented in All Crews that the main grievance with ‘Incredible’ was that it gave Jungle to the wrong people, providing access to what was once a undiluted underground movement to the mainstream.

General Levy’s biggest downturn was probably signing an autograph “Maximum Big up, From De Origigional Junglist - General Levy”. Considering he was about as original as a ‘classic Jungle’ set by DJ Phantasy it was no wonder that this caused the problems it did.

I remember reading about the mass overload of Ragga influence in Jungle around and shortly after the release of Incredible. At first I think this was probably welcomed until the likes of every man and his dog was pushing out ‘Ragga Jungle Hits Volume 250’.

You have to give Shy FX and UK Apachi credit, considering they released Original Nutta in the same year and the track literally blew up. The reason why this track wasn’t also banned was probably because Shy FX did the groundwork releasing his first tune in 1992 and signing to SOUR shortly after, in 1994. This is the key difference between Shy FX and General Levy - he earned the respect and probably why Shy FX got away with releasing more commercially acceptable tunes such as Shake Ur Body and Don’t Wanna Know years later. That or the fact that by this point nobody seemed to care about foundation or understand where Shy FX came from.

‘Incredible’ reared its rinsed to death head in 2002, this time featuring on Ali G’s - Ali G Indahouse. This then led to the youth of that era incorrectly repeating the lyrics as “Jungle is massive” and spawned even more ‘Jungle’ compilations.

Kool FM’s Maddness interviewed DJ Rap in March this year and briefly touched on the subject.

During the interview, Rap is adamant she strongly opposed the movement and even offers to make a tune with Levy. The World Dance New Years Eve beef with Ray Keith also gets a mention, I am certain that if ‘The Jungle Council’ existed then, the actions at New Year 2000 are connected.

Download the interview via Mediafire here.


Rumours come and go and from time to time new pieces to the story are added - pieces that are potentially made up on forums to add some spice to certain events, like the tale of the council meeting around the start of the millenium to force producers to slow down the BPM of the music they were making. Did this ever happen? I have no idea but I suspect Fabio & Grooverider had something to do with it and Clipz had absolutely nothing to say on the subject!

SOURCE: [section23.co.uk]

OTHER MUSIC: All Prisoners of Technology Mix

All Prisoners of Technology mix

1) Prisoners of Technology - Total Control - Fresh Kutt 03 - 1997
2) Prisoners of Technology - Cold Blooded (Pay Up Mix) - Fresh Kutt 06 - 1998
3) Prisoners of Technology - FEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLL (Bruce’s Bonus Mix) - Fresh Kutt 01 - 1997
4) Prionsers of Technology - Intoxicate (Intense Mix) - Fresh Kutt 10 - 1999
5) Prionsers of Technology - Push Da Button (Fresh Mix) - Fresh Kutt 02 - 1996
6) Prisoners of Technology - Tha Boggiee (Freaks Mix) - Fresh Kutt 05 - 1998
7) Prisoners of Technology - One-Two (World Cup ‘98 Mix) - Fresh Kutt 07 - 1998
8) Prisoners of Technology - Mother Fu@’in Real (K Dub XXX Rated Mix) - Fresh Kutt 08 - 1998
9) Prisoners of Technology - Delikutt Beats (Remix) - Fresh Kutt 10 - 1999
10) Prisoners of Technology - The Trick Of Technology (Time To Work Mix) - Fresh Kutt 01 - 1997
11) Prisoners of Technology - Crazzzy (Re-hab Mix) - Fresh Kutt 06 - 1998
12) Prisoners of Technology - Battle Master (Life Story Mix) - Fresh Kutt 03 - 1997
13) Prisoners of Technology - Doomsday Boy (Kids Of Death Remix) - Fresh Kutt 09 - 1998
14) Prisoners of Technology - Deadly Technique - Battlemaster Records TMS007 - 2004

This is long overdue, a mix that I should have put together at the end of 1999 to celebrate the release of the Bass 99 EP but at the time, for some strange reason, I didn’t have a full back catalogue. Thankfully I do now and this mix will hopefully show those that have only heard ‘Trick of Technology’, that the collective that was Prisoners of Technology were a huge force to be reckoned with during the 90’s.

TMS 1 made a short but appreciated rebirth to the online scene some time ago, I remember speaking to him about the future of Prisoners of Technology and Fresh Kutt, I got the feeling at the time that the era had passed him by, perhaps a new chapter had already opened? Perhaps he had ‘done a Mampi Swift’ and buggered off to America undercover? Needless to say though, his spirit and love for the scene was certainly apparent, although it was probably the love for the scene during its hey day that I am referring to.

What made tracks on this label special were the mixture of deep, sublow basslines combined with a heavy Hip Hop influence in terms of sample sources and cut up beats along with a desire to create dance floor monsters.

I hear all the time these days about people ‘skaking out’ although I don’t think they would appreciate this term until they heard Intoxicate on a huge system alongside Bassman and Trigga. This, in my opinion, is the definition of the term. If this is a tune that’s passed you by it’s certainly worth tracking down - the new school Jump Up DJ’s should stick it in a set, I would bet 50p that it would cause mayhem.

My favourite track from the label is probably The Flavour ‘98, at the time of release I wasn’t too sure where Drum & Bass was going for me. It was around the time where I don’t think a lot of popular producers knew the answer either and this release was a defining moment in terms of saving a confused genre. Jump Up soon became something new in ‘99, gone were certain factors that made it fun - this all kind of sorted itself out though after a short while but we won’t speak about the current state of affairs in this write up.

I’m not even going to mention the horrific remix in 2001 by Sub Zero, I am sure even he knows it was bloody terrible.

*TMS 1, K Dub and DJ Magic were Prisoners of Technology until 1998. TMS1 then continued as a solo artist until 2004.

Discogs link: http://www.discogs.com/label/Fresh+Kutt+Records
Download and stream here
Or via Soundcloud here

SOURCE : [section23.co.uk]

NOTES FROM THE LIBRARIAN:
Prisoners of Technology captured my attention with "True Born", back in 1999 or 2000 when I found there record in a small record store in Athens Ohio. Its dark melodic bass rattled my imagination. Later I would find out they were the creators of "FEEEEEEEEEEL" one of my all time favorite tracks of the day. This mix bring me back to those day, when i would dance my way round campus with my bright ass yellow walkman. Hat tip for all the memories.
- The librarian