First party with SSL. Distortion problems.

Hi.
Yesterday I was playing my first party with SSL.
In club I had like 5 minutes to connect everything (there were bad vision conditions in club so it was hard to even see wich one is "line" wich one is "phono"). I connected everything (probably well). My PowerBook and SSL worked well for 2 hours and I had no problems with stability but my main problem was sound.
Most of my mp3 are 196kbps. I thought that its ok. At home when I play everything it doesnt sound amazing but sounds ok. But that night at club whole sound was distorted.
My main Gain in SSL is set on 3/4 or even more. Track's gains are almost on "12 o clock".
I turned gains in mixer lower, and in the same time turned master up.
But sound was still bad.
My friends who didnt know what was that were like "Yeah.. but It still sounds like mp3 man. I wouldn buy that SSL for me" or "Its distorted. Try do something with that" :) .
So can anyone say is 196kbps mp3 too wack for playing in club? What could be problem wich caused this whole distortion.
I know that club amps could be bad and its not my fault but I believe my friend who played after me (he uses normal 12") had better sound.

Thanks.

I would at least use 256 or lossless like wav when playing in clubs. I got many 192s, but I don't go out so often these days so I wouldn't know how they sound.

You could always try it on another system and see if there's any noticable difference.

Problems is I usualy dont have much time to set everything, make sound check and stuff. You just came to club and sound is wack. And what to do? :)
Did anyone had similar situation?
"Does YOUR SSL sound nice in club?" :))

It might be ok if it was converted from it's master (vinyl, CD, etc)well... I notice that same thing with some poorly ripped MP3 files. If you are encoding them yourself, use the highest bitrate possible (320 kbps for MP3s) or consider using .ogg files - or even uncompressed .wav or .aiff files. Where do you get most of your MP3s from? Would you be able to reencode the files that you did yourself?

Szalony, I assume you mean 192kbps. as Detroitbootybass said, try to encode tracks yourself, to be sure you get the best quality (obviously you need proper equipment, at least if there is any analog sub path). Besides that, its shocking how many people know only a very little about encoding and reencoding etc. Many assume, if you have a shitty 128kbps file and reencode that at 320kbps you end up with original 320kbps quality, which.. (we all know ;) ) is wrong. That is also why so many p2p files sound like ish. I have come across 128kbps which sounded better thatn 320kbps file in other peoples collections, funny, but not surprising after all.

To answer your last question, yeah SSL sounds nice in the club. Maybe to check whether its SSLs fault or the club sound systems fault, always keep a reference uncompressed wav file, which you play so you can compare how it sounds like (played directly from a cd) and how it sounds coming out of your SSL (uncompressed...) :)

Do your mp3s sound distorted in your headphones straight out of Itunes?
SLL should sound very good.
P.S. buy a mini flashlight and put it in your record bag!

Did you mean 192 or 196? Not implying anything, but where did you get these files from?

Most of my mp3 are from P2P and usually its written "192kbps" :). Well, if file after download sounds bad I usually put it in to Trash. I try to take only good sounding mp3. But in club it still sounded distorted. I think (if 192kbps is ok) it can be gain problem.. I have written that My Main Gain in SSL program is on over 3/4. Could this cause distortion?
I had no time in middle of party to check sound connections and equipment so I cant say much more that main club mixer was Dynacord. My Stanton dj mixer Was connected right in to Dynacord.
I dont want to go to another party and get same sound. That why I try to compare my settings with other users settings.

I also sampled some of my 12" but sound is worst than on mp3.

skutch - no, sound was ok in my headphones but monitors played distorted sound. You say that if SSL was distorted they sound in headphones would be bad?
Flashlight, I will remember that. :) Thanks.

they = then. Sorry

Turn your master gain down to the 12 o'clock position. Next turn the individual channel gains to 12 o'clock. Are you 'red-lining' on the meter in Scratch Live (next to the MP3 that is playing)? Most inexperienced encoders seem to clip their songs. Since you get most of your files from other people, you most likely have poor quality files. Grab some files from a 'digital download' section of a record label. These usually are encoded better. See if some higer quality files doesn't solve your problem.

What kind of cartridge did you use for the recording?

Szalony, your gains should be all at 12oclock position, check this post here scratchlive.net .

Also, what sound card was used on the computer that recorded the 12"s?

Stanton. That says it all. They have sent out some signal that makes all of their mixers that receives their input from SSL go distorted.

Have you checked your cables, man?

Also, a lot of files from P2P are pretty bad quality, even if they claim to be 192s or better. Some of them are really 128s...

Are the files you recorded 320s?

Headphones are the last place that you would hear a poor quality file... unless you have really crappy speakers.

No No, I wasn't asking if the SSL was good the phones...Do your audio files sound good...

Detroit - I will turn my main SSL gain to 12 o'clock. My individual gains are usualy on 11 o'clock; I try to not get red light on meters.
I used my Ortofon Scratch. I know its not good for sampling and it used by me for sratching... :)
I was told that after sampling (with good needle like Ortofon PRO) I can pump up sound A little bit with compresor or something. Do You have any expirience with sampling 12" for SSL use?
Card was PCI type Maya44. It has some lower noiselevel than typical Soundblaster.

Nik39 - Thanks. Probably my out signal from SSL was like +4db or something... :)

Revolutionary - What? :) You say that Stanton specially made their mixers that way so they cant sound good with SSL? :)) Dont believe it. :)
My cables were ok. Dont know what about club cables.. :)
Files that I have recorded (sampled from 12") are Wav.

skutch - most of them sound ok on my Yamaha msp5 studio monitors.. :) I mixed in home with my SSL and it all sounded "ok". It wasnt amazing but not as bad as in the club.

You can, but that is really more of a production trick. It doesn't work too well with vinyl (vs. studio quality kicks/snares/etc). If you give it too much, you will have mass distortion. Most people give it way too much and you still wouldn't want to do it to every song (maybe only a couple tracks). You still need to archive your collection with the best possible sound quality files (flat-response with no clipping) so you can later try some subtle tricks (like using a compressor)on a few tracks. You need to research and invest in a high quality recording cartridge.

Thanks, can You say wich one would be ok? I need to buy some cartridge specially for sampling and dont know wich one. My friend, producer who is also owner of studio uses this Ortofon PRO Concorde. Will that be ok? Maby You could give me some advices about recording. Like should I record thru my Rane TTM56 mixer or better thru good quality amp etc.

The signal is getting stronger, my dear friend. When one hears German voices through your professional audio mixer (like I did some time back), it is certainly Stanton listening from the German Native Instruments headquarters.
They just forgot to turn off the two-way thing...

were the cirls in the setup round????? if they were i have no suggestions. except that you set-up in the wrong chanels of the mixer.

rane will love me for this, but i have to say i play 128 files and have no problems. this program rocks. i have even had a 40 signal strengeth and have no problems.

Rane - if u guys read this i would be interested in discussing some marketing/advertising ideas.

circles, sorry not cirls

Whats that?

in the setup screen on the bottom of each graph is the signal strength. its supposed to be 100%. for whatever reason the best signal i could get was 40%. still played fine.

Don't use a DJ cartridge for recording. They (dj carts) change the sound by boosting certain frequencies (which is called 'coloring'). You need to research different quality recording cartridges on the internet like Grado, Shure, Roksan, Koetsu, Dynavector,etc. Find one that you like and that is in your price range.


Recording throught the Rane mixer will be good.

No no. I specially re-setup my "rounds screen" in club so it could fit better to their Stanton mixer. :)

And setup of cables was probably also good.

Hmmm. What you could do if you ever go to that club again is to open iTunes or Windows Media Player or something like that and hook up your soundcard's output to the amp and play the files you did. If they still sound bad, it's probably the files themselves, not equipment. I guess you will need to get some extra cables for this, but they aren't that expensive. You might already have that as far as I know.

to me if the sound is fine out of the headphones but not any other speakers its the clubs set up man. they might have had some mickey mouse bullshit cables coming from the mixer to there rack amps or crossovers. believe it or not alot of clubs skimp of the sound and lights then look at the dj's like " yo man can't you do anythign about the sound" i also second what Professor said about 128kps, i too run 95 percent of my files at 128 with NO problems, even with FS i didn't have iussues with sound quality at 128kps

No diss, but there are also lots of bootleg "remixes" (better blends) which sound awfull, really awful, and they are still being pressed on vinyl _and_ people buy them. It surprises me sometimes how some djs cant hear any obvious bad ish quality.

lol, i don't take it as a diss to me. im telling you man for the ammount of space it takes for a 320kps file to a 128k file its not worth it to me. i have played on some really large systems to some really small house systems. im not telling people " hey use 128kps" im telling people, 128kps works for me. secondly you show me ONE club thats ALL DIGITAL and no analog signal or shitty wires, or shitty speakers and ill convert ALL my files to 320kps. its simply not worth it unless its for major reproduction or studio work. again all my cds sound GOOD, sound quality, clear, and clean and i use 128kps files for some of the tracks on them. and yes your right there are some "remixes" but there are also MASTERED 12" that i get that sound horrible. and im not talking joe white label. im talking DEF JAM, SONY, INTERSCOPE, you know the majors.

I agree, I dont know any club where you have a fully digital path, but I am pretty sure, I can tell you when its a 128kbps file, not always but pretty often. Thats why I choose not to play/use 128kbps files. I try to use VBR anyway, which is a big plus compared to CBR files.

Headphones are inferior for gauging 'sound'. They don't offer accuracy throughout the spectrum. Headphones are the LAST place that you would notice a lossy, low-bitrate MP3. Since the person who posted this thread also stated the the DJ right after them had good sound, this is a 'low quality sound file meeting a higher quality club sound system' issue.

Thanks everyone. I will HAVE to arrive to club earlier and check ereything. I remember they had really shitti cables for their CD players.. On other hand they claimed that they have banging soundsystem, JBL's and stuff. I will chave to check that. I thing major problem probably was my Main Gain in SSL. It should be 12 o'clock and it was almost on full.

Detroit - sorry for tire You but could You give me some examples of concrete needles good for sampling? Concrete model of Shure or Ortofon or something well known. I dont know if I get get much more than those two companies in my country.

Shure makes two competent needles for high quality recording:

www.needledoctor.com
this is Shure's best.


www.needledoctor.com
this is the 'budget' version.

- Either one would be a better choice than a DJ cartridge.

i didnt realize the part about the dj after. but secondly i dont know about you but i have real good head phones and can hear things on them you wouldnt hear in the club as far as distortion and clarety. and i also heard VBR is a waste and isnt good to use. i think its a bit over kill but thats me.

dj synystr, well, what you heard about VBR is crap, as it is not a waste, its the other way around! VBR works (outlined) in following way:
It analyzes the audio data, and checks how complex it is. More complex audio parts will get more space and bits, and less complex (like silence eg) will gett less space and bits. So basically CBR is a waste compared to VBR.

And I agree to you about the headphones, there is stuff which I can hear pretty well on headphones, which are not so clear on a loud system. Just my ears and my experience.

actually...VBR just makes for a smaller file it doesn't increase the quality of the file. if anything it actually decreases the quality slightly.

feniks, sorry, but you are wrong. VBR means (nearly) constant quality and variable space usage, while CBR is the opposite. Encoding a track at 192lbps CBR will make all frames use the same amount of bits, which means more complex frames will get the same bits as less complex ones, which will reduce the quality in those complex frames compared to less complex frames. VBR on the other hand will give more bits to more complex frames.

ummmm.....nope. when you encode using VBR what you are doing is telling the encoder to encode less data on the quieter parts of the track (basically it compresses more on the quiet parts as there is usually not enough sound to span the maximum bitrate). the loud or "complex" parts of the track get encoded at the maximum bitrate as they inherently contain more data. this is why with VBR you have to specify a min and max bitrate. the problem lies within the algorithm that is used to determine what parts of the track are quiet or "less complex" and which parts are louder or "more complex." the algorithm is not 100% accurate (and never will be) as each track is unique and different (basically you are applying a static law to a fluid set of data....does that make sense?). bottom line is that you actually get some of the "complex" parts of the track that are not encoded at max bitrate as they should be and vice versa. and while the difference may not be audibly noticeable when you are encoding at higher bitrates it still adds up to the VBR file being inferior to the CBR file. i should mention that at lower bitrates the difference is definitely noticeable, especially on big sound systems. if that is too confusing then think of it this way. when you encode using VBR you are not allowing the encoder to use the maximum bitrate for every frame of music. you actually end up losing data where you shouldn't be. the only advantage of VBR is that you are able to get a smaller (slightly) file with only very lsight decrease in audio quality. i don't know any audiophile who would encode with VBR if given the choice between VBR and CBR. plain and simple....VBR is not better than CBR unless you are simply looking for a smaller file and don't care about the best possible quality of the audio.

Hello DJ colleague, are for now more than 3 months also user of the SSL. Since that time I was content with everything, but since now more than 4 days I heard a problem with the sound if I with SSL on route am the MP3 of songs itself dully/mustily on, whom I play these, which are Orginalen on the non removable disk Sound i.O. if I these over another Player play. Unfortunately my English is not very good, so which I must manage by means of translation program. Does a user speak heir in it also little German?

German Text:
Hallo DJ Kollegen,

bin seit nun mehr als 3 Monaten auch Benutzer des SSL.

Seither war ich mit allem zufrieden, doch seit nun mehr als 4 Tagen habe ich ein Problem mit dem Klang wenn ich mit SSL auf Tour bin.
die MP3 Lieder hören sich dumpf an, wen ich diese abspiele, die Originalen auf der Festplatte sind klanglich i.O. wenn ich diese über einen anderen Player abspiele.
Leider ist mein Englisch nicht sehr gut, so dass ich mir mittels eines Übersetzungsprogramms behelfen muss.
Spricht ein User hier drin auch ein wenig Deutsch?

nik is German. I speak a little bit Germam myself.

Hallo Nick,

hast du schon was von Klangproblemen des SSL mitbekommen?
Ich habe das seit ca. 4-5 Tagen, die Musik, welche ich über SSL abspiele ist matt bzw. dumpf vom Klang her.
Spiele ich den selben Track über Media Player , BPM Studio ab ist er in Ordnung.
Playlist erstelle ich über I Tunes, ohne Klangeinstellung.

Not really, it is not that it is a "fixed" pattern which it looks for. Well okay, it is in a way, cause its a fixed programm code, but it is not static in a way, that it only looks for on criteria. So basically, you are right when you say, that the problem with VBRs are the complexity detection (you are wrong when you say, that it only looks at the volume, and that only low volume parts will get less bits).


Assuming it doesn't detect all complex frames correctly, cause then it wont give the max bitrate for a frame which should get a maxrate according to its complexity.
But you should keep in mind that it will give more bits to correctly detected complex frames than CBR does (when the max VBR bitrate is higher... which it should be cause else using VBR will give you only smaller files but not better quality).


We are talking about encoding with lower bitrates ( <= 192kbps), you are absolutely right when it comes to very high bitrates, then obviously wasting bits on less complex audio (this is what CBR does in the end!) or boosting the quality on less complex audio (thats equivalent) doesnt make such a difference, as complex frames will get enough bits anyway. But this does not apply to lower bitrates (as you allready said).
And you are absolutely right about the complexity detection, its by far not perfect, but its a trade off, and compared to CBR at that lower rates it is superior in most cases (not all!), assuming you allow a maximum bitrate which is higher then the CBR bitrate (else no frames will be encoded with more bits in VBR than encoding it in CBR) as said before.

Agreed? :)

okay....i guess i mostly agree with you. if you specify the max bitrate on the VBR to be higher than 320 (which only specific encoders can do) then you do get frames of music that are encoded at higher bitrates than a 320 CBR file. these encoders are usually the same ones that can encode CBR files higher than 320 also. so if you set the max bitrate of both the CBR file and the VBR file to be the same the CBR file will always be superior (slightly) because of the reason mentioned above. and if you really think about it, there really is no such thing as "wasted data" when compressing a file as every bit of saved data become all that more important. while you may not notice any decrease in audio quality during the less complex parts of the track the fact remains that you are still listening to a section of ther track that is encoded at less than max bitrate (on the less complex parts).

i actually mis-spoke about the VBR detection. you're right nik....it is based on the complexity of the file which is based on more than just volume. however, i think that the volume (or frequency span--how much of the frequency spectrum that frame of music occupies) of the track plays a big part in determining the complexity and so volume actually does play a big part in the detection algorhitim. in the end, though the difference is not audible at all at the high bitrates.

Agreed.


If too many bits are spent on silence, while it could be compressed at a better ratio w/o loosing anymore info, I would call this wasted. But that is not really the point here, what is bad about CBR is that the quality during a file changes. Less complex parts will sound nearly perfect, while more complex parts dont.

We should open a new thread about this discussion. :)

You obviously know very little about the way that mp3 and other perceptual encoding schemes work. Basically the human ear hears in 30 3rd octave bands. Because of the physical nature of the ear it is only possible to hear one sound in each of these bands at one time (the loudest). A VBR perceptual encoder attempts to give more bandwidth to parts of a track where there are more different sounds that the ear would hear.

If you encode a file using CBR at 320k it will most likely be better than a VBR file encoded at a maximum of 320k, but if you encode a file CBR at 192 or 224 it most likely be worse quality than a VBR file that averages the same bitrate but has a a maximum bitrate of 320.

ooooh...you are soooo asking to get flamed for this. but i'll restrain my self. let me say a couple things. first, how the human ear works has absolutely nothing to do with how a VBR encoder works...agreed??? (and btw that's not exactly how the human ear works anyways....i should know i'm a physician--and if you want to argue this point then open a new thread and i'll explain it to you very simply). second, you really haven't stated anything new. this was my whole point...

the only way you're going to get a truely higher quality VBR file is if you set the VBR encoder to have a max bitrate that is higher than the max bitrate of the CBR file. that way you do have certain frames that are encoded at a higher bitrate than the frames in the CBR file. but this still doesn't invalidate my arguement one bit. if both a CBR file and a VBR file are encoded at the same maximum bitrate the CBR will be superior every single time. and just so you know....we are talking about encoding at the highest possible bitrate to give the best quality mp3....which means that it should only be considered a fair comparison if the 2 files are encoded at the same max bitrate...no?

you also bring up a good point about averages. would you agree that the file that has the higher average bitrate is the better quality file? so by that arguement, a VBR has to be inferior as it cuts bitrate at certain parts of the track and therefore decreases the overall average bitrate of the track.

i don't know how else to make it any more plain or more simple. i've been encoding music to mp3 for the last 6 or 7 years.....that's just the facts.

nik....agreed....this should be a seprate thread. sorry SW for jacking your thread. feel free to reclaim it. i'll open a new thread. please put all future replies in that thread. thanks.

new thread will be in the general discussion forum. bring it on bitches! (just kidding). :)

Haha, no no, please, continue. :)

What about PBR? :0

I wonder how many non-Americans will get that?

:-)

For those interested, discussion is continued here scratchlive.net <- click.

I googled for PBR, and found a couple of results... what are you referring to (yeah, I am curious, its not that important though)?

Pabst Blue Ribbon AKA PBR
cheap american beer.

Guess most non-Americans don't get to ride patrol boats either ;)