DGee
Hi Everyone,
Well this Friday will be my first gig using VDJ. I have been ripping and compressing and sorting for the past 4 months. I've got to admit that this was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I ripped over a third of my music only to find that when listening to a sampling of the tracks, every fifth track or so was bad. Instead of using the slow DVD/CDRW unit on my laptop to rip the CDs , I bought a 52X CDROM unit and connected it via USB to the laptop and used it. What a mistake, The sound was all garbled, the music skipped all over the place, most tracks were unuseable and I would have to listen to every single one to make sure. I deleted the whole library and started over. I bought a CDRW burner and tried that and have had pretty good success, but there are just some tracks that it can't rip. I then have to rip just those tracks using the laptops own CD drive and that has worked fine, but oh the waste of time. I then decided to use Platinum Notes software to compress the files to MP3s at 320Kbits. Sounds easy enough. It worked fine but in listening to the tracks, the cymbals were all messed up for some reason. I used the function to correct the pitch of the music in Platinum Notes and to my ears, this just does not work well for all music types. So I had to go through and wipe out all the MP3s and then compress again with that function turned off, sigh, another waste of time! I then started to rip my Promo Only CDs. Well easy enough but you end up with a CD that has no Artist or Track info. I then had to go and download the text files from their website for every CD in my collection from volume 64 to volume 154. I had to buy a program that allows you to assign a text file of filenames to a buch of nameless files. Again, easy to do but I had to massage all those filenames in Excel to get rid of all the extra info I did not want, then use a text editor to convert the tab delimited files to the format with the space - hyphen needed for Artist and Title. So now i'm thinking , is it really worth all this trouble. In order to help sort the files and make them easier to manage I left the track numbers in and Platinum Notes leaves the MP3s with a _PN at the end of each filename. I then used a bulk file renamer to get rid of the extra info I didin't need. I transferred all my ripped tracks, nicely labled, nicely compressed to my working drive and then immediatley deleted everything in the blink of an eye using a DOS command to get rid of the ripped wave files off the drive. I then spent the next 24 hours using the undelete command from a recovery program to get over 700 tracks back. You know, using Cds is not really that bad now that i think about it, sigh!
So after 4 months I still only have a third of my collection done, but I have all the current stuff on the laptop. I then thought, why not burn my Xmas CDs as well. I'll use them for background music at the party. I ripped them, I used Platinum Notes to compress them, I transferred them, then I listened to them. Oh No, many of the CDs had distortion throughout, It was subtle in some cases and downright awful in others. It seems that there are just some Cds out there that are processed in some way and they don't compress properly for some reason. Well i think i found all of those CDs. You know, carrying around all those LPs was really not that bad now that i think about it. I then used Sound Forges' Batch Convertor to convert those tracks to MP3s but I had to do it twice, because using -13 db normalization still caused distortion but -16 db did not. Maybe i should just get out of the DJ business all together, it's just too stressful.
In between all this I bought the RME Hammerfall DSP Mulitface II cardbus PCMCIA card for my laptop. I had the money and it is one of the best cards you can get. It took two months to arrive. I excitedly but carefully unpacked it, put it all together went to plug it into the laptop, and guess what, my laptop does not have a PCMCIA slot. It has a PCI express slot. What to do what to do. Well, RME is coming out with a new card sometime in December for another $400 but i need it now. I found a company that makes a $65 adapter. It arrived and I went to plug it all in and ended up with a card in an adapter that stuck out of my laptop a good 6 inches or more. --- For sale, complete DJ setup. Previous owner went mental!!!! To make a long story short, I took it back and got an M-Audio firewire 410 and it works just fine.
So Friday night I am using VDJ with my Numark total control for the first time with all my more current music, and taking my two CDJ 1000s and the other two thirds of my music with me as well. If all goes well I will report back. If not, you may read my obituary in Saturdays' paper.
Thanks for letting me vent,
-DGee
Well this Friday will be my first gig using VDJ. I have been ripping and compressing and sorting for the past 4 months. I've got to admit that this was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I ripped over a third of my music only to find that when listening to a sampling of the tracks, every fifth track or so was bad. Instead of using the slow DVD/CDRW unit on my laptop to rip the CDs , I bought a 52X CDROM unit and connected it via USB to the laptop and used it. What a mistake, The sound was all garbled, the music skipped all over the place, most tracks were unuseable and I would have to listen to every single one to make sure. I deleted the whole library and started over. I bought a CDRW burner and tried that and have had pretty good success, but there are just some tracks that it can't rip. I then have to rip just those tracks using the laptops own CD drive and that has worked fine, but oh the waste of time. I then decided to use Platinum Notes software to compress the files to MP3s at 320Kbits. Sounds easy enough. It worked fine but in listening to the tracks, the cymbals were all messed up for some reason. I used the function to correct the pitch of the music in Platinum Notes and to my ears, this just does not work well for all music types. So I had to go through and wipe out all the MP3s and then compress again with that function turned off, sigh, another waste of time! I then started to rip my Promo Only CDs. Well easy enough but you end up with a CD that has no Artist or Track info. I then had to go and download the text files from their website for every CD in my collection from volume 64 to volume 154. I had to buy a program that allows you to assign a text file of filenames to a buch of nameless files. Again, easy to do but I had to massage all those filenames in Excel to get rid of all the extra info I did not want, then use a text editor to convert the tab delimited files to the format with the space - hyphen needed for Artist and Title. So now i'm thinking , is it really worth all this trouble. In order to help sort the files and make them easier to manage I left the track numbers in and Platinum Notes leaves the MP3s with a _PN at the end of each filename. I then used a bulk file renamer to get rid of the extra info I didin't need. I transferred all my ripped tracks, nicely labled, nicely compressed to my working drive and then immediatley deleted everything in the blink of an eye using a DOS command to get rid of the ripped wave files off the drive. I then spent the next 24 hours using the undelete command from a recovery program to get over 700 tracks back. You know, using Cds is not really that bad now that i think about it, sigh!
So after 4 months I still only have a third of my collection done, but I have all the current stuff on the laptop. I then thought, why not burn my Xmas CDs as well. I'll use them for background music at the party. I ripped them, I used Platinum Notes to compress them, I transferred them, then I listened to them. Oh No, many of the CDs had distortion throughout, It was subtle in some cases and downright awful in others. It seems that there are just some Cds out there that are processed in some way and they don't compress properly for some reason. Well i think i found all of those CDs. You know, carrying around all those LPs was really not that bad now that i think about it. I then used Sound Forges' Batch Convertor to convert those tracks to MP3s but I had to do it twice, because using -13 db normalization still caused distortion but -16 db did not. Maybe i should just get out of the DJ business all together, it's just too stressful.
In between all this I bought the RME Hammerfall DSP Mulitface II cardbus PCMCIA card for my laptop. I had the money and it is one of the best cards you can get. It took two months to arrive. I excitedly but carefully unpacked it, put it all together went to plug it into the laptop, and guess what, my laptop does not have a PCMCIA slot. It has a PCI express slot. What to do what to do. Well, RME is coming out with a new card sometime in December for another $400 but i need it now. I found a company that makes a $65 adapter. It arrived and I went to plug it all in and ended up with a card in an adapter that stuck out of my laptop a good 6 inches or more. --- For sale, complete DJ setup. Previous owner went mental!!!! To make a long story short, I took it back and got an M-Audio firewire 410 and it works just fine.
So Friday night I am using VDJ with my Numark total control for the first time with all my more current music, and taking my two CDJ 1000s and the other two thirds of my music with me as well. If all goes well I will report back. If not, you may read my obituary in Saturdays' paper.
Thanks for letting me vent,
-DGee
发表时间 Wed 12 Dec 07 @ 11:24 pm
ConQuest
Wow.
Now I know how other people feel reading my posts! =P
Good luck on Friday night DGee and let us know how it goes. ;)
- VT ConQuest
(Visual Turntablist)
Now I know how other people feel reading my posts! =P
Good luck on Friday night DGee and let us know how it goes. ;)
- VT ConQuest
(Visual Turntablist)
发表时间 Thu 13 Dec 07 @ 12:00 am
A Man and His Music
Please wait til you get home, before you slit you wrist. If you do it at the gig, it could make people thing twice about hiring a DJ.
Hope everything goes well.
Hope everything goes well.
发表时间 Thu 13 Dec 07 @ 3:15 am
k_one
ConQuest wrote :
Wow.
Now I know how other people feel reading my posts! =P
Wow.
Now I know how other people feel reading my posts! =P
LOL!
发表时间 Thu 13 Dec 07 @ 7:17 am
Paz75
That sux DGee, my heart goes out to you m8. I'm looking at the RME Hammerfall series as well, but I already know my laptop has Xpresscard.
Not to worry though, you can get Xpresscard to cardbus adaptors easily enough. Check this out:
http://www.meritline.com/cardbus-adapter.html
Im going to buy a RME Hamerfall PCI Express and just get an Expresscard bus extender. It means I'll have to lug a second box around, but at least i'll still have the 2.5gb/s bus-speed.
About your CDs, I suggest not to compress, just leave them alone. PArt of CD mastery is to already compress the crap out of the signal, so compressing them futher will just induce clipping. It's not really necessary anyhow since you have gain on both VDJ and your mixer.
Best rule of thumb is to modify the recording as little as possible unless absolutley necessary and do it on the fly. Saves time and hassle, and no recording is the same so you'll have to do it anyways.
Even with digital downloads, there are huge variances from file to file.
Not to worry though, you can get Xpresscard to cardbus adaptors easily enough. Check this out:
http://www.meritline.com/cardbus-adapter.html
Im going to buy a RME Hamerfall PCI Express and just get an Expresscard bus extender. It means I'll have to lug a second box around, but at least i'll still have the 2.5gb/s bus-speed.
About your CDs, I suggest not to compress, just leave them alone. PArt of CD mastery is to already compress the crap out of the signal, so compressing them futher will just induce clipping. It's not really necessary anyhow since you have gain on both VDJ and your mixer.
Best rule of thumb is to modify the recording as little as possible unless absolutley necessary and do it on the fly. Saves time and hassle, and no recording is the same so you'll have to do it anyways.
Even with digital downloads, there are huge variances from file to file.
发表时间 Thu 13 Dec 07 @ 10:03 am