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MP3s - to rip or to purchase?


joeClockwork

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I'm thinking about getting back into DJing out, for the first time in nearly ten years! I could do with the pocket money really.

 

Anyway, I pulled out a load of my club records and most of them are covered in some kind of ambiguous substance. Some are unplayable, but some are all right.

 

So my question is: would you go to the effort of cleaning all the crap off and then ripping everything to MP3 or would you just hit a site like Beatport and buy it all up again? I'm thinking that if I spend £150 on tunes it should pay for itself after the first gig or two.

 

Also, do you use WAV or MP3 when you're out?

 

Cheers.

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I buy/borrow second hand CDs of things I have on vinyl . Better quality than MP3 and usually way better value for money. Beatport is extortionate for wav files.

 

Good point, I hadn't thought of that.

 

EDIT: what do you do about singles and instrumentals, etc?

 

 

I'm sure I would have at least a few mp3s you're looking for, could help.

 

Nice one, thanks man!

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I went through a phase of thinking I would rip my vinyl, but it's too tedious and sound quality can be average - plus for extraordinaryly monotonous electronic music I noticed a bit of timing wobble if trying to warp them in Ableton. Generally CDs are a good bet, but you won't always get everything. Funnily on at least one label I bought stuff online from, it sounded like they had basically just ripped the vinyl themselves! Presumably they lost the masters.

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You have to value your time and put a price on the time it takes you to rip em, and then see if it's worth it.

 

Also, I ripped a load of vinyl and my harddrive crashed before i got to back it up, so as with hiphop 12s... two copies are essential.

Gonna cost me 5-600 quid apparently to get that HD fixed, it was 3 years ago and I haven't done anything with it since...

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Exactly, will take half your life to rip even a crate of vinyl, could pick up quite a few compilation CDs on the cheap which could get you through a gigs depending on what you wanna play. Send me.a.msg sometime and let me know what you're after.

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i try to rip vinyl first time i play it anyway, so its gona be as good as possible and it's just done, seeing as i'll be listening to it anyway....

 

but yeah digital mastering for digital files would be one argument to buy wavs.

 

i still don't trust mp3s..... but i would play em if i had to.

 

i tihnk this is why people subscribe to record pools - you get instrumentals and accas and even stems of all sorts of shit

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i try to rip vinyl first time i play it anyway, so its gona be as good as possible and it's just done, seeing as i'll be listening to it anyway....

 

but yeah digital mastering for digital files would be one argument to buy wavs.

 

i still don't trust mp3s..... but i would play em if i had to.

 

i tihnk this is why people subscribe to record pools - you get instrumentals and accas and even stems of all sorts of shit

 

Are 320k MP3s really that bad? I know the quality's not as good as WAV or CD but it is really that noticeable?

Exactly, will take half your life to rip even a crate of vinyl, could pick up quite a few compilation CDs on the cheap which could get you through a gigs depending on what you wanna play. Send me.a.msg sometime and let me know what you're after.

 

Will do, thanks mate.

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Yeah I don't bother with flacs or wavs, just take up too much space and I'm forever trying to free up HD space as it is.

I aim to get 320 or worst 192kbps tracks but I've done the odd wedding and things with tracks taken off YouTube otherwise I'd end up forking out loads for horrible music is use only once. People complain about a lot during my sets but the sound quality hasn't ever been mentioned ;-) for the venue's I'll be doing 192/320 mp3s are more than fine....

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1994hiphop.com was a brilliant resource for great HH but now they use some crappy sharing sites that only let you get one file per day which is a shame as they have pretty much every rap album there. I don't mess with torrents etc, especially for anything moderately well known as a mate got fined 3000 just for getting one album.

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But yeah there's quite a few blogs online that will have a lot of music to DL , if it's hip-hop youre after. Any other genres I do get from Juno or beatport.

Depending on what style you want following a lot of people on SoundCloud etc and a few choice blogs and you'll pretty quickly build up a decent selection of free DLs and edits

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If you're looking for any pop/mainstream stuff for wedding/club gigs and what not, you can score a grip of good stuff off http://mp3poolonline.com/ in addition to various genres, like trap, twerk, etc. Also, as others have stated, purchasing used CDs is a cheap and quick process for beefing up your digital arsenal.

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I'm tempted to use that program Mike, but does it have processes always running in the background? I try to run lean and clean, namely for DJn and design, so reluctant to install hungry programs or ones that don't have an off switch.

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you've also got the DJ City and Beat Junkies record pools. Too pricey for me atm but I'd be curious how much you can access in your first month etc...

Just a heads up though, DJ City's preview player will curse your ears -- everything sounds crazy flat. If you're listening to a track or two that's one thing, but when you're sifting through a ton of ish, it can jack your ears. I literally felt it in my shoulders and back while listening, even the next day, to the point where I completely stopped using their record pool and kissed my $90 away.

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