590 DJ equipment
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 13:04:46 -0400
From: Tanguero Chino <tanguerochino@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject: DJ equipment
Hannes Rieger wrote:
>After serveral years of DJing I finally use a laptop ...
I am thinking of putting my music on my PC just in case I will start DJing some day.
I am interested in hearing from DJs who uses computers what hardware and software they use (or recommend). I would assume that most would be using laptops since they are portable. Is there anyone using the Jukebox MP3 player out there?
Also, what format do you record your music in (VBR MP3, CBR MP3, WMA, etc.)? Is anything over 128 Kbps really not necessary?
Thinking of an out-door milonga...
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 09:58:03 +0200
From: Hannes Rieger <hrieger@GMX.DE>
Subject: Re: DJ equipment
Tanguero Chino wrote:
> I am thinking of putting my music on my PC just in case I will start
> DJing some day. I am interested in hearing from DJs who uses computers
> what hardware and software they use (or recommend).
> I would assume that most would be using laptops since they are portable.
I use a laptop with Pentium III (650 MHz), 128 MB RAM, 5 GB harddisk.
The harddisk is too small, I will buy a 30 GB disk later. I think a
processor with a lower frequence is also ok, depending on the MP3
playing program. A simple program with MP3 archives like Musicmatch
Jukebox works, but you have no possibility to hear songs over earphones
while you play the playlist. So you have to play a preprogrammed
playlist or have to know your songs by name very, very good.
Practically you need a second audio output and a program which
uses it. I use a cheap USB-audio converter, the quality is ok for
monitoring. A (expensive) program with support of the second audio output
is BPM studio, very professional.
> Is there anyone using the Jukebox MP3 player out there?
No idea.
> Also, what format do you record your music in (VBR MP3, CBR MP3, WMA, etc.)?
> Is anything over 128 Kbps really not necessary?
> Thinking of an out-door milonga...
Because of my lack of harddisk space I used 128 Kbps CBR MPR3 and I
have to say, this is ok. The surrounding noises in a milonga - especially
in an out-door milonga - should make it impossible to hear any artefacts.
Nevertheless I will use 192 Kbps if I have more hard disk space.
Hannes
P.S.: A warning: A computer with MP3 archives doesn't relieve you of
knowing your tango songs very well, even if you have the ability to
add notes to the MP3s and sort it in any way. First of all everything
becomes confused. CDs with, for example, 'Post-It' notes gives you a
much better overview.
IMHO the key to make a good work is really endless hearing of your CDs.
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 01:51:11 +0200
From: "Kohlhaas, Bernhard" <bernhard.kohlhaas@SAP.COM>
Subject: Re: DJ equipment
I'm not a professional DJ either, although I've done it a few times at
private tango parties.
I am using a laptop (500MHz Pentium III, 256 MB RAM, Windows 2000,
10 GB internal HD) but have all my tango files on an external 30GB
Harddrive.
(If you are looking for a new laptop, go for on with a big INTERNAL HD
instead,
as the external HD is one more potential cause of system failure).
I record my files as mp3s with ExactAudioCopy as Ripper
(https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/), which (in my setup) calls LAME as mp3
encoder.
I use VBR encoding, but set the quality so high, that it is usually
somewhere
between 160-256 kbps. I'd rather be safe than sorry. I use about 10 GB
diskspace for 1700 tangos, valses and milongas, plus some non-tango stuff,
so with 30 GB drives becoming standard for laptops, the encoding rate
shouldn't be that much of an issue.
A good mp3 management program is MP3 Collector
(https://www.collectorz.com/mp3/), although it doesn't manage mulitple
playlists.
(Anybody knows a good MP3 management program with integrated management
of multiple playlists).
I've precompiled about 50 tandas as M3U playlists and just drag and drop
them into my Winamp (https://www.winamp.com/) player.
A potential danger here is, that your playlists contain broken links
(after you've renamed or moved some MP3s), so I wrote
myself a crude program to check my playlists for broken links.
If I were to DJ a milonga, I'd carry some backup CDs with tanda compilations
and
a CD player with me, just in case the laptop crashes or fails completely.
Bernhard
-----Original Message-----
From: Tanguero Chino [mailto:tanguerochino@NETSCAPE.NET]
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 10:05 AM
To: TANGO-L@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: [TANGO-L] DJ equipment
Hannes Rieger wrote:
>After serveral years of DJing I finally use a laptop ...
I am thinking of putting my music on my PC just in case I will start DJing
some day.
I am interested in hearing from DJs who uses computers what hardware and
software they use (or recommend). I would assume that most would be using
laptops since they are portable. Is there anyone using the Jukebox MP3
player out there?
Also, what format do you record your music in (VBR MP3, CBR MP3, WMA, etc.)?
Is anything over 128 Kbps really not necessary?
Thinking of an out-door milonga...
