House/Techno vos classiques oldschool!

Citation : "Well, I really hate the sound of MP3 files when playing out. Even CD's make my ears cringe. By now that should be fairly common knowledge.

Although I try and avoid them at ANY costs, there are situations - like today - where I am out of town and will be playing for a very large crowd tonight, and definitely need some fresh new music, which I can only get by downloading from a Digital Download Store that doesn't carry .wav files, only 320 Kb/s MP3 files.

So here's a little recipe I cooked up to try and improve sound quality while on the road, so when I play the processed files in a very large sound system they sound like something more or less bearable.

First, purchase and download the highest-resolution file you can, 320 kB/s in my case.

Then, immediately convert and save the file to 24-bit / 44.1 audio format. (I use the obsolete audio app TC Spark for that, but anything will do, really; Wavelab or SoundForge on a PC, or Peak or Logic Pro on the Mac would serve just as well)

Now you have a file which can be further processed at high-resolution.

Next, (VERY IMPORTANT) you immediately notice that the files usually are 'finalized' to death, made so loud that nothing more can be done to them, so in my case I dropped the total level about 4 db. (Go > 'change gain' -4 dB - Apply)

Once the level is down, I apply a multi-band compressor, it's a bit tedious playing with 3 or 4 separate attacks, releases, tresholds and so on. Used a Waves C4 this time, could just as well be the one in Logic Audio which I really fancy.

The result is that suddenly the file appears to be regaining some dynamic range, where the waveform was flat-lined at -4 dB, it has now peaks that sometimes reach up to 0 dB again, as well as some quieter passages.

Already sound a bit better to me.

Next, drop the level again... by about 3 dB or so. ('change gain')

After the gain is down for the second time, then apply a 'PSP Vintage Warmer' plug-in to the whole mix, the setting I liked was 'Mix semiDriven Tape' and then as if by magic, the mix has again regained much extra punch and gain, but not as before (brick-wall limiting effect with flattened waveform at -.01 dB), now it actually has real peaks and some lower parts.

Save your file, and hopefully it will sounds halfway decent on a big sound system. Even on my little hotel room speakers, I can already feel some of the harshness gone from the high frequencies, and a definite warmer bottom end.

Yeah, not ideal, but sometimes you have to work with what you have.

Curious to hear what else others may have done like this.

Of course, at home I would just pass it through a tape deck and re-touch it with a GML EQ and not have to worry too much, but this is not a luxury one has in a hotel room!! LOL!

Maybe this will help someone else who has been trying to do the same?...

FK"

Citation : il doit avoir un son trés écrasé et un grain assez particulier au final

Citation : En plus, c'est vraiment vachement bourrin le PSP Vintage Warmer...