Karaoke Forums

I may be opening up a can of worms here..but here goes.

I was comparing some karaoke songs this morning, picking out the best versions from those I had available. I played the original song on Youtube before listening to the karaoke files. Now often the choice is stark. On one track the rhythm section may be great while the backing vocals are rubbish. On another version it could be the opposite. Or maybe that sax on 'Baker Street' sounds more like an oboe or the horn on a Morris Mini car.

But I began to notice a bias creeping in. One manufacturer seemed to be hitting the spot more often than the others. And analysing the band's performance told me it wasn't that that was making the difference.

Then I realised that the karaoke tracks I tended to prefer sounded brighter, more alive. So I checked the sample rate. Oh, boy, what an eye-opener. While almost every mp3 from Sound Choice or Sunfly was sampled at 128kbps (a rate that would have any audiophile turning away in disgust) one manufacturer (Sing To The World) seems to consistently sample at 224 kbps. So, everything else being equal, I always preferred their version.

Now we really open the can; I read all the comments in the Technical Section regarding the best:
Amp
Speakers
Mixers
Microphones etc.

Sorry guys. But while we're shoveling such poorly recorded music through that equipment, the quality of our PA systems will always struggle to give out good sounds. To quote (somebody) in the computer world; CICO or, Crap in - crap out. If I was a cynic I might say that the punters in the crowd can't hear the difference anyway. But I'm not. Honest.

I know the reason for it; kind of. It makes your mp3 files smaller. But I keep my stuff on a 2TByte hard drive so there's no lack of space. So can anyone tell me why these karaoke mp3 tracks are sampled at such a low rate?

It IS a can of worms. I expect Joe C along shortly.

FYI: 128kbps is not a sample rate. It is a bit rate. The sample rate of 99% of our music is all 44.1.

The Soundchoice GEM and Chartbuster MP3+G songs are 256kbps+, not 128kbps. It seems that some downloaded Sunfly songs from Tricerasoft are 128kbps, which I agree sucks. If all the audio was 256kbps or higher wouldn't be having this discussion.

I rip everything at 320kbps. I do so because hard drive space is cheap. Had you asked me this 10 years ago, I would have said rip at 128kbps unless you have the money to buy high speed/high capacity hard drives.

There is a lot of debate over sampling and playback bit rates. I land in the camp of "it is a loud, noisy bar, and *most* people will never notice".

But I am also a firm believer in the "Garbage In, Garbage Out" philosophy. If your recordings are low quality, you will have more work to do to make them sound good coming out of the PA's. If you have high quality recordings, you will generally have much better sound coming out the other end providing you have even a basic knowledge of the sound system.

In summary, if you have the patience and storage space to rip at the highest rate possible, I say go that route. If you have a ton of music to rip and time or space is a premium, then rip at a lower bit rate. I would let 128k be the bare minimum.

-Chris

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-Chris

Bit rate is not necessary the most important thing but you should always use a Lame encoder at anything higher than 224K But again, you can play a wave file but have a poor sound engine in your software So what you need to begin with, is a good software with a good sound engine like Bass that will let you extract and encode with Lame at anything higher than 224K.

I'm not equating this to karaoke, but as a dj, that goes back to spinning 45's and lps, when I went to mp3s, 128k was the norm. From the ripping softwares I used, 128 was rated "cd quality." Now I would always take plenty of cds to a gig(in case of a computer crash), where I would play from my mp3s as much as possible, but there were always a few songs, that I would play from cd. I always had a few cds laying out, and I couldn't count the times, when, as a song was playing form my computer, a guest would comment on how great the music sounded, and concluded it was because I was "using cds, instead of those crummy mp3 tracks.".... I've had even a few djs make that comment to me. Not everyone, but me thinks, most people hear, what they want to hear......

I think a lot of people hear the difference but don't know why or how to describe it. It's not always an obvious audible thing. Sometimes it's more of a feeling.

I ripped all my stuff at 320 because I figured if I was putting that much time into ripping my discs, I was going to do it to the best quality mp3 i could. Plus, as somebody already mentioned, hard drive space is fairly cheap these days.

If you listen side by side, yes a big difference. Ever notice as the night goes on, the karaoke, and even bands sound better?... ..Yes booze helps, but the effects are volume driven.....as the crowd increases, they increase the volume, which automatically increase the effects. Also, a person that sings closer to the mic, or just sings loudly, gets more from a constant effects setting, than someone who sings softly, or holds the mic farther from their lips. Lots of variables at a show..... the kj matters, no matter what his/her tracks are ripped at.....

I would say that if you are using a 2tb drive, why not just rip in WAV? Then you are making a direct copy of the disc, and there is no lose, whatsoever.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I thought about that but some software doesn't play wav+g

Wave won't let you use mp3 gain which is a MUST in my opinion Just encode at 320 with Lame, adjust all tracks with mp3 gain and you'll have the freedom to convert them to wave at anytime if you wish, this way you'll have them all on the same level

Spoken like a true politician Chris...

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

Converting 320 mp3s to WAV is pointless. They have already lost a little something in the compression to mp3. They won't get it back going to WAV.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Maybe 320k is better than .wav..... like I said, my mp3 maker programs rated 128k as cd quality........

ps......sometimes they say...."less is more"....

Soundchoice has never distributed any tracks at 128kbps.
From the context of your post it sounds like you did not rip these yourself.
It would appear that your source for these tracks is probably not operating legally.
I suggest you trash those tracks and rip fresh ones at a higher rate directly from your discs. You will be able to hear the difference.

Maybe the price?

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KNOW THYSELF

320 is good, but not better than .wav. .wav is lossless. mp3, regardless of bitrate is a lossy format. Of course, unless you have super human hearing you aren't going to notice much of a difference in a karaoke setting. Headphones are the only way you will truly hear a difference.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Spot On.



And blind studies have proven that even in a controlled studio environment, the vast majority can pick the difference no better than random chance. The number that can are so small as to be statistically insignificant.

The "MP3 is inferior" argument doesn't hold water when put to a scientific test, apples to apples. Yes, it is a "lossy" format. But the loss in "lossy" is information that is masked. It's sound you can't hear anyway due to frequency overlap and psycho-acoustics. There quite a lot of science behind it.

the only difference I tend to hear between tracks I have ripped at 320 and the actual disc is that to me at least, the disc sounds louder at the same volume.

When I switch from my computer to the cd player, i usually have to turn the volume down

But that has nothing to do with the fact that it was extracted and encoded in mp3 An extracted file will have the same output in wave or mp3... In your situation, it has to do with impedance, sound card and possibly many other things...