Mac vs Windows
by GrumpsDJ
Can anyone tell me from personal experience would I get better sound quality if I were to use a MacBook rather than my Windows laptop?
I have a ddj 800 and my tracks are WAV file but I just feel the sound is a bit muggy or too bassy on a lot of tracks I purchase.
I know my speakers are coming straight out the back of my controller “XLR” Pioneer VM 50 speakers, but obviously it’s getting processed first by my laptop.
I’ve tried adjusting settings/ buffer size etc but I just think it should be a lot clearer.
Thanks 🙏
Comments
im selling my flx 10. where are you located?? and is you 800 from pre 2020 or before? because pioneer in 2020 had a fire at their warehouse where the dacs (sound bits) for their stuff is made. and a lot of kit after 2020 esp the ddj 1000 the sound quality wasnt as good as dd 1000s built pre 2020.
CPU load makes a difference
win 11 just updated it update stack. make sure voice clarity or anything that helps zoom calls or teams take away ambient sounds is disabled.
Thank you I’ll give that a shot later 👌👊🏻
@liamg76 go into control panel, device manager. first option. you might see "apos "audio processing objects". if thats there and enabled. just right click and disable it. then check to see if anything else in device manager like in games, sound area has a voice thing. disable that. same in your gpu driver.
@liamg76 enoaudio
Mogami 2534 Quad Stereo Pair (L,R) Audio Cable | Neutrik Gold XLR Female - XLR Male | HiFi 1.0 m these make a huge difference than just a generic cheaper xlr cable too. kinda the industry standard.
Hey Grumps,
From my experience the laptop itself doesn’t really affect the sound quality. I use both a Mac and a Windows laptop and there’s no real difference between them.
What does make a big difference is a good audio interface. Since I started using a proper sound card, the sound quality improved a lot.
My setup isn’t exactly top-end either — I use a Pioneer DDJ-FLX6 GT with Rekordbox. Because the FLX6 doesn’t have XLR outputs, I run it through a DI box into a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (4th Gen). That setup actually gives me pretty solid sound quality.
My studio monitors are KRK Rokit 7 G5s, so I would definitely hear it if something sounded off.
So in my opinion you probably don’t need a MacBook — a good audio interface would likely make the bigger difference.
Excellent 👌 thank you, I just wondered if there was any real difference between Mac and Windows so you have answered my question. I will look into the sound card thing and see if that would make a difference. Much appreciated mate 👍
I record everything in Serato, save it and upload it to Audacity. Once I make effects update to the file, I export it to MP3.
Thanks for the reply, I do have Audacity because I used to stream my music so I needed that to record. But it’s not just the recording that sounds muggy it’s the actual playback sound as well. I buy WAV files and have good speakers and I’ve been messing around with my settings in my laptop and on the controller and in Rekordbox but it just doesn’t sound the best quality. So I’m seeing if someone has gone from Windows to MacBook and noticed a difference. 👍👊🏻
I record the sets digitally with Traktor. Nothing better than this ho. For streaming I have a Beringer hd device for recording and it sounds amazing. No noise no anything 👊
Thanks for this, it’s not even the recording that’s the problem it’s the sound during playback and recording they just don’t sound right to me.
I listen to other people’s mixes and some sound amazing quality and I know a lot of it is down to the controller or whatever they use but I’m just wondering if turning to a MacBook would make any difference. 🙏👍