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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Best TDR Nova settings for Virtual DJ
For those who use TDR Nova in their master to improve the sound quality in VDJ, I'd love to know what your settings look like. I mostly play hip hop, R&B, jersey club and etc.

For anyone wondering, here what I've been working with. I've found that it mostly takes out the harsh highs, and makes the drums a little punchier.

Band Type Freq Gain Q Dyn Threshold Ratio
| 1 | LS | 80 Hz | +2.5 dB | 0.70 | Off | – | – |
| 2 | Bell | 250 Hz | +1.0 dB | 1.00 | Off | – | – |
| 3 | Bell | 3.5 kHz | -2.0 dB | 2.00 | On | -32 dB | 2.5:1 |
| 4 | HS | 10 kHz | +1.0 dB | 0.80 | Off | – | – |
 
Posted 3 days ago @ 9:04 pm
You know that using a dynamic EQ does not improve your sound quality, right?

Yes, it changes the color and a little bit of the dynamics of the sound. But that's not "sound quality improvement"
It's just "colored" sound.
 
PhantomDeejay wrote :
You know that using a dynamic EQ does not improve your sound quality, right?

Yes, it changes the color and a little bit of the dynamics of the sound. But that's not "sound quality improvement"
It's just "colored" sound.


I'm well aware that you and couple of others think differently about Virtual DJ's sound quality, but this thread is not for ya'll. I'm leaving the thread open for those who found that TDR Nova helped improve the quality of Virtual DJ's sound. I think it does.

I respect your opinion about this issue (it's been the most talked about debate for a while), but please do not lock the thread because you feel differently. That's all I ask. Thank you.
 
Changing frequencies like that is purely a personal taste thing. Doing it for a specific acoustic setup or a bad sound system is fine, but if you are changing that permanently then it's you preferring that "colour" of output. Everyone else will be different.
 
HYDEHEART wrote :
...found that TDR Nova helped improve the quality of Virtual DJ's sound


It didn't, you just coloured the sound to your own preference.
Sound quality is a measure of signal in Vs signal out.
Talk about eq tweaks all you want, but don't call it sound quality, because it devolves into circular argument nonsense
and to be fair eq tweaks are rig dependent, environment dependent, and subjective, so what works here for me probably won't work for you.

Just keep prodding at the dials until you like the sound, then listen for 2 hours because tweaks might sound subjectively better as an A:B test but might lead to ear fatigue over a few hours.
 
In gentler form:

Quality is not how it feels/sounds like to you - that will always be subjective (e.g. punchier sounding).

Quality is based on how well the original sound was recorded in the first place (as saved in some file representation) and how well this recording is reflected in playback (sound input vs sound output as @locodog said). The aim (best quality) is always to give an accurate reflection of what is recorded and VirtualDJ covers that (there are various previous forum discussion on this with the proof of this).

You can always add your enhancements/"coloring" after, but that's all it is, enhancement, and when using compression, you are actually changing the quality of the sound from what it was originally intended to be by changing dynamics/dynamic ranges of the song.

The unfortunate thing is, DJs confuse the personal enhancement preference (and in some cases like Serato that preference is pre-chosen for you), as quality, we should work to correct that viewpoint in discussion.

However forum members are happy to receive/apply/try your preference and sometimes it's necessary due to others being accustomed to preference (doing gigs in places where the sound engineer already adjusted for users coloring platforms like Serato).
 
HYDEHEART wrote :
I'm well aware that you and couple of others think differently about Virtual DJ's sound quality, but this thread is not for ya'll. I'm leaving the thread open for those who found that TDR Nova helped improve the quality of Virtual DJ's sound. I think it does.

I respect your opinion about this issue (it's been the most talked about debate for a while), but please do not lock the thread because you feel differently. That's all I ask. Thank you.


I'm not locking anything, nor I had any intention to.. There's no reason!

I'm just clarifying that a dynamic EQ plugin does not improve sound "quality". It just colors the sound.

In fact the term sound "quality" cannot be defined and cannot be measured.
If you try to define sound "quality", you end up with sound "fidelity", which is something that can be measured.
However when you color your sound you don't improve it's fidelity. On the contrary, you make it worse.
Those are facts and you don't have to like them.

You can share your favorite plugin settings. No problem with that. You can discuss how you like the sound better or worse with different settings. No problem with that either.
You can discuss with other users settings and tweaks for your effect until this thread reaches 1000 pages..

But what you cannot do, is claim that your effect improves sound "quality" = "fidelity" because it doesn't.
For some of us, being accurate on our claims/statements matters.

Thanks!

PS1: This is a public forum. You cannot choose to leave out users that don't agree with you / share different points of view. That's not how public forums work. So, you have to accept that different points of view may be raised. (that's a response to "this thread ain't for you" comment) :)

PS2: There have been situations that I personally have used TDR Nova. I have nothing against it.
There have also been situations that I have used Ozone instead of TDR Nova.
In all those cases, there were special needs in place, and I knew what I was doing. I was not using those plugins to improve "sound quality"
I was using them to improve the acoustics of the place I was at the time, that lacked other means for doing so.
My point is that using those plugins has its place. I'm fine using them myself when I have to.
But I don't do it "to improve sound quality" :)
 
Like I said, I respect that ya'll think that the "coloring" if you want to call it that doesn't improve anything, but I believe it does. I'm not trying to be dismissive. We can agree to disagree.

I'm only posting my thread for others who have used TDR Nova with Virtual DJ and found it to be better than the onboard sound quality provided in the software. I like the sound better.
 
HYDEHEART wrote :
Like I said, I respect that ya'll think that the "coloring" if you want to call it that doesn't improve anything, but I believe it does. I'm not trying to be dismissive. We can agree to disagree.

I'm only posting my thread for others who have used TDR Nova with Virtual DJ and found it to be better than the onboard sound quality provided in the software. I like the sound better.


Just want to note that I didn't put a strike through my last post. I come back to find that it was added in. I still stand by what I said.

I guess it goes to show that only certain opinions matter on this forum.
 
It's still struck out from what I can tell.

Just clarifying, I think everybody on this forum has views on subjects provided, but there is, as far as I can see, no agenda to actively push out/censor views that clash with the views of regulars, unless the post is just spam or ranting with no obvious usefulness/suggestions/questions (e.g. a post that is an ad/has nothing to do with VirtualDJ, or a post ranting about software X just being better than VirtualDJ with no indication of what is being compared or how, or some famous DJ chose software X over VirtualDJ (which is a taste choice that could possibly monetarily/socially influenced)).

There is the desire to keep the discussion factual/objective, and that's most likely the origin of the response (coloring is subjective/not a measure of quality). @PhantomDeejay even mentioned he used it, but detailed why exactly (not a deficiency of the software, but the environment being played in).
I guess, at least for me, when the subjective topics are allowed to appear as objective, they tend to slip into the "accepted as fact" category depending on the crowd (e.g. software X's sound quality is better than VirtualDJ), and eventually someone pointing out it's not a fact gets looked at like the weird person, even though they are saying a fact (truth by social acceptance instead truth by proof/fact).

Your post is appreciated though, I'm sure persons will find your settings useful for their needs/potentially add to it.
 
Thanks. I've seen on this forum in the past that when the subject about VDJ's sound quality is brought up and people start to question it, it's often met with a lot of pushback on this forum. I love Virtual DJ and use it over other software out there, but even I have to admit, at least to myself, that the sound could use some touch up. I'd rather go through the trial and error of getting the best sound possible out of Virtual DJ instead of switching to other software.

People will say that VDJ's sound is fine as is, and I respectfully disagree. But that's not why I made this thread. I'm just trying to see what settings in TDR Nova people are using with VDJ so that I can compare with mine.
 
So as with the other posts, what is normally put out there is VirtualDJ tries to stay true to the original representation, while other software offerings may not.
If you can bring an objective proof of why the sound quality is bad I'm sure the devs will be all for it (like noise being added to the original signal), but given the previous points of the forum, it's not likely to find that - what is normally pointed out is the comparison to another vendor's offerings, where it is know that coloring is done. Software X being considered popular/industry standard and being punchier isn't an objective definition of quality, rather it's a reflection of the other vendor's choice (which you can't undo) + social acceptance of a platform that made the choice.

The point of whether or not VirtualDJ should include [an option] coloring (which is what you are doing with the plugin and really what you are getting at) is another matter, and that is an open question with different feelings for/against it depending in who you talk to.
I think Native Instruments recently introduced such in their offering (Ozone Maximizer), and VirtualDJ can introduce that as well, but they don't necessarily have to (you have the options to add the enhancements you see fit).

Regardless, I think everyone that responded does see value in the post, even if they may not agree with all of it.
 
DJ VinylTouch wrote :
The point of whether or not VirtualDJ should include [an option] coloring (which is what you are doing with the plugin and really what you are getting at) is another matter, and that is an open question with different feelings for/against it depending in who you talk to.


If Atomix does decide to do that, I hope that they take some feedback from people before finalizing on the final build.