Inside One Of the Last Vinyl Record Manufacturers

jonerik writes "The Nashville Tennessean has this look at Nashville's United Record Pressing, one of the last vinyl record manufacturers left in the U.S. Although LPs and 12" and 7" singles make up a tiny portion of the American music market at this point, the article reports that United's business is booming, thanks to consolidation within Nashville's record pressing business community, steady orders for the jukebox market, techno, dance, reggae, and rap orders, and this year's 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. 'Elvis has been good to us. I can't complain,' says Cris Ashworth, the company's owner."

Comments

Last???

[JohnnySkidmarks]

As if what are DJ's spinning then?

Re:Last???

[k3v0]

DJ's make their own records. it's the only way to do it

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[Britissippi]

Well, I live with a couple of DJ's, and while vinyl still ha a huge hold on the dance music industry in particular, its fading due to the accessability, drop in price and general features of such decks as the Pioneer CDJ-1000. And it s been a while since I've seen a set decks without even a low end dual CD player - something such as the Numark CDN25. Makes CD-DJ'ing accessible for even the bedroom DJ's.

Vinyl still has a massive hold on the DJ industry, but it's slipping... Just my 0.02.

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[Jace of Fuse!]

Actually, few DJs use records unless it's just for show (or they don't want to figure out the new high-tech equipment because they're not real bright...). Many, if not most professional DJs use purely digital equipment, to include digitally controlled lighting. It takes a bit more to learn the higher tech equipment, and of course it costs a whole lot more money but it's worth it in the end.

This is something I think I know a little bit about. For years the family business has been a DJ/Karaokee business, and quite a profitable one, too. The fact that I also keep in close contact with other DJs and KJs in the area also helps me keep an eye on what other people are doing. MP3s, MCGs, and CDs played back through professional decks occupy almost all of the DJ scene. I don't DJ personally, but I do help maintain the equipment which can be a job all it's own.

With high end CD decks, it's possible to do anything that can be done with a record, and in fact it can be done better. Can it be done cheaper, easier, and without figuring out a bunch of controls with vinyl? Sure it can. But with a CD you won't be damaging your source material when you use it and you can also do some pre-production mixing that is beat-perfect without the risk of live-show error (which is both bad for your reputation and embarassing.)

If you want the best in professional CD decks, there's no shortage of sources, but if you want some high quality MP3 and MCG players, I recommend taking a look at these guys. They can supply you with both the hardware and legal copies of karaokee songs for use in your shows. As for music, it's possible to simply rip the music you paid for the proper way, assuming you're doing it legal. (Of course you ARE, aren't you?)

If you want to keep up to speed with what's going on in the DJ Business, also try the DJ magazines...

Re:Last???

[JohnnySkidmarks]

I wasn't talking about DJ's at radio stations or other such institutions. More like those at clubs, parties, er cough cough... raves (shudder). You know the ones with the low tech equipment; the Techniques and Cross Faders.

Re:Last???

[mattsucks]

With high end CD decks, it's possible to do anything that can be done with a record, and in fact it can be done better. Can it be done cheaper, easier, and without figuring out a bunch of controls with vinyl? Sure it can. But with a CD you won't be damaging your source material when you use it and you can also do some pre-production mixing that is beat-perfect without the risk of live-show error (which is both bad for your reputation and embarassing.)

I also have an opinion here (musician for year, occasional DJ). Seems to me that the 'risk of live-show error' is part and parcel of what makes a live show worth seeing. Why even go see your favorite band if you can just listen to their recordings? There won't be any live-show errors, and you can tailor the sound to your liking. And as for the band, why even bother playing? Just pop in the disk! You won't damage your source material (your strings, your voice, drumsticks) and you can tweak the mix ahead of time. Everything will be perfect! And better yet, you don't even have to figure out the controls (know how to play)!

The whole point of live performance is that something is being created on the fly that will never happen just that way again. This applies to a musician OR a DJ. I'd much rather go see a DJ mixing and matching as s/he goes. Darn, some things won't be perfect. But some things will be done so amazingly well that I'll remember the mad mix skillz of that DJ for the rest of my life.

DJs create music. Anything else is just a jukebox.

Re:Last???

[Jace of Fuse!]

Right, the ones I know with the low tech equipments don't get the really big contracts with the bigger, higher profit clubs.

That's the very same scene I'm talking about. You're under the same misconception that all private DJs work on low margins and can't afford higher quality equipment, more complex lighting equipment, and full trailers for large scale productions. I assure you, there is a HUGE difference in the show you get from a $50 per night DJ vs a $500 per night. I've seen shows that go for $1100 for 6 hours. Trust me, you get a whole hell of a lot for that $1100.

(and whoever modded down my higher parent post as over-rated is a dickless little shit-bag.)

Re:Last???

[glesga_kiss]

Actually, few DJs use records unless it's just for show

You're obviously not getting out to the dance/Hip Hop clubs then...

For years the family business has been a DJ/Karaokee business

Ah, wedding singer type DJs. They don't even mix the music. They cue up one track after another. Winamp can do that. I know people who would kill you for calling that DJing.

With high end CD decks, it's possible to do anything that can be done with a record, and in fact it can be done better.

Try telling that to Grand Master Flash. I'm sure anyone who has seen him live would agree that you can't do what he does on a CD deck.

simply rip the music you paid for the proper way, assuming you're doing it legal.

Most professional DJs (e.g. those with a club residency) don't buy the music. They get given it for free on white labels. It's a great promotion for the song, so I doubt the record industry is going to come after you for promoting their material... ;-)

Re:Last???

[ianjk]

With high end CD decks, it's possible to do anything that can be done with a record, and in fact it can be done better

bullshit. ever try and scratch/juggle beats on cd decks, sounds just like the $99 casio keyboard with the 'scratch' button. Name dj who can even come close a good scratch dj on cds and I will give you my soul for a nickel.

But with a CD you won't be damaging your source material when you use it and you can also do some pre-production mixing that is beat-perfect without the risk of live-show error (which is both bad for your reputation and embarassing.)


ie. you suck so bad you have to beat mix your set before hand, so you don't look like a tool, except when you show up to a gig with one cdr and just stand there pretending to be doing your job.

I do agree with the digital lighting control, intelligent lighting has improved leaps and bounds over the last decade.

Re:Last???

[silverhalide]

A big thing about Vinyl is that it is somewhat of a barrier to entry to the DJ market. Any 14-year old with a CD burner can toss together a nice collection of CDs and drop them into some CDJ-1000's and be on their way, but to build up a quality Vinyl collection takes quite a bit of time and patience, not to mention $$$. Also, I work in the rave "industry" as a sound/light tech, and I see that a common attitude of the vinyl guys scoffing at people playing entirely CD sets--they're looked down upon like the AOLers of the DJ business. However, it's not uncommon for a DJ to show up with his own CDJ-1000, and use it as a third table on his set.

In some genres of Dance music, like Drum 'n Bass, it's also not uncommon for releases to be ONLY on Vinyl, with no CD pressings available. Makes it tough to get MP3s of the new stuff.

Re:Last???

[Jace of Fuse!]

Most professional DJs (e.g. those with a club residency) don't buy the music.

You know, you get some, and you buy some. I've found that a large percentage of the "given" stuff isn't worth a crap. They're trying to promote a lot of up and coming artists and a lot of them won't ever be up.

Yes, there are a lot of DJ shows that I do agree aren't quite really being a DJ. They are nothing more than being a jukebox. Some shows require more work than others, and that's why some shows simply charge more.

If you're only going to be paying $100 for a night, don't expect anybody to be coming and doing any live mixing at all. Instead, you can expect some pre-mixed stuff and a few CDs of whatever type of music you happen to want played.

On the other hand, if you want lights, requested mixing, and a bunch of other stuff, well, that can be done too but the gig is going to cost a whole hell of a lot more.

You can say waht you want about the DJ business, but it is a business and ultimately it's about making money. As I said before, the business has been quite profitable so they're doing something right. They're profiting AND using more expensive equipment. I know some vinyl DJs that aren't doing that well.

(I would tell a little story about one very popular DJ in my area that I know who loves vinyl, tried to move to MP3s here lately, but was too stupid to figure out how to do it so he gave up... but I'll keep the details of that whole thing to myself...)

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a real long term slipping if it's gonna be happening. While a couple of big name DJs (think Cox, Oakenfold, van Dyk, Sasha, etc) use CD-Rs when they don't wanna do a test pressing of their lastest pressing, all the big name guys use vinyl. Why? There's something to be said for the touch and feel of the 12" in your hands. and I don't expect DJ Qbert to start scratching on CD decks anytime soon.

Re:Last???

[acm]

It depends on what kind of 'DJ' you're talking about. If you're talking about the DJ in the yellow pages doing weddings and barmitzvas, very few of them use vinyl. Why? A lot of reasons. CDs are cheaper, top 40 singles and compilations are easier to get, and since they usually have to lug out all their own equipment anyway, they have no compelling reason to want to use wax.

If you're talking about club DJs (dance music, not hiphop/top 40), then you're wrong. There are two reasons why they all use records. Any respectable club out there will have technic sl-1200 turntables and a pioneer djm?00 mixer. A lot also have the cd systems as well, but they will _always_ have the turntables. Also, and maybe more importantly, most underground dance music only comes out on vinyl.

Re:Last???

[buswolley]

DJ in the radio business are largely not Djs. They are robotic dead spirited, bought-out and sold computers and personalities.

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have an opinion here (musician for year, occasional DJ). Seems to me that the 'risk of live-show error' is part and parcel of what makes a live show worth seeing. Why even go see your favorite band if you can just listen to their recordings? There won't be any live-show errors, and you can tailor the sound to your liking. And as for the band, why even bother playing? Just pop in the disk! You won't damage your source material (your strings, your voice, drumsticks) and you can tweak the mix ahead of time. Everything will be perfect! And better yet, you don't even have to figure out the controls (know how to play)!

Britney Spears does this, right?

Re:Last???

[macdaddy357]

If the big labels don't want us making perfect digital copies of their music, and trading them, release it all on vinyl. Digitizing records, and burning them onto CD-R, maintaining sepearate track s is a lot of work! If I could actually get vinyl, which I like the sound of much better than digital, I would have yet another reason not to buy CDs.

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, few DJs use records unless it's just for show
You're obviously not getting out to the dance/Hip Hop clubs then...

Duh... he's reading /.

Re:Last???

[nfotxn]

Admittedly there are a lot of great alternatives to vinyl these days like the Pioneer CDJ-1000, Native Instrument's Traktor software or Final Scrtach.

All of the above have problems though for any DJ who plays house, pop, any form of techno/dnb/IDM/trance etc. I'd say my experience here in Toronto is that a small minority of DJ's use CD decks like the pioneer CDJ-1000. Those who do complain about their inability to get new records. You have to understand that in dance music most remixes come on vinyl and the underground releases "white labels" which often contain tracks with uncleared samples or bootleg remixes. The sorta stuff trendy clubbers and raves go nuts for.

Absolutely 0 (zero) scratch artists use digital machines. Their haptic interfaces aren't nearly as robust as vinyl. The basis of urban/electronic music is sampling. The catalog of vinyl records out there is huge and most of all they're cheap! To this day most hip-hop is produce like so: Sample a record into an Akai MPC, re-arrange and have an MC rap on top of it. Sure you could get your hot James Brown beat on a CD in some greatest hits or remastered disc but this is music from the ghetto. "Real" hip-hoppers are poor and even when they make their millions and are dripping with ice and fat chains they still use records. Vinyl is cultural. All of these new digital products definitely have their creative niches though. Ming & Fs use CDJ-1000's exclusively so they don't have to get acetate pressings of their records while they do extensive touring. Lots of people use traktor and final scratch to play their own new material that they aren't yet ready to commit to a a short run of records.

I guess my point is that even though CD/MP3/OGG/Whatever units are more economically and technologically advanced vinyl is cultural. An analogy would be between a string section in an orchestra and some of the more advanced MIDI keyboards we have today. To the untrained ear a synthesized string pad sounds the same as a performed one. But classical music is an instituition. There are professionals who've trained for decades to play their instruments. Telling them to replace their Strad with a Korg Trinton keyboard would be laughable. DJ's are no different, scratching and mixing is no less challenging. I have the unique position of being both a classical viola player AND somebody who likes to play a few records. I dunno what DJ Scene you're from but here in Toronto which is home of a very vibrant urban/electronic/dance music scene a large majority of DJs use vinyl.

Re:Last???

[spiralx]

As I sit here after having had a little mix with my vinyl, I can agree with your last comment. The stuff I mix (acid techno) practically never comes out on CD... there are a half dozen or so compilation CDs with individual tracks on there, and that's it.

Audiogalaxy was the place to get MP3s though, they'd have the latest acid techno tracks ripped within a day of release. None of the other music services come close in terms of content.

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

this is th e last place that makes the blanks for production not the last company that uses them.

but then again they arent the only people who make dubplates(strange thick discs with metal on the insides used for one off recordings to vinyl)

gawd if this place goes under i am fucked

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, wedding singer type DJs. They don't even mix the music. They cue up one track after another. Winamp can do that. I know people who would kill you for calling that DJing

kill? that maybe a bit harsh but most of my friends would beat you with a dub plate.

actually i seen that happen when a mc wouldnt shut up at a show the dj just picked up a dub and smacked the guy on his head. I almost pissed my self laffing.

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't try and pretend you know what your talking about. You mentioned karaoke in the same breath as DJ's. Carl Cox, Dave Clarke, etc, etc, etc do not have a little karaoke sessions at the end of 5 hour 4 deck (as in SL1210's) mixes.
idiot

Re:Last???

[ianjk]

actually i seen that happen when a mc wouldnt shut up at a show the dj just picked up a dub and smacked the guy on his head. I almost pissed my self laffing.

lol. I had a mc just hop on the mic one time during a set. Wouldn't stop, I guess he was a really bad (drum&bass/jungle) MC. Couldn't hear him because the mic wasn't going though the monitors, I guess he was yelling for a rewind for a minute or 2... I was getting pissed, pulled out 187 'Music Sounds Better with Bass' threw it on, packed up, when the record was done I left.

Much worse was this chick who thought it would be fun to shoot me with silly string. Got inside my mixer/over records/needles/turntables.

Re:Last???

[Anonymous Coward]

MP3 quality is awful I wish they never invented that hellish format.

Re:Last???

[EnderWiggnz]

where the hell are you getting acid tech at?

no one has made that in like 5 years...

i'm still digging to get a good enuff acid trance (not goa) collection.

and ... i just inherited a bunch from a collection of a US East coast Pioneer... yummy yummy acid tech/trance...

Re:Last???

[Aerog]

This is something I think I know a little bit about. For years the family business has been a DJ/Karaokee business, and quite a profitable one, too.
Calling Wedding/Graduation/Top 40 "DJ's" actual DJ's is like saying "Chris Sheppard is a talented artist and DJ". There is a world of difference between playing music at a social event and being a DJ. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can press PLAY on a good CD player and make some music come out. Thirteen year old girls can select music and play an MP3. NOT everyone can take a track in progress, grab something from the record box, and seamlessly merge the tracks together. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

don't want to figure out the new high-tech equipment because they're not real bright...
Not all DJ's are stupid. I DJ and am currently majoring in Engineering Physics and CS. And I'm sure there are quite a few DJ's on /. who would also disagree.

you can also do some pre-production mixing that is beat-perfect without the risk of live-show error
. . .Although getting yourself into a set playlist can also be bad for your career. What if the crowd just isn't into the way the set's turning out? What if you hit upon something that they really like? Well, you better hope that you planned for this in pre-production if you're setting your playlist up beforehand. You either have to really know your venue or you have to be able to adapt, which is generally easy for a real DJ to do. And you never know, sometimes you hit on the greatest mixes just by accident.

Re:Last???

[spiralx]

Errm, Kinetec Records in London, home of acid techno :) There's still loads of stuff coming out on Routemaster, Stay Up Forever, Bionic Orange, Subvert, Bang On, No Limit, Maximum Minimum, Raw, Hydraulix and others. And it's still played at squat parties across the city.

Plenty of acid trance here at places like Choci's Chewns as well :)

Re:Last???

[EnderWiggnz]

you suck.

i'm stuck here in philly, nigel richards hasnt made any acid tech in forever, and when i was able to come across (all used) 5 nitrites, a couple of choci's chewns, a bunch of old stay up forever... and some alien traxx... i'm on cloud nine...

you suck you suck you suck.

the only people that suck more than you are people who live in rotterdam.

Re:Last???

[spiralx]

The company that owns Kinetec Records is called BangingTunes.com and they do acid trance and ship to the US...

Re:Last???

[camcloud]

You have to be kidding. This is something you definitely DO NOT know about. Karaoke? Are you kidding? Do you do weddings and barmitzvahs? That's where the scene is at alright. Pfft

Re:Last???

[camcloud]

Just stop. Stop now. Because you know is wrong and stupid.

Re:Last???

[Dingel]

I'm not sure why you think Acid Techno is dead, but try finding a tune from an artist called "The Junk Project."

Wo-hoo! Vinyl first-post goodness...

[Anonymous Coward]

First... *skip*
First... *skip*
First... *skip*

First post!

Kinda neat-- the HTML "Read more..." hadn't rendered yet-- but hitting the story with a hand-crafted URL seemed to work well...

Re:Wo-hoo! Vinyl first-post goodness...

[buswolley]

Analog is BACk!.. and it is pissed.

watch out now.

Market

[Nevermore-Spoon]

There doesn't have to be a huge market to support a business when there isn't much competition.

The Demand for vinyl from the DJ industry (techno, trip hop, rap, and the like) shouldn't be slowing down too much, Especially with new prime time hits buy groups like the Gorillias (Produced by Dan the Automator).

Re:Market

[Anonymous Coward]

"especially with new hits by groups like the Gorillias" ...especially? the Gorillaz are nothing in the true underground, their fans are your typical mainstream kids rocking mtv and picking up the latest cds.

househeads, junglists, hardcore kids, punk and the like are still pressing vinyl.

Re:Market

[Nevermore-Spoon]

with the fame of trip hop on the rise, there more more groups using vinyl as a medium of concert music, I wasn't referring to the fans who purchase the plastic version with Daddy's plactic money

Re:Market

[Anonymous Coward]

trip-hop isn't on the 'rise',
it was a cute buzzword in like, '97?
that died about then too.

sure, tricky, massive attack and what not are still producing, but that ish is over with.

not that great downbeat material itself isn't prevalent in the community. deep house, downtempo and the like.

Re:Market

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, tho there was "Big Buzz" in the 90's Trip-Hop is listed HERE ON as a sub genere of down tempo, with many new artists listed

Re:Market

[JazFresh]

The Demand for vinyl from the DJ industry ... shouldn't be slowing down too much

Turntablists will always need vinyl. But other types of DJ (house and techno especially, those that often don't use turntable tricks) may be moving to CD with the advent of better interfaces.

Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[dan dan the dna man]

"Vinyl sales are also on the increase, thanks to exposure in films like High Fidelity and their popularity with dance music fans. Both single and album sales have increased in the past year. The vinyl market is now estimated to be worth £28.1m after growing 17 per cent."

From here

All my friends are DJ's. I see a lot of vinyl...

Re:Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[dan dan the dna man]

Uff yes I know their business is booming - I just meant that I was surprised its the last place pressing...

Re:Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[radish]

The UK vinyl market is massive. Most major highstreet record stores stock vinyl, flagship stores like Virgin on Picadilly Circus and HMV on Oxford Street give over large percentages (read 15-20%) of total floor space to vinyl. There are only maybe 2 or 3 pressing firms but they are doing a roaring trade. I personally have something like 6 or 700 CDs and maybe only 2 or 300 12" singles, but I buy more of the latter than the former new. Most all of the music I want is on vinyl first, and as a DJ it's much more useful to me in that format. CDs are nice for when I'm at the day job, or just relaxing, or as samplers to give me ideas for tunes I might get on 12.

Re:Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[joshsisk]

It's not the last place pressing. I get all my records pressed at Erika. There are others, too, such as Alberti in California, Europadisk in New York, Rainbo in Berkely.

For a list of a bunch of record pressing plants, check out indiecentre.com.

Re:Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[iocat]

I've used United, and the service is good, but if you get a "small hole" 45, there is a noticable ridge when the "big hole" would be. It's an easy way to tell if the record is by United though...

Re:Obviously doesn't reflect the UK market...

[PYves]

they're also very popular on the indie scene. You might not find any Vynil are your local Mega-music-chain-store but there are usually a bunch of new records from independent artists in your local independent music store.

You'd think people on slashdot would know more about opposing "the man" with all the practice they've had against Bill.

DJs

[wattersa]

This makes perfect sense that their business is booming. There's still no easy way for DJs to spin CDs on the fly. With a vinyl record, adjusting tempo is easily achieved by changing the speed of the turntable. And who could forget the popular "scratch." With a CD all you can do is fade the volume when it's time for the next song.

Re:DJs

[toygeek]

Actually you can buy cd players for dj'ing that speed up, slow down, count beats per minute, do really wild things you wouldn't think possible. A friend is a dj, has one of these (two actually) its very cool.

Re:DJs

[cscx]

That's the farthest thing from the truth I've ever seen. You obviously haven't seen a DJ cd player in oh, the last 3-5 years. With my Pioneer CD decks I can do not only everything I can do on vinyl, but do tricks that are near impossible on a turntable.

Re:DJs

[brandorf]

There is equipment that lets you scratch with CD's and MD's, but they aren't vwery popular because of the prohibitive cost involved. ($400 for a single-disc MD 'turntable' Or like $250 for a decent dual LP set).

Re:DJs

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.

Pioneer has been making them for years and I've been using them for quite a while. If you make something in pro tools in the afternoon and want to play it in the club that night, just burn the cd and play it. Get it pressed into vinyl when you have more time.

BTW: most of us who dj still favor vinyl for the total control you have and vinyl holds its value much better for re-sale as well.

http://www.pioneerprodj.com/products/cdj800/cdj8 00 .mv

Re:DJs

[gatekeep]

Umm, sorry but no. Show me a place where I can get a pair of Technics 1200s for $250. Even Stanton str8-80s or something comparable from Vestax.

Decent DJ quality direct drive turntables typically go for more like $250 each. The cost difference between turntables and CD decks really isn't that great.

Re:DJs

[Torgo's Pizza]

You are sadly mistaken. The technology to allow mixing and fading through software has been around for years. For that matter, you can scratch and mix CDs to your hearts content and have it sound pretty good. You can find beatmixing plugins to just about any MP3 player.

The difference is the interface. The tactile involvement of vinyl is the biggest key. It's just not the same scratching with a mouse on a screen. There's just something that feels right and easy with two turntables and a crossfader in front of you. There has been progress with some of the newer simulated turntables that plug into a USB port of a computer, but it still doesn't come close to what is needed to spin at a professional level.

It's just a matter of time before hardware designers come up with a proper interface to allow the flexibility and style required for a DJ. Until then, Technics turntables and vinyl record producers still have a place in the world.

Re:DJs

[Animats]

Yeah, the digital replacements for DJ turntables still have user interface problems. Feature creep results in something with zillions of modes and effects. See the ProScratch 2, the VegiMatic of DJ equipment.

There's one scheme where the DJ has turntables and records, but all the records have is timecode, which is used to address music stored elsewhere.

Re:DJs

[cscx]

Have you seen Denon's DN-S5000? Spins like a platter like a record, plays digital. Of course I distrust Denon anyway (anyone that's been in the DJ industry knows their entire goddamn 2x00 series leaves scratches on your CD's over time due to a poor drawer design) so I wouldn't buy one anyway.

Re:DJs

[jdludlow]

Actually, if you compare the cost and availability of CD's and LP's, you're going to come out ahead with CD's. Then factor in the ease of making your own CD's, configured however you like it. LP's are a pain to find, use, and maintain.

I'd wager that the popularity of LP turntables has more to do with the "coolness" factor than the price.

Re:DJs

[Jace of Fuse!]

It's just not the same scratching with a mouse on a screen.

Actually, there are CD decks designed for DJs that have large rotary dials on them that you can use to similate scratches, and using various beat timers and sliders you can do a whole lot of things perfectly (without as much talent) using CDs.

So that "Matter of Time" you said it would take before hardware designers come up with the proper interface has already come and gone -- but at seveal thousands of dollars for a single CD deck, they're out of reach of most trunk-based DJs that do the dance clubs and private parties.

Re:DJs

[wattersa]

So in other words, There's still no easy way for DJs to spin CDs on the fly. Thanks a lot.

Re:DJs

[radish]

Yeah you can hit a "mix" button, and the computer will do it all for you. But you know what? It sounds like a computer did it for you. There's no style, no originality and no feel. Forget wedding DJs - look at the world's professionals. These guys can afford CD decks, most use CD decks from time to time, ALL (well 99%!) prefer vinyl. It feels better, it's more fun, hell it's traditional. You will prise my 1210s from my cold dead hands ;)

Re:DJs

[brandorf]

I'm no DJ, so I couldn't really tell you what's decent as far as turntables go, so I simply did a quick search and picked a price from the middle of the pack. So there is still a $200 price difference between LP and equivalent Digital Equipment.

Re:DJs

[radish]

LPs are a pain to find or use? Rubbish. Most decent music (that DJs are interested in) simply doesn't exist on CD, and yet I can pop into a record shop and buy it all on the lovely black stuff :)

Anyway (and this is a real misconception), DJs don't use LPs - they use 12" singles (1 or 2 tracks per side, either 45 or 33).

Re:DJs

[carpe_noctem]

No CD turntable has been able to accurately replicate the feel and sound of scratching a record (which I guess isnt' really important in a lot of electronic music, but that's a technicality). Nevertheless, I eagerly await the day when professional DJ's are willing to part with Technics SL1200 turntables for iPod's or CD turntables.

Re:DJs

[skookum]

Indeed. In fact there was a slashdot story about a guy who hacked up his own digital turntable. Unfortunately his Stanford account expired as he graduated so it seems the neat pictures are gone. Here's another interview.

Re:DJs

[jdludlow]

I wasn't saying that you can't find vinyl. I was just pointing out that price isn't the reason that people choose vinyl records over cd's, which we seem to agree on.

Re:DJs

[Eowaennor]

Ebay

Sure, a pair might be a little more expensive than $250, but when you buy 1200's you know you're getting QUALITY. I got a pair of 1200's, 4 slipmats, with Groovemaster and $200 Shure carts for around $600 a few years ago... Aside from replacing the styli (cheap), they still work just like the day i got my hands on them. I haven't ever heard anyone talk about how durable their DJ CD players are.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to buy a pair of some nice cd players just for tracks I dont have on vinyl, but I would need about $1000 for some really nice ones.

Re:DJs

[ianjk]

It seems as thought the trend in dj equiptment lately is to replace lack of skills with better (ie. features that replace skills) equiptment. I know people who cannot mix on regular old tech 1200s and a 2 chan. mixer, they need the latest vestax decks with reverse, 78rpm, whammy bar/whatever + pioneer djm ?000+ with sampler, flanger, filter, ect.... at least to myself the turntable is like a guitar. when you suck at it, you don't go and buy the Fender FuturePlus4500 with infrared strings, and midi fretboard and auto-tune, you practice till your fingers bleed.

Re:DJs

[IsoRashi]

Um, even used 1200s tend to go for a lot more than $250. The things are, like, indestructible! When I bought myself a pair a few years back, I paid $425 each. They were brand new, but I couldn't find a quality used pair for very cheap. I think $350 would be more typical of a price for good condition used 1200s.

Re:DJs

[djwavelength]

You are also missing the newest technology to hit the DJ market: Final Scratch. Info.

It plays like a dream, and I have never had any problems with it. I can scratch, back cue, and do anything i can do with vinyl. You still a record to record the inital song at a high bitrate, but other than that, vinyl won't be as big in the DJ world for much longer once everyone gets these.

Re:DJs

[IsoRashi]

Actually you can get CD decks that allow you to change the tempo. I haven't looked at DJ gear in at least 2 years, and they were just really coming in to their own then. I never tried them out, I was more focused on picking up a pair of SL-1200s, but companies like Gemini were coming out with CD decks which allowed you to at least change the speed of the music. That was 2 years ago, so I can imagine that by now they may even have "scratching". I think I would prefer vinyl still, especially since it seems all the hot tunes come out on vinyl first, but CDs do have the advantage of being small, simple to store, and you can put a lot more music on a single CD than on a piece of vinyl. Plus, with CD burners being inexpensive, you could spin with only backups of your original discs. I fear the day some of my vinyl gets scratched and I can't replace the tune :(

final scratch

[jrs 1]

they're 'spinning' anything from mp3s to cds with final scratch.

Re:final scratch

[glesga_kiss]

Final Scratch is cool, but as a DJ friend told me; it's too expensive. Especially for someone who spends every last bit of cash on vinyl!

Out of the 4-5 DJing friends I have, not one is spinning digital media. Mixing CDs doesn't appeal to them, and neither does using ipods or similar.

You need to be able to mix the music correctly, if you want to advance from school-disco gigs. Mixing on anything other than decks is always going be awkward. You need to be able to touch the record to advance/halt it the 0.05 ms required to get the beats in sync. It's an art form, and facinating to watch.

For dance music, there will always be vinyl. Perhaps the title of this topic should be "major RIAA artists stop using vinyl". Those in the "underground" scene couldn't care less.

Re:final scratch

[cscx]

Actually recent CD decks give you extremely precise control. You mention time. My Pioneer cd player allows me to start within 0.01 ms, plus, speed the cd up/down +/- 100% while keeping the pitch locked. A Technics SL1200 can't do that.

The only reason that vinyl is still alive is because most dance/underground/techno is released on vinyl FIRST. That's why.

Re:final scratch

[joshsisk]

Also because a good DJ is a performer. They are fun to watch. It's not fun to watch someone pushing buttons.

Re:final scratch

[glesga_kiss]

Actually recent CD decks [pioneerprodj.com] give you extremely precise control

Fair point, but it's not the same as a pair of decks. It doesn't have the hands-on feel to it, and it certainally doesn't hold the same mystique for the fans of the art.

Plus, let's hear some scratching on those CDs... ;-)

The only reason that vinyl is still alive is because most dance/underground/techno is released on vinyl FIRST. That's why.

Not strictly true, the whole scene is dominated by vinyl, not just the releases. Fans don't get excited by someone pressing buttons!

Don't get me wrong, I love all the new tech here, I for one have never owned any vinyl, despite being old enough to have had it available. The apps like Atomix and Trakor really interest me as all my media is digital, but when I show them to my DJ friends, they are curious, but uninterested. DJs get the girls, nerds don't.

Re:final scratch

[radish]

Spot on my friend :) I can't imagine any decent DJ having the balls to get up in front of 5000 people and press the big red "mix" button on some CD rig. They'd get more red bull cans thrown at them than you can imagine ;) It sounds awful, that perfect-match-always-4-bars-long robo-mix *yuck*

Re:final scratch

[cscx]

Plus, let's hear some scratching on those CDs... ;-)

I suggest you watch this video. Make sure you look for the guy that did his set upside down hanging from the ceiling!

Re:final scratch

[Anonymous Coward]

At 19, I certainly preferred DJs to nerds, but by 29, I would pick a nerd over a DJ any day!

Re:final scratch

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

Well Technics haven't been modified much in the last 10 years. But here's something worth looking at

Better than technics
Better than Pioneer's ProDJ

Now these are the top of the line. I would only recommend it to professional/expert DJ.

Re:final scratch

[glesga_kiss]

Now, that was cool I have to say. I'm going to avoid looking at the cost, 'cos I won't be able to afford it! Damn you, another toy for the wish list...

Re:final scratch

[ianjk]

Better than technics?
look at the brand name.
Numark??
you have to be kidding.
there is a damn good reason they haven't changed much in 10 years, because they are damn solid.
Numark is what you buy your little brother to mess around on because you don't want him to touch your Technics.

Re:final scratch

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

Look I know what I'm talking about. I OWN 4 1200s and recently I got a chance to try out the TTX1 at a record store.

All I can say is, it's a amazing. The only real turntable that's at worst the same and at best, a leap ahead of the 1200's. I know numark/vestax/gemini haven't produce any REAL quality turntable, but if you can, try out the TTX1 or at least to a search on google and google groups.

Re:final scratch

[ianjk]

I haven't used the new Newmark, but every (not joking) person I know who has owned Newmark equiptment over the last 6 years has had it fail/break. Numark reminds me of Hyundai, back in '87. Give em another 15 years and they might get it right... or not. btw... I have tried just about every other dj turntable known to man, and all I can say is that nothing has come close to the Tech 12s in terms of quality, accuracy, durability, weight/feedback... etc.

Re:final scratch

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

You're absolutely right about the past. As for the TTX1, I know the feel/feedback/weight, quality and accuracy is equal or better than the 1200s. Only thing I still don't and won't know for a while, is the durability (especially when they're carried around and used in clubs).

Re:final scratch

[Anonymous Coward]

As a DJ my self, vynal sound quality is much better than final scratch. There is an appeal to usin actual vynal records. Music is one area in which I perfer Analog over Digital.

most DJ's will tell you. you gotta have it on Vynal

Re:final scratch

[fredrik70]

Vestax does quite decent decks though, tried them once, feels rather different from technics though - suppose you get used to them

Re:final scratch

[fredrik70]

think final scratch looks like the perfect marriage of digital and analog tech. You use the prefered method of input (vinyl) and can store all your tunes on your laptop. Never tried it myself, but our soundsystem are thinking of investing in one. What does worry me would be the sound quality, especially if you mix from a normal record to a final scratch one, but I suppose if you store your tunes as uncompressed .wav files (I suppose fs can read them as well as mp3's) the result might be OK.

Re:final scratch

[jrs 1]

the only thing that a final scratch dj doesn't do is put records back in his crate. the rest is done on real turntables.

Re:final scratch

[cscx]

I can't imagine any decent DJ having the balls to get up in front of 5000 people and press the big red "mix" button on some CD rig.

If you think that's how is works.... well.... you don't know how it works! Works just like turntables cept you're using different media! Trust me, I can't stand that "mixing software" as much as the next guy, but if you've ever seen anyone perform on a Pioneer CDJ1000 (fully hardware, with a turntable-like touch sensitive wheel -- it's all manual, dude) then you'd think twice. Please read up on the subject. Also, greats like Paul Oakenfold actually do about 20% of their sets on CDs, so that that at face value.

Re:final scratch

[radish]

It can work that way - I've seen it and I've heard it. Sure you can get the pioneers and such like which try to be turntables but I've yet to find any which are more than gimmicks frankly (and I've played with plenty, including the 1000s). To steal your comment - if you think it "works just like turntables" then you ain't ever really used turntables.

FinalScratch is getting there, and is really good fun, but it's a hassle to setup and the last thing you want to do in your 1 minute DJ changeover is fiddle around with the wiring ;)

And yes as I mentioned in some comment elsewhere, of course DJs do use CD, but this is mainly because CDR is replacing acetate as the pre-release format of choice. It's this (and nothing else) which is pushing CDs into clubs. Acetates are very expensive, slow to make and only last a few plays. CDRs are quick and easy and can be burnt by the artist right in the studio and be in the DJs hands the same day, so it's obvious why it's popular. One thing to note is that when they do use them, they usually use normal drawer loaders (Denon etc make the classic models). I have yet to see any vaguely significant DJ turn up to a gig without a couple of big old boxes of vinyl, and I've NEVER seen one use any of the "spinny wheely" CD decks. Oh and Oakey? Yeah he uses a few CDs, but then he never could mix on decks ;)

Re:final scratch

[kableh]

I've spun on 1200s for a couple years now. I had screwed around with some of the early Pioneer units and their knockoffs and they ranged from usable to crap. But a few months back I used a friend's Pioneer CMX-5000 and was blown away. Best CD deck I've ever used. If you've played a CD in it before it stores info about the levels in different parts of the track and displays them in a visual graph, almost like looking at the grooves on a record. Master tempo is a neat feature too, though most CD decks have had that for a while now.

You'd be suprised at the DJs who are using CDs these days. Hell, last time Hybrid played here they had a big stack of CD-Rs with them and not too many records. I do like the way vinyl feels though, and that is something that perhaps only Final Scratch can do. And who wants to have to look over at the display to adjust the pitch on a track? I wanna be able to just drag a finger on a record while I'm cueing the other one...

I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[callipygian-showsyst]

I used to love when a _Mad Magazine_ or _National Geographic_ came with an Evatone Soundsheet. It would be great to see those again.

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[joshsisk]

You can still get them, I think. Call 1-800-EVA-TONE. They are based in Florida.

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[tregoweth]

Alas, they seem to have stopped making them in 2000. A moment of silence, please...

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[Our Man In Redmond]

OK, cool, but what would the average MAD Magazine reader use to play it?

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[joshsisk]

Wow, that's too bad.

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[callipygian-showsyst]

His phonograph! (I'd guess that most readers of Mad are adults.)

I've seen a revival of portable phonographs. A few stores here are carrying $100-$200 portable stereo phonographs this season as a "nostalgia" item. I suppose goyim like to set these around their tree, playing Grandma's old vinyl as the old Lionel train runs in circles.

Maybe it's time to find a way to manufacture really cheap phonographs to reintroduce vinyl to kids.

Re:I want to see Evatone Soundsheets return!

[BrendanL79]

Not to mention one of the Bloom County books! ("Billy and the Boingers Bootleg")

MPAA should take notice...

[tinrobot]

I'm still wondering why the MPAA doesn't just go back to vinyl for everything. Much harder to rip an LP than a CD. They could bill it as the latest new technology. I mean most folks under 25 haven't even seen an LP...

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Bendebecker]

The problem is sound quality. The sound quality on CD's is a lot better than the sound quality on records. CD's sound more clear, the sound seems to have more depth, and the tones are all richer. What they should do is go back to 8-tracks. On 8 tracks, if you rip it that means you have to splice it back together.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[clarkc3]

its not that much harder to rip, the record player runs through the receiver which can output sound to the computer - simply record from sound input. I even had to do it for my parents old LP collection when their player broke and they wanted to still be able to listen to everything.

Also - why would they even think to go back to vinyl? Can you make a portable LP player? you think anyone would ever seriously create an in dash LP player? cd's and tapes were portable, which is one reason they won out in the end

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[galaxy300]

Whoa...I don't know what kind of crappy turntable and records you were listening to, but many people (including myself) would say the exact opposite. A clean record, a decent turntable and a decent amp will sound much deeper, richer, and full of life. Just look at Sony's new SACD, their attempt to emulate what vinyl does to music -- breathe life into it that doesn't exist on regular CD's.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean most folks under 25 haven't even seen an LP...

Whaaaat?? I'm 22 and I grew up during the 80's listening to LPs. LPs where still popular in the early 90's mainly because CDs where so expensive at the time.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Malcolm MacArthur]

I'm still wondering why the MPAA doesn't just go back to vinyl for everything. Much harder to rip an LP than a CD. They could bill it as the latest new technology. I mean most folks under 25 haven't even seen an LP...

Hint: use the tape recorder output connections on your amp (consult you manual or figure it out). Already set at the correct levels. Few (good) turntables can be plugged direct into your soundcard. RIAA equalisation and pre-amplification are required for the best sound.

Yeah, I did find it quite amusing that the article had to explain what an LP was :)

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

that's where the keyword 'most' comes into effect, poonface...

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

In going back to vinyl, I don't think the problem would be portability or quality at all. The real problem is that vinyl last too long. Sure, the quality degrades after frequent use, but I can still play 30+ yr old vinyls I pick up at yard sales. In the libraries of music conservsatories (e.g. the recently mentioned Eastman), there are hundreds (thousands?) of old vinyls that are still playable. I think a biodegradable CD will be in order. Or, wait, a biodegradable mini-cd with room for one song. Vinyls just last too long.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[chimpo13]

There has been in dash record players before.

Chrysler (not Dodge, Plymouth) started putting them in in 1956. The first ones were 16 2/3 rpm. Later they moved to 45 rpm. They were invented by the same guy who invented 33 1/3 rpm records.

Chryslers had a very smooth ride, even over rough roads, and the records wouldn't skip. When they put them in Dodge/Plymouth they'd skip, so they had to rework them for a shakier car.

I've always wanted one. And since I listen to punk rock, vinyl is always available.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

many people (including myself) would say the exact opposite.

That's because you are an asshole.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[mangu]

I don't know what kind of crappy productions you were listening to, but if you follow the links in the article you'll find the details of the vinyl production on that company's site. A point that's stressed overall is that vinyl has many limitations due to the medium itself. CD's, they say, having less limitations, induce the recording engineers to crank up levels and generally fuck up the sound. What people call the "digital harshness" of CDs is actually the result of recording music compressed to zero dynamic range, with both bass and treble boosted up to the maximum.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[joshsisk]

They did make an in-dash record player. For singles only, I believe.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[clarkc3]

ok, they did make one then, but that was in the late 50's - long before tapes and cds were common, which is my point, would anyone make one now? I'd have to say doubtful

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[joshsisk]

Oh, I wasn't trying to say that an in-car record player is a good idea. Just pointing out that pretty much anything you can think of, someone has tried to do it, no matter how silly.

Personally I think the in-car record player is hysterical. I saw a clip once on TV that was from the 50s or 60s demonstrating how it worked... Classic camp.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[The_Rook]

there is no need for a portable LP player. you put an LP on when you want to sit and listen to music. you put a cd or mp3 on when you want to take out the trash or run around the block.

Re:MPAA should take notice...

[tshak]

I mean most folks under 25 haven't even seen an LP...

Hey, I'm 23, and as of 2 months ago ALL of the music I've purchased is on Vinyl, and I don't expect that to change.

I'm glad Vinyl is making a comeback.

[cioxx]

All thanks to the portable adaptation recently.

Re:I'm glad Vinyl is making a comeback.

[carpe_noctem]

Link is down. Got a mirror?

I remember vinyl

[wiredog]

Cleaning the LP before you played it, to get every bit of dust off of it. Spending $300 (so years ago) on a direct drive turntable+needle to get good sound. Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs, so you and your friends could dance without making the needle skip.

Nowadays you just stick a CD into a $50 player sitting on the table and get just as good a sound, and you don't have to worry about dust nearly as much.

I don't miss LPs.

I do miss the cover art, though. Cover art is why I still have about 50 of them.

Re:I remember vinyl

[Reality Master 101]

Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs, so you and your friends could dance without making the needle skip.

Hey, nothing that a 500 pound piece of marble can't fix. :)

Re:I remember vinyl

[Neuro2000]

A lot of people will say that vinyl is much better than CD quality sound.

Re:I remember vinyl

[stratjakt]

>> Cleaning the LP before you played it

Thats a paddlin

>> Spending $300 (so years ago) on a direct drive turntable+needle

Thats a paddlin

>> Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs

Thats a paddlin

>> stick a CD into a $50 player sitting on the table

You better believe thats a paddlin

Re:I remember vinyl

[stratjakt]

And the little pig with the straw house probably swore up and down it was better than brick.

A 10,000$ reel-to-reel or LP system produces better sound than a 50$ bookshelf stereo. No shit.

But would they compare a 10,000$ digital system to a 10,000$ analog system? Of course not.

Cognative dissonance.

Re:I remember vinyl

[stud9920]

Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs, so you and your friends could dance without making the needle skip.

Hey ! Didn't you read your record's EULA ? You're not supposed to listen to music with "friends" ! You are depriving the hard working record industry executive of hard earned money !

And what's this "friends" thing anyway ? Isn't that, like other circumvention devices, prohibited under the DMCA ?

You will hear from our lawyers !

Re:I remember vinyl

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, vinyl LP paddles YOU!

Re:I remember vinyl

[aderusha]

i clearly came too late to suggest this to you, but there's plenty of ways of making your turntables not skip. mass is your friend. my fav is to bring 2 large empty plastic trays, fill them with sand, stack a couple cinder blocks in each tray full of sand, and lay a table surface across the top. you can dance yourself silly on stage with this setup and it won't miss a beat...

Re:I remember vinyl

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A lot of people will say that vinyl is much better than CD quality sound.

I am not going to take sides on sound quality directly, I really don't know, I really don't have time to scout for rare LPs and I really haven't listened to a good LP playback system, but my mom does have an antique wind-up Victrola :).

The one thing I've noticed is that LP proponents people ignore playback degradation and scratches. Being a contact medium, LPs do suffer some small amount of wear every time it is played. I read rumors of a laser-based pickup but I haven't looked it up to confirm.

Another thing is that sometimes the mastering / digitizing equipment is substandard so analog recordings don't transfer as well as they could have. There are so many variables that an apples to apples comparison is practically impossible. Any bandwidth, sample rate or sample depth issues are practically moot with SACD and DVD-Audio, so it becomes an issue of how well the mastering effort was handled.

Then there is the portability issue. The big cover art is often nice though.

Re:I remember vinyl

[Anonymous Coward]

paddlin isn't in my dictionary.

WTF are you talking about?

Re:I remember vinyl

[glesga_kiss]

It's a Simpsons quote...when the old guy that stays in the home with Abe becomes a fill-in teacher. "Paddlin" being the punishment of paddling, i.e. hitting the child with a paddle. Ah, the good ole days... ;-)

Re:I remember vinyl

[twinpot]

Spending $300 (so years ago) on a direct drive turntable+needle to get good sound
If you want good sound quality, get rid of the direct drive. Good for DJing, crap for listening. Plus it'll cost you a fair bit more than $300 for the turntable and cartridge.

Yes, it does cost more to get decent sound quality from LPs than CDs. But I can also say that a $50 CD player will sound truly awful!!

Re:I remember vinyl

[LMariachi]

Direct drive turntables are for DJs, who need the torque to spin records up to speed as fast as possible. For audio quality you want belt-drive, which provides another layer of insulation from vibrations.

Re:I remember vinyl

[niko9]

I have a $1500 dollar table and arm. That doesn't include the price of the stylus. "Just as good sound"???? You obviously haven't even listened to a Hi-Fi analog setup to be making such comments.

My $2000 vinyl setup blows the socks off some $15K+ digital setups. Why? It's analog... Not truncated 16Bit willie nilly non-sense.

The best part?? I usually pick up pristine 1st pressings of vinyl discs at the thrift shop for 25 cents. 10 cents when they have "sales".
And my Vinyl will out live me if properly taken care of. Guess you never heard of CD rot?

Re:I remember vinyl

[ktully]

Cleaning the LP before you played it, to get every bit of dust off of it. Spending $300 (so years ago) on a direct drive turntable+needle to get good sound. Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs, so you and your friends could dance without making the needle skip.


Havn't been to a club lately have you, thats exactly what we still do!

DJs still spend a small fortune on records ($AU 400-1000/month is typical), ive only been collecting for a year and have about 700.

Re:I remember vinyl

[Our Man In Redmond]

Hanging the turntable from the ceiling from chains and springs, so you and your friends could dance without making the needle skip.

How about hanging the dancers from the ceiling with chains and springs so the needle won't skip?

Er, not that I would know about clubs like that, of course.

Re:I remember vinyl

[vinyl1]

Actually, we do. It's not fair otherwise.

If you listen carefully, you'll hear that $10000 turntable like the VPI TNT Hotrod-X blows the doors off even a $20000 CD player, like the Linn.

not the last pressing plant around

[Anonymous Coward]

there are still 4 or 5 other places that do pressing
still if you like punk rock and hardcore music
you would know that most of the music that comes out of the scence is still available on vinyl.

Re:not the last pressing plant around

[jonerik]

At no point does the post say "the last." It says "one of the last." Twice, as a matter of fact.

Re:not the last pressing plant around

[crazyprogrammer]

This is true, I searched google for "vinyl pressing" and here are the first 4 results:

www.urpressing.com
www.maxdisk.com/vinyl.htm
www.worldmediagroup.com/LPRecords.htm
www.musicolrecording.com/vinyl/

Re:not the last pressing plant around

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget my favorite, Rainbo Records. They patented the "record on a cereal box".

Look..

[mao che minh]

Look at what else you can still buy: click me

I still have the 10 disk "Eye of the Beholder" game on these.

Re:Look..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's sick man, almost as sick as you actually looking for such a forsaken item.

Re:Look..

[gl4ss]

10 disc?

i didnt remember it taking that much.. more like 4 or something like that..

but anyways.. we held a little lan/booze/ps2 party last weekend, and my friend brought a c64.

c64 pron-intros... mmm...

Re:YES!

[TracerJPN_USMC]

I was gonna type you a reply, but ive brocken 2 keyboards tonight. one ibook laptop (spilled tequila) and one reg apple keyboard. sigh. somethin about drop an RB26DETT into yer little ecliplse. i live in japan, i can order it for yah

Much harder to rip?

[wiredog]

Hmmm. Not really. Instead of plugging the turntable into the amp, you plug it into the sound card. Then you just play it. Most ripping programs have a way of detecting the breaks between songs. Many can clean up pops, hisses, and rumble. I've transferred some of my old LPs to CD.

Re:Much harder to rip?

[mary_will_grow]

I dont know guy. Pretty much anything is just as easy for you to rip as anything else. But they are "harder to rip" in the sense that you arent just taking a bunch of bits and dumping them. instead, you are taking an analog stream, sampling it and converting it to digital data via an A/D converter, and hoping you haven't introduced too much noise. To get a "perfect" copy of a CD is easy. to get a "perfect" copy of an LP or a tape is impossible.

Re:Much harder to rip?

[gfxguy]

So have I... but let's face it, it's a lot more work than having CDEX rip a CD for you.

Re:Much harder to rip?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an Apogee PSX-100, which is the same kind of A/D that you find in competent studios. Trust me, giving me content in an analog format isn't going to keep me from making what's effectively a perfect copy of it. It may not be "perfect", but a professional 24/96 A/D conversion beats the fuck out of some mp3 off of kazaa.

Re:Much harder to rip?

[mary_will_grow]

Sorry, I doubt it. An MP3 on Kazaa was borna studio, using an A/D conversion process that is most likely on par if not better than yours. Sure, it was originally uncompressed digital audio, and the Mp3 in some sense slaughters that, but I'd really like to have someone like you listen to a couple songs. Uncompressed, and Mp3, and tell me which is which. You wont be able to. If you think a couple anonomolies in the 100 Khz range is perceptible, you are mistaken.

Vinyl writers?

[cheezycrust]

Howhard would it be to make a device that could write LP's? I have no idea, but I think DJ's would love to have something like this - they could buy the music on CD (so you keep good quality backups), and write them when they need it.

Re:Vinyl writers?

[brandorf]

Not technically difficult, though a "Blank" LP would need to be made of softer stuff that a normal pressed LP, as you need to carve the grooves in them. Because of this, they probbably wouldn't last very long, especially up to the kind of abuse a DJ would put on them.

Re:Vinyl writers?

[gatekeep]

It exists, it's called acetate. Like the other poster said, it's softer than vinyl, so it degrades after being played repeatedly. Acetate recorders (or whatever the technical term is) don't come cheap either, I was looking into them briefly, the price scared me off in a hurry.

Re:Vinyl writers?

[cscx]

So hard, that such a device has existed for at least a year now! :)

Re:Vinyl writers?

[Anonymous Coward]

So hard, that such a device has existed [vestax.com] for at least a year now! :)

and had horrible recording quality for years now!

theres a reason these arent popular with djs.

that and the fact that mif you highball it then maybe half of djs actually try to produce their own songs.

Re:Vinyl writers?

[YrWrstNtmr]

And retailing at $10k, it's not unusual that we haven't heard more about it.

Vinyl market is not dying

[C0CT3AU]

In United States that may be true. In Europe, the situation is not the same. Electronic music and DJ culture have strong influence on producers of vinyls. Factory in Czech republic, in the city Lodenice is known for one of the best qualities available on the market. Even Madonna's SPs made from coloured vinyl were produced there.

Re:Vinyl market is not dying

[freq]

Factory in Czech republic, in the city Lodenice is known for one of the best qualities available on the market.

As a general rule, the Czech pressings are exceptional.

ALOT of the records I buy are pressed in the Czech republic. Many of the producers and djs I know have their music pressed there. Even after import duties, its cheaper AND the quality is better than from our friends down in Nashvegas.

Re:Vinyl market is not dying

[acb]

A lot of the indie-label vinyl here in Australia is pressed in the Czech Republic (which is quite a long way away, when you think about it).

I suppose quality vinyl has become the sort of specialist market where there is only enough space in the world for a few producers, and it's more economical to press all the vinyl there and ship it across the world than to set up presses elsewhere.

Aside: I heard a while ago that there is only one guy in the world who knows how to repair vinyl-cutting lathes (or make new heads for them, or something of that nature), and he's in his 60s/70s/80s; when he dies, the implication was, that's it.

They be hoe-sellin' it?

[dirvish]

I best be goin' down there and git me some disks at hoe-sale prices so I can lay down the phat scratch! Aight!

Re:They be hoe-sellin' it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot

Re:They be hoe-sellin' it?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, yes you are. . .

How fitting...

[da3dAlus]

For today's FoxTrot

When all else fails...

[Malcolm MacArthur]

you'll still be able to cut your own vinyl. A snip at only $10,000 and $7 a blank :)

United..

[Anonymous Coward]

My record label (imputor?) has used United, and they do great work, although Erika Records in LA does better quality work (thicker vinyl, better mastering = better sounding records).

Re:United..

[nfotxn]

Oh dude, I love imputor! Diagram of Suburban Chaos is great!

Re:United..

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, check out the new Otto von Schirach 7" we just released.. it was pressed at United. :)

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have records yet

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

And those people will be wrong. It's theoretically possible that an absolutely perfectly pressed record combined with extremely expensive, high end equipment might sound better than the cheapest CD player. But only extremely rare people can hear the difference, and you and people like you are not that person.

Of course, that's for only certain styles of music. Anything requiring a wide dynamic range, CDs will kill vinyl every time.

Elvis you say...

[elbowdonkey]

'Elvis has been good to us. I can't complain.'

I have a hard time believing that, seeing as he's been working at the 7-11 on the corner of my neighborhood for the last 6 years. The most good he's ever done for me is push the button on the QuickPicks machine, winning me $5.00.

Re:Elvis you say...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Tortelvis is still rockin'!

Re:Elvis you say...

[Spoing]

I don't think you value him enough. Whenever I pick up a chili dog, he always thanks me, thanks me very much.

business is booming.

[oliverthered]

Must be all that DRM they've been putting on vinal now adays.

easier than that

[oliverthered]

One largish (say 13inch) dinner plate.
Some candle wax
Heat wax
Poor onto plate
Put vinal in waxy plate
Allow to cool
Peal off
Maybe not a perfect copy, but it's the easiest way I know to play Iron Man backwards.

Re:easier than that

[Apreche]

Yeah, that works. Unless your vinyl collection consist of rare or rarely listened to albums you don't wish to damage.

Oh yeah, there is a plugin for winamp that lets you play songs backwards and search for satan, cthulhu, or other evils. There was a website with a list of songs and what they are saying, but I forget the URL>

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, I know just stap the +ve and -ve wires round on the motor.

The point is that the copy will be a mirror image.

Re:easier than that

[aborchers]

OK, I'm pretty sure you're joking, but I'll bite. Wouldn't that produce a negative image record consisting of peaks rather than troughs that was, therefore, unplayable? Wouldn't you just end up with something between silence and random noise if the peaks turned into grooves?

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Try http://www.undergroundnoize.com.

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

It would change the phase of the music (180 degrees) which the human ear can't detect. So in the end it'll sound the same. And to keep the needle on the record I imagine that you need to start at the center of the record too since the swirl will be going the wrong way too.

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

It the easiesy way I know to play iron man backwards.

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

One largish (say 13inch) dinner plate.
Some candle wax
Heat wax
Poor onto plate
Put vinal in waxy plate
Allow to cool
Peal off
repeat to get groove going the proper way
final step find a needle that wont rip thru wax like a hot samurai sword t hru warm butter

seriously you ever seen the needles out right now?
you do understand that piezo electric needle means theres a sharp crystal(quartz) at the tip of the needle?

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

If the swirl goes the other way, then it will play backwards

Re:easier than that

[TheSifters]

Here's an easier way to play Iron Man backwards:
Flip your turntable's cartridge (the part that holds the needle) upside down.
Stack a couple rolls of masking tape on the platter (or anything really).
Put the record on top of the rolls of tape.
Raise the needle up to the bottom of the record.
Voila -- your music will play backwards!

Re:easier than that

[EvilBudMan]

Use old turntable. Press stop. Leave needle on vinyl. Take pencil with eraser end down on the label. Turn backwards. Been there, done that, it works. There is some interesting backwards stuff on some Jimi Hendrix records.

Re:easier than that

[The_Rook]

if you nwant to play a record backwards, get a belt drive turntable and put a half twist into the belt. the table will now turn counterclockwise. remember to start the record from the center.

Re:easier than that

[WWWWolf]

Oh yeah, there is a plugin for winamp that lets you play songs backwards and search for satan, cthulhu, or other evils.

And the feature is also in any self-respecting sound editor, such as Audacity...

"sox" tool in *NIXes even says the sound reversing feature is specifically included for finding Satanic subliminals =)

But this stuff is so '80s. Somewhere in late '80s, when CDs were really getting hot, the fundies started listening to CDs right way around. And they could find the word "fuck" very easily and it was even printed in the lyrics!

And times keep changing. These days, it's much cooler to find hidden pictures in song spectrograms (like this one in the second track of Aphex Twin's Windowlicker single... don't know of any other examples.)

Re:easier than that

[hime]

It would change the phase of the music (180 degrees)

There's a song on _Initiation_ by Course of Empire that does something similar to this. They took two pieces of feedback, reoriented them at 180 degrees, or something. I can never remember how it goes. Basically, you play the CD back on a mono sound output and you ca hear a song buried underneath a lot of feedback. My TV is mono, where did that CD go?

Re:easier than that

[Anonymous Coward]

a pencil eraser? how fucking gay are you? buy some slipmats, put your hand on the damned record and spin it backwards, if that's your thing.

Re:easier than that

[oliverthered]

You what, havn't you see optical Record Players, no needle.

Re:easier than that

[oliverthered]

or just swap the wires on the motor.

Re:easier than that

[The_Rook]

nope, that won't work. turntable moters are usually ac. and if it's battery powered, it won't work at all if the batteries are put in backwards.

True Til College

[Anonymous Coward]

All my friends are into hardcore (not that ridiculous bubble gum pop punk) and all that stuff is on vinyl. Me thinks that although it in the mainstream no longer is, disappear soon it will not. Stress leads to anger...anger leads to doobies...doobies lead to twinkies

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[oliverthered]

In Soviet Russia the records played with you.....

Come on try harder....

Re:Burp QWZX

[Petersko]

Tube amplifiers do have a sweet, sweet sound. Tubes mostly produce even-order harmonic distortion, which is pleasing to the ear. The warmth stems from this coloration. It might not be an accurate reproduction of the source material, but many people prefer it. To people who prefer this coloration, transistors do sound sterile.

Digital distortion, on the other hand, often results in odd-order distortion, and is ugly.

Your attitude is about as reasonable as theirs.

punk

[blackmonday]

There's still a lot of punk bands making vinyl. I like how it looks and how it sounds. Go into an independent record store and you just might find a punk vinyl section with some new stuff, even major punk bands like NOFX still put out vinyl releases. My band Black Monday just did a run of 1000 7 inch vinyl singles (in red vinyl!) on a label named split seven records. Check out the site.

Re:punk

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of European metal bands do this as well. I have the latest Arcturus CD on vinyl.

Re:punk

[Anonymous Coward]

"A lot of European metal bands do this as well. I have the latest Arcturus CD on vinyl."

You mean you have the latest Arcturus album on vinyl.

Vinyl Re cord?

[burgburgburg]

What is this re cord of which you speak? I have heard tales of the time before, the time of the turn table and the black scratchy circle. Is this your re cord? If so, how can the laser properly read the re cord?

Great Work /.

[WookieOnTheRun]

This, to me, is the best story I've seen in a long time here on /. The story does a great job at capturing the quality of vinyl. I personally own much more on vinyl than I do on cd. Now I know you might think im in my 50's, but I'm 22. The fact is that CD's cannot replicate that beautiful warm sound of vinyl. Also, dont forget that owning vinyl is similar to owning history. Its beautiful. I gues sI've got a true passion for it, and I'm their niche market. Also, a lot of the old jazz I love just isnt put on to cd, and that which is has been remasterd so poorly I can't stand to listen to it. CD's will never ever be true collectors items as they can easily be reproduced, vinyl is hard to reproduce, it has actual monetary worth (ie my first pressing of every official Beatles release).

Re:Great Work /.

[Valiss]

Sure, your first pressing of every official Beatles release is worth something, assuming you've never taking them out of the pacakge. Considering you weren't born when they were together, it's likely that the records have been played many, many times.

Re:Great Work /.

[Anonymous Coward]

used records are expected to have been used. we are not talking about 'action figures' here...

Re:Great Work /.

[WookieOnTheRun]

My first pressings of this kind of value never ever get played, they get either framed or archival stored. I have repressings to play :-) besides most first beatles pressings are mono :-) Jonny

Here I go recycling an old post...

[sdo1]

Ok, this is as much of a whore as I can get here on /., but what the heck. This was my reply to recent article about downloading music. I made that post late in the game and I doubt many people saw it, but I think it's totally relevant to the discussion here... so here it is anyway....

I recently got back into listening to vinyl... you know, those 12" black things that are (gasp!) analog. I'm finding this hobby really fun for a few reasons...

First, there's an amazing amount of stuff that's out there and DIRT CHEAP. Scour around used record stores, record shows, yard sales, etc and there's a ton of material to be had for a buck or less if you're willing to look.

Next, it sounds better than CD. No one is going to convince me otherwise. I can listen for hours and hours and enjoy every minute of it. Even the best CDs that I have are fatiguing to listen to after a while.

And finally, even under the most assenine RIAA intupretation of the law, this is completely legal and the record companies don't see an additional penny from me.

I just find it really funny that the industry gets all riled up over downloading, but my digging into used vinyl is actually worse for them yet there's not a damn thing they can complain about.

(of course we know that the RIAA has tried to stop the sale of used CDs but was summarily shot down because the practice is protected by the "first sale" doctrine of federal copyright law).

-S

Re:Here I go recycling an old post...

[Anonymous Coward]

Next, it sounds better than CD. No one is going to convince me otherwise. I can listen for hours and hours and enjoy every minute of it. Even the best CDs that I have are fatiguing to listen to after a while.

What the fuck! Are you on crack. Just curious.

Re:Here I go recycling an old post...

[sdo1]

What the ****! Are you on crack. Just curious.

No. No crack. Unless you've heard good quality vinyl (no scratches, properly maintained) on a properly setup turntable with a decent stereo system, you really don't know. I'll grant you that for cheap setups, you can't beat the cost and convenience of CDs. Most of my collection is CDs. But if you really care about the sound quality and want to hear what was recorded, even the best CD reproduction doesn't come close to good analog.

-S

Re:Here I go recycling an old post...

[Reality Master 101]

But if you really care about the sound quality and want to hear what was recorded, even the best CD reproduction doesn't come close to good analog.

You know, I really think that the first CD manufacturer that comes out with a CD player that artificially creates analog distortion, hiss, wow-and-flutter, etc to create a more "natural" sound will make a zillion dollars. :)

Just for the record, you're not hearing what was "really recorded", you're hearing music distorted in a way that happens to sound pleasing to you. Nothing wrong with that, just like many people like the distortion of tube amplifers which creates a "warm" sound. But it's all distortion effects. CD = true, undistorted sound.

Re:Here I go recycling an old post...

[sdo1]

CD = true, undistorted sound

Yea, CD does an awesome job of recreating complex high frequency wave forms, huh?

-S

Re:Here I go recycling an old post...

[Reality Master 101]

CD does an awesome job of recreating complex high frequency wave forms, huh?

As a matter of fact, it does. What that link doesn't tell you (which I'm pretty suprised by -- that site is usually pretty good) is that:

a) the distortion caused by digital encoding is WELL below human's ability to detect, and

b) the distortion caused by vinyl (which is a pretty crude mechanism) is WAY above those stair steps on the guy's chart.

This poster has already covered all this territory better than I could, along with lots of links.

Trip Hop

[Nevermore-Spoon]

Check out This : a CURRENT compilation of the 97 buzzword

Re:Trip Hop

[Anonymous Coward]

labels like sony and bmg, listed on that site, most definitely aren't the driving force behind vinyl in the dj industry.

PRESS RELEASE! HOLY COW! hi-tech!

[herrd0kt0r]

NASHVILLE, TN (Reuters) - With the expansion of the vinyl industry, executives are looking towards technology to further their cause.

It has been a long time since music aficionados flocked to the record stores for vinyl records. With the advent of digital media such as CDs, CD-Rs, and the internet, it is possible to get the music you want quickly and easily, without having to leave your home. Furthermore, fans can make their own mixed compilations of their favorite music.

The vinyl industry here in Nashville is trying to capture that magic. Engineers are hard at work on the LP-R, and the LP-R drive. LP-R stands for Long Play Recorder, and is a throwback to the lingo vinyl enthusiasts used.

"We were gonna try for 7"-R, but saying 'seven-inch-arrr' just wasn't catchy enough," Buckaroo Banzai said. "Instead, we're going for the behemoth of vinyl, the LP!"

Here at the test labs of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, the press was introduced to the world's first LP-R drive. Fitting in the 5.25" bay of a personal computer, and expanding to a full-sized drive at the touch of a button, the LP-R drive can take blank LP-R media and burn LPs on the fly!

"We've only got it recording at 2x speed right now, but pretty soon we're gonna introduce the same technology we used to make splat-proof watermelons, and up the burn rates to 52x," one engineer stated.

The industry is buzzing with talk of LP-RW drives, and even a portable unit codenamed "the iLPod." Fan reaction has been phenomenal, with one fan exlaiming: "Holy CRAP! i've been waiting for this for YEARS! vinyl sounds so warm and smooth, and i can't WAIT to burn all my mp3s onto LP-Rs! Hell, even 32kbps mp3s sound MAGICAL!"

Another fan bared her breasts in support of the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

Okay, what's all this then?

[Merovign]

What? No one is starting a flame war on what turntable is best? The $300 DJ turntable versus the $2000 diamond/granite signed-by-some-music-geek model? No comments about how you could do this in Linux? No analog-digital math wars?

No comments about how DJ turntables are "like a beowulf cluster?"

What are you people thinking! This is /.! This isn't ABC news!

Re:Okay, what's all this then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technics 1200s have a monopoly on being "best." The only debate left is the model MKII vs MD3.

Re:Okay, what's all this then?

[Anonymous Coward]

comeon know one argues about the best tables(technis)

we only argue about mixers.
vestax?pioneer?stanton?

and just for you

imagine a beouwolf of turntablist.

It's not.

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys will press your vinyl too. And there's at least two, maybe three, in the UK (Eurodisc apparently being one of them).

Re:It's not.

[Anonymous Coward]

err... make that Record Tech, Inc.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Da

And in soviet russia, the record spins the DJ!

And the stoli drinks YOU!

Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[eclectric]

Pearl Jam (the band, not the... err... stuff) releases all of their albums on Vinyl first (a practice they've done at least since their second release in 1993.) The band members have a love of vinyl, and that's mainly the purpose.

The fan club singles they release every year are also only put out on vinyl. An interesting note: it was a trip to the Library of Congress that sealed this decision: vinyl, unlike tape and CD is impervious to time and will not break down if it is protected from damage, unlike magnetic and optical formats (tapes and CDs)

I have no idea who presses the Pearl Jam vinyls. I do know that PJ's album "Vitalogy" was the the last vinyl album to enter the billboard top 100 list.

Re:Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[carpe_noctem]

A large number of punk bands (and yes, I fully acknowledge that Pearl Jam isn't punk) release their music on vinyl. It's just part of the tradition of punk...better cover art, full lyric tabs, and cheaper (about 10$ per LP, even online). I buy a large amount of new music on vinyl for these reasons, and I really wish that a lot of bigger bands like Pearl Jam would continue to press.

Re:Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[ryanvm]

An interesting note: it was a trip to the Library of Congress that sealed this decision: vinyl, unlike tape and CD is impervious to time and will not break down if it is protected from damage, unlike magnetic and optical formats

Hmmm - I have a little trouble believing this one. I know that magnetic media fade, and I don't doubt that CD-R and CD-RW could possibly degrade after time. But to say that grooves etched in vinyl are more permanent than pressed aluminum discs encased in plastic? Other than intense electromagnetic radiation (e.g. a microwave :-), exactly what process would degrade mass-produced CDs yet leave vinyl LPs unharmed?

Re:Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[Anonymous Coward]

Oxidation.

Re:Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. It's a tiny bug that eats the disc substrate. This has been covered here before.
Also, some of my older CD's are starting to get holes through the metal between the plastic. No scratches - just little specks that on close inspection are tiny holes...

Re:Pearl Jam and Vinyl

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my 600 CD's are between 12 and 15 years-old, and about 20% of them are ruined! They've been kept on a shelf against an inside wall. Other than the few times the power has been out, the temperature hasn't been below 60 or above 80. The problem is that sections of the aluminium just disappear. The first two albums I saw this happen to were the Black Crows and Eagles Greatest Hits in about 1993. Since then, it keeps happening to more of them. This isn't the pin hole pricks I've read about elsewhere. This is entire sections (multiple square inches) of the disk becomes transparent. I bought my first 45 in 1943, and it still plays. It sounds bad, because I've played it too many times and haven't kept it clean, but it's done much better than many of my CD's. Also, I'm retired and work part-time as a security guard at a music college, and I've seen them throw-out dozens of CD's at a time because of this same problem. I'd like to find more info about this problem, because it's affecting both collections.z

[ More Info on Manufacturers of Vinyl Records ]

[ekrout]

(As usual, I try to add informative details under many Slashdot articles. This one's no exception. Yes, you could probably find this info yourself, but allow me to make things easier for you!)

Please feel free to peruse the links listed below. There are even cached versions of each page where available so that Slashdotters don't bring down the servers.

Independent Pressing - Vinyl Record Manufacturers
independentpressing.com;http://www.lowliferecord s.co.uk/independent;.
www.independentpressing.com/ - 2k - Dec. 10, 2002 - Cached -

Vantage Technology Group, Inc.
... The vinyl record manufacturers who realized they were in the music reproduction business,
and not the LP record business, had the time to anticipate the CD's ...
www.vantagegroup.com/resources/ASPreview.asp?ID= 485 - 14k - Dec. 10, 2002 - Cached -

Any colour...as long as it's clear
... the tail end of the record boom, before cassettes really took off - around '86 or
'87 - we were working with a number of the vinyl record manufacturers to get ...
www.oto-online.com/jan01/colour.html - 24k - Cached -

[PDF] Consultation draft
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Page 1. Towards an Electronic Commerce Strategy for the Merseyside Music
Industries Consultation draft Prepared by P. Fulwell November ...
musicbiz.loyno.edu/metrovision/documents/ digital_music_strategy.pdf -

pressing - ThesaurusDictionary.com :: All about pressing
... http://www.conexmetals.com/prod9.htm Independent Pressing - Vinyl Record
Manufacturers. Independent Pressing Company is a medium-size ...
www.thesaurus-dictionary.com/files/p/r/e/pressin g.html - 47k - Cached -

New Page 1
... Oh sure, it has already happened to the vinyl record manufacturers, but
this time it should be different. Its like if you want potatoes. ...
www.reprolabs.com/doi.htm - 4k - Cached -

Re:[ More Info on Manufacturers of Vinyl Records ]

[Anonymous Coward]

This takes desparate karma whoring and friend begging to limits that Signal 11 could only dream of. Have you ever considered pulling your fat ass away from Slashdot, getting out into this thing called the "real world", and maybe making some real friends, so you wouldn't have to plead with people to befriend you online?

Give it a try sometime. You may like it.

Try DK

[Anonymous Coward]

A real up-and-cumer is just making inroads in the CD and DVD scratching/blending scene.

OpenDK by fazigu technologies allows you to takedown any format and mix mix mix.

thank you
OpenDK

Cool "vinyl" in new zealand

[dbombarc]

Although I have made proper vinyl here in the US (through United, Rainbow, and a couple other mom n'pops now extinct) for releases on my indie record label (shameless plug - http://deathbombarc.com) I have been much more fond of making LATHE CUTS. A fellow named Peter King in New Zealand cooks up his own version of vinyl (actualy some type of plastic he makes which is clear!) and then cuts each record by hand. It would be impossible to make thousands of records this way, but it a miracle for small bands that can only sell may 30-100 copies of their album/single while on brief weekend tours and whatnot. Besides this, Peter can shape the records in anyway you like. I made a lathe cut through Peter that was shaped like an X!!! If you are interested, his only website is a fan site, but it does have pretty accurate rate info. Fax or call him for a quote though, as the fellow doesn't have an internet connection... http://home.attbi.com/~cassetto/kingcontact.html

Re:Cool "vinyl" in new zealand

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Rainbo Records", at http://www.rainborecords.com/

Re:Cool "vinyl" in new zealand

[chegosaurus]

Peter King is a hero. I have bought more 'limited edition of 17, lathe cut clear polycarbonate 8"' singles than is strictly good for me.

In the world of obscure and difficult music, vinyl has always been the medium of choice. I'm still an enthusuastic music buyer, and I'd say 7 out of every 10 things I buy are on vinyl.

You can argue about frequency response and "warmth" and ripping all you want, but the simple fact is CDs and CD players just aren't cool. Records and record players are.

Getting the appeal of vinyl is like getting the appeal of modern art or classic cars. You do, or you don't. It's not something you can reason out and justify.

If you're remotely interested in what I have to say, I've been through this argument before on my website.

Market slowing down

[Tronster]

I would be surprised if the DJ industry continues to use vinyl 10 years from now. Over a year ago, Pioneer released the first CD turntable that behaves like a record player:

Pioneer CDJ-1000

Right now the only limiting factor is the cost ($1300), but that will come down in time.

I own both a Technics 1200, and a CDJ-1000. While the CDJ has a different feel than the Technics, it allows me to do more when performing. I'm willing to bet more will jump on this once a CDJ-1000, or equivalent, reaches the cost of professional turntables (around $400).

Re:Market slowing down

[Steveftoth]

I've used that and regular vinyl and vinyl sounds so much better when you slow it down. The sampling rates for CD's are fine when you listen to them at the regular playback speed (that's debatable though). When you slow them down however, vinyl makes a world of diference. Since CD's basically interpolate the sounds, there is no way that it can sound as good as an analog vinyl.

You may say, but everything is recorded digital (which most stuff is). Still, the vinyl (a fresh one) will sound slightly better because the equipment that they use in the studio has a higher sampling rate then your cd does.

Viable Backup Media?

[randomErr]

Yesterday we were talking about using IDE drives as long term backup media. Why not vynal?

They holdup well with reasonable care. Many jukeboxs are still playing records from the 50's. They are not effected by magnetic field. They also take stratched better the cd's and dvd's.

I would love to backup a gig to a 45.

If you think and 45 is a gun, your too young to understand this post.

Re:Viable Backup Media?

[Fubar411]

"If you think and 45 is a gun, your too young to understand this post"

You mean "you're", old wise one...

Re:Viable Backup Media?

[Cap'n Canuck]

Maybe it has something to do with:
- It's hard to do (have you seen the process involved in making vinyl?)
- It's an analog medium (perhaps you've heard of it - it's not the same as digital)

What would be cheaper and more effective would be printing out reams of paper in a format like the bar code, then saving that.

Re:Viable Backup Media?

[Anonymous Coward]

your too young to understand this post

What is it about vinyl that brings out all the obnoxious "older than thou" people? So you're dustier than some of us. Big deal. Strom Thurmond is older than all of us. Where do you rank him?

I may have been born in 1981, but that doesn't stop me from having crates of vinyl at home.

Re:Viable Backup Media?

[ChrisMaple]

It's not too hard to make vinyl recordings if low quality and limited playback aren't concerns. In the 1950's dictating machines ("Sound Scriber" and others) were available, making recordings on thin, pale green disks. IIRC the disks were about the size of a CD, and the machine was about 7x11x3 inches. The first playback sounded OK, but damaged the disk, so that 2nd and later playbacks were scratchy.

Re:Viable Backup Media?

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic, but still on analog backup - I didn't see any mention of the old backup to the VHS tape through a PCM encoder / decoder trick.
Might be able to translate it into vinyl...

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

These "extermely rare" people being people that haven't gone deaf listening to today's volume maximized pop albums, of course ;-(

In other words, most peope over 23...

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[gjt]

I partially agree. There are many people who can pick out the difference between vinyl and CD. A CD (16-bit sample, 44.1KHz rate) tries to approximate the quality of a record, and does a very good job. But when you listen to music with a very wide dynamic range, such a classical or jazz, the old fashioned record does sound better. If the CD sample size were better, this would probably be a non-issue.

However, the death of the record should be near as DVD players start to come out with DVD-Audio and SACD compatibility. I just got a DVD-Audio player, which supports 24-bit samples, sampling rates up to 192 KHz, and up to six surround sound channels (CD's and records are just two stereo channels).

Basically, no human being can realistically say that the record is better than DVD-Audio (and probably SACD too).

Unfortunately, those in the electronics industry think that DVD-Audio and SACD have to fight some sort of a stupid format war. So most consumers will have to chose one player type over the other. A few smart companies, like Apex and Pioneer, know that they can just make DVD players that play both formats.

Re:Burp QWZX

[binaryDigit]

Well, many of the comments they make certainly do have a ring of truth to them. Many of the better/best quality analog recordings are superiour to cd's as far as the quality of the sound. Note that things like scratches and hiss often times take a back seat to fidelity when one is judging "quality" (to a point obviously). Similar issue for tubes vs transistors. There is no denying that tubes sound "different", now whether this translates into "better" can be subjective, but hey, if it sounds "better" to you (tubes/transistors/digital/analog), then it is "better" regardless of what anyone else says.

One note on cd's. Remember that one of the biggest selling points of cd's was not their _absolute_ quality, but the "average" quality. In other words, someone with a cheap cd player and a cd from Walmart could achieve a level of sound quality that was very good. Vs the huge disparity in analog stuff, both recordings and equipment. So you have a situation where the most common 90% of cd's sound as good as the upper 10% of analog.

Re:first fist

[Anonymous Coward]

You say this like it's a bad thing.

Vinyl

[tezzery]

Since cassettes came out, Vinyl has always had somewhat of a cult following. From audiophiles who liked the 'warm' vinyl sound better than hissy cassettes to the punk-rock scene, and of course nowadays, hip hop and techno dj's..

Sure, there's new digital equipment that lets you mix and even scratch .. but nothing better than putting your finger over the record, adjusting the pitch control and mixing a perfect beat.. As far as scratching goes, you can see the influence this has made in a lot of today's music. From rock bands with dj's (limp bizkit, incubus, linkin' park) to even jazz artists (courtney pine, herbie hancock). The turntable has turned into an instrument with the help of turntablists like q-bert, dj shadow, kid koala, etc.

As far as record pressers go, there's plenty of places out there cutting vinyl for hip hop/club/and techno producers. There's also a lot of independent places that do it for a lot less..

Recently, Vestax introduced a Vinyl cutter for under $10,000 (about 8400).

Overall, I'm glad vinyl is still around after all these years. I doubt it will go away anytime soon.

Re:Vinyl

[Tokerat]

That isn't bad if you need a pro setup, although the 60Hz-12kHz was a bit disappointing, I would have hoped for something with at least a lower bottem-end, 33Hz if not lower for that deep deep deep bass (remember, in the club you can still *feel* it below hearing range :-) ).

Anyways if you're looking for a quick and dirty dubplate cutter, Kingston makes one for about $5000 US:

http://www.vinylium.ch/stuka/dubcut.html

It requires a Technics or equally high-torque direct drive turntable to attach to, but if you're a DJ you'd have those already for practice (unless you're like me and bought el cheapo Numark TT-1520s). I didn't really check on the current availibility of this thing, but it was new in 2001, so here is the link, enjoy.

Denon

[Wyatt Earp]

We had a Denon 5 disc changer for the hold music when I got to my current job.

The thing gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a Mac running iTunes.

Damnedest thing, when I opened the drawer to get the CDs out there was a 1/8-1/5 of an inch band worn into all the discs at around mid-way around all the CDs.

It'd been spinning for about 18 months and it wore a grove into the CDs.

Breakage in the production line

[dpilot]

I wonder how much breakage they have in the production line for vinyl records.

After all, the RIAA subtracts an 11% 'laquer breakage' allowance from artists' royalties. They don't do laquer any more, but I wonder what the breakage is for vinyl, or even for CDs.

I know, pointless barb, but I'd like to see a lawyer go after this one. No doubt the padding would appear somewhere else.

analog

[farnsworth]

Reasons that analog is better than digital:

Frequency Response: digital music *must* filter out everything above half its sample rate (plus or minus a few hertz for data). Conventional CD's filter out everything above 22kHz. some people can hear a 25kHz pitch, some cannot. but nearly everyone can hear the interaction of 24 and 25, which can manifest itself within their hearing range. recording techniques improve this situation, and higher sampling rates are coming, but this is still a fundamental limit.

Dynamic Range: analog music naturally compresses from the quietest to the loudest portions in much the same way the human ears work. when you go to a really loud concert, does the sound clip? no, your ears compress the sound. digital music can emulate this with algorithms, and some of them are quite good, but again, all decent analog equipment does this as a side effect, and no digital recorder will ever get this excatly right (although digital recordings can best the 96dB range that good tape machines can offer, does anyone listen to music in a *totally silent* environment?)

Simplicity: no processing is required to record/play analog. the medium is a physical imprint of the sound waves in the room as a function of time. all you need is a magnet and some energy.

Of course, analog media is not as convienient as modern digital media, but since I have a home with the space in my home, I will keep listening to my big, bulky, dusty records because they just sound better.

Re:analog

[Anonymous Coward]

No processing required? yes there is, as the frequency range on a record is compressed. (See RIAA approved Pre-amp specifications).

96db is the dynamic range, you seemed to have missed a concept here...

if, during recording a 24khz and 25khz interact to produce a lower frequency within hearing range it will NOT be filtered out. The high frequencies will be. No loss there, YOU CANNOT HEAR THEM. (That goes for 999,999 of the 1,000,000 people that live near you as well.).

Virtual no-one above the age of 25 can hear anything over 18 or 20khz. Those that do are the exceptions, not the rule. And none of them listen to rock music at a concert. Ever.

Re:analog

[cbv]

Virtual no-one above the age of 25 can hear anything over 18 or 20khz.

I do. A friend of mine runs a high-end stereo shop and we made a few tests. You know, the fun stuff, like "how 'high' and 'low' can you hear" and "where's the sub-woofer hidden" games.

Those that do are the exceptions, not the rule. And none of them listen to rock music at a concert. Ever.

I do. Granted, I consider myself audiophile and prefer Classic, but I do listen to rock, like Metallica and *gasp* Slayer...

Re:analog

[Anonymous Coward]

I love vinyl and rub a small record label that releases only vinyl LPs but

my pet peeve of vinyl is that its so easy to burn thru it and this happenes alot if you have a kick drum that is cross-phased

Re:analog

[Anonymous Coward]

I think farnsworth was trying for "+1 Funny", but the humor is just too suble for most Slashdot'ers.

Either that, or he's an idiot.

Re:analog

[sunspot42]

Why do uninformed ramblings keep getting moderated as "Insightful" here at Slashdot?

First, farnsworth's post asserts that some people can hear a 25kHz pitch. Yeah. Right. Maybe if they're six months old. The reality is, there are probably a handful of adults on the planet who can hear a 25kHz pitch, and I doubt any of them live in the noise-drenched environments of western civilization. Most adults are lucky if they can still hear anything out past 18kHz, especially if they listened to a lot of loud music at any point in their lives.

It's also vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at high frequencies is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.

Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low. And this assumes the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz, to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal. Many do. Older or lower-quality equipment (and/or tapes) won't even make it to 25kHz (except for all the hiss!).

Even if the decks can record 25kHz sounds, in order to get them onto the tape the microphones would have to be capable of picking up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?

Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important. You're lucky if you can get a flat 50Hz - 15,000kHz response out of vinyl. Most signal above and below those limits is likely to be noise (rumble and hum below 50-60Hz, clicks, pops, hiss and harmonics above 15,000kHz).

Next, you make the ludicrous assertion that, "analog music naturally compresses from the quietest to the loudest portions in much the same way the human ears work." Eh? Human hearing most certainly does not "compress" the audio signal, and even if it did, what could possibly be "natural" about adding an external layer of compression to the signal? The only time our hearing "compresses" is when a really loud sound (think thunderclap) happens nearby - IIRC, the hammer will be temporarily pulled away from the eardrum, but that's a reflex that lasts only moments. With a dynamic range well in excess of 90dB (far greater than vinyl's pathetic 60dB under absolutely ideal circumstances), CD's and DVD's don't need to utilize any compression, unless they're recording the sound of a jet taking off six feet away or something. Nor do vinyl records magically compress the natural dynamic range of recorded music into their paltry 60dB of dynamic range (more like 40dB for virtually all consumer vinyl) - that compression is done by mastering engineers. You could perform the same signal-degrading compression before mastering the sound to a CD if you wanted, but what kind of an idiot would do such a thing?

Finally, this statement of yours the kicker: " Simplicity: no processing is required to record/play analog. the medium is a physical imprint of the sound waves in the room as a function of time. all you need is a magnet and some energy." No processing, eh? Apart from the already mentioned compression, of course, to get the natural dynamic range of music shoehorned into vinyl's pathetic dynamic range. And then there's the RIAA equilization, required before one can even attempt to squeeze high fidelity performance out of vinyl. Here's the standardized curve. Looks pretty processed to me. Bass frequencies are cut by almost 20dB at 20Hz (they have to, otherwise the needle would pop out of its groove trying to reproduce bass), while at 19kHz treble frequencies are boosted by almost 20dB in an attempt to drown out all the vinyl noise. Then it all has to be reversed on playback. That's some serious processing.

I suppose this would also be a good time to mention that, if you want to put more than about 10 minutes worth of material onto a single side of a vinyl LP, you're going to have to further compress (or eliminate) any loud, low bass. The grooves can't be made wide enough to handle it. And of course, de-equalizing that RIAA curve on playback is an imprecise science, leading to all sorts of frequency response irregularities and phase issues. Whoops!

Ah yes, the wonderful, "naturally" compressed, unprocessed sound of vinyl. To summarize:

* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results

You're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you obviously don't begin to understand

Re:analog

[Wonko42]

Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, this is the most informed post of any kind I've read on Slashdot in the last three years. Someone give this man a Pulitzer prize or something.

Re:analog

[EvilBudMan]

--Frequency Response: digital music *must* filter out everything above half its sample rate (plus or minus a few hertz for data). Conventional CD's filter out everything above 22kHz. some people can hear a 25kHz pitch, some cannot. but nearly everyone can hear the interaction of 24 and 25, which can manifest itself within their hearing range. recording techniques improve this situation, and higher sampling rates are coming, but this is still a fundamental limit. --

BS!

What is at 24 to 25kHz that would be important? I've never seen a LP that has the dynamic range of a CD but I don't have a $1000 turntable either. I just don't think your hearing is that good. Prove me wrong. Point out a study or something that says that is important.

The biggest thing you get with vinyl is cracks and pops and rumble unless you hang your turntable from the ceiling or mount it to granite. I think the DJaying is why vinyl is comming back.

Re:analog

[hackstraw]

I believe that analog is better than digital because sound is analog. Microphones and speakers are analog and for a digital format to become digital it must go through an A->D converter and then from a D->A converter on playback. Ever since the CD came out digital was the buzword. Even today low end loudspeakers are claiming their speakers are "digital ready", which means nothing, but it has the important D word.

The best digital recording would have an infinite sample rate and infinite bits in the signal. Which would bring you right back to analog.

Re:analog

[farnsworth]

To be clear, I was talking about the theoretical differences between analog and digital, not the practical differences between CDs and records. You clearly know more about the implementation than I do, and I think that we both know more about the theoretical differences than most people do.

Regarding frequency response: you're right that it makes only a small difference, and possibly one that most people don't notice anyway. my point is not that 'the higher-order harmonics that a cymbal produce are critical to the recording', rather that by rolling off hard at 20k, you lose a lot of the interaction of instruments. I know I can't hear anything near 20k if it's just a synthesizer pumping out a sine wave, but I *can* tell the difference between room where the drums don't bleed into any of the other instruments, because there is a noticeable interaction, and that interaction is not completely there if your rolling off the entire room at an arbitrary frequency. again, you can achieve this effect with careful mike placement, but you have to try to.

Signal processing: I was talking about dsp, or any algorithm needed to record or replay. digital music media is just data, analog is more like a fossil of a recording. I can drag a needle over a record myself to replay the sound, I don't need a cpu or ram or anything. I wasn't referring to all the steps that engineers to tweak the overall frequency curve of the final recording, just the fact that an analog recording can be made and replayed without a computer or special algorithm.

wow, your post is full of a lot of good information (and some rude remarks), I'm glad I read it. I do, however, take exception to your accusation that my original post is full of 'techno-babble'. I'm just calling it like I see it, pointing out the differences between digital and analog in plain english.

Re:analog

[Schnapple]

I don't really know shit about sound but I remember hearing a long time ago how the main reason vinyl had the potential to sound better was because of sampling rates. A CD has a 44.1kHz sampling rate, but since a vinyl record has one single groove, its sound isn't "limited" by sampling rate. By way of comparison with numbers, a vinyl record has a sampling rate of infinity. Of course, this ultimately proved less important to Joe Consumer than things like portability and durability, and rightfully so.

Further, the shift to CD's wasn't because the RIAA "said so" - the recording industry's come out with several format duds (8-tracks?), it was just the fortunate exodus to CD's that revitalized the industry 20 years ago. Of course, the CD is seeing nice improvements in sound quality thanks to things like SACD and DVD-Audio - but now the public has stated that such things are less important. The public on the whole is perfectly content in downloading a 128kbps MP3 with no packaging (and no pricetag) and doesn't care about higher sampling rates or 5.1 surround sound.

Perhaps the whole music industry will be a niche industry at some point...

Re:analog

[sunspot42]

Sorry, I didn't mean to snap your head off. I'm just getting sick to death of seeing posts modded up as "Informative" when they don't contain any information or valid references, or when the information they contain is obviously incorrect. "+5 Opinionated" would be more like it. But that's obviously not your fault.

As for "rolling off hard at 20k", again this is a common argument advanced by vinyl proponents, but the truth is, vanishingly few adults can even hear up to 20k. Yes I know, there's tons of marketing material that tries to assert otherwise, usually citing "harmonics". The problem is, microphones will pick up those sub-20k harmonics, too. So what, exactly, is missing here? A teensy-tiny amount of additional sub-20k harmonics that might be generated in your room by a (say) 30kHz signal bouncing off your furniture and walls? I'm not even sure that's a plus. That sounds like additional distortion to me, since the walls of your room weren't part of the original recording environment!

You might also be buying into the old "brickwall filter" myth, which goes something like this:

"Due to the nature of the 44.1kHz sampling rate utilized by CD, filters have to be in place to keep any signal above about 22.05kHz from getting to the D/A converters. 44.1kHz recording limits you to 22.05kHz maximum, and these filters introduce all kinds of distortion and mess up the imaging and degrade the harmonics and put a hole in the ozone layer and yadda yadda yadda."

And it's true. Sort of. You do have to use a filter to keep out signals above 22kHz (half the sample rate), and recording at 44.kHz does limit you to 22.05kHz (and in reality, much less because you can't build an effective, transparent filter that just whacks off the signal at precisely that point). Unless you record at a higher sampling rate, which folks have been doing now SINCE EVEN BEFORE CD'S WERE INTRODUCED. The early 3M digital recorders, for example, utilized a rate of around 50kHz. That allowed them to encode sounds out to 25kHz. Later professional equipment seemed to standardize on 48kHz. Over the last few years, it's shifted to all the way out to 96kHz, allowing for a flat frequency response to in excess of 40kHz if you want it. Of course, you have to bring it back down to 44.1kHz for CD, but that can be done using very precise analog equipment at the mastering lab, or it can even be performed in the digital domain using algorithms. On the playback side, early CD players with no oversampling were plagued with poor brick wall filters that led to slightly degraded sound quality, especially at the extreme high end (of course, many people can't hear anything up there, anyhow). But that hasn't been a real issue now for over a decade thanks to oversampling, which pushes all that high frequency noise way, way up into the ultrasound and allows for the use of far less drastic (and cheaper, more accurate) filters.

Anyhow, complaining about CD's filters at the extreme high end (where little music resides and our hearing sucks, anyhow) and then pointing to the "virtues" of vinyl is laughable. Vinyl utilizes similar extreme filtering in the RIAA equilization / de-equilization process, over the entire audio spectrum - not just at the extreme high end. Any sins potentially being committed by CD players due to their extreme high-end filters are also being committed on vinyl, at pretty much every frequency, including smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing from around 80Hz - 5,000Hz. It's one of the main culprits behind bad vinyl sound.

>Signal processing: I was talking about dsp, or any algorithm needed
>to record or replay digital music media is just data, analog is more
>like a fossil of a recording. I can drag a needle over a record myself
>to replay the sound, I don't need a cpu or ram or anything.

But that's just not true. If you drag a needle over a record, you won't hear *anything* that sounds like the original signal. The bass is all gone, the treble has been outrageously boosted, and there will be tons of clicks and hiss and harmonic distortion. Since the needle itself has mass, it'll start to vibrate independent of the input it's receiving from the groove, setting off harmonics all over the audible range of music (and beyond) that weren't present in the original recording. The signal coming off of a vinyl disc must be heavily processed (not to mention amplified) before playback, not to mention all of the compression and processing it underwent in order to be encoded in the first place. CD's (and other digital formats) come with none of these limitations.

Re:analog

[jdbo]

Just a rhetorical question, not a direct reply to your post, or realy the post that you are replying to.

Is is possible that this interest in complete audio "clarity" (i.e. removing all distortion) is misguided in the first place? (I distinguish "complete clarity" - the apparent end goal of digital audio - from "apparent clarity", which I'd define as the level that we've had with analog tape (studio) and vinyl since the 60's, if not the 50's.)

I am seriously interested in this question; my reasoning is as follows:

In the universe I live in, there's _plenty_ of misc. noise going on around me _all_the_time_ (at the moment I can hear the fan of my computer, the ventilation system, the cars outside, some wind, a little rain on the road, some electrical hum, and the noises I make breathing, shifting, and typing).

In order to avoid as much of this noise as possible, one must more or less lock oneself in a recording studio (shielded ventilation, sound-proofing, headphones, etc.). These environments are great for recording in, but this is because they are in no way like real life environments; in fact, they are very unlike real life environments, and thus (for most people) rather uncomfortable compared to real environments. (Just ask anyone stuck in an inside office with no windows or ventilation.)

What concerns me is that the goal of perfect audio clarity seems to me to have the implicit side-goal of reproducing the audio sterility of the recording studio along with the musical (or other) sounds that we want to hear. This environmental "non-sound" (though "extremely low noise" might be a better way to put it) is increasingly apparent in pop recording, esp. with the popularity of using mixing and misc. effects to create sounds that are simply not performable in the real world, even if they are originally based on (pieced-together) recordings of real instruments/people. The pieced-together nature of this work, esp. when designed to have some resemblance to recordings of live performances, tends to become more apparent the greater the "clarity" of the audio reproduction.

Because of this, I wonder if the distortion/warmth/whatever you want to call it of analog audio may smooth the path between the underlying sterility of studio-created recordings and the noisy environments (disregarding the most isolated and expensive of audiophile set-ups) that is our typical experience of music, whether it be at home, in the car, in a park on a boom box or walkman, inside a store, at a rock show, in a place of worship, or in a grandly appointed concert hall.

Another way to put this is to ask whether engineering the reproduction of perfectly "clear" audio may be incidentally depriving that audio of some natural "timbre" that we expect of sounds produced/performed in real world environments.

And if this is the case, do the imperfections of analog-reproduced audio perhaps act as a some sort of substitue "timbre", therby enabling the sounds that they "distort" to be perceived as more a part of our surroundings, and therefore more familiar and welcome?

(A perhaps interesting side question is to ask whether the advent of "perfectly clear" audio may result in increasing efforts to "dirty up" recordings in order to remove a listener-alienating aural sterility; I've already heard anecdotes to this effect, but I don't follow the audio industry closely enough to distinguish B.S. from actual common practice)

Re:analog

[goodie]

That was fantastic! I enjoyed reading it.

Re:analog

[tshak]

D don't buy that Vinyl has a hard time below 60hz

I have studio grade reference monitors that go down to 34hz (Event 20/20bas). I have many DnB records that have killer baselines - killer because they'll rip up even my nice monitors. Without a subwoofer I am not able to hear the baselines.

Re:analog

[Toshito]

May I suggest a little reading?

try this page: Music and the human ear

Very interresting stuff about human hearing.

And also this page:
Is the sound of vinyl better than CD

Wich explain the difference between analog and digital. The graphic example given clearly demonstrate that even at 10Khz, the CD gives only a raw approximation of a wave. If you go up to the theorical 22Khz, you must understand that you only have one sample per oscillon of a sine wave for example. So at these frequencies, a sine wave, square wave of triangle wave all sound the same. Imagine a complex wave full of harmonics from a musical instrument (or 20 instruments at once). All this detail get lost.

Sure, the dynamic range and noise floor is a lot better on CD than vinyl, but the resolution is awful.

Maybe SACD will give us better music and less bits.

end of consumer analogue audio and components

[fermion]

What interests me about the end of vinyl and tape is the apparent end of components that supported the playback. It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted good audio and video you would need a good turn table, a good amplifier, a good VCR, and very good speakers. Of course, for maximum flexibility the amplifier tended to be very expensive with radio receiver and a/v i/o and switching. The quality of the tape and vinyl was such that you did not want to introduce further distortions in the other equipment.

Now most people just go out and buy a bookshelf system for a couple hundred dollars, or a few hundred if it has a DVD player, and let it go at that. The speakers suck so the reproduction is probably far below cassette tape. We might buy a decent set of speakers, but that doubles the price of the system. People get used to that low quality sound, so just download the songs from the net and listen to music on the computer, thus bypassing all music related sales.

Perhaps not as bad as I say, but I get a better sound out of my computer and my amplified speaker system than any bookshelf system I have seen.

Re:Burp QWZX

[mangu]

Digital distortion, on the other hand, often results in odd-order distortion, and is ugly.

Digital music has exactly zero distortion. I have tried this, output a sine wave and link it back to the input on a Sound Blaster. Doing a FFT on the result shows no harmonics at all above the noise floor, which is 100+ dB down.

You are right in that tube amplifiers do introduce a coloration, but this is mostly in frequency response. I have recently done a search, both over the web and in my dead tree files, for tube circuits to build. All of the schematics I could find, from the simplest single-tube amplifiers to a 10 tube per channel RIAA phono pre-amp, have worse performance, from the frequency flatness point of view, than very simple solid-state amplifiers. This is because tube amplifiers have very high output impedances and they interact with the following stage input capacitance.

About the even-odd harmonics, the worse culprit in solid-state is the output AB-class stage. If the bias level on the output stage is not adjusted exactly to spec (in most amps it isn't adjustable at all), third order harmonics can be very high. Of course, some people debate this point endlessly, but I'm not certain that second-order harmonics are intrinsically more pleasing to the ear than third order. I think it's more the absolute level of the distortion that matters.

You got what you deserved...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because you are a moron.

1) I filed with his insurance (and got a really retarded settlement, amost a 1/3 of what the car was worth).

The you should not have settled. I would have sued for the max of his policy. You're such a tool.

2) I'm replacing the entire motor, including the clutch

The clutch is not part of the "motor." Also the thing under the hood is an engine, not a motor.

I know vinyl has it's fans, but...

[skookum]

See also the related stories Buggy Whip Manufacturer Says Times Are Not Great and Home Butter-Churn Industry Seeks Government Prop-Up .

Percentages

[Malicious]

Um... Incase people didn't know, when you represent the ONLY manufacturer of a well known medium, you're going to be Very successful. Even if it is a small percentage, that's a small percentage of a LARGE number of people. 1% of 35 Million is still 350,000.

Marketshare up, market size down.

[sperris]

Can anyone say buggy whip?

in dash portable LP Player

[no reason to be here]

these actually existed. here's a link to cnt_id=2283&FOLDERfolder_id=2279">a photo of one. This was actually on slash dot, not too long ago.

Re:in dash portable LP Player

[Xerithane]

Preview is your friend.

Vinyl Shortage in Europe + Digital Mixing

[szyzyg]

BEcause the DJ scene is so important in europe there has recently been shortages in vinyl manufacturing capacity. I hear a lot of UK companies are having to outsource their vinyl pressing to the Czech Republic to make their release dates.

Personally I'm a vinyl junkie, I spend over $5000 a year on hard to find vinyl, and I DJ a few weekly events. Of course all this is funded by my day job as a software developer (I was working at napster until recently). I wrote a digital mixing application for linux about 6 years ago, back then mp3 wtill wasn't really standardised so I used Raw CDR audio, or Mpeg Layer 2. The UI on any digital mixing application sucks compared to vinyl, Final scratch is close but has too many shortcomings (where's the vorbis support?).

The other somewhat dubious advantage of vinyl is that the music industry's lawyers see to be more tolerant of short run vinyl bootlegs of tracks which could never get released legally - Usually mashups of Britney Spears vs Nirvana over a 4 to the floor beat. If that was put out as an mp3 or CD they'd probably be more aggressive, but vinly tends to only go to DJ's who can make a decent argument about promoting music. I'm not saying litigation is uneard of, but It's very rare.

Re:Vinyl Shortage in Europe + Digital Mixing

[TerryAtWork]

Working at Napster? THATS interesting - when's your book coming out?

Re:Vinyl Shortage in Europe + Digital Mixing

[Anonymous Coward]

> Final scratch is close but has too many
> shortcomings (where's the vorbis support?).

Perhaps the solution is to use FLAC and if that isn't supported, just decode to .wav before spinning.

Re:Vinyl Shortage in Europe + Digital Mixing

[tshak]

Wow - great to hear from a fellow "developer by day, DJ by night". I just started (bought two 1200 M3D's about 2 months ago) and I'm still buying records and practicing for my first set (my first official gig is in March, but I'm lookin to spin in Jan as well).

Ya, Final Scratch looks awesome, but I don't want to drag a computer around.

Movies on vinyl?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously recommending a return to RCA SelectaVision?

Re:Movies on vinyl?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Are you seriously recommending a return to RCA SelectaVision?

OMG. I heard about those. That was an electrostatic contact storage system wasn't it? Did it even beat the quality of VHS? I can't really imagine it being competitive with Laserdisc on quality.

Re:Movies on vinyl?

[jonerik]

Did it even beat the quality of VHS? I can't really imagine it being competitive with Laserdisc on quality.

From the RCA SelectaVision VideoDisc FAQ:

How does the resolution of CED compare to the VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD video formats?

RCA didn't use Lines of Resolution in their CED specifications, but a bandwidth of 3 MHz translates to about 240 Lines, the same resolution as VHS, but less than the 425 Lines of LaserDisc and 500 Lines of DVD. The subjective evaluation of people familiar with all these formats is that CED is better than VHS, but not as good as LaserDisc or DVD. CED does pale in comparison to modern LaserDisc and DVD players, but in 1981 there wasn't a lot of difference, because LaserDisc technology was young, and at that time RCA had superior mastering techniques. A comparative review of the Zenith VP2000 CED player and the Magnavox VH8000 LaserDisc player in the July '81 issue of Popular Electronics rated the Zenith unit better in Video and Audio Signal-to-Noise ratios, but lower in total Video bandwidth.

Not Slipping

[Rai]

Slipping? Don't think so. First, you can get the Technic SL-1200 M3D Turntable (industry standard) for about $500. The Pioneer CDJ-1000 will cost about $1000. The only accessability factor over vinyl is for CD-Rs (and I'm sure you can see where I'm going with that.) I have 2 Technics 1200's and a Pioneer CDJ-100S. Sure, I download tracks and put them on CD-Rs occasionaly, but if I like the track, I'll buy the vinyl because it is much, much easier to work with. I'll admit the CDJ-1000 makes working with CDs a lot easier than most other CD players, but until the price of those players drops to equal or below that of the turntable, vinyl will still be the best, most popular choice. It's not slipping...at least, not yet. And if you think so, take a look at DJMag's Top 100 DJs and point out how many of them use more CDs than vinyl.

Re:Not Slipping

[Britissippi]

Oh, undoubtedly. 'Slipping' was probably too strong a word to use. Theres stacks of vinyl in the house I'm that are taller than me. I think what I was tryin to convey was that as technology rolls along, and the CD-decks become more and more prevalent, that vinyl is going to lose SOME (not all) of its grip.

And those CDJ-1000's are fun, arn't they? :) The CDJ-800 is a good lower priced alternative. All the features of the 1000 except the memory points, I beleive.

Re:Not Slipping

[Rai]

Yeah, the CDJ-1000's are fun. I haven't used them that much, but I like them better than my CDJ-100S. I haven't tried the CDJ-800 yet, but I hear they are pretty much the same as the 1000, just a few less features. I'd consider buying a pair, but I just don't use CDs that often. Maybe I will in the future, but I still don't want to give up vinyl.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm breaking the mold. I know how "In Soviet Russia" works!

Don't Underestimate Jukeboxes

[gmhowell]

Do a search on jukeboxes, vinyl, and you'll find about a bazillion sites on the internet. I've got two jukeboxes right now, and they were both damn cheap. Go to eBay, and pick up 1000 45 rpm singles for around $100, and you're set.

See, much like pinball machines, jukeboxes are/were built to be manhandled by large drunken guys in bars. They just don't freakin' die. Sure, you may have to twiddle the connections on the Tormat every so often, but the only time a juke is truly dead is when some idiot (like Wurlitzer) buys it back, and destroys it with several sledgehammers.

The sound is... not super clean. But in something like an AMI G-200 (which I'm working on now) there are tons of moving parts. It's a show. Almost like those washing machines and driers with the portholes in the front. And conversation piece? EVERYONE who comes to the house wants to play with the jukebox.

Instead of running weird speaker switching equipment, putting an mp3 player in each room, etc. just buy a wallbox for ~$50 for each location. I've got two, and just haven't decided if I want to hook them up now, or wait for a new house.

Folks, jukeboxes kick ass. If anyone has any 45 rpm records, drop me a line. And if you waded this far, I'll open myself to a slashdotting: http://www.r efundersrefuge.org/gall ery/a lbum15

why I dig vinyl

[carpe_noctem]

I have to say that the most convincing argument for buying things on vinyl (for which a rather large amount of music is still available on this medium) is that vinyl is a 100% analog medium. Now, regardless of the sound difference here, you're guaranteed not to have to deal with the copy-protection-scheme of the week that the music industry uses to try to screw over their customers. You buy a piece of music plain and simple and you know it's gonna work.

8-track?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is 8-track coming back? I vowed not to buy Leif Garrett's Greatest Hits again.

punk helped save vynil

[GEEKPUNK]

This article doesnt speak up for the fact that punk labels in alot of ways help sustain united durring the lean times. I have pressed 3 records through united myself. While on tour, I even stoped by the factory and asked to see records being made (which is neat by the way). On my impromptu tour of united, I saw 3 7" records being pressed, all of them were indie/punk bands of some kind.

Elvis?

[phorm]

'Elvis has been good to us. I can't complain

Thank you... thank you very much...

Actually, I know a lot of people who will go out of their way to get old 8-tracks or records of older artists. I could never figure this out when the same material is available on CD. For owners of vintage cars, having a 8-track is still somewhat of a cool thing, but record players don't fit in here.

Re:Elvis?

[sdo1]

Actually, I know a lot of people who will go out of their way to get old 8-tracks or records of older artists. I could never figure this out when the same material is available on CD.

I think 8-track collectors collect because of the novelty of it. Record collectors are after a) superior sound quality (often true), b) out of press stuff that isn't available on CD, c) cheap finds (used records are very often dirt cheap... I came home from a record show a few weeks back with about 40 LPs in hand in mint or near-mint condition mostly for a grand total of $65) and d) sometimes they're just completists and want to have everything by their favorite artists.

-S

The sound and the feel

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen, brother. I have several Beatles' albums on LPs. It is so hard to describe the magical feeling when you open the White Album or Magical Mystery Tour LP. The artist pictures and album covers appear more vivid, the liner notes seem more real on LP than on CD and the sound, ah, the sound. The faint hiss and crackle behind a guitar intro makes the sound better. But there could be another reason - bands actually played together on these albums. Most bands dont do that these days. Hence the cold, clinical-precision sound.

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[joshsisk]

I can hear the difference between vinyl and CD.

I was actually suprised when I first realized it, listening to both the vinyl and cd versions of a friend's band's new release. The vinyl version sounded remarkably better. Neither sounded as good as the 2" analog tape master, of course.

Vinly Records Back in the Charts

[szyzyg]

IIRC the last singel to hit #1 in the US which was only available on vinyl was 'Nothing Compares 2 U' by Sinead O'Connor.

In the UK things of course are going back.... In 1992 'The Wedding Present' made a big thing by releasing a limited edition single every month for a year - these were vinyl only releases. They all entered the top 40 purely on vinyl sales. Ten years later, vinyl-only releases are starting to make an impact on the charts again. Nukleuz records - purveyors of harder dance music - are now probably the biggest vinyl producer in the UK and sveral of their releases are charting purely on vinyl.

Laser-read LPs

[swb]

A friend told me about a data transfer service that uses a very expensive device that plays vinyl with a laser. Supposed to eliminate almost all the hiss and pop associated with physical contact.

It's not very hard to imagine something that can do this and play in real time also being able to do it at 2x or faster and output PCM digital audio files.

Re:Laser-read LPs

[jonerik]

A friend told me about a data transfer service that uses a very expensive device that plays vinyl with a laser.

In the mid-to-late '80s some company actually marketed a turntable that read the record with a laser, like a CD player. It sounded like shit.

No more scratched records EVER!

[teamhasnoi]

Want your records to last longer than CDs? Try this.

Disclaimer: I'm the guy in the upper left corner.

Re:No more scratched records EVER!

[Lanford99]

Question: If are using a laser to read the record, wouldn't you have to run the output through a ADC? In which case, you introduce all the sampling problems associated with CDs?

and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

..Major manufacturers announce they be re-releasing 8 inch floppies.

i still get vinyl pressed... up the punks!

[johnpaul191]

i run a small indie record label, www.schuylkillrecords.com, and of the 10 releases so far only one was a CD. punk/hardcore/indie labels have stuck with vinyl for many reasons. not to get into them all (you would have to ask everyone involved), but some offhand are just a love of the format. I think it is one of those things you can not really explain. People into non-mainstream music are generally more into music itself as opposed to background noise on the radio. We like the music, the community, the artist, the label and whatever. I do not hate the labels i buy music from (like people hate the majors). I like having something significant that my music came with instead of a run-of-the-mill jewel case.

honestly, being a vinyl person is something you just get or do not get. i guess it's like "why bother with Linux when you can run ******". There are reasons it is better to you, even though it may not be the simplest thing out there. you might as well use AOL since it installs itself while you are at it.....

CDs are just MP3s waiting to be ripped.

p.s. yes, as a label and somebody that plays in bands i support MP3 file trading 100%. i used to leave a machine running Napster with a lot of our music up on it. it's easier than kids trying to rip vinyl when i can make the MP3 right from the DAT.

Re:YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

95-99 Non-Turbo: www.2gnt.com
95-99 Turbo: www.dsm.org, www.dsmtalk.com
89-94 turbo, or non: www.dsm.org, www.dsmtalk.com

Loads of information out there are these things, Troll. Don't be a fuckwit, do it yourself, it's cheaper.

The 4-Toothed Metal Bitch

[Lewcifer]

Does anyone have a pintle?
Damn that gaping hole in the middle of my LP!
I can't play my damn 45 without it.

Re:Burp QWZX

[rogerz]

I thought that some of this "warmth" would be to to the frequency-response of the stylus mechanism (essentially, a low-pass filtering due to mechanical damping), and, to a lesser extent, the low-pass caused by wearing of the grooves in the vinyl itself.

Anyone know of any research to confirm/debunk this?

I am glad to see this.....

[iamchaos]

It is good to see one thing in Nashville related to music moving forward. I have lived in Nashville on and off for 8 years and have watched the music industry and scene slowly dissolve. I used to work for a company that manufactured a headphone system, custom built computers using all the great software and hardware and sold an array of digital hardware to studios. Well, the studios started going away, then other music related companies started going away and I got laid off. If you drove down music row today you would see more "For Lease" signs than you would business signs. The irony of this is the DJ scene in Nashville is almost non-existent. There is nowhere to go and see good Techno/Jungle/etc... Practically all the music scene is dead, everything from country to Hip-Hop. I know this because I am part of it. Once again, it is good to see a company here staying alive and actually being on top.

punk rock

[Anonymous Coward]

where would punk rock be without records?
there are plenty of bands that put things out only on record.
record collectors are insane!

http://unimarbleinc.com/

yeah raight

[jakub]

Vinyl is only dead to commerical pop stuff and country. 99% Of the underground, techno, house drum and base scene is vinyl only. If you go to a rave, you will only see cd players as additions. I spin techno on 3 turntables and also produced stuff put it on dubplates... There is lots of places where you can stomp vinyl, just search the web.

Data retention!

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people have perfectly good records from the 50's. Decently stored (cool, dry), I have seen records from the 30's and 40's.
And they play on a modern player!
Try that with anything electronic! Don't CD's wear out after 20yrs from the bonding going bad?

Dub Plates

[Anonymous Coward]

look up dub plates on the 'net

Hardware compatibility...

[DrCode]

I still have the same phonograph I bought as a kid (30 years ago), and needed to replace the cartridge (the device that holds the stylus and converts vibrations to electricity). Not only was it inexpensive, but it fit into the old spot perfectly.

Meanwhile... I can't just upgrade the motherboard in my 3-year old case, because the case is an AT, and all the new MB's are ATX. Want to bet that as soon as I buy an ATX case, the manufacturers will move to a new "improved" standard?

Re:Need Vinyl? Call us...

[Anonymous Coward]

We make vinyl here in Toronto (yes, that means cheap Canadian $$$$)
www.scratchfree.ca or email us at info@scratchfree.ca

vinyl is very much alive!

Re:YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

i smash your rbdette with my ej20 monkeypowah!
you cannot resist teh powah of 300 turbomonkeypowah!

Digital Vinyl

[HeyBob!]

If you've got $10k to spare you can buy a laser based record player. It would be nice if there was a business in every major city where you could take your most cherished records and transfer them to digital using one of these machines.

Something to ponder...

[Elbowgeek]

The fact is, vinyl is very much alive and much beloved by real music collectors. And for those who see vinyl as a dying medium, consider that as CD sales slow down, dear old vinyl's sales are on the increase. There are also a number of specialty record (as in LP!) companies who have produced some wonderful sounding reissues, as well as vinyl releases of current popular acts. For more discussion on the topic see: http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/bbs.html For my part, I can't listen to CD's anymore. Den

Underground Dance

[Tokerat]

I DJ a bit, techno/house/jungle/hardcore etc. and even with all this hype about CD turntables and "iPod DJs", vinyl is the choice medium. Most promos and singles are released on 12" long before CDs, and definately long before they are included on any album.

Besides, digital cannot reproduce the rich fullness of broken-in vinyl basslines, especially at high volume. Needle wear, and even the initial recording process produce extra curves in the recorded sounds, whereas digital picks up every single square corner of the wave accurately and completely, which gives it that "clear but cold" sound which so many audiophiles complain of. Vinyl adds some smoothing to the process. Worn midrange-highend also adds a bit of character (not too worn, mind you, there is definately a cutoff point), as the slight distortion not only gives the impression that the sound is louder than it really is but helps clarify it amongst the heavy low-end.

That, and it's just not as much fun to spin a plastic controller wheel to align beats as it is to actually spin the platter with your hand. Vinyl is a truely interactive medium. A CD turntable is just that: a CD player with advanced fast forward/rewind, but a turntable is like dragging a bow across a string, you are actually the generating vibrations, not some DAC in a black box.

It is for these reasons I believe vinyl will never die. However, I don't believe it will ever be anything but a niche market.

Breakthrough!

[MrEd]

Music Industry announces new piracy-proof format.

Vinyl will never die. It's just too handy. I see mp3s and vinyl as being a perfect pair. One is physical, one is digital. None of this half-assed CD stuff.

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about!

[Anonymous Coward]

But when you listen to music with a very wide dynamic range, such a classical or jazz, the old fashioned record does sound better.

You're obviously mistaken. The CD has a dynamic range of 96dB, whereas the record has a dynamic range of 60dB at best!

Other way around

[ratamacue]

There doesn't have to be a huge market to support a business when there isn't much competition.

The reason there isn't much competition is because the market is small. Competition is the result of demand, not the cause of it.

Elvis dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not dead! He was on the UFO where the aliens took me when they abducted me last week.

Absolutley.

[mindstrm]

Now I'm not joining the vinyl/cd debate.. but it is absolutley true that many of the CDs you get in the music shop are NOT taking full advantage of the medium.

I have heard that Sony Music actually degrades it's recordings even further (through some psychoacoustic model) so that when transferred to MD(minidisc, which uses lossy ATRAC compression) the sound is percieved to be the same.
That's dirty. And quite brilliant from a marketing point of view.

Real DJ's

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

A lot of people seem to think vinyl is only alive due to Techno/Dance music. I'd have to strongly disagree. I don't even think the type of music has anything to due with it, but rather who uses it.
And for the past 10-15 years, the biggest consumers of vinyls were DJs. And I think DJs from the hip hop, Reggae and House culture are the ones you should thank for keeping this media alive. Each one of these DJ have helped push this art form to the next level.

If you've ever seen one of these 3 DJs work, you'll know what I mean. They all have technics of getting the crowd to go crazy during parties.

Personally I find the best DJs are the ones that win the DMC championships, where the can do everything like it was a walk in the park: beat mixing, beat juggling, creating new beats with 2 records of the same song, slowing down a song but without using a pitch... and tons of things I couldn't describ.

You wonder who are the greats?

Frankie Knuckles
Capleton
X-Executioners, DJ Premier and hundreds of underground DJs

Re:Real DJ's

[ianjk]

Just have to mention Qbert.

bunk.

[mindstrm]

CDS have a much larger dynamic range than most recordings let on. A properly mastered recording can easily sound as good as vinyl.

A little help...

[spoonboy42]

Actually, since I both spin and produce electronic music, I've always wanted to get a couple of copies of some of my tracks pressed up for personal use. The problem has always been that getting an acetate master cut is pretty significantly expensive to start ($150 or so), and then, minimum runs tend to be at least 100 copies on actual vinyl (and trust me, you want actual vinyl. Dubplates wear out after *at most* a couple dozen plays). Needless to say, getting records pressed is pretty much prohibitively expensive for an amateur DJ who also happens to be a full-time student.

When Vestax announced their vinyl cutter, which cuts *directly* onto $7 vinyl blanks (no acetate master needed), I figured that small shops would start to acquire them and sell custom-ordered individual records for a nominal markup ($10-$20, although I'd be willing to pay a little more). So the question is, where are these shops? Does anyone have experience with a place that offers this service?

Re:A little help...

[CrookedFinger]

Funny, I thought the same thing when those cutters came out. I thought it'd be fun to set up stalls at raves and whatever where people could bring a source recording on whatever media and have 45s burned off while they wait. Considering the number of bedroom producers at parties who pawn off CDs to anyone who'll take on, there might be a market... the DJs giging there would be probably be psyched to get a couple of the CDrs in the collection cut to wax... no matter how familiar you are with CD decks, even the new Pioneers don't compare to Techs when you're in the mix. Maybe in five years, but not yet.

The big problem would be people bringing copyrighted materials or CDrs that the producers don't want distributed outside of the stable of DJs they work with. I've heard about D&B DJs who were gigging regularly getting blackballed from the scene because they played a CDr that the producer wanted only certain, big name DJs to play out... the implications as applis to promoters and the people running the cutting stand are pretty obvious...

It's not one of the last

[Aqua OS X]

There are actually a number of places that will press records in the US. Like you noted, vinal is still huge with DJs (and by DJs I don't mean wedding DJs). It sounds better, it has a visual read out, a lot of great equipment has been made for it (ie the Technics 1200), you can listen to it in the store with needle bus, you can skip through it faster in a store, etc etc

Ya, I guess CD turntables and programs such as final scratch are starting to catch on. However, vinal still seems to dominate (for the reasons I listed above) here in SF. CD turntables seem to play the role of "side kick" to vinal turntables.

Vinyl still rules the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) scene

[quakeslut]

Just a little reminder that most punk/hardcore/indie labels still put out their releases on vinyl.

Check out http://www.ebullition.com
if you're afraid vinyl is becoming extinct.

Re:DJs QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems as thought the trend in dj equiptment lately is to replace lack of skills with better (ie. features that replace skills) equiptment.

Oh the deep, deep irony of hearing a DJ (aka a frustrated musician who can't play music himself) complaining about technology replacing a lack of skills.

Mmm.. filteirng.

[mindstrm]

First "some can hear 25kHz, some cannot" is rather inaccurate.
The vast majority can't hear 25kHz. The vast majority can't hear 20kHz. Yes *SOME* people can, but not many.

CDs are filtered at 21.5kHz, at the nyquist limit for 44.1kHz sampling. Not "plus or minus a few hertz for data". You MUST cut off at this limit, because if you try to sample anything higher than that, you get "reflections" in the sampling, and all kinds of nasty frequencies end up resulting.

Dynamic range.. okay...
Yes, a nice fat analog studio tape has better dynamic range and response than a good digital recording.... no argument there. But we don't have nice, big, fat calibrated analog tapes in our homes. We have vinyl and compact disc.
Virgin high quality vinyl has a dynamic range of about 60dB. Average vinyl has a range of 50dB.
CDs have a range of 90dB.
That's a really big difference, and many would argue it MORE than makes up for some less than perfect intensity algorithms.

As for 96dB being somehow "not useful" because nobody uses a totally silent environment.. that's a misinterpretation of what dynamic range means. It's nto a measure of spl.. it's relative. It's the difference between the loudest and softest sound that can be recorded... and translates to a relative difference in SPL, not directly to SPL, that's up to your output gear. If you have 50dB dynamic range, and you have your quietest sounds set to, say, 10dB SPL, then your loudest will be about 60dB, gear permitting, etc.

Of course, CDS don't make use of the full dynamic range they could... modern recordings are often lacking here.. so score a point for analog (but it's the fault of the recording studio, not the medium!)

No processing? Bass is compressed in vinyl... that needs to be accounted for. You might not think of it as "processing", but there are filters that shape the sound several different ways coming out of your turntables.

As to your last sentence.. RIGHT ON MAN.
It's all about personal satisfaction. I agree, vinyl sounds great!

But it's not technically superior, and trying to argue that it is is pointless. It's just like those who argue about tubes being superior...
To tube amps sound great? Survey says yes.. does that make them more accurate? Heck no.

Vinyl vs CDs vs Final Scratch

[mindaktiviti]

I'm a skratch DJ so CDs are essentially worthless to me for DJing. At a DEMF a few years ago there was this booth that had the latest CD DJ turntables. They looked like turntables and the CD was inside. It emulated a turntable closely but not precisely so it didn't catch on. Most hiphop DJs or battle DJs (think ITF and DMC dj competitions) *need* to use vinyl simply because it's their instrument of choice. So CDs are out of the question for a lot of DJs that do more then just mix. Mixing CDs can work quite well if you get accustomed to the equipment and you definitely have a bigger selection for a cheaper price (not to mention you can physically bring more music to an event because vinyl gets heavy). However CDs won't replace records, at least not in the distant future (I can see them being around EASILY for another 20 years). Now Final Scratch and products like it come very close to convincing DJs to switch mediums, especially ones that still like the feel of a turntable but aren't as hardcore when it comes to using them. So drum n bass DJs or techno DJs can really benefit from it because they can play their own produced tracks. Oh yeah...I'm sure quite a few know this but for the rest: People still press up ACETATE! Reggae sound systems press up special dubplates for Sound clashes, but drum n bass DJs and others press up dubplates so they can play their own unique tunes without pressing up vinyl. In the last little while turntablism and skratch music has really advanced, and there are a lot of musicians who's primary instrument is the turntable (note: DJ Qbert, Rob Swift, Mix Master Mike, Craze, Dstyles etc). So you have a niche market for that. Just think of turntables and records as a possible instrument and it should give you some indication of when vinyl's going to die (maybe when guitars die off?).

Ears *do* clip

[Just Some Guy]

when you go to a really loud concert, does the sound clip? no, your ears compress the sound.

Yes, yes, they do. Have you ever been exposed to sound so loud that it caused physical pain? I was in the 10th row of a rock concert in high school, and the SPL was so high that the perceived sound in my ears was completely distorted. All of my friends later complained of the same effect, so it wasn't something unique to my experience.

By the way, I had the same problem with much quiter sounds (door shutting, playing pool, etc.) for about 6 months after being shot directly in the ear with a paintball gun, but I'd rather not repeat the experiment.

Re:DJs QWZX

[ianjk]

actually I play Guitar and Drums along with being a drum & bass dj. Not a frustrated musician, just stating that I have seen many djs or should I say 'Techno' djs who couldn't play records worth a damn, so they went and bought $4000 worth of cd decks and effects to cover up their lack of skills.

Mod this up

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is right, the guy above is wrong. For more information see the "Myths" section on r3mix

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[Kiwi]

The reason for that is that certain styles of music have some really unpleasant harmonics in them which a vinyl pressing gets rid of. CDs are a more faithful and better reproduction of the sound, so sound worse for those styles of music.

For anything where the original music does not have unpleasant harmonics, like classical, CD kills vinyl any day of the week. Well, unless you are one of those rec.audio.opinion freaks that actually thinks having to compress the dynamic range and not having any frequencies above 12khz or so, nor any frequencies below 80hz sounds better than an accurate reproduction of the sound in question.

Or, if you one of those old fogies who got used to the vinyl sound and think CDs sound worse because you listened to LPs for the first time when you were 13, and CDs the first time when you were 43, and had a happier life when you were 13. Our ears are remarkably adaptive; someone who has learned to like vinyl's distortions will not like the sound of CD.

- Sam

- Sam

Vinyl Video

[barnaclebarnes]

Hey, maybe they can start pressing video to vinyl

I just went and say the exhibit at the ICA tonight. This stuff is pretty cool. The basic premise is that there was a missing link in home recording and this product really should have existed at some point. The images, music and cover art of the vinyl is super nice.

vinyl for the sake of vinyl

[tangent1900]

besides the huge artwork and the style of colored vinyl and/or custom record shapes (which don't have the same appeal with an MP3), records sound AMAZING when they're new, and retain their sound quality if cared for properly.

and every turntablist will disagree that all dj's use some sort of digital 'scratch' thingy.

digital media has it's place, but one should not deny analog.

Re:I remember vinyl QWZX

[joshsisk]

The reason for that is that certain styles of music have some really unpleasant harmonics in them which a vinyl pressing gets rid of. CDs are a more faithful and better reproduction of the sound, so sound worse for those styles of music.

Wow, very informative. Thanks! Someone mod this up. This sounds right since the band in question is pretty noisey and the vinyl sounds more focused.

500 pound mass -- (was `I remember vinyl`)

[AceyMan]

Don't laugh. A few years back, an audio engineer by the name of John Bicht designed and built what was regarded as the finest vinyl playback system of its time; The Versa Dynamics Turntable. (Though out of production, to this day some listeners say it is unequaled in sound quality.)

In his personal listening room, as a turntable 'stand', Bicht had a custom cut piece of tombstone grade granite, about 3x3x2.5 feet in size.

We find that granite has a specific gravity around 2.75. Water is 62 lb/ft, so 3 * 3 * 2.5 * 2.75 * 62 = 3836¼ pounds. Your 500 pound stand now seems pretty puny!

BTW, the primary advantage of such a massive stand is not merely for skip resistance. The primary benefit is the reduction of low-level feedback/vibration to the stylus via the table chassis, resulting in a cleaner, tighter, more focused sound.

High end turntables look cooler than CD players

[angle_slam]

A reason turntables won't die. High-end turntables look really cool. Check out the Clearaudio Master Reference (at the bottom of the page). Unfortunately, it retails for $12,500.

While I was being half-facetious above, there is a very vocal segment of the 'high-end audio' community that believes that vinyl sounds better than CD.

other plants

[butane_bob2003]

I own Olive Records, Inc. , which is a Chicago based house music label. Over the last 2 years we have used Europadisk in NY and UVMG (universal music group). Both seem to be doing pretty well. They also offer volume duplication of other formats.

You are the one who is uninformed

[Sara Chan]

Why do you post when it is clearly you who is misinformed?

FACT: most people can hear up to at least 30 kHz. No, they cannot hear a pure sine wave at that frequency. But they can hear a difference if such frequencies are or are not present in the music. Moreover, almost all music contains such frequencies. No, not as pure sine waves. And it is not even the harmonics that cause the effect. Rather, because to duplicate the waveform transients, you must have the high frequencies. (Think Fourier.)

Yes, such transients are reproduced on vinyl. No, they are not reproduced on CD.

There are various controlled studies demonstrating these things. Since you are such an authority, I shouldn't need to give you references, but since I'm so magnanimous, I'll give a few anyway:

• M. L. Lenhardt et al., "Human ultrasonic speech perception", Science [sciencemag.org] 253: 82 [1991].
  
• T. Oohashi et al., "High-frequency sound above the audible range affects brain electronic activity and sound perception", AES Preprints [aes.org]
  91: 3207 [1991].
  
• P. Mills, "The need for extended high-frequency bandwidth [westhost.com]" [1999].

Your final star'ed points are just dumb. You don't give any references, because of course you don't have any. Get a good turntable/arm/cartridge. The reverse of most of what you say is true. E.g. your claim of 60dB dynamic range is nuts: the range is over 100 dB. You are confusing the noise floor of a high-hiss record with dynamic range--but you can hear 20 dB into that noise, and a good record need not have high hiss. Vinyl has poor bass??? It's much better than CD. And so on.

Re:You are the one who is uninformed

[sunspot42]

And here we have yet another Slashdotter doesn't know what they're talking about. They seem to come crawling out of the woodwork every time the "vinyl is better" boobs start slinging their BS around.

> FACT: most people can hear up to at least 30 kHz.

FACT: Nobody can hear up to 30kHz. People *might* be able to hear harmonics of sounds above 20kHz, provided those harmonics fall within the range of human hearing, but they won't be able to hear the actual pure tones themselves (as you yourself indicated). Since any medium - such as CD - that records sounds up to 20kHz will also record the harmonics of tones above 20kHz, provided they fall within the range of human hearing, what exactly would we be missing? And apart from percussion or certain electronic instruments, what instruments are out there generating gobs of ultrasonic information, anyhow? And what microphones are capable of picking up such information? And what analog tape decks are capable of recording such information? And - here's the kicker - how many speakers are capable of reproducing such information? The answer to each of these questions is, vanishing few. Many tape decks filter out or fail to record tones much beyond 20kHz. Few microphones can pick them up to begin with. And most speakers are lucky to maintain a flat frequency response even out to 20kHz, let alone to 25 or 30kHz. You'd practically have to live in a laboratory to record and then accurately reproduce ultrasonic information. A 50-year-old format like the vinyl LP certainly isn't ideal for such a thing, given its noise, distortion, dynamic range, separation and phase issues. Only the high quality analog tape decks found in professional studios or digital recording formats utilizing higher sampling rates than 44.1kHz could hope to accurately record and reproduce such audio.

>Yes, such transients are reproduced on vinyl.

Maybe on audiophile grade, quarter-speed mastered vinyl played back on a $5,000 turntable equipped with a $1,500 cartridge run through a $2,000 preamp they are. Poorly. With oceans of harmonic distortion and waves of crashing high-frequency noise. Assuming, of course, the original performance was picked up using microphones and mic preamps capable of dealing with much of anything beyond 20kHz (such mics cost in excess of $2,000, and the preamps aren't much cheaper) onto tape decks capable of recording much of anything beyond 20-25kHz. None of which is likely, outside of studiously recorded audiophile sessions.

>Your final star'ed points are just dumb. You don't give any references,
>because of course you don't have any.

You must really enjoy looking like a boob. Hey, if you want to play the (in your case, irrelevant and apparently unavailable on the web) references game, I'd love to! (Actually, one "reference" you posted is available on the web - marketing material from a stereo company plugging their overpriced audiophile gear. You should have provided us with a link to the guy selling $10,000 tinfoil hats to protect us from government mind control rays, too.) Here are my bullet points, plus any references I could dig up (though much of this should be obvious to anyone with a brain in their skull):

* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)

Well, this one is obvious. Whenever a tick or pop is louder than the music (happens a lot with vinyl, and even with tape during quiet passages), the signal to noise ratio goes negative.

* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove

Another obvious point. Many turntables even include rumble measurements in their specifications, though that's for the platter only and doesn't take into account additional noise caused by the friction of the stylus dragging through the groove.

* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc.

Another spec that's included for most turntables and even analog tape decks. Hard to see how this one is, "just dumb", unless you're so ignorant you've never looked at the specs for a turntable or tape deck.

* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal.

Another obvious point. Anytime you process the signal to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, you're going to introduce phase discrepancies. Here's a $2,000 preamp from Daniels Audio that attempts to compensate for the phase issues. Notice I say "attempts". Even a manufacturer of $2,000 stereo components won't claim to be able to eliminate such issues. And who knows what issues all that additional processing is going to introduce.

* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process

Again, a no-brainer. If the frequency response curve used to produce the wax master doesn't precisely match the frequency response curve in your preamp (and it never will), certain frequencies are going to be emphasized upon playback while others will be de-emphasized. Here's a big page detailing the design issues faced by folks trying to build the RIAA de-equalization circuits for a preamp. Notice the difficulties he's having making the response curve come close to the RIAA ideal. Even by the end, he's off by more than a quarter dB at many frequencies, including some smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing.

* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)

For references, please see this, this, this, or this.

* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways

I should think this one would be obvious. Lots of turntable manufacturers sell heavy weights to sit on top of a record while it's playing. If you don't believe this is true, jump up and down next to your turntable while it's playing, or set it on top of a speaker pumping out a lot of bass. You'll get an "extreme" demonstration of the effect, but the truth is it's happening all the time.

* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.

Again, an obvious issue. Good luck getting it right!

* 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation

See this, or the specs for the cartridges themselves here. You'll be lucky to find a preamp that can come close to the 70-90dB of separation even a cheap CD player can provide, let alone a pickup.

* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum.

References to this abound. If you don't believe me, take it from an expert.

* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum

See the reference above.

* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits.

This one has been covered already.

* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation.

Again, see the references above.

* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable.

That's another obvious fact to anyone but a blithering idiot.

* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results

Well, duh. On to dissect the remainder of your post:

>The reverse of most of what you say is true. E.g. your claim
>of 60dB dynamic range is nuts: the range is over 100 dB.
>You are confusing the noise floor of a high-hiss record with
>dynamic range--but you can hear 20 dB into that noise, and a
>good record need not have high hiss. Vinyl has poor bass???
>It's much better than CD. And so on.

Oh my. There doesn't seem to be anything left to dissect. I've already covered these points up above. Vinyl is *lucky* to hit 60dB of dynamic range with audiophile pressings played back on incredibly expensive equipment. No "confusion" with vinyl's truly outrageous noise floor is necessary. And the dynamic range decreases drastically as the length of the record increases - a problem digital formats don't suffer from. And as for vinyl's bass performance, I think half the links I posted up above note how crappy vinyl is at capturing loud, low bass.

Next time, you might want to learn something about a subject before you proceed to open your mouth and cram your foot down your throat.

Re:You are the one who is uninformed

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to how low or how high one can hear, Sara was the closest. Low and high freq's alike--even those above/below our level of hearing can still be heard through their relationship and effect on other sounds. It's pretty simple to demonstrate this. Just go crossfade 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 khz's etc. and loop.

Re:You are the one who is uninformed

[Idarubicin]

Damn it you fool, anyone with half a brain uses vi!

Oh. Wait.

What I meant to say was, Hitler liked LPs, so you're full of it.

Superior sound quality

[phorm]

I've often wondered about this in records. I know in most old Vinyl systems, the sounded has degraded so it's hard to tell what it "used to" sound like at it's best. I've also heard a complaint that because CD's are digital they sometimes sound too "electronic" or "filtered" (coming from musicians).

Do records really sound better in some situations, or perhaps it's just that CD's of old records suck because of crossover issues?

Cover Art

[codon77]

One of the best things about vinyl is the cover art. There is no way a CD cover can have the visual impact of a great album cover. They were an artform in themselves:

http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/A/Alpert/he rb _alpert.html

I bought a brand new record!

[dagbrown]

And I only bought it last week!

It was the new Johnny Cash album, The Man Comes Around . The record has bonus tracks which aren't available on the CD. Talk about a reversal of the normal procedure.

Re:I bought a brand new record!

[sdo1]

And it's an AWESOME sounding recording (the vinyl anyway). The man still has it and the album has some really great covers that you wouldn't think would work, but they really do... such as Nine In Nails' "Hurt" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus".

Plus, the record was released way before the CD way... by at least a couple weeks if I recall correctly.

-S

The clue phone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fact that engineers have to distort the original recording in order to master it on to vinyl. I'm not going to do your homework for you, but you're obviously clueless. And your links are useless.

Here is a brief summary for you - again: IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE VINYL PLAYBACK IS 100% ACCURATE BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL RECORDING WAS DRAMATICALLY DISTORTED IN ORDER TO MAKE THE VINYL MASTER.

Re:The clue phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's a fact that the original recording is distorted. This is called "RIAA equalization". The preamp reverses the procedure. So your conclusion doesn't follow at all.

Re:The clue phone

[sunspot42]

No, the preamp doesn't "reverse" the procedure. The distortion caused by the equalization itself cannot be perfectly reversed - you're lucky if the preamp even comes close. Assuming you had a perfect preamp whose level adjustments perfectly matched those performed for the vinyl master, you'd still be looking at a slew of phase issues caused by all of that equalization and de-equalization.

And the RIAA equalization isn't the only thing being done to the signal prior to mastering. Forget loud, low bass pans from one channel to another (I think a Madonna CD sported one of these fairly recently) - the bass has to be mixed to mono in order to avoid having consumers' needles jumping out of their grooves.

Problems with getting vinyl to handle stereo bass are so severe, legendary Atlantic records megaproducer Arif Mardin began mixing kick drums and bass in mono back during the 1960's, a trick that's been used for vinyl mastering ever since.

most of you are clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

1. there are more plants than the Nashville plant. 2. most professional dj use vinyl 3. idependent dance music is in a fucked up state with many labels folding, distributors failing, and lots of money lost due to the resulting unpaid debts 4. that Czech plant is derided by those in the industry as remaining below the quality of other established plants in the EU - including me because i have used them 5. (one of the) Czech plants is known for pirating software as well as pressing racist propaganda - if they pirate software how do you know they won't pirate you music? it happens frequently and its fucked 6. vinyl sales may "appear" to be up, but most of the music, dance music that is, is complete and utter shit yet is still comsumed by the masses and taken to be good - once again your data is dubious

Re:DJs QWZX

[MKalus]

Interresting,

so tell me (and I really DO want to know) where / how does one learn to play the tables?

Re:analog - admit it, you like noise

[pete0t2]

If analog recordings "sound better" to you it's because you like noise.

Nothing wrong with that, but don't make up phony technical reasons explaining why you like noise. Just admit it.

Unfortunately, analog does have a few downsides

[RayChuang]

While a freshly-pressed LP record played on a high-quality turntable does sound great, you are forgetting that the sound quality of an LP discs starts to degrade fairly quickly due to the wear from the physical contact of the phonograph needle with the LP disc itself.

Besides, setting a phonograph player to play discs correctly is a pretty finicky operation; I remember the days of carefully adjusting the phono cartridge on the cartridge holder for the right geometry and very carefully adjusting the tracking force--both not operations for neophytes, that's to be sure. The setup is even more finicky with high-end tonearms that have adjustments out of the wazoo.

I think many of the early CD's didn't sound great because many the older original master tapes were engineered to specifically mask the limits to LP's, which makes the music sound quite harsh sounding on the CD version, to say the least. However, as more and more music were mastered from digital masters or very carefully engineered analog masters, the sound quality of CD's vastly improved.

By the way, digital music optical disc formats have made some substantial improvements in the last few years. The Sony/Philips Super Audio CD and Panasonic DVD Audio formats have much higher data sampling rates than the original Red Book audio CD format, which results in VASTLY improved sound quality, especially in the treble range. Musical instruments with lots of higher frequency harmonics like violins and cymbals no longer sound harsh; this lack of harsh sounds in the treble range is a good reason why many people have said SACD and DVD-Audio have a warmer sound. In short, you get the convenience and better durability of standard CD's with the sound quality that's probably better than 99.9% of today's LP turntable players.

But digital audio optical discs are improving, too

[RayChuang]

However, don't think that the digital format supporters are standing on their laurels, though.

New formats derived from the technology used on DVD movie discs have resulted the Sony/Philips Super Audio CD and Panasonic DVD Audio formats. Unlike the original Red Book format CD, the new formats have much higher data sampling rates for frequency response to well beyond 30 kHz and a signal to noise ratio of nearly 120 dB! That is a HUGE improvement, one you can definitely hear on playback of violins, cymbals, flutes, or any musical instrument with lots of high frequency harmonics. It's small wonder why many folks who've heard SACD and DVD Audio discs have commented on its warmer sound due to the near lack of high frequency distortion.

MODERATORS: beware

[Anonymous Coward]

* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)

For references, please see this, this, this, or this.

Moderators, please check the links in the above quote. Not one of them says what the poster claims it says. The poster is being dishonest. Please mod him down.

Re:MODERATORS: beware

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://www.djprince.net/vinyl.htm :

It should be mentioned here that if the bass information is too loud, your raft gets thrown over the embankment (skips). So now you should be able to see that the louder the music is cut, the wider the groove wiggles, and the less time can fit on the side. Or looking at it the other way around, the longer the side, the less room for wiggles (volume and bass).

Re:MODERATORS: beware

[Anonymous Coward]

Sunspot42 claimed that vinyl has an "inability to reproduce loud bass accurately". The quote you give doesn't support sunspot42; it just tells that accurate reproduction requires wide grooves. I just checked, and all the links given by sunspot42 tell the same thing. Sad.

Re:MODERATORS: beware

[sunspot42]

You can't possibly be this obtuse, can you? Vinyl can't reproduce loud bass accurately, and every link I provided supports that assertion. Not that I even needed to provide that set of links, since several other links had already indicated that vinyl CAN'T REPRODUCE ANY SIGNALS ACCURATELY, due to all the frequency response and phase issues imposed by the RIAA equilization / de-equalization process, harmonic distortion caused by the mass of the needle and resonances in the pickup and cartridge, rumble, wow and flutter, surface noise, etc. etc. etc.

Here are some relevant passages from the three links you were sooooo concerned about.

From planetdmb:

Try to keep record lengths below 12 minutes per side; an average club record runs 7-9 minutes. The shorter you keep the track lengths, the louder the recording will be and the more heavy and full the bass will sound.

From aardvarkmastering.com:

Dance club music is way heavy in bass, and likes to be cut at very high levels. The standard level for european dub plates is 6 db over standard reference level. Cutting at these levels, especially heavy bass, the grooves have to be pretty spread out, and deep to keep the needle from bouncing out, especially when scratched and back-cued.

From futurediscsystems:

It should be mentioned here that if the bass information is too loud, your raft [the needle - sunspot42] gets thrown over the embankment (skips).

And also from futurediscsystems:

I'll discuss stereo very briefly. If the sides of the river don't stay parallel, it's stereo. In other words, any difference between the two channels causes the stylus to move up and down in addition to sideways. As the stylus digs deeper, it is using more precious disc space. The moral for engineers is: If you are looking for hot levels or long sides, don't pan instruments like drums and percussion hard left and right. Keep the bass and bass drum in the center, and keep everything in phase. An out of phase snare or bass drum can wreak havoc. Use an oscilloscope if possible!

And also:

If the sides are long, remember that the more bass, the lower the cutting level (volume). It is possible to squeeze 30 minutes on a side but the level will be so low you'll have to crank it just to hear it, and you will hear the surface noise!

I find your whining to the moderateors incredibly pathetic. I note you didn't offer a similar whine when "Sara Chan" posted a doofus reply in which two of the "references" provided no documentation for the assertions being made whatsoever, while the third was a pile of marketing treacle.

Here's another reference for you to chew on regarding how crappy vinyl "fidelity" is, this time from a veteran engineer. But please, don't allow any facts to get in your way. You're batting a thousand so far!

Re:DJs QWZX

[spiralx]

I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials online, but a good way to learn is to get some music and just start. The steps are (as I do it at least):

1. Play first record
2. Put next record on, send it to headphones
3. Adjust cue so you have an even balance between the two tracks in your headphones.
4. Using your hand to spin forwards and backwards get beats lined up on the two.
5. Now as the beats start to get out of time, you can adjust the speed to correct.
6. Repeat the previous two until both records are in time.

Now they're beatmatched, and you can do the actual mix. To start with you could buy two copies of the same record in order just to practise lining the tracks up if that helps.

Re:But digital audio optical discs are improving,

[Elbowgeek]

And after my raving about vinyl, I must admit that I recall hearing a pair B&W 801's reproducing some *stunning* chamber music a few years ago, in which I swear that the musicians were in the same room as myself. This from a Yamaha carousel CD player, nothing special. Cheers

Re:DJs QWZX

[MKalus]

Thanks.

Just today

[tempfile]

And I even keep buying new albums on vinyl. The reason is very simple: No copy prevention.

Jace of Fuse! DJing business...IT'S WHERE IT'S AT!

[camcloud]

Of Jace of Fuse! knows everthing about DJing. You know Karaoke and House parties have been synonymous for years. Just to prove it here is the link to his DJing site. It's proves what a knowlegable and infored DJ/KJ he is
http://www.djbongo.com/

mono bass

[Anonymous Coward]

Deep bass is effectively mono anyway, because it lacks directionality. That's why you can't even buy stereo subwoofers.

Last Post!

[alpg]

At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where
it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
-- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...