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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."
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).
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845
From here
All my friends are DJ's. I see a lot of vinyl...
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
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.
they're 'spinning' anything from mp3s to cds with final scratch.
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
I used to love when a _Mad Magazine_ or _National Geographic_ came with an Evatone Soundsheet. It would be great to see those again.
Best Buy can have you arrested
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...
All thanks to the portable adaptation recently.
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.
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I still have the 10 disk "Eye of the Beholder" game on these.
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.
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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.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
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.
At no point does the post say "the last." It says "one of the last." Twice, as a matter of fact.
I best be goin' down there and git me some disks at hoe-sale prices so I can lay down the phat scratch! Aight!
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
For today's FoxTrot
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
you'll still be able to cut your own vinyl. A snip at only $10,000 and $7 a blank :)
Vinyl still has a massive hold on the DJ industry, but it's slipping... Just my 0.02.
Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow...
'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.
Must be all that DRM they've been putting on vinal now adays.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
In Soviet Russia the records played with you.....
Come on try harder....
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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.
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.
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?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
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.
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.
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
we're just marketing. marketing our bad attitudes.
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.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
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.
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... ;-)
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.
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.
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.
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...)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
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.
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.
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.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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.
DJ in the radio business are largely not Djs. They are robotic dead spirited, bought-out and sold computers and personalities.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
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.
my pet machine
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.
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.
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.
How ya like dat?
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.
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.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
_nfotxn
Disclaimer: I'm the guy in the upper left corner.
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.
Does anyone have a pintle?
Damn that gaping hole in the middle of my LP!
I can't play my damn 45 without 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.
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?
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.
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.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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.
Wah!
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.
CDS have a much larger dynamic range than most recordings let on. A properly mastered recording can easily sound as good as vinyl.
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?
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
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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.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
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.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
where the hell are you getting acid tech at?
... i just inherited a bunch from a collection of a US East coast Pioneer... yummy yummy acid tech/trance...
no one has made that in like 5 years...
i'm still digging to get a good enuff acid trance (not goa) collection.
and
... hi bingo
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.
[Please type your sig here.]
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.
/. who would also disagree.
.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.
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
you can also do some pre-production mixing that is beat-perfect without the risk of live-show error
. .
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
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:
91: 3207 [1991].
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.
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?
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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!
- Play first record
- Put next record on, send it to headphones
- Adjust cue so you have an even balance between the two tracks in your headphones.
- Using your hand to spin forwards and backwards get beats lined up on the two.
- Now as the beats start to get out of time, you can adjust the speed to correct.
- 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.Plenty of acid trance here at places like Choci's Chewns as well :)
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.
The company that owns Kinetec Records is called BangingTunes.com and they do acid trance and ship to the US...
And I even keep buying new albums on vinyl. The reason is very simple: No copy prevention.