Slashdot Mirror
Analog Revival Means Vinyl Will Outlive CD
An anonymous reader writes "In the age of the iPod, an unlikely revival is taking place — kids are turning to 7" vinyl to get their kicks. Sales of 7" singles are apparently through the roof. Bands like the White Stripes are releasing thousands of new singles on the format, and record purchases have risen by over a million units in the last year — back to 1998 levels. NME told CNET: "it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music but the vinyl record will survive,". The article explains how indie kids are drawn to vinyl because "the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes.""
Its all like a bad episode of Sliders.
...the wax cylinders on my Gramophone
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
This time, they're here to stay.
Or, it could just be a nostalgic fad.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
The stupidity of consumers is directly proportional to the perceived cool factor of the product.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Those Vinyl SINGLE for White Stripe's Denial Twist costs about $8-9 which seems a bit steep for a single! But for those addicted to vinyl, I guess it's worth it?
You release albums as individual cartridges for portable players... it gives you a tactile "thing" with a label, contains mp3's in a generic format, is in a durable case .. can even contain games and whatnot. The ultimate packaging. I still have sega carts I can look at and remember the hours of fun playing Sonic, or Toe-Jam and Earl (panic on funkatron)...
Even better, you release "blanks" EPROMs that can be burned once (or maybe twice - in case of an error) to integrate with all the online purchasing. (print the label too)
meh
Hey, remember back in the '90s, when you thought vinyl was dead? Well, we're selling just as many now as we did then! Hoopla, Janet!
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Does your iPod break in two if you drop it?
The latest White Stripes' single, The Denial Twist, was helped into the Top 10 by 7-inch vinyl sales -- the band sold 5,500 singles in the format.
5,500 seems pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things. It must be that CD sales are so low that just a handful of singles can make a difference. Everyone else is just downloading the songs from their favorite torrent site and putting it on their iPod.
Will only collectors buy music in the future?
"the tactile joy of owning a physical object" Why not just buy a CD if you are looking to get that "tactile joy?" /I'd rather get my tactile joy from a chick
The cover art was often an essential part of the listening experience for isolated teenagers. If I had a dollar for all the hours I spent memorizing song lyrics and pondering whether David Bowie was really gay/bi or was just wearing a dress...
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
It has less to do with music and more to do with trendiness. Along with the sales of these records, we're seeing an increase in sales in black low-top Converse All-Stars, super small tight jeans, extra-small black t-shirts, studded belts, and thick black plastic rimmed glasses. ;)
One thing I've missed with CDs is the smaller form factor has led to less inspired covers. Less Detail. Fewer painted covers. It's an art that faded away without nearly enough notice. Replacing cover art is most cases are vanity portraits of the artist or band, with poor photoshop work to tie into a marketing theme.
If vinyl makes a comeback, I hope new talent following the footsteop of Roger Dean take up this opportunity.
So when will DRM-infected phonographs be released, to thwart all those filthy vinyl-ripping pirate scum? It's darned well impossible to burn a BOOT.INI file on those discs, and the macrovision-style distortion versions just don't seem to sell to anyone who looks sober.
Oh, and where do you get those little three-legged plastic adapters that convert a vinyl single spindle to a vinyl long-play spindle? Talk about your analog hole!
[
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Since this is from a UK news source, let's just assume they have it in for the iPod. UK publications do, admit it. Whenever I open the Guardian / Times / Telegraph / etc I see yet another PR-planted story about the downfall of the iPod and iTunes.
It seems to me that the return to records really reflects the lack of excitement of redbook audio CDs as well as the onslaught of silly new disc-based media.
I **think** I've gone through something similar with my photography. I was there at the start of the digital revolution and now ... well ... I'm back to shooting film. Whereas I use digital technology to 'print' my negs now, the storage medium is analogue.
Just an idea.
I have some DJ friends who buy vinyl, but I thought that was merely a practical thing... the only way they can effectively syncronize songs in real-time and all that. I had no idea that lots of other people were buying vinyl because it is cool. I guess I need to get out more.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
The article explains how indie kids are drawn to vinyl because "the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes."
CDs aren't physical objects?
Save for turntablism, I don't see a market vinyl. And even for that, useable mp3/cd turntable mixers are coming down in price that can make that obsolete.
AccountKiller
Funnypics
Double Cross from 1996, Season 3
Glad I saved mine :)
I personally don't care if I am physically connected to the band by actually owning something. I am a musician and as long as I can listen to the music, that's all that matters. Yeah vinyl sounds great, but it is so bulky and causes clutter. I hate having too much stuff around, and being able to have everything on my ipod is a godsend for that. If I have to move, the last thing I want to do after moving my furniture is lug around a huge record or CD collection.
For me the purpose of having music is to listen to it and nothing more. One possible benefit of vinyl though is of course the DRM factor. You will always be able to make a recording of your material for backups. Despite the DRM of buying music from Itunes, as long as I can listen to it on demand from my music player I am still mostly happy. It would be nice to share music I enjoy with my friends but that is secondary to its main purpose for me.
I'm no audiophile, but it seems to me that I get tired of listening to MP3s more easily than I do listening to CDs. The MP3 just don't seem to have the "life" of a [relatively] lossless recording. I doubt I could really tell the difference between vinyl and CD (and I prefer the lower noise levels of CDs anyway), but it seems that there is still a valid audio reason to continue getting your music on disc (apart from the usual DRM and compression arguments, of course).
Vinyl has already outlived 8-tracks and cassettes. Why is it surprising that it will outlive CD?
Wow, back to 1998 levels! ... which was what? 1,000 copies sold? These are novelties. And they are sold in such small numbers that a popular release by 1 band could easily throw the sales stats way off. How many of these kids actually even have turntables to play them on? I'll be impressed when they go back to 1977 levels and the zombie Bee Gees release a new double live album in a gatefold cover.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
near me is a comic book/music store. they have tons of used vinyl records and used CDs. i typically buy the records and rarely buy the used CDs. but why buy led zeppelin II on CD for $15 when you can get the record for $3 and then buy 4 other records.
I saw this same story on the bbc news the other day. As they interviewed a trendy young chap in the record shop, I wondered what would go out of fashion first, the vinyl he was spending his pocket money on, or the ridiculous cravatte he was wearing.
A friend of mine was looking at a USB turntable just the other day. As he was discussing it with me, I was pondering the archival potential of CDs as compared to records. IMAO, I was thinking that vinyl would last longer than the pits in a CD.
Their opinions will change the momment they want to move out of their parent's house and have to carry boxes of vinyl up any number of flights of stairs.
People who buy vinyl don't just buy it for the "physical object", they also buy it because vinyl has better audio quality. By a long shot. It isn't just a 'fad', it is getting a true analog representation of the audio, not some DRM-infested poorly encoded garbage.
WTF is an "indie kid?" (I'm thinking this is a marketing term for high schooler with too much of his parents' money in his pocket, but let me know.)
... it's just that kids are finally figuring out what DJ's already knew... records sound better than cd's and mp3's. It's the physical response of the medium, the warmth of the needle moving with the grooves, as opposed to the cold laser scanning data. Plus, analog media capture a much higher range of supertones and subtones beyond the human range of hearing, which nonetheless change and enhance those sounds that are within our range of hearing.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
With damn near every digital format seemingly infected with DRM these days, maybe this is just consumers protesting with their strongest weapons yet - their wallets. Its seems rare these days to find a cd without a rootkit on it, without some crappy media player software need to play the tracks, or just a plain old redbook cd with the offical cd logo on it to prove it.
A vinyl disc is just pure audio, ain't no other crap on there, trying to stop you enjoying the music or ruining your PC. Sure ripping is a little more hassle, but with a good deck the results could exceed any cd rip.
How delightful that a new generation is discovering the joy of 7-inch.
Couldn't have said it much better myself.
Not to mention vinyl often sounds better to those audiophiles with top end equipment.
You release albums as individual cartridges for portable players
Replacing the flash memory in portable hardware MP3 players with tangible ROM cartridges containing albums is about as convenient as using a MiniDisc player. It takes away the sole advantage of these MP3 players in the first place - the promise of letting you take your whole CD collection (not to mention a fair few audiobooks, games, TV shows and films) with you wherever you go. If you had to bring a few dozen cartridges with your player, you've reduced it to having none of the advantages over old formats again.
there is an inexplicable feeling that comes from the ownership of a vinyl record, rather than a cd.
It's the smell.
(sniffs record) Sweet, sweet acetate...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
so it will be "harder" for the kiddies to put it on mp3 and share for free. How this was news is beyond me... or am I such a cynic that I don't see the coolness and nesworthyness? Taco did you get paid to say that it is the new fad and o-how-wonderfull it is with Vinyl. Early CDs were much worse than vinyl I whole heartedly agree BUT the quality of CDs produced in the last ten years are lightyears ahead of any Vinyl kan ever be. But then again listening to punk records and the like you don't need the full spectrum.
See? Those RIAA people should have known that people still want to buy and own their media. The fact that MP3s are out there and are being passed about liberally is irrelevant to the fact that people want to buy and own. The reason for MP3 sharing, in my opinion, is partly convenience and partly to address the problem of scarcity and availability.
It's also nice to hear that the indy crowd is growing in force. It is about the only way, shy of legislation, to put the power back into the hands of the artists.
didn't Einstein say something like: "World War 3 will be fought with iPods and World War 4 will be fought with wax"?
maybe I got that wrong...
certified elipsis abuser
Yes vinyl is cool, but it's not just cool for the sake of cool. The reason vinyl will come back is much more detailed than that article suggests.
1) You own vinyl. Ever read the licensing rights when you buy a song off the iTunes store? What happens if you lose your hard drive?
2) Better quality. Vinyl is great quality - better so than iTunes songs. If you like to play music loud, it's very important that your source is of good quality or your audio will start to clip once you reach the upper limits of your equipment.
3) Shelf life. Vinyl records have an expected lifetime that is much longer than a CD.
4) 4track recording. Most vinyl records are made with four seperate tracks that play simultaneously. If you have a record player that is capable of toggling the tracks on and off, you can do some interesting things with your music. Ever try to take the vocals off an MP3?
Think about it. If you want portability, why get something physical instead of downloading to your iPod? If you want quality, why go for a CD when vinyl boasts superior quality. The quality is especially noticable in the low range.
If you're looking to do any DJ work you use vinyl. There's no ifs ands or butts about it. MP3's will sound like shit when you put them through kilowatt powered speakers. You CAN get some really high qual MP3's but for the most part, vinyl is a safer bet.
This pleases me mightily, since I've been a fan of vinyl for several years now. (I'm 19, so when I started buying music CD sales were well and truly eclipsing the good old 45s) There's something special about vinyl that you don't get with digital media, or even CDs - something about gently lowering the stylus, hearing the opening crackles before settling down to listen. Even the size of the medium's part of the pleasure - you actually feel you own something, especially with an LP or a 12" single. Plus, the cover art's nicer too.
One other little thing that pleases me is the price; a 7" single costs 99p in my local HMV. The cheapest CD singles are £1.99.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music
Well, let me just bust out the Motorola and install it in my new car... or how about I install a record player on my PC so I can load the new EQ2 expansion pack?
What is missing, from a mostly technical aspect, is that CDs have the advantage of being a larger "platform" simply because of it's versatility in the types of data it can contain and the number of different gadgets that will play CDs. Not even to mention that I can create my own CDs on the cheap.
A record player can do one thing well, play records. CD players have a ton of uses. There will probably be more devices capable of playing CDs made this year than the number of record players ever produced. While some audiophiles will still turn to analog for some time to come I feel that this upswing will dwindle when older turntables bite the dust and people are simply unwilling to invest in a new one.
For further proof of this go look for laserdiscs. They can still be had, used ones are a dime a dozen but, unfortunately, when mine dies I'm not replacing it. The discs will fall somewhere between ebay and the circular file.
but my CDs? Are you kidding? I have no less than 10 devices I can play CDs on in my home (including the laserdisc player) and considering I can buy a new CD player now for what? 20 dollars? Maybe 30? Try picking up a new turntable for those prices.
Sure, I use mp3 in my car (CD based) and my cellphone and "walkman" but I still buy CDs to rip them from. As many naysayer out there are chanting the old pressed music CD is dead I simply don't see it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
analog audio is a good example of a more mature technology
;~}
my phonograph and tube amplifier system simply sounds much better than any of my friends' solid state systems
so there
Later in the article it mentions the singles top-ten list. Since very few singles are sold these days, 5,500 would be significant.
I have about 50K plus mp3s, but i still buy alot of music.
Local distros sell 7" singles for about 3 to 4 euros and full records for 9.
A 7" has about 5 to 6 songs on it. Not only is this cheaper than Itunes, i also get to OWN my music + artwork, lyrics or coloured vynil presses.
It's alot more bang for buck and I really enjoy taking some occaisional time off to sit down, put on a record and listen to some sweet tunes.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Used CDs I can understand ... but used vinyl?
That seems like buying somebody's used underwear or something. It's a consumable product. Any given record can only be played a certain number of times before it's worn out. Each time you put the stylus through the groove, it destroys a little of the information that's there.
With a CD, it either plays or it doesn't. Provided that there aren't any scratches or fingerprints or other problems with the disc, the 1,000th play will sound exactly the same as the first. Thus the value of a "virgin" CD is basically nil. However, I'd never buy a used record, particularly without knowing the source and how well they've taken care of it. How are you supposed to know what you're buying?
Now this would be different if everyone was using laser turntables, but sadly they arrived on the scene a little too late to replace mechanical styli, they're too entrenched and the economy of scale will never exist to bring down the price of contactless 'tables. Pity, too: DRM free, analog music, with the never-dimishing quality of digital. Doesn't get much better than that.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You mean they're enjoying the concept of OWNING music they like. Dude.. You just can't do that, the music wants to be free!!! FREE I TELL YOU!!!..
Oh... um... wait... I just got a memo from the RIAA, they say that they had dinner with "Music" last night and after a few drinks Music agreed that it would much rather simply be rented.
Can we put something in vynil records that will make them dissolve after 30 or 60 days?
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
What I miss about vinyl is the ritual surrounding it.
There's this whole process of "playing a record" that simply doesn't happen when playing a digital file. There's the special way of opening the cover and sliding the platter out into trained fingers that touch only the edges of the disk, the optional puff of air to dislodge any dust from the surface and the trained flip or two to choose a side before carefully placing a tiny diamond in the first groove to release the sound.
A record, too, has a limited number of plays, I'd guess--a couple hundred at best? very time you play an album for friends, you're sharing one of those limited plays. When I used to have a collection of Jazz records, there were a few very pristine original pressings I had that each play was like opening a good bottle of old wine.
There is a very real, very human need for ritual in life, be it religious sacraments, a tea ceremony, playing a record or even the way some people barbecue or fill a bong. It's a way of making a situation more significant and feeling some continuity with the past.
iTunes just can't compete with that experience.
-- My Weblog.
They might be buying vinyl for the "look", and listening to the music on MP3s. There must be more useful artefacts they could purchase. Buying vinyl is like printing out the band's website.
I didn't know that the White Stripes even had more than two thousand new singles. They must be in the studio all the time.
I'm going to get my copy of Half Life: Episode 2 on a spool of magnetic tape!
The Pioneer CMX-3000, among other makes and models, allows for effective synchronization of songs on CDs in real-time. Pop a CD in both sides, and work the turn-tables to your heart's content. You literally spin the controls as you would spin a record, and the software makes sure the output corresponds. A whole new meaning to "scratching" a CD.
CDs are used to move music from the store to the iPod, then they go into the closet and are never seen again. If I want the tactile joy of owning a representation of my attachment to the band, I'll buy a T-shirt.
I've got $15k worth of audio equipment just to listen to my favorite CDs: Triangle speakers, YBA preamp&, MIT cables all around, Micromega CD reader.
Listening to CDs on this setup is a dream. Listening to whatever the fashionable format is nowadays is a NIGHTMARE (yup, even highest quality MP3s that LAME can produce) and does show what the "lossy" in "lossy compression" means. You lose EVERYTHING. Trebles are fried, basses lose their depth; the whole music loses its depth for that matter. Remember the audiophiles, please, for which listening to music _is_ an experience and cannot cope with recording mediocrity.
Heck, I can even detect defects in original CD recordings and some people put more than 10 times the money I did in their equipment. You'll never sell iTunes/whatever to THEM. Nor to me for that matter.
Let the CD live and never die. Thank you.
Now if they just get mom and dad to get them one of these laser turntables so their records never wear-out. http://www.elpj.com/
And I'm not talking about the spindle hole on the LP. Don't worry, if vinyl actually begins to make a comeback, the ??AA will squash it. And PS to all the kiddies out there buying vinyl - you're not hipsters, you're posers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...who had never heard of the White Stripes until last Sunday's Simpsons?
The third most important thing I have learned in life: Squeeze anything hard enough and it eventually makes a noise.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you SHOULD. While a CD turntable is cool for spinning tracks you've produced on your computer, they're too automated for my tastes. Auto BPM calculation, auto beat matching, cue points... it kind of takes the TALENT out of being a DJ.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
All a vinyl record is, is one long scratch in the surface, that's read back by a freakin needle! It's VERY easy to scratch vinyl records and render them unuseable.
In a related story, the price of Jiffy Pop stock has gone through the roof as kids eschew bagged microwave popcorn for the older pop-by-natural-gas methods.
One teen asserted, "it's a great comfort to be burned by a tangible flame while roasting the kernels. That's something you don't get when radio waves penetrate a bag full of hidden corn. What's up wit dat?"
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
Vinyl has it's place as the best audio medium. But it's not for everything. You wouldn't drive Ferrari F50 every day to work. You'd take the Maz and save the F50 for the weekends.
In our house, it's a grampaphone, not a gramaphone!
(Go look up the spelling!)
screw CDs, anyone who is hot these days uses laptops or ipods instead. Very few people actually use records, simply cause of the sheer amount of equipment involved and the dangers present with records or even CDs if they are poorly kept or transported.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I find that listening to orchestral music and Frank Sinatra on an old black disc often sounds MUCH better than what is available on a CD. It seems richer and warmer. Also, there is the atmosphere that an old turntable creates; enjoying music isn't limited to just the aural.
Love sees no species.
If you've ever heard a high-end turntable setup, you know that analog can sound at least as good as CD's, plus because you can't play them in a car, melt in sunlight, and they look fragile, you tend to take better care of them and so they last longer.
stuff |
In these days of "CD's" that arent really CD's (eg embedded DRM, whatnot), vinyl certainly has the aspect that there is really no feasible way to DRM it. And, assuming it is the best possible analog recording one can get, if one has decent analog inputs on a soundcard, one can make a pretty decent MP3 of it to import to iPod - which of course you'd want to do on the very *first* play of the record (and then carefully return it to its sleeve, and store it in a safe location)
- Vinyl has a higher noise floor than CD. even on the best players.
- Modern day vinyl quality is *abysmal*. thin and cheap.
- Trying to fit a modern-day album onto vinyl drastically compresses the grooves. Albums aren't 35 minutes anymore, they're commonly 40-50 minutes.
- Vinyl can't replicate certain sounds. Try an out-of-phase bass signal across both channels, the needle would pop out of the groove.
- Think vinyl has a more "natural" sound? Then you're wilfully ignorant of the drastic equalisation mashing that is necessary to embed music on a record - the bottom end has to be all but removed, which the player then puts back in. Think any player gets it right? Or indeed the same as any other player?
There are many reasons to like vinyl, sound quality is not one of them.
In all seriousness -- where does a hipster idiot -- errr, sorry -- "indie kid" get a device on which to play these vinyl records?
Ebay, garage sales, flea markets, etc...
I bought an excellent Technics SL-1200 turntable for $5 at a garage sale. Needed nothing but a good cleaning.
You can still buy them online at www.needledoctor.com .
Have a look at this retro gem of a record player
Will outlive CD's, vinyl and any digital format.
On another note, have you noticed that DRM is built in to vinyl? You really can't make an *exact* replica of the record. Unless you are very rich and technically proficient at creating LP stampings. And usually any sort of recording to another media creates loss of quality. Interesting.....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Clearly the reason people are purchasing vinyl is to take advantage of the analog hole. I think the MAFIAA needs to increase their level of "campaign contributions" with a few more fact finding trips to the bahamas so as to assure passage of the AMCA - Analog Millenium Communications Act before this piracy destroys the entire American economy.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I picked up DJ'ing a few years back and bought a pair of techniques 1200's and a pair of expensive needles (about 200 bucks each)
And to be honest with you I had no idea how good vinyl sounds. It seems to have much more "life" than a CD, the lows are lower, the mids and highs are nice. I couldn't believe how good it was because I grew up in the digital age and used to turn my nose up at vinyl (thinking it was old school crap). I was totally wrong in my assumptions.
But the what annoys me is the cost! I buy vinyl at almost $20 a record and that contains no more than 4 tracks (most are remixes) so it can be a very costly hobby.
MrJynxx
Surely I'm not the only parent that will under no circumstances give my children a credit card # to shop at iTunes.
7" singles are affordable and can be purchased without parental supervision; to say nothing of the coolness associated with rooting (apologies to the Aussies) around a hip urban record store with the good looking Byronic student type behind the counter.
Lastly, for my daughter, some retro seems to be very cool for here. She was ecstatic to receive my vinyl collection (discovered when my own parents were doing a big spring cleaning).
Audio CDs don't have DRM and never will. They can't and still be called CDs. The term CD is trademarked, and can only be used by products that agree to the licensing.
Now, "breaking" certain aspects of the spec, such as "forgetting" to have a few tracking pits encoded, isn't DRM. It's a defective pressing, hence those can still be called CDs.
If you think that CDs have DRM, I have yet to meet an undamaged (as in scratched or worse) CD that I couldn't rip at full digital quality, on Windows, Mac, and Linux boxes.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This will make no difference. I give it no more than a year before Sony sneaks DRM software onto your analog computer via your LP's autoplay...
Meta will eat itself
RIAA would love this, because it gives them disposable media without the need of DRM.
This was attempted.
Back in the heady days of the late 1990s, I had one of the first MP3 players among my group of friends. It was a thing called the Pontis MPlayer3, and used MultiMediaCards for storage.
The two advertised methods for acquiring music were either ripping it on your computer and downloading it to the device (via a serial port -- oh, the pain), or buying albums on pre-flashed, read-only MultiMediaCards. I never saw any in stores, and the format seems to have gone the way of the dodo now, but at the time, Pontis and a few other manufacturers were pushing it hard.
You'd get the usual packaging and liner notes, but instead of a CD you'd just have the chip. It wasn't erasable, so unless you physically broke it, you'd have a backup forever. One of my friends who went to Germany actually bought some albums in this format, although what they were I can't tell you. I'm not sure about what DRM it had, if any; I think it must have been minimal, because the machine wasn't capable of playing back anything besides straight MP3 files. (Heck, it was picky enough about certain types of VBR joint-stereo encoding and ID3 tags.) Perhaps this contributed to the lack of titles I ever saw in the U.S.
I thought this was a neat concept; except that the player was a failure and MMC got nixed in favor of that abomination known as Secure Digital (which the Pontis wouldn't use), I think it could have had a future. As I recall, the format had some sort of cute-ish marketing name, but I can't find it now.
That was also the last time I decided to be an early adopter...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I have an incredibly surprising amount of friends who all choose to buy their releases on vinyl, go to record stores and peruse old vinyl, and yes, transport their vinyl from apartment to apartment, lugging them up stairs. Between their record equipment and their milk-crates of records, it's never someone you want to help move. However, one thing that hasn't been touched on is actually what these kids are doing: DJing, spinning. MP3's and CDs are great and all, but there's a lot of kids who are purist DJs and as such, rely on vinyl for their best quality of sound and best ability to manipulate on a turn-table.
Vinyl covers are big and the art is prominently displayed.
We're probably getting close to the point where the metadata in music downloads will feature higher resolution artwork than printed CDs. Somehow, I can't imagine people will complain any less, though.
I'm a college-age guy.
:)
I switched over to vinyl recently. I'm using a Technics 1210 direct drive turntable and a Shure M97xE cartridge because they killed off their audiophile V15VxMR cartridge about a year ago, causing NOS prices to go up about fivefold. I'm using a 45-year-old McIntosh MX110 preamp and two McIntosh MC30 tube amps. It's all tube by the way, no preamp stage on the turntable. I'm stuck with a set of Bose 901 V's for right now, but when time comes in about six months, I'm going to get some real speakers.
Real, old speakers. The kind where you might have 12", 8", 3", and 1" speakers to correspond to the different frequency cutoffs because it sounds better this way. Better than having all of the same cones and using heavy amounts of equalization to try to make the sound come out right. (By the way, the 901's were some of the first to do this--scoff.)
There's some investment in this; granted, my cousin gave me the Mac tube equipment...but it's worth it. When you listen to vinyl, which I started doing about six months ago, it sounds more realistic. You get the harmonics from the tubes. You get real cover art. What you don't get is a digital reconstruction of everything packaged into a bite-sized square and a little piece of plastic that you can conveniently pop into the player.
Oh, and by the way, it's really nice to be able to hear your song without speakers, whether that is from the vibration from the stylus, or resonation through unloaded tubes
scratched? I have a collection of records dating from my high school years (pre - cd) and the biggest problem with vinyl is durability. The act of playing wears them, not to mention the scratches and other damage that often occurs. Ripping a pristine copy played on a high quality turntable with a top notch needle would eliminate much of the wear problem.
Still, there's something to be said for putting a record on a turntable, turn it by hand to get to the start of the song and then back off just enough so you can accurately time the start when broadcasting.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I suspect that the tactile joy of hold an object may extend beyond holding a CD in one's hand.
A vinyl record stores music as a physical impressions of the vibrations that make up the music. A CD holds a digital representation of the music. Some people consider being able to hold a vinyl record to be warmer and more intimate than to hold a cold shiny disk.
There is one factor beyond tactile joy that vinyl records has over CDs, and that is that as an archival media, vinyl records may have considerable advantages of digital media. Fifty or 100 years from now it may be difficult or impossible to find the necessary hardware and software to play back a CD. With a vinyl record, a playback device is not very difficult to figure out how to build at least a rudimentary record play (even if the builder has no technical documentation concerning how to play the record).
The Edison wax cylinder phonograph was introduced in 1888 (the tin foil phonograph was invented in 1877). Even if somebody who does not know what a wax cylinder phonograph looked like or the specifications for a wax cylinder record(?), as long as they knew the concepts behind the wax cylinder, they could reverse engineer a serviceable playback device.
As someone who has about 600 7"s, I can completely understand the reasoning behind this (although it's a bit hard to explain). For one thing, a 7" can typically only hold 2-4 songs, which means that the band putting it out usually needs to ensure that the songs that are committed to vinyl are their better ones (this usually excludes major acts releasing 7" singles for the "cred" that comes with it). Also, they usually only cost about 3 or 4 bucks (it's gone up in recent years though), which means that it's a very small investment to make to find out about new bands. Finally, as others have mentioned, there's the tactile aspect to the whole thing. A 7" has a decent sized sleeve that can contain a fair bit of information. It can easily be a 7"x14" folded double-sided cardstock with tons of notes, scribbles, drawings, etc, and it can easily include any number of inserts. I really don't think the 7" is going anywhere among certain types of fans.
This guy's the limit!
Indie kids don't buy White Stripes records.
Mommy will get me an apartment on the ground floor. :-P
When I'm on the go I've got several various mp3 players to pick from, but sitting at home there's little better for making the music seem real than some nice vinyl. Yes it sounds better, but the opportunity for bands to express themselves is so much greater too. Hidden tracks, inside tracks, playbooks, inserts, all sorts of things that you just can't get in any other medium.
My favorte by far was Godspeed You Black Emperor's F# A# album. It comes with a photograph glued to the front cover, and inside is a manilla envelope containing blueprints, inserts, and one railroaded penny. The sense of the band reaching out and interacting with me, putting real craft into the entire thing is just way too worth it. The entire medium of a large, flat vinyl sleeve offers much more room to experiment and express than tapes, cds, or mp3 downloads.
What are they playing all that vinyl on? Turntables cost a lot of money now, supplying mostly the niche audiophile and DJ markets. And there aren't many left, compared to the second half of the 20th Century when practically every teenager had at least one. These things wear out and are kinda big and delicate, in the way when kids play rough.
If we could play the vinyl stuck between the folded halves of a notebook PC, we might finally get back to the future, when it was so bright we had to wear shades.
--
make install -not war
As a professional producer and DJ of drum and bass, there is another factor that keeps vinyl alive. Besides the fact that we've spent years perfecting our pitch chasing and mixing skills using our hands actually changing the speed and phase of the vinyl (don't even ask a turntablist about CD decks), if I release a track that only want a few select DJs to play, it isn't overly expensive to get a dubplate made. These dubplates are of inferior sound quality (not that you notice on a proper MONO club system) and will only last around 100 plays. If a producer gets wind of you playing something unreleased by using MP3/CD decks, you will never get booked again. Elitist? Maybe. But if I don't want you playing a new track that will only stay popular if it isn't overplayed by every DJ in the area, I'm releasing it on dubplate. Keep in mind that entire albums are not possible on 45 RPM 12" vinyl, you can get about 10 minutes per side - released LPs have two tracks, an A and B side, EPs are anywhere from 2 to 5 vinyl in the same jacket, 2 tracks per vinyl.
Signal Loss of Signal against Noise
http://myspace.com/signalagainstnoise/
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree that LPs will live on much longer...hell, where I live you can't even buy any. If it's not on CD/DVD you might even be hard pressed to convince the "young'uns" that the sound depth is often better than from CD.
To everyone tagging this article as "duh", I just have to ask, did you also tag these articles similarly?
Son of Carpenter worshipped 2000 years after death
Columbus sails west and discovers unexpected continent.
Napoleon loses battle of Waterloo
I mean, sure I thought DJ's might keep vinyl alive, but I don't know many people who were certain that vinyl would recapture its previous glory.
1) Artwork included with 7" (and 12" albums) is typically much better (and larger) than what is crammed in CD cases (if anything is included at all).
2) Analogue recordings have a certain warmth which is not easily duplicated with the digital recording and CD pressing process.
and 3) Vinyl records are just plain cooler to own than CDs. Anyone can burn CD's at home on a $300 PC but pressing wax involves a lot more effort. Seven inches are still pretty rare which adds to the allure I guess.
The statement "Vinyl has better audio quality" has to be qualified. Heavily. In most cases it is effectively not true, either because the audio equipment is too crap for you to tell the difference - or the record is worn and has lost fidelity. (If you own a record player (and Microphone/neeedle) that costs under $250: it's not High Fidelity.)
If you have audio equipment that cost more than $3000 (purchased in the last 5 years), AND you know how to balance your mm/mc arm, and you go to classical (perhaps Jazz) concerts so you know what the music sounds like, you can ignore this post.
Boring details below.
It is true that as a medium, a LP record (or even a 45) inherently has truer fidelity than a CD. However this means that the records have a truer version of the music than the CD. (Some qualifications, assumes that the origional recording is done in analogue, or at a higher sampling bitrate than a CD. Decent transfer process, etc...)
To go from "Records are better recordings of music than CDs" to "Vinyl has better audio Quality" in the sense of the statement made: (e.g. it sounds better) is a bit of a leap. This leap requires High Fidelity equipment.
High Fidelity Equipment means 1) Good Audio Equipment (Speakers & Amplifier), 1a) Including good isolation for the record player (vibration: Bad), 2) A Good record Player, 2b)A good Mic and (unworn) needle, 2c) Correct wieghting for the playback arm for the needle; 3) An unworn / undamaged record. Some people have this equipment (not many), and the ability to set it up (pay to have it setup) correctly. Most people do not have this equipment.
For example: You will *may* hear better sound from a $250+ Amp with $400+ Speakers and a $250 Turntable/mic. (I'm assuming that amps have gotten much better than they used to be. In any case, you will need a minimum of $1000 in sterio equipment to hear an difference from Vinyl to CD. (True, and fake, audiophiles will say I'm wrong: it costs more.)
The USB Record Player I have seen was about $90. This means you can play records, not in High Fidelity. You need to have High Fidelity to hear the difference between a CD and a Record. Using your computer to play music pretty much rules you out. And what the hell, Ipods have a tactile feel too.
So effectively, the origional post is wrong. Records have the same crap sound as CDs, in most cases. If you can hear the difference between a Record and a CD, probabily your record is damaged or your needle is. Either that or you have a ground loop on your mm/mc that you think sounds nice.
Bite me: I'm Jealous because I used to have a music system where I could hear the difference between a good LP and a good CD (Say DSOTM), now I don't
I think the problem with CDs is that the music industry will sooner or later replace them and that they are sufficiently difficult to produce that the music industry will be able to do that. Vinyl is such an obvious and simple standard that it can be pressed and played with cheap hardware.
I've not seen those for years...and actually would like to get one to at some point, transfer a lot of my vinyl only stuff to digital.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
HipHop is the reason why vinly still survives today. My friend just bough serato scratch live and what it basically does is that you hook up two turntables to seratohttp://www.rane.com/scratch.html(yes they still make them and they are very expensive, at least for dj'ing and making beats) YOu slap your fav vinly on one, slap the 12in serato scratch pad on the other one and you can sratch and mix the vinly with your music collection on your pc. and you can ever scratch via the turntable all of ur mp3's.
THis has been out for a while but its incridble, If your not into hiphop then you think this is all a joke but since i am this is nothing new. SInce am 24 still buy old and new vinly, all i have to do is save the $500 for serato live.
moreover, vinly will survive as long as hiphop is hiphop.
I never saw the attraction myself - vinyl always seemed to crackle, scratch easily, warp or be a pain to store and transport around. CDs have been perfect for me and once they came along, I never looked back at vinyl.
Interesting to see comments about a revival, but to be honest I'm not convinced it's the young. I know some twenty-thirtysomething dance music collectors who will buy the odd bit of vinyl, a handful of punk enthusiasts who go for collectiblesingles, but it's mainly older (50+) people I know who are buying analogue - predominantly old blues and jazz stuff that hasn't made it to CD or have been poorly digitised. Maybe I don't know the right people, but around by me, mention vinyl to kids of any musical persuasion and you'll probably get a blank look. They're either buying CDs or downloading music.
I've always preferred vinyl ownership over CDs when the artwork mattered. A good example of this is the new Thom Yorke recording. The artwork is a cool wood block print. Check it out. The vinyl is actually textured so all the black lines rise up on the surface. It's one of the coolest "tactile" experiences I've ever had in an album's artwork. The CD doesn't have this special treatment from what I could see (looking through the case).
Now if they could just get the price of new vinyl down! I would have purchased it, but at $20 a pop, I have to hold off.
That does it. I'm going to have to convert CD's to reel-to-reel and then have vinyl masters made. I'm sure they'll sound "warmer" to boot.
mediocrity is so... um, rated.
They are all out of indash record players
And all of those old vinyl records sitting in your parents' attics? You can sell them on eBay to teenagers with disposable incomes! This is probably simply yet-another-Retro movement. Just like all of us geeks, when we brag about our Pac-Man scores or our prowess with COBOL or using the word "grok".
I didn't realize White Stripes had that many singles.
As there is one of those old fashioned vinyl-type records speeding out of the solar system on V'ger, there's a good chance vinyl will outlive all of us too.
Feel free to disagree, but this is my take:
vinyl: great cover art, about $2/album to produce, on a good player and a good album a very rich analog sound, especially in the bass region. Bad user-interface. No expiration in lifetime, especially if you never play it.
cassettes: no/tiny cover art, $1/album ? to produce. Still analog sound, but sounds crappy. Limited life.
CDS: no/tiny cover art, 50 cents per album to produce, easier to use than vinyl, DDD sounds like crap. ADD is better, but you still lose quality.
digital: no cover art, completely portable, no physical media to pay for and minimal distribution costs per album. Quality is generally less than CDs, but always sounds better than cassettes to me.
I am not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but with a good vinyl player, album, recorder, tube amp: the sound quality should always be greater than a mass-produced digitial reproduction because you are essentially running a filter over the entire spectrum, which is most destructive on the bass frequencies.
Suprisingly, the wikipedia discussion on analog versus digital largely agrees with this.
This is niether a revolution nor revival. Independent artists (and a few on the major labels) in a variety of genres have been consistently releasing singles and albums throughout the 90's and 2000's. Turn the clock back 10 years and replace "White Stripes" with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, or Green Day. But it's a niche market. Selling 5500 copies of a White Stripes single on 7" doesn't change that.
USB Turntable. Welcome to 2006.
"It's the warmth of vinyl, man! It's got a richer tone!" -- Trent Lane, Daria, "That Was Then, This Is Dumb."
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
This is not a question of quality and usability, it's a question of feelings.
As my niece put it, the disadvantage of MP3-Players is that nothing movies.
In deed where are you looking at when you listen to a record or casette. You look at the part that moves and turns. (unless you have something better to look at) Such players always had some sort of window or transparent cover (on records that has been invented by the german company Braun, BTW) to make you able to look at the turning parts.
Records or casettes are also real "hardware" you can touch and care for. And handling them good is rewarded by better sound quality. (better sound than badly handled media) You can polish your LaserDisk and it'll look better you can clean your record and it'll sound better.
You also have something real in your hands. On a CD you just buy some bits which you don't notice them beeing copied. It's just there. A tape cassette has to be copied in a slow process which requires care. You can see and feel the process you are envolved in it.
Without re-hashing the old arguments of "analog warmth" etc. the fact remains that my current music collection (ripped as Q7 oggs) sounds better, weighs far less, takes up less room, and is more easily searched than my old stack of records. It's also much more convenient for building playlists across albums, creating backups, and transferring to portable players. Why on earth would anyone want a stack of records? Other than gaining the owner a few retro-cool points, it's a vastly inferior format. If you miss snap, crackle and pop, there are plugins for several popular digital musical players that will add that back in for you!
Humans love ritual. Give them a simple religion like Buddhism and they'll add ritual to it.
The special expensive dustcloth, the delicate handling by the edges, the careful placement of a needle: all these are drawbacks from a utilitarian point of view but satisfy the need for performing rituals.
In related news, tin can phones remain popular against all logic.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Records are made of polyvinyl-chloride (PVC). The manufacture of PVC creates large amounts of bioaccumulative chemical byproducts which are released into the environment. The chemical industry and plastics manufacturer's lobbying efforts against EPA regulation allow them to continue releasing unkonwn quantaties of dioxin and mercury into the environment. The plastics manufacturers admit they don't know where the mercury goes, but they claim there is no solid proof that it ends up in the environment. Under what circumstances does mercury just dissapear?
I'm thrilled to see that analog media are still going strong. Digital audio may be more convenient, and sound indistinguishable from analog, but I do sometimes wonder what musicologists will think of us in 50 or 100 years when the vast majority of music that we have produced in the late 20th century has completely disappeared because we all thought digital was 'forever'.
Google is your friend:
0 /.f
http://www.needledoctor.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.44
http://www.garage-a-records.com/adapters.html
History of 45 RPM adaptor inserts:
http://members.aol.com/clctrmania/cm-adapt.html
The 45 Twister::t .php3
http://www.compost-records.com/sections/main/star
"The 45 Twister is the ultimate tool for every DJ playin 45 singles. The 45
Twister guarantees that the 7inches are able to scratch, mix, cut perfectly
as a 12inch! Beatjuggling, contest scratching - no problem anymore!
The 45 Twister works on every turntable, because it is a precision product
made in EU of best stabile material, perfect measured 45 compatible, plus a
super soft-rubber surface mat. This high grade tool guarantees the most fast
and safe way to play your 7inches!"
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
This is actually pretty interesting, because I was actually searching around for some things on vinyl around here, and a lot of places have been getting rid of their collections. One place I went to got rid of all of their's because nobody was buying, another place was having a hugle closeout on all their old stuff. Maybe vinyl just isn't big in the Detroit area?
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
This post is but one of dozens here in support of the "superior" sound quality of vinyl that are complete hogwash and reveal through their descriptions of digital recording that they have no technical knowledge.
... none. The sampling process simply requires that there be no content in the signal prior to sampling that is above 22KHz. There are precious few that can hear a signal this high in frequency and no studies that have demonstrated any perceived difference between music with or without frequencies above 20KHz filtered out ... as long as this filtering doesn't disturb the frequencies below 20KHz that one wants to keep. The best way to do this is to oversample the music by at least 2x, moving this filtering requirement to 44.1KHz, which is easily done in the analog domain without disturbing below-20KHz information. The rest of the filtering to remove the above-22KHz data and resample down to 44.1Ksamples/sec can be done in the digital domain. The result is flat frequency response and a noise floor of -96dB ... completely inaudible in most music (unless you turn the volume way up) and far better than with any vinyl.
... through a variety of intentional distortions required to suit the capabilities of a mechanical recording medium.
First of all, it's time to stop confusing a CD recording with a compressed, encoded recording. Compressing to too low a bit rate and/or with a poor algorithm will of course degrade sound quality. However, let's stick with the CD, since, like a vinyl album, it's also a physical object that one can own if one wants to.
A properly recorded CD can accurately reproduce the entire audible frequency range, from 20Hz to 20KHz with a completely flat response and with distortion that is far below detectability. No frequencies in this range are lost
On the other hand, the analog signal for a vinyl record goes through an intentional frequency and dynamic range distortion (i.e. intention dynamic range flattening to fit the capabilities of the medium, followed by an "undoing" of this process upon playback). The actual vinyl stampings are made from an original master, introducing further distortion. The stampings have an inherently higher noise floor compared with 16-bit/44.1KHz digital recordings and, in addition, are subject to artifacts from any dust or defects that might be present in the grooves. The grooves degrade further with each playing, too. Plus, there's the issue of wow and flutter from difficulty in controlling the rotation of the platter accurately.
Any preference for vinyl stems strictly from either comparing a poor CD recording to a great vinyl one, to preconceived notions that influence opinion, to nostalgia or to an actual preference for the types of distortion that vinyl produces. In the latter case, the vinyl sound can be completely simulated by intentionally applying the same distortions to CD output. As one poster mentioned, you could play back the signal from a vinyl album being played on a quality, high-end turntable and record it digitally onto a CD. The result would replicate all the effects that the vinyl lover formerly attributed to some superiority in the medium.
Here's an excerpt from the recording submission instructions of a commercial vinyl album-cutting facility that can be found online:
"As such, cutting a loud dynamic record presents many challenges not typical to the conventional recording and mixing process. Trutone's mastering engineers enjoy decades of experience specific to the analog format. This expertise facilitated by their use of our classic, vintage analog tube compressors, limiters and equalizers, afford our engineers the ability to provide all final EQ and level adjustments as your music is being transferred to the analog master. The result? A rich warm sound that transcends the digital phenomena, indicative of why vinyl remains the medium of choice for promoting and marketing music."
It's amazing that they make this last statement given that they practically tell you why and how they get this sound
David
Its because its DRM free. Consumers have been leaning away from DRM because it limits what you can do.
Sorry, couldn't resist it
Insert
"too automated for my tastes. Auto BPM calculation, auto beat matching, cue points... it kind of takes the TALENT out of being a DJ."
Ah, that's just elitism. It only takes the DRUDGERY out of being a DJ. What you claim, is said about any new technology, like the pocket calculator or the computer - now humans will become lazy because they no longer have to do the "real work" of working out calculations by hand. In reality, by automating basic functions, the DJ is now free to move their talent to higher levels. The last DJ show I went to (Nick Warren) there was no vinyl spun. Both world-class DJs brought a huge binder of CDs. I am sure this simplifies trips through airports. Then you have DJs like Sasha who claim that the highly automated world of Ableton Live on a Mac has completely changed and revolutionized his sets in a positive way.
I don't see any talent in having to suffer through manual chores more than another artist does. That's just a pathetic attempt at garnering status through pity.
Well I sure as hell hope CDs don't disappear!
...and 5-7 channel surround sound would be cool too. :D
Not until digital formats are sold in of equal or better audio quality, and i can do with them what i please, at least...
.. they cannot drm it to hell :)
(and it sounds good too)
Nice idea, but try to get anyone to agree on a format, when everyone wants to lock people in to their own proprietary format these days...
It is pretty amazing that they all agreed on CD...
That is an interesting story that I would like to read (how the recording and consumer tech industries all got into bed together to figure out the new format)...
music lover since 1969
Vinyl is analog. Although the medium doesn't allow for the total range and does include noise, it is analog. Digital recordings are never true, hence why they are rated at as "sampling" rate. The recording samples the original sound at a certain frequency, hopefully fast enough that your stereo/ear will never notice the missing sounds. CD's do a decent job of this, however, you will always notice the missing sounds: hence the "warmer" sound of analog. That "tinny" sound of a poorly sampled sound is present in even the highest sampled recording. An infinitely sampled digital recording (requiring an infinite file size) would be identical to an analog sound. Often the stereo is already mashing up the sound so badly that it doesn't matter -- but for the audiophile with the decent sound system the digital/analog difference is noticeable. Again, CD's (stamped HDCD's or DVD's recorded in HD sound) are probably the best trade off between the analog noise and the missing sounds of digital. MP3's and compressed sounds, however, are complete rubbish. They often completely delete/compress sounds outside the 20-20000 range: which dramatically changes the feel of music, the placement of sounds in stereo, and creates horrible distortion in the upper end (which I notice because my ears are very sensitive to high frequency sounds). So while I agree that Vinyl comes with crippled lower end and an ambient noise level, I would say there is still significant argument for Vinyl's sound quality. The moment a sound is converted to digital, it loses an infinite amount of information -- dropping from the true wave pattern of sound to the stepped (IO) pattern of digital. As for compressed digital... forget it.
The first thing to play vinyl records and have it sound nice is having a good turn-table (direct-drive) and a good needle. I have worked with both (and have the crappy belt drive and $30 needle) but would prefer a Dennon, with a digital output or a Technics MK2 or 3. I know that bass heavy records have make my crappy players needle skip, but that just means you need to adjust your arm to apply a bit more pressure (yes it reduces the number of plays you get). If you really just want it to work get out your nickle they work the best for skipping heads...
That is the difference between CD and Analog. Analog is continuous and smooth it is real sound. Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) attempt to introduce and smooth the digital approximation...really good quality DACs are constantly being developed and there are many really cheap, bad sounding ones out there.
For vinyl, how fequency range is a factor of how tight the track is cut. Packing more time onto a disk results in a narrower frequency range. Also how much surface area is used for a given period of time of music. 15" 45 rpm disk sound fantastic on my vintage pioneer stereo.
Having engineered both digital and analog music recordings certain aspects of analog are *STILL* trying to be replicated in the digital environment. Hence the oodles of plugins, pre-amps and all sort of gadgets to saturate the digital info with a facade of analog tone.
The biggest influence on vintage analog recordings presented on vinyl is that the entrie process was done from start to finish to produce a vinyl product. the recording process, artist performance, mixing, editing, mastering all contribute to the sound. Digital recordings are awesome and have brought the capabilities of recording ot millions of musicians. ONe thing is for sure the 7" revival is a product of nostalgia and cetainly is promoted by labels becasue they still have the technology and talent to produce vinyl well. Artists like the White Stripes have long used "low tech" analog recording techniques (8-track analog tape ) So presenting the that recording is well suited to a vinyl product. Mastering for vinyl is a black art that few really know how to do well...
On my bands CD we recorded digitally. In the mastering process we bounced the 24 bit 48 Khz multitrack mix with mastering plugins on master faders, to 1/4 analog tape. Then brought that back into two track, 24 bit 48 KHz digital, one more EQ touch and the two track master was all dumbed down to 16 bit 41 KHz and dithered.
We made side by side blind comparisons listening to a burned CD and picked the tape bounced version for it's musicality and smoothness...it simply sounded better when the music had some true tape saturation introduced.
As long as musicians and recording artists care about the virtues of analog. It will be around. I for one sometime feel I can here the stuttering steps of a digital approximation of a sine wave. Certainly our brains are hearing it and that translates into listening fatigue. Common in CDs....
I think it is great to have new 7" vinyl around still. I have a 7" of a band I was in the 80's somewhere....I haven't listened to it in ages...hmmmmm....gonna have to dig around, I forgot completly about that...
http://soul-amp.com/
seeing a revival in vinyl is great for those of us who have a jukebox... its nice to have all the old music from the same period of your jukebox but its also nice to be able to throw the foo fighters or chili willies in and rock out.. ya know? i for one welcome our vinyl selling overlords!
-Dave
I keep coming close to selling off all of my old vinyl. Then I keep holding on to it, hoping that Laser Turntables will come down in price, so I can rip them all before they fall apart. Many of them are just too badly aged to get decent quality audio out of them.
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
Oops 12" not 15"....fat finger
I get a Vinyl burner and then they can't touch me.
Anger has its uses. Here, let me show you.
To be accurate, analogue vinyl recordings have the bottom registers compressed in order to minimise distortion at the stylus level, and also to minimise wear on the stylus, and incidentally to increase the play time of an LP. That's why we have phono (pre/)amplifiers - i.e. to reverse that compression algorithm so that what we hear is closer to what the recording engineer intended. It's also why you can't just plug a turntable into a "line-level" socket on an amplifier and expect it to sound OK.
...it'll be specially shaped holes in the middle so you'll need the "Sony" hole adaptor that fits only Sony records, etc. Making your own adaptor will violate the DMCA, because after all, inserting it requires you to use your DIGITS and you're working around a DRM scheme...
Really? I know like 5 DJ's in Chicago and they all use records, exclusively. I wasn't aware that you coudl use iPods to mix songs (match up the beats). What kind of DJs are you talking about?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Some newer CDs and audio DVDs come with support for 6-speaker sound systems. Is this even possible with records?
Also, can iTunes (AAC) or MP3 or WMA do surround sound?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
When I became a DJ, I spent many hours talking to Those Who Came Before Me, and they all had one thing that they agreed on: If you want the real experience, you want vinyl. It does not matter what genre you are into, digital turntables do not compete with vinyl. (Of course, there is final scratch, etc.) The feeling I get when I grab that true vinyl record is proof that they are correct. I've played CD turntables, and they can be fun, but they will never perform at the same level as vinyl, nor will the sound quality ever compete.
h tm - be sure to look at the graph. It makes it pretty obvious.
As for today's vinyl quality VS yesterdays, I'm the proud owner of 6 original pressing Beatles LPs and the first 3 Led Zepplin LPs, and none of them are pressed on vinyl that is as good of quality as some of my 12" singles of today's EDM music.
And yes, there are some very very low bass sounds that could make vinyl skip, but compare that to every sound ever put on CD, and RTFM on how sound waves are all naturally analog, and just what happens to sounds when they are digitally compressed. Read more about CD compression VS. Vinyl sound quality here - http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.
Then, come back here, and we'll have an intelligent conversation.
>>I for one sometime feel I can here the stuttering steps of a digital approximation of a sine wave. Me too. For some reason I seem to detect it more often with certain voices even when the recording is on a different label.
This high grade tool guarantees the most fast and safe way to play your 7inches!"
Sorry, but Internet pornography already beat you to the punch.
This is, after all, in the UK, where they probably kept 45s for much longer, and drove them on the wrong side of the groove as well. It is obviously describing a tiny market share in Britain, and mistaking the part for the whole. Not the first time that might have happened -- witness Iraq -- but it doesn't make it any truer. Oh, but then it's CNET, too, that font of misinformation. CmdrTaco, I'm disappointed.
Digital text also weighs less, takes up less room and is more easily searched than a stack of books. And digital text is much less likely to degrade with use than paper. Quality is arguable with respect to any digital vs analog argument. Have you picked up a book recently?
The way you use the object is different. The act of reading is not, but the experience is. The same holds true for playing a song from a record vs a mp3. It's not about snap, crackle and pop (which is not heard on clean, well kept records), but it's a different process.
It may even be more convenient to pick up a needle and put it on a record than it is to deal with encoding formats, bit rates, DRM, the widely varied interface of mp3 players, hardware capabilities of the machine used to store / play the files, and tagging the files so that they appear in your library the way you want them organized. Not to mention bugs in the media player software, as in iTunes 7.
It depends on how you want to use the object. And it's not crazy.
...but the needle on my pornograph is broken and I can't find a replacement.
Yeah, that would be something to bring back...
So basically you're proposing to eliminate the whole "blind" out of "double blind". Let's bring back the Emperor's New Clothes phenomenon, shall we?
Unfortunately, the "blind" part is there for a very good reason, which again basically boils down to the Emperor's New Clothes. If you get people thinking they're somehow superior (smarter, audiophile ear, whatever) if they see or hear something, they _will_ convince themselves that they actually see or hear what's not even there at all. There's no limit to the idiocies people will convince themselves that they actually see or hear if their self-esteem depends on it.
E.g., literally, there was a thread on Hardware Central where someone fought to the bitter end with his claim that he hears the subtle sound differences in MP3's based on... the hard drive they're played off. No, really, I'm not making it up. Once he's got it in his head that the recording on a HDD is magnetic, same as on a cassette, and different kinds of analogue cassettes and cassette players had different fluctuations and distortions... nothing could stop him any more from hearing the same different fluctuations and distortions when the same MP3 is played off a Maxtor instead of a Seagate. Any explanations of digital sound, or that an MP3 is played from RAM not directly off the magnetic medium, etc, just went right over his head. He had found such belief that his audiophile ear can spot the differences between a Maxtor and a Seagate, that nothing could snap him out of it any more.
E.g., literally, see people who can testify that a certain audiophile power cord makes their music sounds better. Once you get them in an Emperor's New Clothes scenario, namely that only superior beings (e.g., real audiophiles) can spot the difference... guess what? They want to be superior beings too. They'll believe with all their mind and soul that a $600 power cable actually makes the sound richer and lets them hear more frequencies.
1. A distortion is a distortion is a distortion. If it differs from the original signal, that's that. You can't just hand-wave that differences on an LP are somehow good, while differences on a CD is bad. There is no such thing as one being inherently "more" and the other being inherently "less". Both are just deviation from the original signal, and both can be equally defined as "more" than the original (e.g., hey, the CD too has "more" of certail harmonics due to sampling, even if they are way above the range your ear can hear) or as "less" than the origina (e.g., "more" artefacts means "less" fidelity for LPs too.)
2. There's a reason we gave up on analog stuff, and that's because each step along an analog chain introduces more distortions. E.g., the recording on tape of the original performance, the reading of that performance from tape to make the LP master, the writing on the master, the transfer of the master to the actual pressed LP, etc, all the way to the physical properties of your turntable reading the LP. Add some more mastering steps in between, actually. Each step along that chain introduces more inaccuracies and deviations from the original signal.
By comparison, a digital signal can be copied with exactly 0 (ZERO) further distortions any number of times, because a 1 is always a 1 and a 0 is always a 0. Whatever differences the digitization itself introduced, that's the _only_ distortion in that chain. It can be copied and re-copied a thousand times and it won't lose anything more in the process.
3. Or 2b, if you wish: playing the same CD repeatedly won't make
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music but the vinyl record will survive,". The article explains how indie kids are drawn to vinyl because "the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number
So CD's might become obsolete in an age of downloaded music, but the vinyl record will survive because indie kids like the "tactile joy of owning a physical object"....CD's aren't physical?
CD's are also easier for indie labels to produce. Vinyl's are expensive to produce, and require specific hardware that is not as common as a cd burner, cd label maker, and cds.
Fuzzy logic for t3h win.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Starting at Dark Side of the Moon through Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and finishing up at the Final Cut.
No breaks in the music for a change of track.(Except to turn over of course)
I've been looking into buying a Thorens or some sort of belt drive turntable, but it's expensive to get better than CD sound quality. Good Analog will never be beaten in my opinion.
I've got a turntable in my car, it works great out here in Arizona (110 degrees). Just can't get enough of those Ella vinyls.
Judging from the spelling, I'd say yours is beer.
Best Slashdot Co
Stop having such a negative tone with everybody. I have seen your other posts. You are a troll. Go away.
2005 cd/dvd music sales figures for 2005 in the top 20 markets ~ 915.2 million units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music_market) Annual sales of vinyl singles are now ~ 1.4 million (http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12097)
Damn straight. You try finding Derek Riggs's signature on Powerslave. Can't do it on a CD. Incidentally, that was the hardest record to find it on, because of all the hieroglyphics. I didn't find it UNTIL I went to the record cover.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
You do realize that the difference between a sine wave and a square wave is the amount of overtones added to the fundamental tone right? You would if you have done any in-depth study of additive vs. subtractive synthesis.
So you are correct in that the data is stored in a way that it is stepped, but those steps are formed of overtones that are above the nyquist frequency. Thus a simple low pass filter will remove those steps and you do get a true smooth waveform as the output. This can either be done with analog filters, or as it is done in the real world nowadays, with digital processing.
What you are likely hearing as differences between your two sources have to do with distortion (especially in the analog side), sample rate/bit depth issues, as well as clock issues. Most digital systems re-clock at or near the D/A stage in order to eliminate jitter, especially jitter coming down the chain of equipment. However a lot of the re-clocking circuits don't have an extremely low jitter capability which adds inaccuracy to the signal.
Likely if you used a much higher quality clock source for your digital listening a surprising amount of the difference will disappear.
For reference this comes from someone who has worked with and experimented with clocking of some rather high end systems (Apogee, Protools HD, Aardvark, etc.), and has pretty good experience with various tape machines.
Now that also has a lot more to do with it than anything else. Many people you hear complain about digital in the recording field are people who spent a lot of time learning how to make analog paths sound top notch. They need to re-adjust somewhat to get magic to happen with digital. Yes, magic can happen with digital. Is it the same magic as analog, no. But just like different mics and pres have different aspects of sound and colors, tape vs. digital is akin to the surface you are painting on, you can use velvet, canvas, etc., but make sure you use the right brushes and paint so that your finished product can be achieved properly.Shawn's Tech Articles
the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes.
Then enter your credit card into the slot at the local CD superstore, or Amazon or something, and get a physical object. My CD player is more portable than most record players, and I've never seen a record player for a car.
Vinyl may very well outlive the CD, but the big deal about CDs isn't the media itself, it's
the superior quality and convenience of digital encoding. Show me analog formats making
serious inroads against digital formats as a whole and THEN I'll be surprised.
Maxim
I'm in my late forties. Most of the young whippersnappers in my office have never even seen a record player outside of movies. So, to listen to those "indie" vinyl records they're going to have to do some shopping.
First they need a turn table. But that low, low price does not of course include the required phono cartridge. The output of a phono cartridge is measured in micro volts and must be amplified before to "line levels" before it can be fed into an ordinary preamp. So last the aspiring vinylphile will have to collect that change that fell behind his couch cushions and get a phono preamp.
Sure beats overpaying for DRMed music.
"the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes.""
The joy of copying 3000 songs in high-quality compressed audio from your friend's hard disk to your hard disk for free is infinitely more enjoyable than paying $16 for a piece of vinyl that holds 10 songs and lasts 100 plays before scratching or wearing out the high frequencies.
Vinyl was Vinyl and people loved it because it brought music to their homes - with that came the romance of the concept, they weren't obsessed with quality of sound (at a general population level) because it's all there really was for a long time.
Now with so many formats in the mix, it all becomes about numbers, dollars and one-upping the competition, creating a sterile, throw-away user experience.
It's hardly suprising that people still look at Vinyl with such fondness as it still remains embedded with those positive memories.
People who never grew up with that experience have sadly missed out on it and will never understand it, which is a shame, because they are missing out on a true 'product experience' something very rarely seen these days.
Indie music used to be released on vinyl because it was cheaper (CD manufacturing at one time was prohibitivly expensive for small record labels), and over time even though the economic benefits of vinyl no longer exist (vinyl manufacture is MORE expensive nowadays), it is still "cool" and "fashionable".
Even with dance and hiphop music, where there is actually a need for vinyl records for mixing/scratching/djing, for every person who is actually a DJ spinning music, there are 20 or 30 people who purchase the vinyl because they think it is "cool".
I find myself annoying so much music that I want to buy is only available on vinyl. It is a pain in the ass to digitize and burn to CD.
For all the distortion of that format, some great timbral accuracy remains. Those and the better electrically recorded 78's had some amazing sound, believe it or not (as in Ripley's).
Not to mention, about ten years ago a company release a special 78 pressing of modern analog recorded music as experiment, and apparently it was a knockout.
Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
some guy had a brainwave about making more money. that's all. nothing breathtaking here, cycles in the industry to market old products to new customers who've come of age and who have the means to buy stuff. companies have so many ideas lying in the cryogenic chamber that can simply be revived for a quick buck. soon we shall see cassette tapes coming back into fashion coz they're sooo retro. or some day books made of paper will be back in style.
Something to consider: Vinyl can be read by archeologists; by looking at the groove under a microscope, they can infer that it's sound. CDs use a complex error correction algorithm that will take years to reverse engineer, and decoding an MP3 off of a hard drive will be even more difficult.
For more information, I've written an extensive study of the merits and drawbacks of vinyl: http://www.andrewrondeau.com/Writings/My%20Love-Ha te%20Relationship%20With%20Vinyl%20-%20Or%20-%20Wh y%20We%20Should%20Keep%20Making%20Vinyl.html
From my article about its limits:
No, I will not work for your startup
Also, I never said anyone "should" use these. The post I replied to said that there was no way to physically manipulate a turntable for anything but vinyl. I was just pointing out another choice.
Myth: Vinyl sound is all scratches, hiss and rumble.
Truth: Only if you abuse your vinyl as I (and most of those of my generation) did when I was a youth. A properly cleaned and taken care of record (not hard to do!) is a very clean sounding medium. Also, the very small amount of noise (and the inevetiable occasional tick and pop) are reminders that there's a world out there beyond the audio system.
Myth: Vinyl has limited dynamic range compared to the CD.
Truth: An all-analog LP has much greater *apparent* dynamic range than a CD. This is a feature of Analog versus digital, not CD versus LP. Proof? Just listen.
Myth: Digital music means absolute control over what we can listen to. And there's so much stuff out there on the P2P and legit download services.
Truth: What you'll find once you adopt the LP as a format is that your muscal horizons will expand massively. When I only bought CDs I found that I only acquired those albums of my favourite music and little else. After I started in with LPs again I'm finding some amazing stuff that I never heard of - rare punk, gorgeously recorded classical, very rare jazz that will *never* see proper CD release, etc, etc.
One other observation: An all-analog LP in good nick is much easier to listen to than a digital version. I can turn up Beck's Blow by Blow to insane levels before my ears complain, but a similar digital version hurts my head at even moderate levels.
I urge all here to go down to their local hifi shop and see if they'll give you a demo of a good vinyl playback system. You will be floored.
Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Ahh, the dear old flame wars over digital vs analog that used to happen in rec.audio in the 1980s.
There is a way for humans to hear frequencies above 20Khz. If there are two frequences present
that have a beat frequency (say 21Khz and 23 Khz), then an audible beat frequency of 2 khz
will be produced). Does that mean vinyl is better than digital? I don't know, maybe it depends on
the music. What I suggest is that you put live musicians in a room and have them play, and listen
through the door with no electronic amplification. Also listen to recordings of the same music done
on analog, and one done on digital equipment, double blind, that's why you have to listen through
a door, and see which one sounds the most like the live performance.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Looking over the comments, I don't see anyone mentioning these:
Vinyl records may actually be more robust than CD media, especially the kind you can burn yourself. And we're not so sure how long the plastic and metal layers on commercial CDs will last.
Vinyl records have no DRM, and since they are not digital they cannot have their DRM modified or added later. This means your vinyl copy of the White Album will always play on any player by any company, forever or at least as long as it holds up, even if some media company desides they want to change that. Cuz unless they come to your house and take it away from you, the vinyl is yours. Something quaint about that.
There is a reason for "steam punk" folks; some of the technology we're promulgating is being turned against us. Bits are nice but like genies they elude control, while atoms know their place.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Think: with 44kHz sampling, a 22kHz fewquency is sampled twice on the up and the down. At most. 'cos that only happens when your sample rate falls nicely on the upslope.
However, instead of having the full amplitude, you only have the amplitude you sampled at. Which is going to be less and additionally this will vary around half the real amplitude.
To accurately give the amplitude of the wave, you'd need enough samples to have a good chance of hitting the top (or near enough) and the bottom. 4 samples (six more generally) is needed to get close (higher amplitude means more samples). So you now have a 7kHz wave accurately reproduced.
This is why an LP recording seems to have a better accuracy: put a sliding frequency through both systems and measure the ampllitude accuracy: LP beats 120kHz digital samples, despite an apparent frequency response up to 25kHz. Downside: accuracy with the LP degrades over time and use.
CD's have no fidelity even over 10kHz. However, the inaccuracies are hard to tell with normal music, so it isn't all that easy to tell unless you issue pure tones a lot.
See here for my idea and how to make your own record. http://rcbullock.blogspot.com/2006/09/you-know-for -kids.html
http://theroblog.com
I love music, and I also love the conveinence of digital music. I can listen to Internet radio from around the world, share Mp3's with my friends via email, make mix CD's, and so forth. However, I still have a rather large vinyl collection, and my turntable cost more than my reciever and DVD player combined.
Of course, records cannot match the ease of digital tunes. I can't listen to my records while driving or running. It can be somewhat annoying to have to get up and flip the record every 30 minutes. That said, I still think analog sound offers a depth and richness which simply can not be matched digitally.
A lot of this depends on who produced the album, and when. For example, a lot of music in the early 90's (the early days of digital) are mixed so poorly that there isn't much hope in ever getting a good sound out of it. But classic rock fans, compare Pink Floyd's DSOTM on SACD and vinyl. Yes, the SACD offers a wonderful sound, but on my setup, with my eyes closed, I csn feel as if the band is reunited and visiting my living room. Take good care of your records (like I do) and the "pop and hiss" is left to an absolute minimum.
I'm sure a lot of my fellow "music snobs" have already made this point ad naseum, but in my opinion, there is a world of sound that exists between 1 and 0, and therefore, I doubt analog will ever die.
Give it a try. The difference might suprise you.
barack to the future?
CD/DVDs introduced a problem. The ability to create perfect copies.
The RIAA/MPAA rely on consumers purchasing copies when theirs break. They don't want consumers to have the ability to make an exact copy of the data because this destroys their enforced rarity of the medium.
DRM in digital (lossless) media, such as in Blu-Ray, has progressed to the point that the BD-ROM is essentially analog -- Thanks to many artificial/legal restrictions, you "cannot" make a perfect copy of the data. I've consoled myself with such DRM by thinking, "Well, now it's like we're back to vinyl again. One copy, and if it breaks I need to buy a new one." This way of thinking has actually made DRM much easier to swallow.
The culmination of DRM is analog.
See wife, I told you there where worth money...
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
it is darn hard to rip vinyl digitally! ;)
-Xen
That may be because they design their Album cover art for Vinyl not specifically for CDs. Think back to when they released their third album Vitalogy. They released it on Vinyl first before CD and cassette. One of the songs on that album is even called "Spin the Black Circle."
The art in their latest album is especially good because Fernando Apodaca was involved. You may have seen the "Life Wasted" video that he gave artistic direction on.
..the garage/tag/block sale, flea market, ......
Turntables of decent quality are discarded all of the time, and it's such a waste. That's $200 (albeit spent twenty five years) ago down the drain.
When I first saw the headline I thought you meant those 45 rpm disks with the
big hole in the middle. But the line about 2-4 songs means you meant 7" 33.3 rpm.
That's a new format? For a minute there I had visions of those old jukeboxes
coming out of the trash heaps and becoming the next big thing. Too bad the companies
making those old jukes are long gone or we might see new format jukes coming back in
style. Anyway I bet the likes of Pikering and AudioTechnica are happy.
Oil painting will outlive Photograph.
What I mean to say is that this is not an OR/OR situation. Both can exist next to each other as they have different target audiences.
While the automibile has mostley replaced the horse, there are still people riding horses.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I got an old, but not to old, Panasonic stereo system, that was record and am/fm all in one. Up until a couple months ago I used it for nothing but an amp for my computer. It sounded awesome so I fixed the record player and recently insalled an iPod dock. Now my record player plays 3 things, the radio, mp3s and records. I never use CDs anymore because my iPod sounds the same if not better anyways, but records have a completely different sound.
...it almost never gets played. I don't use vinyl for casual listening and to be honest, it really sucks for that use. I do use it for a very specific mood, when I want to play DJ. To be perfectly honest, I wish all the music I have on vinyl was available digitally so I wouldn't have to muck about with the stuff when all I really want to do is listen to some music. When I feel a connection with music, it's not with the physical medium, it's with the auditory experince.
This isn't a new phenomenon. The kids have been playing with vinyl because it's "cool" to do so since the early 90's when DJ culture became more widespread. They all want to fancy themselves as their favorite DJ. The friends of mine who have substantial vinyl collections have them not because they feel some kind of "tactile joy of owning a physical object", but because they love MUSIC, they are DJs, or they had been collecting music during a time when CDs and more recently the digital formats were not as pervasive.
...it would not use a conventional stylus and pickup cartridge. It would shine a laser down into the grooves of the record and reflect the light back into a couple of photo sensors.
tune that humor-vs-infowhore adjustment knob there, big fella
no, it really sounds better. i assumed it has something to do with the physical process of creating the stamping plates and pressing the vinyl. it's hard to explain. i guess, in a way, if you talk to a guitar player and ask them why a tube amp sounds better than a solid state? it just has that thickness to the sound that, for whatever reason, does not seem to come through with digital? i suppose i could try recording the vinyl with something that has better than CD quality and see what happens. i'm content to accept that vinyl just sounds better for whatever reason. i listen to mostly punk music. music with guitars and real drums and whatnot. maybe some other genres don't matter, but rock seems to.
i know a few people that in the last year or two just got a record player for the first time in a few years and they are going out and buying their favorite albums on vinyl again. they swear it sounds better, and it seems to be more than just nostalgia. there are also people with iPods, so they do like the convenience of being able to take everything with them. i can listen to, and enjoy, pretty lofi recorded music, crappy demos, live tracks whatever. i just really think that the vinyl sounds better.
as for the 100th play. my record player is not a $10,000 crazy one, but it's a copy of a Techniques 1200. it lives in my house, and i don't do DJ tricks, so it works great. it has a well balanced toner arm, and i replace the stylus when it needs it. i also take care of my records. i have played many of my records more than 100 times and they sound a-ok. i also work at a radio station that still plays vinyl and we have records that have had steady play for almost 30 years. the radio station has always used quality record players. if anything the records may have some dust in them and require a good cleaning. ok, the worst thing are ones that were stolen. second worst are ones that were dropped on a hard floor, or rolled over with a chair. that's just mistakes, but otherwise vinyl is really resilient. most people i know replace their CDs more than their vinyl. the durability of the CD seems to make people treat them like cassettes or something and they just don't last. i have CDs much less than 20 years old that have no scratches, but the ink and foil is coming off and they are skiptastic. it's annoying when the CD is out of print now. i'll take a record skip to a CD skip any day!
...complete pain to have to carry my LP Player with me on the train to work every day - I don't think that my co-travellers would really appreciate it either (especially my collection of Des O'Connor LPs).
Plus power would also be a problem - the batteries would cost a fotune... perhaps I could find a handy small monkey to keep winding the handle, does anyone have one I could borrow?
I thought that this was already guaranteed, that CDs deteriorated while vinyl records didn't, so barring your needle scratching out the grooves, the LP would last longer.
Ah, well. If my tunes are pure digital, I can move it to the next machine when the current machine is ready to be replaced. And, as disk sizes get bigger, we can allow for huge sizes for our songs with no problem, which means the "sounds better" aspect of analog sound will fade.
Personally, I think it's a losing battle. Then again, I know people who only listen to 78s and others who play music and don't want to sound like it's past 1957, 1945, 1936 or earlier. For the music, I can see their point, but I've never been audiophile when it comes to the gear I use to play it.
Best Buy *do* sell turntables. In fact, they have a huge selection of *3* turntables ($90-$280)0 37&type=category
m /catOid/-12944/N/20012898+20012924+20012944/rpem/c cd/categorylist.do
http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=cat03
compared to the selection of 7 "Home Stereo Class" CD Players at Circuit City ($77-$255)
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Turntables/sem/rps
Circuit City has *5* systems for sale, though 1 of them looks like it's only purpose is to convert vinyl to Mp3 format.
As far as records/albums, Circuity City has them but on special order. Best Buy does not seem to offer them at all, at least
not through a quick search of their online inventory.
And if America's Largest Retailer (http://www.walmart.com) doesn't sell turntables or vinyl records, then there must not
be any money in selling the item.
In other words, if vinyl is making a comeback then somebody better tell the stores to start stocking players and music.
Vinyl will always be a nostagic item, not a "mass public popular" item.
if (!sig) { printf("Signature Unavailable\n"); }
Honestly most of the people I know still dont even use CDs although many are now turning to systems using one or two laptops because of how hard some tracks are becoming to find as a record. While I am sure there will always be pruists, people are moving toward easier ways, especially when you can get 2 iPod filled with days worth of music for the cost of one halfway decent deck.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
It's a fad, who cares?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Vinyl is beleaguered?
Because compact discs are so intangible...
Bah! Vinyl will never replace ...the wax cylinders on my Gramophone
I eagerly await the new Microsoft/RIAA Vinyl DRM
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We made side by side blind comparisons listening to a burned CD and picked the tape bounced version for it's musicality and smoothness...it simply sounded better when the music had some true tape saturation introduced.
I hear this a lot, but I think your wording hits the nail on the head: "it simply sounded better". You're not looking for accuracy in reproduction (which a CD will give you). You're looking for what you think sounds "better". It's perfectly plausible that the information lost (and/or introduced) in the analog or vinyl process produces a certain quality of the audio that many people prefer in their recordings.
This quality has little to do with accurate reproduction, however, and was not present in the room when the original recording was made.
I for one sometime feel I can here the stuttering steps of a digital approximation of a sine wave.
I find this highly unlikely, but even if you can, it would mean that your DAC isn't doing its job properly. There is enough information in the digital recording to reconstruct an absolutely perfect, smooth, pure waveform that exactly matches the characteristics of the original. If done properly, it should be impossible to distinguish between the original and the recording.
I suspect you're letting anecdotal evidence, among people that "want" to believe, taint your objectivity. I highly recommend that people take a basic class in DSP so that they understand exactly how this analog information is recorded digitally, and how it allows for the reproduction of the original waveforms.
If there are two frequences present that have a beat frequency (say 21Khz and 23 Khz), then an audible beat frequency of 2 khz will be produced
Totally wrong, what will happen is that the sound *envelope* will have a 2 kHz shape, but it won't *create* any lower frequency, in other words nothing audible will magically appear. It pisses me off when I hear bullshit like that from people who sound like they know what they are talking about.
You just got troll'd!
I still have all of mine.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
So.. the CD is dying? If it's possible that in the future artists stop using CD's and that they use analog medias or digital means (ones using lossless compressions, as they now do most of the time), then that would mean that for a while we couldn't provide ourselves an exact PCM copy of the original tracks, in other words there wouldn't be anymore the one and only bit-wise original track.
It would feel like a regression to me, although all I listen to now is MP3's.
You just got troll'd!
Vinyl is physically a limited format, and not any amount of romanticism is going to change that.
so why would you buy a laser linyl player over a CD player? You have a bulkier, more fragile item with the exact same sound quality.
hint: they both will use the same processing to convert the groves to sound..
Now, I don't know how specific laser turntables work, but given the price and market I'm going to assume they "Do the Right Thing" and use effective analog electronics.
From the grandparents linked site:
Go read about analog electronics, digital electronics, and fourier transforms. Then come back and say CD players and laser turntables are the same with a strait face.
(Note: I'm not claiming to be able to tell a difference in any of these cases. I'm an engineer, not an audiophile.)
I got this great usb turntable for my birthday made by Ion Audio (http://www.ion-audio.com/ittusb.php). Records my records down with great quality even with regular windows recorder. What I haven't found is a way to just listen to the records without recording it first. That is, on my computer...I can hook it into a receiver and enjoy the vinyl. ;-)
You can only reliably differentiate between frequencies less than the Nyquist limit. Above that, you can't tell if you have picked two points one low, going up and one high, going down, or two going up at a lower frequency.
No "perfectly" about it. You cannot tell the actual freuency.
Then you have to work out what the amplitude of that frequency was. Which needs a sample at the top and a sample at the bottom to recreate accurately. And then one either side so you know what frequency it is.
So you can see at the Nyquist limit, you have to be damn lucky to get it right. As the frequency goes down, you are more likely to get samples at or near that position.
As you wish it: http://www.elpj.com/
$15,000 US dollars for a record player?
Ay Carumba!!!!!!
How about encoding digital information (oooh. early home computing flashback!) onto vinyl ? You would get all the audiophile warmness from using lumps in a groove, there would be the fun of keeping dust at bay and using incredibly expensive stylussisses, the RIAA would get to sell you new units when they get scratched/warped/covered in marmalade, you could argue endlessly about where the imperfections in the reproductions are occurring.... everybody wins.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
(a) CD offers the same 'tactile joe' as vinyl, even more so I would say.
..., I forgot that's slashdot, after all).
(b) you can't burn the sound file to vinyl.
(c) 'the kids' eventually grow up (well, some of them, may be
Vindicated once again!
.. but it was MUCH more rugged then vinyl records.
Now, pass me that turntable.
Its too bad the old laser disks died out, they had a analog version
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ummmm yes you can go into your local bestbuy and get one.
Not walmart, but most 'appliance' stores ( and all high end audio stores ) still carry one or two models.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm old enough to remember the transition... and what a pain in the ass LPs were. Keeping them ultraclean, and listening to them wear out.
To say that I don't miss vinyl records is something of an understatement.
What I'd like to see is a DRM-free extended CD format with higher sampling rates and greater dynamic range. . . and record companies with the sense to make proper use of it. Yes, I know that "record companies" and sense are an oxymoron
Tech Public Policy stuff
I've dabbled in audiophilia and I've firmly decided that while there probably is a practical benefit from a lot of the expensive equipment out there, that since I have limited funds available for music and music equipment purchases...
I'd much rather have MORE music of "inferior sound quality" or on an "inferior format" than to have less music that "sounds better."
A lot of music is recorded poorly and mastered badly or whatever all that means, but if it's good music I don't worry about that either. Also, if I already have the legally obtained mp3s of a good record, I'm not going to blow a bunch of money on a special 300g repressing when I could just buy more new music.
E.g. I buy music on emusic which is compressed etc, because it's only on average $3-4 for an album.
Vinyl hasn't gone anywhere and big deal that it's created enough interest for this story, but people that get hung up on it and playback equipment don't like music as much as they like stuff (rare LPs, tube amplifiers).
..."the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes."
Remember: 'joy' is read 'cred'.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
No one can hear the difference and after several play throughs the grooves become worn and you lose the quality on records.
I guess you don't know any audiophiles. I did though and they could not only tell if a song was being played on vinyl, tape, or cd but if it was on vinyl or tape they could tell you which concert hall it was recorded in, I was able to myself with some songs. They, I, couldn't do that with cds as digital recordings don't record and play all of the sound frequencies the human ear can distinguish. Admittedly not all humans are like this and can distinguish closely spaced frequencies but many can distinguish more with training. Way back when, when I got an lp the first tyme I played it I would record it on my reel to reel tape deck, then I'd put the record away and listen to the tape.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It just starts to distort and shriek instead. The pops and clicks sound neat, until you hear the same recording on a CD, and your ears can start to relax again. I admit that these records were old (about 30 years) but if that's how my music is going to sound in 30 years...
There is a very easy method to deal with this. When I had a record player I also had a reel to reel tape deck. The first tyme I played a new lp I would record it on tape then I'd put the lp away and listen to the tape. When the tape started getting wornout I'd grab the record and record it again on a new tape. Doing this and making sure the needle is good/new you can have your music last a long tyme. I miss my tape deck so much along with my phonograph, however I've been seeing phonographs appearing in stores lately. Maybe I'll see reel to reel make a come back as well, only if I still had all of my tapes. I had a bunch of tapes, each with 8 hours of music recorded on them in stereo.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"(a) CD offers the same 'tactile joe' as vinyl, even more so I would say."
..., I forgot that's slashdot, after all)."
You can see and feel the actual songs on a cd?
"(b) you can't burn the sound file to vinyl."
I'm sure "the" sound file you mention is highly compressed. People who are really into vinyl can tell the difference (and wouldn't want it).
"(c) 'the kids' eventually grow up (well, some of them, may be
Agreed - and when they do they might decide to give vinyl a chance.
according to the site
True Analog Playback The laser beam travels to the wall of the groove and back. The reflection angle is transferred to the audio signal, meaning that the LT maintains analog sound through the entire process, without any digitization. As a result, the LT cannot differentiate between an audio signal or dirt on the record. To keep your records clean, we recommend a record vacuum cleaner (see our Accessories page).
The real reason that Vinyls will outlast CDs is that their grooves are physical, not magnetic. After 20-30 years, the CDS will no longer be playable because the magnets will weaken, ruining the data. However, the vinyl will be playable until it corrodes.
Not quite, I'm 44. Growing up my dad had a reel to reel and I fell in love with it. So when I got the chance to buy one when I was in Germany I did. Unfortunately some tyme after I came back I loaned it to a friend and he lost it, he pawned it and didn't pay the loan back in tyme.
I was born just early enough to have operated tape machines at the local radio. I think they may have been Tascams.
Though I know of Tascams mine was an Akia and was quadrasonic, ie had four tracks, however there wasn't any music that was quad.
If casettes didn't wear out and it wasn't so time consuming to find tracks on them (even with those decks that find tracks for you it's a bit of a hassle)
That's why I'd record an lp on tape the first tyme I played it then put the lp away, the tape was almost as good as the new lp until it started wearing out, but I still had the lp to make another recording. Some may of found it a bit of a hassle but when I recorded my lps on tape I always labeled them and noted where each song and lp started on the counter. When I went to play a tape and wanted to listen to a specific song I didn't really have trouble getting to the start of it. If only I could be as organized irl.
DVD-Audio and SACD formats.
This is the first tyme I heard of these formats. Then again I rarely listen to music now other than when I sleep. I used to listen to music almost all the tyme but now I'll turn to radio on when I hit the sack and turn it off when I get up and rarely listen except when driving. One reason is because there isn't a radio station that plays all of what I like, blues, classical, country, jazz, reggea, and the various rock styles. Or that play one of my favorite genre, smooth jazz. For about a year we had a station that played smooth jazz, and I fell in love with Norah Jones' singing who reminds me of Billy Holiday who I also love, but they changed their format which is easy listening or something like it. Because I don't listen to the radio much I don't know what's being played now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think you either don't know an audiophile or are one yourself. People can and do tell the difference in sound quality between vinyl (analog) and cd (digital). Though my hearing isn't as good as it used to be I used to be able to tell the difference. One of my friends could tell you where some songs were recorded if an lp was being played but couldn't if it was a cd. From my own experience I say vinyl is much better than cds. Of course as my hearing is deminishing I probably can't tell the difference now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Try this: http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=TTUSB [bswusa.com]
I see it support 33 and 45rpm but it doesn't support 78rpm. I like that it has usb though. That's the third one I've seen recently with usb.
FalconShould there be a Law?
About fifteen years ago I bought a wonderful little tube radio. Not a McIntosh amp or anything, it was a little and toaster-shaped Fada tabletop radio that I found for $10 at a junk shop and set out to get working again. I spent a bit of time cleaning it, scrounging for working tubes and replacing the old sparky power plug.
:-) Of course an old radio would only play old music...
Late one night, around two in the morning, it came to life.
I heard first a crackle of static, then the sound of Billie Holiday, singing "The Blues are Brewin'."
My first thought was that somehow the song had gotten stuck inside the old radio some time in the 1950's.
The sound quality of the little four-inch paper speaker is nothing, compared to, well, just about anything you could buy now. Any "warm sound" offered by the tubes in the radio or the record spinning at the radio station that night was no doubt obliterated by being broadcast over AM radio, but I will tell you this: Billie Holiday never sounded better than she did that night.
-- My Weblog.
This may be a dupe, forgive me.
http://www.altmann..de/turntable/ describes a DIY Phonograph. (I have not read the whole article, nor have I built it.)
As an aside: I own over 10,000 LPs, 4000 7", and hundreds of 10" 'records'; (some 45, other 33rpm, 78 and also 16rpm.)Vinyl, acetate, polystyrene, cardboard, flexidisc, shellac, wax cylinder, aluminum- maybe other materials. Some even start on the inside (near the label.)
Many of these recordings will never be re-issued, many I will never listen to, as I just don't have the time. So, basically, I am a custodian of these artifacts. I hope that when I die they don't get put to the curb-side.
Another aside: I find that you can "read" v-groove records by looking at the grooves themselves; esp. on hip-hop tracks, there is a visible pattern (scalloped? may be the term) on the really funky beat stuff.
Finally, I can lift the tone-arm assembly and drop the needle wherever I want at random, much more easily than trying to find a particular part of a track on a digital recording.
Still putting needles in my music-
Conor
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
Not five minutes ago I searched Best Buy's website with "turntable" and 22 results came back but most of them were collections of music from the 1980s on cd. There wasn't any of the turntables from the page you provided in my results. I then tried "record player" and still didn't get any results. Thanks for the link. I've seen turntables in a few store around here, most have cd players as well as a usb port and are built into a box that makes it look "classic" or antique.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well, if you do a google search of ' "difference tone" ultrasonic'o gy.htm)
you'll get hits on inventions and stuff that use the difference tone
of ultrasonic sounds to generate audible sounds. The theremin is
also supposed to use this principle
(http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/phd/hughes/technol
It's heterodyning.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I'd love to have old Count Basie albums, along with albums of Billy Holiday. Earlier this year I saw a set of 8 cds of songs by Billy Holiday and I almost died walking out of the store without them, but I went in the sale some dvds I had I didn't want anymore. The store was strickly a music store so they wouldn't take the movies, none of which were musical. I'd also like the get an lp of "The White Album" among many others.
I picked it up to play some old Count Basie albums I had collected. I hardly use it now, since it is much easier to play the songs on the computer, and my kids would destroy any stray albums I left out.
New turntables are out with usb ports, so you can record you lps on your computer and put the record out of harm's way and keep them safe. I know a few stores that sale records within walking distance and I might get a new turntable do to it myself. I'm just concerned about getting records that are already scratched, however some earlier on this article said some software was available cleanup the sounds.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Mind you, even I could recognize Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", the cannon fire is a dead giveaway.
What about Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite"?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Check the full edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary", I believe it's the 20th volume. The spelling of time as I spell it, "tyme", is a correct spelling. I admit I'm the only person I know that spells it that way but it is a correct spelling, I found that spelling while reading though the "OED" when I was in high school. Actually shortly afterwards I turned in a paper with that spelling in my American Lit class and when I got it back, the teacher had marked a point off for it so I had to drag her down to the library to show her that spelling in the dictionary. After that she got into the habit of looking in the "OED" whenever she came across a spelling of a word I used that was unusual.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I just bought a new LP burner for my comp.
I've decided to re-encode all my mp3 audio at 64KBps. I like the watery distortion and warmth it adds. Bloop, bloop, bloop. Its only so long before it catches on and everyone starts doing it. It adds a richness that wasn't in the original recording and all my friends will think I'm cool because I can store 4x more music on my iPod. Hihats? Not anymore. They're phasing, spacial, psychotropic wotsits now.
I know what you're going to say...
"What about analog?" Well, for that I record it onto cassette! For that authentic nostaliga I pull all the tape out and scrunch it, just like it had been chewed up by a cheap player. I also like to break it then sticky-tape it back together. That missing section really adds a certain mystery element. "What used to be there?" I here you say. Who knows, its what ever you imiagine it be and thats infinitely better than any CD or vinyl.
What do I need to connect my old analog vinyl turntable to my PC's soundcard?
Can I just plug it in (given a few cable adapters), or do I need to mess with pre-amps or other conversion boxes?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Any song! If you have a particular favourite, do you want to buy a whole album/CD? ... one song on a vinyl disc!
No. This is why iTunes and the other download services have boomed.
And now, the same generation have discovered
Again, they pick up their favourite song (maybe get an interesting flipside too) so they're getting the _same_ choice.
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
If the Egyptians had had digital media, we wouldn't know much about them... unless, of course, they had etched inch-wide bits in stone.
With proper care, my vinyl can be passed on to future generations. And while I hope my crandchildren will have the sense to understand that Oingo-Boingo et al was a passing phase, I believe they will eventually come to appreciate Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-fields' and Neville Mariner's take on Mozart, Led Zeppelin, Tom Waits and even Rush. The list goes on. The point, however, is that if I owned these pieces of music in the form of microscopic pits in an aluminum film or as bits of electrical charge in a silicon device or as magnetized bits on a tape or platter, they would not survive.
cjudge
One make you a music snob.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... releasing a CD in a vinyl sized sleeve?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The vinylphiles keep insisting in all this nonsense, when in reality the only thing they are attached to is the nostalgia of a bygone era, but they are too afraid to admit it.
My father, a practical man, sold his vinyl collection shortly after listening to his first CD.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah, there was a good episode! Here's the details as I remember them.
It was that one where they slid in from the previous alternate reality, narrowly avoiding a perilous situation of some sort. Quinn, or the professor, or somebody, then checked the timer, said they only had so much time left on that world, and that they should stick together and not do something crazy which could cause them to get split up. Of course, that's exactly what happened, because Quinn, or the girl, or somebody, got mixed up with someone they thought they knew from one of the other realities they'd already been to. I think it might've been while they were trying to determine if they were back on their original home world. Anyway, the professor, or the girl, or somebody (and it might've been more than one of them) did get separated. Fortuntely, just when the timer was about to expire and reset, the separated one(s) managed to get free from whatever it was that was restraining them, and rejoined the rest of the group, just in time for that vortex thing to open up again. As they were jumping through the vortex to the next world (possibly in a hurry to avoid being recaptured, or killed, or injured, or something), they looked at each other, or made some comments about how surprised they were at how the situation turned out. I could have that wrong, though, because they might've been conversing at the end with some sympathetic natives of the particular world they were leaving, who'd helped them through their harrowing times on that world.
Yeah, that's an espiode that really sticks with me.
My apologies. I until now ignored the non-mathematical aspects of this and well, only paid attention to the mathematical ones.
I started a discussion here in comp.dsp if you're interested, and from the posts in this topic it seems that it has to do with some kind of distortion in the air or in our ears (that's how I understand it).
This being said, I don't think that in your example you will end up with a pure 2 kHz sine, and anyways, that doesn't explain a need for sampling frequencies higher than 44.1 kHz, since the effect we are talking about could be "included" one way or another in your final digital signal.
You just got troll'd!
...it's the reflective surface behind the pits that is important. That has the potential to wear out and become unusable even with an archive quality media. Vinyl will also wear out if played over and over again. However, if the LP is stored as a master and not played, it's potantial shelf life will dwarf a CD because the materials the LP is made from are not as susceptible to corrosion as a CD/DVD can be. Damage and wear from regular use is the biggest culprit next to breakage for both CDs and LPs. If you store your originals where they cannot be broken or worn and make copies to use and abuse, your LP will last longer on a shelf than a CD.