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Direct-to-Vinyl Recording Makes a Comeback (Video)
For many decades, gramophone records (the black vinyl discs in Grandma's attic) were made by cutting grooves directly into an acetate disc, then making a mold from that "master" and "pressing records." Nowadays, of course, we use digital recording software on our computers or even on our mobile phones. Vinyl? Strictly for fogies and maybe a few audiophiles who think analog recordings have a depth and warmth that CDs and MP3s lack. Naturally, SXSW is a haven for these folks, and among them Tim Lord found Wesley Wolfe and two German compatriots from vinylrecording.com, busily demonstrating their vinyl recording system, which is sort of the gramophone record equivalent of print on demand. Lots of background music in the video makes the voices a bit hard to hear; some might prefer the transcription -- although those who do will lose out on watching the vinyl recording machine in action. Either way. Or both. Up to you.
Can I listen to it on my mp3 player?
Meow
It's disgusting how so-called 'audiophiles' can bear to listen to music that has been tainted by electricity. Back in my day, we used Edison Cylinders, recorded entirely by the soundwaves emitted by the performance! (It is actually a neat process to watch, a horn concentrates the incoming sound and a sharp stylus attached to the diaphragm cuts the groove in the cylinder, 100% passive, except for the guy who brushes away the wax shavings)
There was another round of direct-to-disk back in the 70's, and who knows how many others, before and after that.
I bought a Sheffield disk of Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" back in the mid 70's, and there were other disks in their lineup. Here is someone else's on ebay now - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Prokofiev-Romeo-Juliet-Excerpts-LP-Sheffield-Lab-Direct-Disc-Leinsdorf-LAPO-/380457368606
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's the superior medium for collectors. Some of you collect old game cartridges right? Do they feel good in your hand? Sure they do. I can use an emulator for that.
Are generally found to be distortion and a roll off of high frequencies when one bothers to take apart the actual music reproduction.
Some people have become accustomed to these artifacts and so prefer them.
The only real antidote is to go to live music performances to hear what they really sound like.
I'd recommend that for people used to modern pop recordings too. I think many would be shocked to hear what they are missing in the horribly compressed and otherwise doctored up recordings that are sold today.
As a professional recording, editing and mixing engineer, all I can say is NO THANK YOU.
For those who place a premium on scratchy, error-prone, expensive, one-time and short recordings this might be neat. There are lots of reasons we started using tape in the late 40s and early 50s in the music recording industry, and loads of reasons we're recording digitally now.
Quality, speed, cost. A direct-to-disc recording system ain't it on any of those fronts.
Vinyl remains king in the electronic/hiphop/whatever DJ scene.
Where sound quality is of absolutely no concern.
"...the first Super Mario he had a square nose. That’s what your audio looks like in 16-bit format. What vinyl’s actually doing is stretching those square waves and rounding them out..."
"Well, I have no technical training at all. No mechanical engineering experience."
Yes, and it shows. I wonder if he thinks black and white kinescope recordings from the 50's have more warmth and depth than digital HDTV.
So I can ignore it?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I'm holding out for 3d printed records.
Vinyl remains king in the electronic/hiphop/whatever DJ scene.
Where sound quality is of absolutely no concern.
Not quite. It's really obvious if the instruments (synthesisers etc) are cheap, poor quality ones, and quite common for people to consider how good a venue's sound is before seeing a band/DJ play.
In any case, I've not seen a DJ using a turntable since... ever (~2004)? They use either laptops or CDs. Most electronic bands I see use at least one laptop.
While I too prefer the sound of a vinyl sometimes, he is full of s*it, comparing it to a 16-bit mario game. Someone should introduce him to Nyquist-Shannon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem
One of my favorite albums was recorded "direct to disk", with a vinyl cutting machine recording the performance live, and the band playing each record side straight through in one set. (The album was James Newton Howard and Friends.)
But here's the thing: they also ran a digital recorder, and the CD was made from the clean digital recording. Then they mastered the CD properly, and it's a very nice CD. I don't think it would be improved by a less-clean recording process.
Oh, my. It's been re-issued, with a new master made from the direct to disc vinyl recording! So it looks like Sheffield Labs thinks it is improved by using a less-clean recording process. No thanks, I'll keep my clean digital copy.
There is exactly one good thing about vinyl recordings: they make it impossible to really over-gain the music to where the wave forms are mangled by hard-clipping. But the alternative is to make a digital copy and just, you know, don't over-gain it.
As with tube amplifiers, there is distortion associated with vinyl records that some people like. The solution is to make a digital filter that simulates this distortion. I helped write such a filter, and I actually like using it when I listen to music with headphones. But I don't want this sort of distortion impressed forever upon the music at the time of recording!
We have the technology to just make a clean copy of the artist's performance. Once that is done, the album can be mastered, and remastered. Heck, record it with a clean digital process and then carve it into vinyl if you want to... just keep the clean digital copy around, so that someday you can change your mind and release a version without the analog distortion.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
This article makes people who listen to vinyl sound pretentious as all get out. I have a decent sized collection of vinyl records that I listen to daily, but that's mainly because I won a pretty sweet turntable and stereo set. MP3 has its place, like in the car and whatnot, but I do enjoy just putting on a record and listening to it from start to finish as well. I also enjoy owning the physical records and going through the case artwork, etc. A couple of my Floyd and Jethro Tull albums have photo books in them. I guess the point is who cares what form your music takes? If you enjoy it, go for it. If not, that's cool too.
Just 'friended' you because it's always nice to see a fellow DJ on Slashdot, and thus, I think I'm baiting myself for an "offtopic" mod since I gather that you will understand me, but many with mod points will not. I started out using Mixmeister (still an excellent product in its own right), but then went to Torq (also an excellent product, just a bit too late to market with a few too many shortcomings in its early releases), and finally got myself an SL-3 a few years ago. There are three broad reasons why I'm unconvinced that DJs are keeping the market alive in the way that you claim:
1.) The best selling record for the last several years is, unsurprisingly, the Serato control vinyl. Resultantly, a handful of vinyl pressing plants are still up and running, but the medium as a whole isn't really garnering many DJs.
2.) Panasonic stopped making the Technics 1200s in 2010. I love my Numark TTX decks, and there's been a Stanton turntable that a few jocks have said comes in "close second" to the 1200, but getting into the vinyl game these days requires much more intent, especially since...
3a.) Controllers are all the rage these days. Everyone from American Audio to Pioneer is making a controller with jog wheels and cue points these days, and I'd wager that most of the bedroom DJs are starting there, simply because it's a much more affordable starting point than a pair of turntables at minimum $800/pair - you can get a Virtual DJ controller, the kitchen sink edition of VDJ, and a whole lot of Beatport tracks for the same money.
3b.) I'd love to see plenty more top 40 tracks make their way onto vinyl so I could get a better handle at spinning real vinyl vs. control tone (I do mobile stuff, not clubs). The chicken-and-egg problem is that it's incredibly difficult to amass enough records to justify the workflow, and even then you're hard pressed to get Crooklyn Clan style transitions and party breaks pressed to wax. Sure, you'll always find a club guy or two who will keep to vinyl, and yes, I'd love nothing more than to be able to mark up all of my records with cue labels and be able to go out and do a set with them. If you're starting out now, it takes a LOT more dedication to get a pair of turntables and enough vinyl to forego a DVS, and at that, you'll need to make a name for yourself with "I only spin REAL vinyl" being your schtick, and then find someone who cares enough about what you use to make that an actual selling point, AND is willing to pay you what you're asking since you'll inevitably be asking more than the next guy who is using the aforementioned controller and collection of MP3s from Beatport or DJ City.
Me personally, I was thrilled to find Deborah Cox's "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" and Tiesto's "Silence" (the "In Search of Sunrise" mix that takes the entire side of a 33) both pressed on vinyl. If I find a recognizable track here or there, I'll pick it up. Every so often I'll go on eBay on a vinyl binge and see if I can find any memorable songs pressed on a record, but it once annually, if that, when I find myself setting Scratch Live into "thru" mode to play an actual record...if for no other reason that I've been spoiled by relative mode where bumping the needle doesn't actually cause a disruption to the music.
Tim: Usually in 2013, you see people going from vinyl to digital formats, here you are doing the opposite, you’ve got a CD player here that’s feeding music over to a vinyl cutting lathe.
Believe what you want about vinyl records, but recording on vinyl something coming out of CD player goes against any logic he could try to follow.
Money.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"Warmth" and "Depth" are actually known as "distortion".