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Vinyl Record Production Gets a Much-Needed Tech Upgrade (engadget.com)
Ever wondered why you sometimes have to wait months after an album's launch to get the music on vinyl? It's not necessarily because the label hates vinyl -- in many cases, it's because the decades-old manufacturing process can't keep up with the format's resurgence. From a report on Engadget: Relief may be in sight for turntable fans, though. Viryl Technologies is producing a pressing machine system, WarmTone, that should drag vinyl production into the modern era. Much of WarmTone's improvement rests in its use of modern engineering. It's more reliable when producing the "pucks" that become records, makes it easier to switch out stampers (the negatives that press records) and sports a trimming/stacking system that can better handle large-scale production. Also, there's a raft of sensors -- the machine checks everything from pressure to temperature to timing, so companies will immediately know if something goes wrong.
Can they solve the problem of the record skipping in my car?
I have all of the gold plated monster cables and everything....
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Vinyl had a tech update decades ago. It's called "CDs".
This obsession with obsolete and empirically inferior technology is baffling. Yes, I know it started as a backlash over bad MP3 compression, but that obsession killed superior technologies, the tech upgrades to CDs - SACD, DVD-A and pure DTS albums. All you vinyl obsessed people are making things worse, not better.
What's next? Let's all go back to watching movies on VHS and old CRTs! It's how the director wanted it to be seen, right? How about analogue cellphones and leaded gasoline?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
No need of DRM. People who buy vinyl want to listen "vinyl" (and vinyls are much harder to duplicate, compared to a CD or a file).
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I would have assumed to delay was to encourage people to buy albums twice, once they they can get it right away and then again to fulfill there irrational desire to the reto.
records are not lossless and every copy is unique and imperfect. not only that, but the act of PLAYING it destroys and degrades the medium.
I grew up with lp's and I'm happy to say that the last one I played was well over 20 yrs ago.
today's dacs are so good and the a/d's in studios are so good, there is zero reason for using lp's at home.
the ONLY valid reason is that the mix is intentionally different, which makes zero sense. there is more dyn range in cd and 'files' than any LP could produce. and yet, they put better mixes on records for pure marketing reasons.
dacs can do 24/192k and even DSD. records are about 1/10 of that or even less.
sigh ;(
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This! I don't want vinyl, what I want is a digital download of the master used to produce the vinyl. The one that doesn't have to compete in the loudness wars and isn't compressed all to hell.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There is more dynamic range on a CD in theory, however with sound compression (i.e. "loudness wars", not "lossy audio compression as in MP3 or AAC") we end up with CDs and audio files from music stores that sound like crap.
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Well, even the best DAC available only can create a approximation from the original analog sound signal, while vinyl is an analog recording by nature.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
while vinyl is an analog recording by nature.
Which doesn't say anything about any similarity with the original signal.
bickerdyke
The loudness war mostly affects pop genres like Rap and Rock.
Classical and Jazz recordings generally don't suffer the same fate.
Further, is there really _no_ digital going on between recording and pressing in new works? I'd be pretty surprised if they are recording direct to vinyl master these days, or recording to analog tape, cutting the tape, and creating the vinyl master from it.
Vinly is pressed from a negative produced from a "gold master". It is most certainly a master. It's not a "studio master", which is probably what you're thinking of. And even studio masters aren't the source recordings. Those are usually just called "originals" or "takes" or "cuts".
The point the GP was trying to make was that vinyl gold masters are created using "RIAA compression", which is a standard set of analog compression processes applied post-mixing to make the mix sound good on vinyl. CD's don't need this because they fully represent the entire 20-20k human hearing range with room to spare. The GP is mistaken in his belief that RIAA compression will make music sound better on non-vinyl media. It usually just sounds muffled and hissy due to the way it mutes harmonics and plays tricks with the noise floor.
That's why CD's use a different master: a "glass master" that can be used in old-school foil-flash CD pressing machines. This comes from the same studio master as the vinyl one does, but has different compression applied to it. This is where they play the "loudness" game that grumpy oldsters love to complain about. There are valid reasons to push everything into the top 10%, but there's no convincing some people. Usually those people aren't worth pleasing.
that the best way to store an analog sound still is an analog recording medium
This is not true, and it never was. Every analog medium out there has a greater level of THD than CDs do, even the first time you play back a tape or vinyl disc. Every time you play it after that, vinyl accumulates physical damage, while tape emulsion wears and imprints on adjacent loops of the tape.
Not to mention, tape stretches, disks warp, drives vary in speed, etc, etc.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ok. I looked it up. Digital is more accurate than analog.
Pop Singer? What is the sorcery you speak of? I thought they were /entertainers/. First and foremost, you have to been good looking, we can fix your voice. And if you aren't selling any songs, don't despair, "accidentally" release a sex tape.
You know the number one reason Vinyl sounds better that digital? Because the music was better when they were making vinyl.
This! I don't want vinyl, what I want is a digital download of the master used to produce the vinyl. The one that doesn't have to compete in the loudness wars and isn't compressed all to hell.
I don't. I want the person preparing the master to be completely unrestricted and unadvised by any record company. Sure the vinyl mix is better, but vinyl is still a medium that by virtue of it's properties and limitations also places limits on what can be done during mastering. Do mixing right, don't do vinyl, and don't do a loudness war.
That.
What really should have happened, when the loudness war started to rise in the mid 90s, was for manufacturers to replace volume knobs with loudness knobs, with some (dynamics) compressor attached to it. Keep the volume knob, but make it something special common people wouldn't need to touch. That way people could turn up the loudness, which in effect would not just increase the amplitude but also compress dynamics.
Because altering [i]loudness[/i] is what people actually want. If they are on a train or in a loud environment they want to amplify the amplitude AND compress the signal to be able to hear the full recording. At home at a party you'd want to be able to hear all parts of the music properly and have high volume by just cranking up the knob to 11. In a quiet environment you'd want to be able to experience the full dynamics. For knowledgeable people we'd still have volume knobs to really alter the volume. In the end you could have tuned every well-recorded record to the environment you're in. There would have been zero benefit and need for the insane levels of compression we're seeing today.
Matter o'fact RIAA equalisation is different from just generalised compression. At the start of the LP era each record producer had its own equalisation scheme so what sounded good on your TT/AMP might sound awful on your neighbour's. So the Recording Industries Association of America (RIAA) tried, and mostly succeeded, in getting folks to use the equalisation scheme that they had so carefully decided on.
The idea was not so much to "make the mix sound good on vinyl" but to permit greater recording times (by decreasing the mean width of each groove), to improve sound quality, and to reduce the groove damage that would otherwise arise during playback.
The power cutting-head could probably have coped, but the recorded track would have been wider (so less tracks would fit on the record) and you would have needed a highly compliant stylus, and much higher tracking weight to keep it in the groove (and so muc faster wear).
The RIAA equalisation curve (NOT compression) was a very neat answer to a difficult problem.
And sorry, but my carefully cared-for LPs have quite a different sound from CDs/DVDs - not necessarily better but different - somehow warmer and more immediate.
'Ol Fart Cutterman
I'm sitting in a recording studio right now. If you want to hear the music as intended by the musicians you would listen to the recording in the medium of the day.
An album from 40 years ago was recorded with studio settings to overcome the limitations of vinyl and the pressing process. The sound was better on the vinyl LP than in the studio. Especially with guitars, where the amps treble settings were set high to overcome treble loss in the vinyl process.
This is also why for the first few years CD's sounded like shit, harsh was the common term, btw.
There is no reason to listen to a recording from last week on vinyl. The people mixing/mastering the music are not mixing/mastering for vinyl. You will not hear the song as intended. It will be degraded.
My old guy classic rock and jazz albums are on vinyl. Most everything else over the last few decades I buy on CD or download in a lossless format.
Bands releasing vinyl LPs in modern times is a gimmick. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and I do pick up a vinyl version of a new release now and then myself, but not for the sound of vinyl.
To add insult to audiophiles who fuss over their gear (like me), we have a pair of really, really shitty speakers in the studio here that we use for our final mix down. We do not mix for audiophiles, we mix for the shitty speakers 95% of listeners have.
And along that same line, I use standard mic cables, guitar, patching and speaker cables, I do not purchase 1,000 dollar oxygen free copper or whatever the voodoo of the day is in my studio, I have no idea why some people spend more money on cables than speakers or room treatments at home.