Where were you when vinyl died?

outraygeous

Well-known member
I was at my moms, looking at 3000 garage 12's thinking if I could fit them in my new flat and then finding most of the new music I could get in FLAC

It also died when I played a ten year old garage track which I played a lot on pirate and now it sounds CRAP

I am now waiting for my CDs to decay
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
I stopped buying vinyl in 1994ish and went to CD.

So my music collection is probably 90% CD, most of which I have converted to mp3 and now thinking I need to do it to FLAC which I simply don't have the time for.

CD decay is a big fear of mine. I really must dig out some of the early CDs I have and see if they work.

But then I guess I could put out a 'clicks and cuts' version of Black Secret Technology with no work whatsoever : )
 

massrock

Well-known member
Moving about has made holding on to lots of vinyl tricky.

And frankly I quite like digital convenience, as long as it sounds OK. Still hang on to the idea of physical media though. Only recently have I considered buying mp3s/FLACs of stuff I could get on CD.

Have seen a few PDO CDs go brown and/or stop playing. Others seem OK so far.

Funny isn't it, how difficult it actually is to ensure reliable long term storage of digital information. Vinyl on the other hand has a very long lifespan and great signal resiliency.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
vinyl does seem like a dying art but in 2010 it's also a stamp of quality. digital-only labels scream of lack of quality control, releasing disposable music.
 

tom lea

Well-known member
just spent like 60 quid on discogs on vinyl just now, and spent 50 quids worth of credit at a shop on the stuff the other day. i dj off cds when i play clubs tho. i'm gonna try to slowly digitize my collection (or at least the stuff i want to play out). i'm better at playing off cds, and it's less to lug around.
 

tom lea

Well-known member
vinyl does seem like a dying art but in 2010 it's also a stamp of quality. digital-only labels scream of lack of quality control, releasing disposable music.
there are some good digital labels, but generally you're right. it's less of a commitment. i'm suspicious of them.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Moving about has made holding on to lots of vinyl tricky.

And frankly I quite like digital convenience, as long as it sounds OK. Still hang on to the idea of physical media though. Only recently have I considered buying mp3s/FLACs of stuff I could get on CD.

Have seen a few PDO CDs go brown and/or stop playing. Others seem OK so far.

Funny isn't it, how difficult it actually is to ensure reliable long term storage of digital information. Vinyl on the other hand has a very long lifespan and great signal resiliency.

What's a PDO CD ?

Yes, back up, back up back up ..
 

4linehaiku

Repetitive
Still buy lots of vinyl. Slightly selfish possibly, but I can't really bring myself to buy CDs or MP3s, it seems so pointless. I'd rather spend money on one 12" than 6 MP3s.

Edit: Going to move house in a few months though, we'll see if I change my tune then.
 

rwtt

Well-known member
vinyl isn't dead to me, although most of what i buy is dubstep and related stuff. any digital tracks i buy end up getting a few plays on my iPod and then being forgotten about - there's nothing more motivating than a stack of vinyl in the corner of the room making you feel guilty for not playing it, but digital files are easy to forget and usually get buried under all the free downloaded mixes.

as for CD decay: i buy quite a few but i don't play 'em so i don't worry. i'm spoddy enough to rip them straight to a lossless format and store them on a little RAID array with off-site backup. what a sad wanker, eh?
 

benw

Well-known member
just spent like 60 quid on discogs on vinyl just now, and spent 50 quids worth of credit at a shop on the stuff the other day. i dj off cds when i play clubs tho. i'm gonna try to slowly digitize my collection (or at least the stuff i want to play out). i'm better at playing off cds, and it's less to lug around.


this pretty much sums up my vinyl habits - buy a £20 lot once or twice a month, rip it for playing out and keep playing it at home. definitely not dead... declaring living things dead = dsf meme!
 

4linehaiku

Repetitive
Offsite backup is admirable, but isn't uploading that much stuff over your standard broadband completely unfeasible? Even if you have some top end 24mbit connection you still can't upload much more than 100kb/s (well I can't anyway).
 

massrock

Well-known member
Streaming services like Spotify are the way things are gonna go I believe.

After that we might see some sort of highly robust ultra dense digital storage devices where you can have an entire universe on a keyring. Don't want to leave it on the bus.

The main failing of Spotify at the moment for me is that there is just so much stuff not on there. Will also be a bit more useful when highspeed net access is more ubiquitous.
 

rwtt

Well-known member
Offsite backup is admirable, but isn't uploading that much stuff over your standard broadband completely unfeasible? Even if you have some top end 24mbit connection you still can't upload much more than 100kb/s (well I can't anyway).

when i first decided i needed to do this, i had to let it upload constantly for 10 days straight, but i don't notice it now as it just backs up incrementally. FWIW, i use SugarSync and it works well, that link from Blackdown is also a similar service. i hope i never have to use it and download all that stuff again, but still. it's good to know it's there! CDs are just shiny round receipts now.

(i keep meaning to blog some of my really nerdy stuff about managing digital music libraries, keeping on top of downloaded mixes etc but that would take me into territory dangerously close to my real job, which i try not to think about unless i have to.)
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
Offsite backup is admirable, but isn't uploading that much stuff over your standard broadband completely unfeasible? Even if you have some top end 24mbit connection you still can't upload much more than 100kb/s (well I can't anyway).

it took me about two months to do. i have 2.5 Tb of space now, so i'm resigned to the fact that even tho it hasnt got everything backed up it has most of it.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
I was all for vinyl purism until last night, when I spent about two hours trying to record some UK reggae records digitally- fucking around with cables, a mic input into my shitty netbook not connecting properly, autacity being a piece of shit, having to move my amp on all fours to get to the inputs, 7"s falling all around me. Ended up digging out my old iriver, which would only record for about 2 seconds until it felt that I had wasted enough time on it to start working, Acid being shit on my shit netbook, listening to the 4 songs I did manage to record and them sounding shit, until I spent half an hour fiddling with the sound controls on my shitty netbook. More records falling down whilst this was going on.
 
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nomos

Administrator
^^ it's this image that always stops me whenever the words "you should back it all up" run through my head.

What tips do people have for archiving vinyl properly?
I have my Technics, a good audio interface. Saving as 16-bit, 44khz aiffs, which is fine to my ears.

I've run into a balance problem though when I record - noticing that one channel (usually, but I don't think always the same one) comes out a couple of db louder. I thought it was the interface, exchanged it, no change. I changed the leads, no change. Checked, remounted and switched my cartridges, no change. I've narrowed it down to either my needles not being perfectly aligned (i.e. cartridges not screwed in just right) or the original recordings themselves not being perfectly balanced to begin with. :slanted:
 
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rwtt

Well-known member
I have my Technics, a good audio interface. Saving as 16-bit, 44khz aiffs, which is fine to my ears.

i only really record mixes rather than individual records. i use an Edirol R09 handheld recorder plugged into my mixer and record straight to 44.1kHz 16 bit WAV. then i EQ and normalise it in Logic and correct as many of my level fuckups as i can by drawing in some automation. i'm mostly very happy with the quality i get but...

I've run into a balance problem though when I record - noticing that one channel (usually, but I don't think always the same one) comes out a couple of db louder.

...i often experience this too and i've no idea why!
 
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