Vinyl dying (for DJ's)
- Thread starter Phaedo
- Start date
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
http://www.factmag.com/2014/05/07/j...ked-grooves-holograms-and-more-vinyl-wonders/
not really about vinyl for DJs, but if you like vinyl, i dont see how you can dislike what jack white is doing with the format.
have to admit, listening to music on vinyl these days is a bit of a chore. am frequently amazed at how different it sounds too. eg - i bought dj rashads rollin on vinyl, and it sounds nothing like the mp3s ive been listening to for so long. ditto a lot of modern dance music. i cant always tell if its better or worse. maybe thats to do with most vinyl being mastered from digital (or FOR digital playback), not analogue, but sometimes it actually sounds poor, or not special enough to merit buying the record (the kuedo album didnt seem to sound quite as good as the cd, which was dissapointing). or maybe my ears have just been ruined/too acclimatised to shitty mp3s. i actually had the daft punk RAM album (before selling it on), and was surprised at how for such an old-school-aspiring album, i actually preferred hearing it on mp3 than the vinyl.
not really about vinyl for DJs, but if you like vinyl, i dont see how you can dislike what jack white is doing with the format.
have to admit, listening to music on vinyl these days is a bit of a chore. am frequently amazed at how different it sounds too. eg - i bought dj rashads rollin on vinyl, and it sounds nothing like the mp3s ive been listening to for so long. ditto a lot of modern dance music. i cant always tell if its better or worse. maybe thats to do with most vinyl being mastered from digital (or FOR digital playback), not analogue, but sometimes it actually sounds poor, or not special enough to merit buying the record (the kuedo album didnt seem to sound quite as good as the cd, which was dissapointing). or maybe my ears have just been ruined/too acclimatised to shitty mp3s. i actually had the daft punk RAM album (before selling it on), and was surprised at how for such an old-school-aspiring album, i actually preferred hearing it on mp3 than the vinyl.
owengriffiths
Owen
Trying to think what could be the problem here. Easiest answer would be that the record label only paid for one mastering session and that was for the MP3 or CD or whatever- then the LP release was just that mix with a cackhanded five minute tweaking to make it more vinyl friendly. But this got me to thinking about the whole digital vs analogue production thing. Even if a track from twenty years ago was made using hardware- 303s 808s etc- would it not be common for all this to be sequenced (arranged?) on an Amiga/ Commodore 64? I'm probably showing my ignorance here but was 'digital' still a thing in producing even at the height of the analogue era, ie. before CD deck and powerful PCs? And does handing a CD of a finished track a cutting house mean it will come out sounding different than if it was from a DAT tape.
As an aside I think Calibre circa 2001 was producing tunes on eight track recorders, which I'm guessing no one else in the D&B scene was doing. Still I don't think his stuff sounded different enough from what other people were producing. That's not a diss, just an observation
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Slothrop
Tight but Polite
AIUI "sequencing" in that sense refers to controlling the machines, not to recording and arranging the audio coming out of them. I'd guess that Back In The Day that was mainly done on tape.
I might be wrong on this, but I think that given good converters (which isn't a given, tbf) and a sensible audio format, converting something to digital and back is more or less transparent. In other words, analogue vs digital arguments pretty much have to claim that the analogue recording and playback distorts the signal in a good way rather than that digital recording and playback distorts it in a bad way.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Kenny Dope is fairly emphatic about cutting vinyl from tape and tape only. That is the kind of thing people - and people who have the resources - always say and there are no doubt a thousand exceptions. It's all fairly subjective but I wouldn't be surprised if there is something to it. I have the LV LP - which I only got recently - on here in the background and it sounds 100 times better than it did the two years I was playing it on mp3. Every bit of it sounds better and it's not even going through the best of mixer or sound system. Likewise a Chez Damier tune from 1993 I got last week sounds phatter than ever before. One probably came from tape twenty years ago and other probably didn't but both sound a feel better on wax. Suppose there is a lot more to it though. You hear about the whole process of getting a tune to record, which still exists today, and one guy along that chain does it different to the same guy on another chain. Theo and people talk about about this engineer and that guy disappearing and the craft dying with them but I don't buy all of it.
Says here that North America's biggest plant is planning to expand. That could just be to meet the smaller ones who have disappeared or been gobbled up though. At the same time we see ST Holdings slimming down with a few vague statements about ethos. That could be sign that they are in healthy enough position to do so but I would be surprised if anyone is out the woods tbh.
Says here that North America's biggest plant is planning to expand. That could just be to meet the smaller ones who have disappeared or been gobbled up though. At the same time we see ST Holdings slimming down with a few vague statements about ethos. That could be sign that they are in healthy enough position to do so but I would be surprised if anyone is out the woods tbh.
connect_icut
Well-known member
From what I can tell, the current growth in vinyl is more of an American thing than a British thing and more of a rock thing than a dance/electronic thing. This is just based on personal experience rather than any hard data, though.
Oh and I do take exception to what Jack White's up to. He's perpetuating the idea that vinyl is inherently a luxury item. Records should be accessible to young people who are just getting into music.
sorry when you say lv lp do you mean routes the keysound one?? i didnt know that came out on wax...
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Hyperdub one from 2012.
Mine actually sounds like shit for some reason, vinyl in perfect nick but tops are very raspy
Mine actually sounds like shit for some reason, vinyl in perfect nick but tops are very raspy
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah, totally agree on that. I mean, from his point of view I can see why he's doing it and I'm sure he's having fun but it doesn't interest me especially and I don't take it as a sign of a healthy vinyl revival. Also, that latest one has about ten different gimmicks, I think it would be cooler if he just picked one good one for each record, seems a bit try hard to me.
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
hes been doing the vinyl gimmicks thing for a while. this just seems like the apogee. but yeah, it would be nice to have it priced less than £25. ditto the last zomby album (and a million others, but even dance music 12"s are pricier than they used to be arent they? i dont know if its because theyre trying to squeeze money out of the few vinyl buyers still left, or if its just costlier to manufacture vinyl in smaller quantities)
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah totally agree on that. Was reading about how there is a Nevermind re-issue but only a deluxe one and the author was contending that an album that sold twenty million copies should be available to anyone in a basic format (ie a cheap vinyl reissue not gatefold, not on 180g vinyl, not with any extra whistles and bells) - I concur.
trza
Well-known member
I can only speak about American stores, but the long presence of "last rights" reissues have been around for a long time now. If you see an old album vacuum packed in plastic with a price tag of ten dollars plus the retail stores markup (up to eighteen), its an album that stopped making money decades ago. Cheapo distributors buy up the rights for pennies, and press up as many medium quality reissues as they choose. There is usually a tiny logo in the corner of the graphics with the name of the company.
So if you walk into a record store today there will be new premium reissues in 2LP expanded sizes with foldout sleeves that start at twenty dollars before the markup. Then retail price in a physical store for about twenty five to thirty five, whatever the person who chooses to walk into a store for the experience can be counted on to pay. There will be a boatload of nineties rock vinyl like this, that what the people want and they have that kind of money to spend. The walls of the store will have posters of classic rock and eighties and nineties alternative. Don't forget the goofy "gifts" like branded band logo shirts or wallets, or vinyl figurines of the Beattles or Kiss. I don't go into these stores very often.
So if you walk into a record store today there will be new premium reissues in 2LP expanded sizes with foldout sleeves that start at twenty dollars before the markup. Then retail price in a physical store for about twenty five to thirty five, whatever the person who chooses to walk into a store for the experience can be counted on to pay. There will be a boatload of nineties rock vinyl like this, that what the people want and they have that kind of money to spend. The walls of the store will have posters of classic rock and eighties and nineties alternative. Don't forget the goofy "gifts" like branded band logo shirts or wallets, or vinyl figurines of the Beattles or Kiss. I don't go into these stores very often.
connect_icut
Well-known member
I accept that it is like that but I don't accept that it has to be. I would content that music is the highest expression of human civilization and that vinyl records provide the best way to experience recorded music. I don't agree that people with less money should have to have an inferior experience with music. Music is too important for that. Vinyl should be accessible.
That's just my perspective and I don't expect most people to give a shit ether way. Most people are happy listening to crap music at 128kbps on their phones. It's not really my business to tell them they're doing it wrong. But for serious music fans of all ages and backgrounds, at at least in my part of the world, vinyl still matters.
Also, in my experience, people who spend a lot of money on vinyl specifically tend to be dead fucking broke and actually have far less money than they need. Arguably, they shouldn't be spending their money on records but... (see first paragraph)