Where were you when vinyl died?

[rwtt]

Not quite as bad as I thought, though I would be more at Blackdown's level. 2 months is quite a lot of uploading.

you can throttle the bandwidth used by most backup software of this sort, so you can drip feed your data into the cloud if you don't want to piss off your ISP. and once it's done, it's done, except for whatever you add to your library later.

i know it's a trite thing to say but if you ever have to restore from a full backup, the time and/or money you've spent on it will be irrelevant. you know it makes sense! it seems like a day doesn't go by at the moment without some producer or DJ crying all over twitter because they lost a computer or trashed a hard drive and no longer want to live...

 

[petergunn]

vinyl dies for me everytime i got to Rock and Soul Records, the last man standing of NYC's classic record stores for club dj's... the type of place if you went friday afternoon, it was a frenzy of people getting new joints for their weekend gigs... now, it's a ghost town in there and it feels like 3 new records come in each month...

that said, i still buy tons of vinyl and feel like a mug paying money for mp3's... i have bought like 3 mp3's in my life...

 

[connect_icut]

Where were you when vinyl was reborn???

For me, it was working in a record store for six years, until about three years ago. Seeing all this cool stuff every day and starting to wonder why I ever switched to CDs. (I guess it just seemed like the thing to do, at the time). So glad I switched back, for any number of reasons.

Where I live vinyl sales appear to be booming. It seems like the record shops that survive will be the small vinyl stores catering to specialist audiences. Maybe that doesn't reflect what's happening in other towns, though.

Anyone else made the journey back from CDs to vinyl? (Maybe someone already mentioned this - I haven't been through the whole thread. If so: sorry.)

 

[Big Nose]

I dont think vinyl will die for a long time, there's always going to be a hardcore of music lovers buying it.

I use to buy MP3s but then one day I realised how unrewarding the format is. I have thousands of MP3s sitting on my hard drive but compared to the little congregation of wax sitting in the corner of my room, they mean fuck all.

 

[IdleRich]

"People who "back up" their vinyl must have a lot of time on their hands and an abject fear of fire or flooding?"

Yeah. And if my vinyl gets destroyed the back-up won't be vinyl it will be another (inferior to me) format so what's the point?

 

[rwtt]

People who "back up" their vinyl must have a lot of time on their hands and an abject fear of fire or flooding?

in a way there's a kind of masochistic thrill in knowing that one day in the next couple of years i'll get up on a saturday morning to find my kids have shoved a bunch of records down the back of a hot radiator or something. it makes me appreciate my vinyl all the more now, un-crayolaed.

 

[Sick Boy]

I tried to switch to purely digital, but let's face it: owning the vinyl vs. owning a confirmation e-mail that your downloads are complete. No competition.

So I went back. Also because the value of the pound right now is total shite which means I can get vinyl for cheaper than I'd buy it here in Canada, even after delivery.

 

[Sick Boy]

vinyl dies for me everytime i got to Rock and Soul Records, the last man standing of NYC's classic record stores for club dj's... the type of place if you went friday afternoon, it was a frenzy of people getting new joints for their weekend gigs... now, it's a ghost town in there and it feels like 3 new records come in each month... .

I do mourn this aspect though. Actually I mourn the fact that we're increasingly being able to do virtually anything we want at a sufficient and satisfactory level without ever leaving our homes. It's a golden age for the hermit.

I live round the corner from a record shop but I don't go there because they don't stock anything worth buying. Well, unless you like dubstep from three months ago.

 

[mms]

I do mourn this aspect though. Actually I mourn the fact that we're increasingly being able to do virtually anything we want at a sufficient and satisfactory level without ever leaving our homes. It's a golden age for the hermit.

I live round the corner from a record shop but I don't go there because they don't stock anything worth buying. Well, unless you like dubstep from three months ago.

yes i feel i really don't go to shops enough too.

 

[Alfons]

re. the backup thing, my music collection (mp3s) is the least of my worries in this regard. My documents, my pictures, my old homework etc, that is stuff I don't want to loose. But music and/or videos, bah... even the most obscure part of it shouldn't be so hard to track down in case my hard disk dies, with all these torrents, rapid shares, my mates still having their computers/hard disks.

 

[FairiesWearBoots]

I buy more now than I have ever done - I started buying Jungle/drum & bass on vinyl in 94/95 and then stopped around 99, discovering dubstep in 06 made me want to start again (and prompted me to fianlly get the 2nd 1210)

I think (hope) it will always be around, I want to pass it on to my kids, I cant see it dissapearing completely (not yet anyway)

I D'L whatever I want and this helps me choose what vinyl to buy

 

[urbanite]

mmm... still buying loads of vinyl... although I have a pretty utilitarian philosophy about it, I mostly buy singles and things I intend to play out, and I don't really listen to them outside the context of putting together a mix or preparing for a gig. Albums I'll still buy on CD, as it always has been the easiest to listen to em, nowadays they just get ripped to my mp3 player though, I still like having them for the car and such...

sadly there is no shop to go hang out at around here, I still make the occasional trip to a real brick and mortar store every once in a while when I'm in a city that got some though, especially it's useful for finding 12" which are rare and might just be sitting there without anyone noticing... Otherwise it's just mail order, and the online stores are good enough these days with all the same pre-listen facilities.

Recently got myself Serato, mostly with the idea of getting hard to get otherwise tracks in digital (no less than wavs usually), and for practicing when I'm away from my vinyl, still finding that real vinyl is louder and sounds better than Serato though, even if it's an SL3

 

[baboon2004]

i know it's a trite thing to say but if you ever have to restore from a full backup, the time and/or money you've spent on it will be irrelevant. you know it makes sense! it seems like a day doesn't go by at the moment without some producer or DJ crying all over twitter because they lost a computer or trashed a hard drive and no longer want to live...

this sounds like great scenario for a film/play, come to think of it - the artist in existential and technological anguish. Sure someone must've already done it.

 

[IdleRich]

When I get a job and start buying records again I'm gonna try and visit more shops and buy less online. Or maybe do both.

April 17th is International Record Store Day - big drive to get people to support independent shops and stuff - think there are some special releases coming out.

http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

There is some kind of daytime mini-event thing in Bristol (and probably some evening stuff too) which I'm going to try and get down to - not sure what's happening elsewhere but should be something.

 

[...]

I was in Algeria, hanging out with jihadis.

 

[grizzleb]

I haven't bought vinyl in maybe 2 years, had slipped for maybe 3 years prior to that just buying occasionally. But there was a period where I would spend my pocket money every week on one or two records. Much of the stuff I still have is real shit, but recently I've had a drive to try and get some records again. I do pay for music as and when I can.

Interesting question -in what way do people buy music these days?
I only buy music if I think that the producer is someone worth supporting, it's hard to explain. Like if I listen to an album once in a blue moon I won't pay for it. But if it's an artist that I think is really underappreciated, or I listen to all the time I'll try and buy it.

Also - what kind of media supports the artist most? I'd like to be able to just donate to some artists, bypassing the record stores or any product. Like, I'd give 50 quid to someone just cause I think they're amazing...

 

[Ness Rowlah]

Last year sometime I decided to not get any more vinyl or CDs. I've gone all digital (Spotify premium although the iPhone client is shit
and MP3s).

Vinyl has lost its grip in terms of emotional tie up and also as an artifact, CDs never had it
(unless they are signed, hand-decorated or something: the mass produced CD with shit liner
notes can just die now please).

A couple of days ago I walked into a couple of the record shops on/off Berwick Street (London)
and just thought "Why are people still buying this stuff?" I'll pay my 10 quid month for Spotify,
but paying 8 quid for whitelabel dubstep 12" just won't happen again.

ZFS - that's proper. Been thinking the same: got a couple of old Intel boxes I could put Solaris or BSD on (it just sounds too much like work though).

In the past I would have plucked up a thing like this as soon as I saw it,
now I just let it go. Projects like these are what will keep physical media going
for a long long time (limited edtion, good subject, nice object)
http://www.secondlanguagemusic.com/SL02.html

 

[DJ PIMP]

ideally, i'd say i was somewhere getting my balls licked.

in reality, i was bitching about vinyl on the internets.

hahaha, vinyl supremacists! choke it down!!!

 

[samdiamond]

I love vinyl and I'm not sure i could ever see myself completely digitise. However it's getting harder and harder to play in clubs with. Last night I played out at a pretty premier east london club, one of the tonearms on the right 1210 was broken and kept skipping to the point where I had to just play on one deck. These kinda problems happen cos hardly anyones playing on vinyl i assume and as i understand it systems now get pushed towards digital so vinyl sounds shit on them anyway. it's a sad state of affairs but I think I'm gonna have to take some back up cds everywhere i play now.

 

[DannyL]

When I get a job and start buying records again I'm gonna try and visit more shops and buy less online. Or maybe do both.

April 17th is International Record Store Day - big drive to get people to support independent shops and stuff - think there are some special releases coming out.

http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

There is some kind of daytime mini-event thing in Bristol (and probably some evening stuff too) which I'm going to try and get down to - not sure what's happening elsewhere but should be something.

I find going to shops a little bit frustrating, in terms of price at least. Does force you to take a much more open view on what you might buy though which is for the good. Record fairs like Olympia make me feel like I've joined a mysterious legion of old men though. Mind you, I was talking to one of my students about record collecting this week so the bug lives on...

This is a bit mental but an amusing read: http://www.furious.com/perfect/recordfairs.html

Record collecting hasn't really died for me, it's more like it's been reborn. I rediscovered an old interest, indulge my geeky side, found out about loads of amazing music and genres I was previously unaware of and met tons of people. It's been a refreshing change and influence. It enhances me social life (I can't imagine taking a few beers and some MP3s round to a mate's house being as interesting). It even encourages me to be creative in the broadest sense of the term, with a little bit of DJing, making comp CDs and so on.

A lot of the above could've happened with digital music, I suppose, but vinyl seems to have brought out the best sides of all the above.