Vinyl > Digital

Sail

Let me precede by saying that, in indie culture, it is very common opinion that Vinyl is preferred over Digital(tapes, cd, download etc.). With that in mind, I am in no way surprised that Vinyl is being used to release indie and underground music. Yes, it is quite satisfying to own a physical representation of your music, but Vinyl is just so impractical there is absolutely no way it could possibly make a wide-spread comeback outside of indie circles.

Vinyl records are extremely important in the history of music and, for that, it has been capitalized for respect. I look forward to hearing Scott and Rym's opinions in this episode.

Rym

It seems to me that many of the people who prefer vinyl pretend that it is somehow technologically superior to modern digital methods. Someone can like and use vinyl all they want, but claiming that it is better is just silly.

Not to sound rude, but I really think the indie culture types who collect vinyl do it solely for the fashionable aspects.

Sparkybuzzed

As a professional musician I can say that CDs are cheaper to record and are worlds better than vinyl. The people who think that the scratches are somehow more authentic are fooling themselves. They are flaws that are inherent in the vinyl.

TheWhaleShark

Not to sound rude, but I really think the indie culture types who collect vinyl do it solely for the fashionable aspects.

That's probably true of indie culture in general; being indie is, in and of itself, fashionable and trendy. I mean, there are fashionable aspects to all music cultures - there are fashionable aspects to death metal culture, for christ's sakes - but it seems to be very pronounced in the indie culture. It strikes me as being sort of elitist in a lot of ways.

Just my $0.02. I'm generally not much of an indie fan, so take from that what you will.

Ametto

The only other use for vinyl that I can think of is for collecting. There is a huge market out there for vintage records. The ones that sell for alot are original (as opposed to rereleased) Beatles and Elvis.

xaphan

I have about 100 LPs and more 7" than I care to count. 75% of the LPs are Punk Rock and metal I've picked up were only available on vinyl. The other 25% are drum'n'bass from when I spun records. All of the 7" I picked up from the bands themselves. Everything I cared to listen too I immediately put in an .mp3. I enjoy listening to vinyl very rarely and purely for nostalgia.

Speaking of Indie...
How many Indie kids does it take to screw in a light bulb? Dont ya know?!?!

Sail

Not to sound rude, but I really think the indie culture types who collect vinyl do it solely for the fashionable aspects.

I completely agree with you. And to expand on what Whale Shark said, and to be even ruder than you, being indie is all about thinking that you are better/smarter/cooler than someone else and then acting that way. Like, when an indie gets asked a question they don't know the answer to, they fake it and say that they know all about it. Which explains Xaphan's joke if you didn't get it..

tuttle88

I've got some old vinyls that I buy occasionally for a couple of bucks. I like the sound and the feel of putting it on, I don't think they sound better as in quality but when I listen to my grandpa's old Glenn Miller record, it don't know it just sounds right.

GauntletWizard

It's the same with digital video and 35mm: The new digital format is technically superior, but purists still love the "purity" of the original medium. There's something to be said for the aesthetic of older tech, but its' provable that it's not as good quality.

HMTKSteve

The collectors market for vinyl is based on the jacket, not the album inside the jacket.

The problem with the whole digital vs. analog argument is that both have their good and bad points.

Yes, digital can give you a perfect copy every time but the quality of that copy depends on the bit rate of the recording.

Telephone calls are sampled at about 8000 times per second. This is because voice needs very little sampling to come across to the other end in an intelligible fashion. Music requires a much higher sampling rate.

In essence, the sampling rate should be double the Hz range of what you are recording.

I'm sure most of you young pups can hear the difference between a 128K sampled mp3 and a 384K sampled mp3. My ears are getting old (and a little bit too much time around tanks while in the service) so I can not always hear the difference.

Another issue of vinyl vs. CD is that today's music is flat. There is almost no dynamic range.

For a good example of a very dynamic song, listen to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. The song is full of highs and lows. Today's music has zero dynamic range. It is pushed up to max volume when put on CD and that is where it stays. This is also why when you rip an older CD and mix it in with newer ripped CDs on your mp3 player the old songs will come over at a lower volume level.

Rym

Another issue of vinyl vs. CD is that today's music is flat. There is almost no dynamic range.

Thing is, that's a problem with popular music and not with the medium itself. Bands are choosing to compress their tracks. In fact, the only reason they didn't in the days of records is simply that too much compression will cause the needle to jump out of the groove.

Good jazz and classical cds often have an astounding dynamic range. ^_^

HMTKSteve

A few months ago Paul Harvey had a story about the Grammys.

One of the categories had to do with "dynamic range" and all the entries were flat. The judges were so pissed they were going to withhold the award and give it to no one...

Sail

One of the categories had to do with "dynamic range" and all the entries were flat. The judges were so pissed they were going to withhold the award and give it to no one...

They should have picked the obvious choice and just given it to Gorillaz's Demon Days...*is still pissed about Gorillaz not getting a Grammy*