Vinyl and TurnTables

BeerNuts

BeerNuts

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Sep 4, 2008
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What is up with the new trend of everyone having records. Just about every 20-30 something I have met either has a collection/few or wants some. Party I was at last night everyone there was all over the records and picking them out. Is it just part of a new trend, or has everyone become a analog music snob?

Do you collect them? why?
 
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I have 4 -- 50cent -get rich or die tryin', the chemical brothers - digg your own hole, and two copies of paul oakenfold albums..

I think you must hang out with hipsters... [no offense meant]
 
The claim is that the sound is superior and "warmer" on vinyl than it is from digital sources. Personally I can't hear it outside of the scratches, clicks, and pops but then again I'm not one of those people that can hear the difference between 256k and lossless audio.

I think it's mainly just about the retro counter culture cool points + some indie / hip hop / electronica releases are vinyl exclusively. You also can appreciate the classic album releases of yore in their native format with the original album art, notes, etc which is pretty cool.

I think it's kind of interesting as an industry trend seeing as the whole practice of selling an album for money is all but dead at this point. More power to the artists that can make money selling vinyl.
 
Well when I was producing music, you could find some really, really good samples and inspiration from really obscure records. For example, in hip-hop DJ Premier made the song "Nas is Like" with a 7 inch 45 from a Lutheran Church record with a pink fish on it, it was extremely rare and basically nobody knew what the sample was until recently. He made a 4 minute song by sampling 4 seconds of the record, it also turned out to be a really god damn good beat.

Guys like DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist take trips to Japan (crate digging mecca) just to find the rarest pressings on earth. Its a cool feeling finding a rare gem or loop that nobody has found before, many musical genre's were inspired by digging deeply in the crates.

For non producers, I guess you could argue that its a counter culture hipster thing, but some people enjoy finding rare stuff hardly anybody has heard. But I myself had some stuff that would have never been pressed on CD. People who cop vinyls of Lady Gaga or Britney Spears or anything released in the past 10 years are definitely just hipster morons. And for DJing today, its not practical to carry around crates, Serato as the guy above said allows any monkey to "SPIN DA WHEELS OF STEEL."
 
Lucidity said:
The claim is that the sound is superior and "warmer" on vinyl than it is from digital sources. Personally I can't hear it outside of the scratches, clicks, and pops but then again I'm not one of those people that can hear the difference between 256k and lossless audio.

I think it's mainly just about the retro counter culture cool points + some indie / hip hop / electronica releases are vinyl exclusively. You also can appreciate the classic album releases of yore in their native format with the original album art, notes, etc which is pretty cool.

I think it's kind of interesting as an industry trend seeing as the whole practice of selling an album for money is all but dead at this point. More power to the artists that can make money selling vinyl.
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I'm 32 and have been collecting Vinyl for about 16 or 17 years. I collect it because to me, not only is it alot better to listen to, because it's got a much fuller body and warm depth to it, but it's nicer to own.

A CD to me is a shitty bit of silver plastic that I can trash, reburn and lose without consequence. Vinyl to me feels like the original version. Tangible and perfect. Like the vinyl version was as it was intended to be heard. A full fat and live reproduction of how it should sound.

I then like to think someone then takes this beautiful live sound and cuts it down, compresses it, removes everything that won't fit within the 16 bits of a CD, makes it all tinny and top heavy in the process (like it's being played through cheap speakers) and then got burned to create the CD.

Also, to get to the emboldened comment above, there's no such thing as loss less as far ripping from a CD goes, because a CD is inferior, by some margin imo, to start with. Also, even if it was vinyl being recorded into the computer and it has a serious sound card, then you're unlikely to be recording at over 32bits anyway. (To be fair, anything produced in a studio would have been 32bits in all probability prior to being pressed.)

A CD is firstly digital and has a limited depth (16bit). It also will only record sounds between 20hz and 20khz, so misses masses of the spectrum. Sure, we can't hear beyond that, but it's like a 1MB jpeg in comparison to a 1GB tiff. One has huge depth and the other, when blown up, is just a weak pixelated reproduction.

Also, If you heard them both through a proper system, it's pretty noticable. (Oh and not all vinyl cracks and pops, certainly very litle of mine!) ;)
 
-God- said:
I'm 32 and have been collecting Vinyl for about 16 or 17 years. I collect it because to me, not only is it alot better to listen to, because it's got a much fuller body and warm depth to it, but it's nicer to own.

A CD to me is a shitty bit of silver plastic that I can trash, reburn and lose without consequence. Vinyl to me feels like the original version. Tangible and perfect. Like the vinyl version was as it was intended to be heard. A full fat and live reproduction of how it should sound.

I then like to think someone then takes this beautiful live sound and cuts it down, compresses it, removes everything that won't fit within the 16 bits of a CD, makes it all tinny and top heavy in the process (like it's being played through cheap speakers) and then got burned to create the CD.

Also, to get to the emboldened comment above, there's no such thing as loss less as far ripping from a CD goes, because a CD is inferior, by some margin imo, to start with. Also, even if it was vinyl being recorded into the computer and it has a serious sound card, then you're unlikely to be recording at over 32bits anyway. (To be fair, anything produced in a studio would have been 32bits in all probability prior to being pressed.)

A CD is firstly digital and has a limited depth (16bit). It also will only record sounds between 20hz and 20khz, so misses masses of the spectrum. Sure, we can't hear beyond that, but it's like a 1MB jpeg in comparison to a 1GB tiff. One has huge depth and the other, when blown up, is just a weak pixelated reproduction.

Also, If you heard them both through a proper system, it's pretty noticable. (Oh and not all vinyl cracks and pops, certainly very litle of mine!) ;)
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Good point.

Today when I was digging around about the subject I came to the conclusion that there are 4 schools of vinyl.

1) Music "Perfectionists", they want the records for the true sound and the idea they are better than anything else.
2) Nostalgic people that remember their first LP or their parents etc. They already have a lot of LPs from when they were new.
3) Modern hipsters because its retro to use a LP rather than new tech and they can try to get LPs for 0.25 at thrift stores.
4) DJ's.

I am really curious about this better sound argument since I can't say I have heard anyone with a super system to notice a difference. If I bought a turntable and hooked it up to my standard home theater would it really be better than a cd/mp3? Or does this idea go on the basis that you need a very expensive system with vacuum tube amp etc?
 
Truth is - analogue does sound better, if (and only if) it's been done well.

Take, for example, the humble cassette tape. They sound shit. Then listen to the first playback of a Studer 24 track. It sounds amazing. They are both, however, still analogue tape.

The same is true for vinyl. Shitty pressed vinyl played back through a shitty rig will sound, yes, shit.

Well pressed vinyl played through an audio-phile rig - there really is nothing better.

To answer your question above - yes. With vinyl, the money you pay really does make a difference. And also - shitty vinyl will sound shitty on whatever you play it on.
 
Incidentally - a theory as to why vinyl can sound better is to do with the "hidden harmonics". These are sound frequencies which are so high that we can't actually consciously perceive them (dog frequencies). However, tests have shown that these frequencies do illicit certain emotional responses from listeners. Hence vinyl has the possibility to more completely emotionally entangle us.
 
Good point. My friend, a sound professional, has a D&B Audiotechnik Line Array, if anyone knows what this is, then you'll know it's pretty much untouchable. You put a record through it, in a club/concert hall, then play the same tune on a CD and anyone would notice.

The bass below 20hz although inaudible, shakes you to your core, it kind of stirs your body, much like the upper frequencies. You don't hear it, but there's a physical difference. A CD seems empty and bland in comparison. It's like a 96k mp3 compared to a CD.
 
I play some of my music through digital into a 4x6L6 vintage tube amp I had specially modified to accept 1/4 inputs in stereo. The analog sound on it is distinguishable to me and warmer. This goes for records/vinyl as well, cds and ipod are close in comparison and of course more convenient and practical but they are not analog and therefore lack the absolute continuous waveform. No matter how good quantization gets I think a well trained ear will always be able to hear the difference between analog and digital.
 
DJ culture is alive and well and as such loads and loads of music is still pressed onto vinyl. I have about 2000 pieces myself, and have traded/sold many more, in just about every genre of electronica since the early 90s.
 
K so lots of audiophile's...

So if I bought a turntable for my theater it wouldn't matter unless I had speakers and an amp nice enough to play back the ranges that you are talking about? or do most speakers already have the capability but the music played does not?

I could spend some cash on a possible new hobby, but I am not ready to blow 10k on fancy shit just for records.
 
Really depends on your reason to buy it. If you want to get really, really good quality sound, the magical vinyl elixir we all talk about, it's gonna cost you. However if you just wanna get into crate digging, why not? Part of the fun with vinyl is that it really changes the way you buy music.
 
BeerNuts said:
K so lots of audiophile's...

So if I bought a turntable for my theater it wouldn't matter unless I had speakers and an amp nice enough to play back the ranges that you are talking about? or do most speakers already have the capability but the music played does not?

I could spend some cash on a possible new hobby, but I am not ready to blow 10k on fancy shit just for records.
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Not an audiophile here, I have a pair of black Technics 1200s for mixing.

You could go nuts on an audiophile turntable, but they cost thousands and you would want to pair it with the aforementioned tube amps and a da converters for your CDs/DVDs, and high end speakers, cables, and all the rest of it. Here's a company that takes a Tech 12 and gives it about a dozen mods including bearing replacement, tone arm replacement, cartridge, external power supply, motor mods, new feet, platter and record weights... the whole unit built around a brand new 1200 is £3,695.

Technics SL1200 - SL-1210 modifications

Timestep SL-1210 Evo Turntable

It's truly a thing of beauty, but for me, turntablism involves hauling your decks and mixer to a dark sweaty venue with speaker stacks that make your brain vibrate.

And no, not all speakers are created equal. Clarity, colour, and frequency response vary greatly from make and model in any price range. Typical home speakers usually bottom out around 30hz.

There's probably a high end audiophile shop near you that you could go a peruse and see what there is to see though. It makes for a fun afternoon.

^^ Edit: and what he Mc4 said, part of the allure of collecting vinyl is looking for rare and out of print releases in dusty second hand shops, selling and trading, plus the great big cover art, liner notes, etc. I know several people with album covers framed as art in their homes.
 
Have 4 crates, and powder coated tech 12's, used to spin at clubs, then moved to battling. Lovez my records :) As others have said there's dubplates and rare shit you just won't find on anything else, lot's of music never made it past vinyl or first run. I have at least 1.5 crates of nothing but battle records, accappellas/singles/refixes/reggae 45's (the lil' records), and those kinds of tunes you'll only hear in sound clash mixdowns etc.

I actually just found my first official mixtape from like 2001 that I made using my tech 12's and a Tascam 4 track (for TAPES !!!! FUCK!!). So you could do 4 layers of you mixing/juggling, then take them down to one, and add three more, etc. But you'd lose quality each generation obviously.

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Sorry so long, this thread took me way back. I'm gonna convert my mixtape to an .mp3 and let you guys hear the shit, it sounds like a 16-24 track hypermix with all the shit going on and for 2001 nothing like it existed. Remember hustling mixtapes at malls now too, wow. +1 OP for memory lane.

Even with serato and all that, there's still nothing like grabbing doubles of a track on vinyl and beat juggling/scratching/getting that rugged bassment jam sound.

Can't lie though, after x years of spinning, seeing harddrives and vinyl controllers was a blessing vs lugging crates/gear around, but I shortly moved from DJ'ing to producing and now just scratch or juggle licks for track production etc.
 
I won't go into my vinyl collection, however I will say this - it's all about "hands on". Its a totally analog experience. You touch the medium, you spin it within the palms of your hands, you may blow the dust off it. It ENGAGES you. The artwork of the album cover. The liner notes. Best of all...double albums that fold open are the absolute balls to clean up some weed and roll a big fatty to take you into your musical journey...Electric Ladyland - Disc 1, Side A, Track 4.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................:rasta: Goodbye bitches!
 
I remember buying vinyls from HTFR at £7 a pop. Now you just download a track from Beatport from between £1/£2 and you have it there and then. If you put some tracks on CD and scratch them then you'll have a backup and lugging around the vinyl box was never ideal! Have so many vinyls just sitting there gathering up dust and they have no value now whatsoever. The DMC boys still rock the vinyl, but otherwise for DJs it just doesn't make sense to use them anymore. You can do mad shit with digital equipment now anyway if you have the skills (like this guy)...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cWozrGLngE]YouTube - James Zabiela - Kaballah Curitiba 2009 * vj daniel paz[/ame]
 
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