Members Mandolin Picker Posted March 25, 2016 Members Share Posted March 25, 2016 In response to the earlier post on HD Vinyl, here is the opposite view point. It comes from the Electronic Musician web site and as the title says, it list out 7 reasons why HD vinyl won't be the next big thing. One thing that struck me in reading this article was they mentioned 3D printers, how they are coming down in price while improving in quality. They state it won't be much longer until you can print your own vinyl records that will sound as good as anything you can currently buy. In the end, they speculate piracy will be the downfall of vinyl as well, as people will print their own vinyl albums. Full article at http://www.emusician.com/dj-gear/1337/7-reasons-why-hd-vinyl-wont-take-off/57216 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted March 25, 2016 Members Share Posted March 25, 2016 They've made playable records from 3D printing before (some stuff on YouTube on it as well, I'm sure, as articles). I'm sure 3D printing will progress pretty rapidly, but it's hard to image people going to the trouble and expense except as a sort of home project. But we'll see. People are funny. But bringing the technology to the mastering side would be one interesting way around the mastering equipment shortages. Assuming the vinyl revival continues. It won't make partisans of all-analog signal paths happy -- but they haven't been happy since they heard about the prevalence of digital preview in mastering setups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted March 28, 2016 Members Share Posted March 28, 2016 Any new physical medium is a little late to the party, doncha think? Although I had an idea for a fiction story once, where all books, records, etc. are stored online and physical media has ceased to exit. A happensd that takes out everything electronic, decimates the population, and basically destroys any evidence of 21st century culture. Then in the 23rd century, someone finds a perfectly preserved Best Buy in Wisconsin under a mountain of rubble...and everything they know about us is based on what they find in that one store. Part of the point of the story involves the totally inaccurate conclusions they draw from trying to speculate about us from such a limited data set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted March 28, 2016 CMS Author Share Posted March 28, 2016 Any new physical medium is a little late to the party, doncha think? It depends on the party. There will always be a place for physical media. People are still buying books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MDMachiavelli Posted March 28, 2016 Members Share Posted March 28, 2016 I've mention this in other threads. I buy most of my music from Amazon and which ever medium you choose to purchase comes with an immediate "auto-rip" that is added to your music account. In an other words a digital copy of every song you purchase is available instantaneously. Therefore I always buy the vinyl. In my studio I probably have 10 or 15 records that have never been opened, I like purely for esthetic purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 I'd pay to hear that story - but only in book form Craig! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted March 28, 2016 Members Share Posted March 28, 2016 It depends on the party. There will always be a place for physical media. People are still buying books. But a lot more people are buying ebooks, just like a lot more people are buying MP3s instead of CDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted March 28, 2016 Members Share Posted March 28, 2016 Any new physical medium is a little late to the party, doncha think? Although I had an idea for a fiction story once, where all books, records, etc. are stored online and physical media has ceased to exit. A happensd that takes out everything electronic, decimates the population, and basically destroys any evidence of 21st century culture. Then in the 23rd century, someone finds a perfectly preserved Best Buy in Wisconsin under a mountain of rubble...and everything they know about us is based on what they find in that one store. Part of the point of the story involves the totally inaccurate conclusions they draw from trying to speculate about us from such a limited data set. If you ever finish that, let us know. It sounds pretty amusing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted March 29, 2016 Members Share Posted March 29, 2016 I'll just wait for the HD Vinyl plugin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlenK Posted April 11, 2016 Members Share Posted April 11, 2016 This is funny stuff. I give HD Vinyl about the same chance as Kodak's new 16mm film cameras (which is to say, very little). The "format" is predicated on the idea that, in the words of the Digital Music News article, a "gigantic production bottleneck...is currently stunting the vinyl resurgence." That may be but HD Vinyl does nothing to address a more fundamental reason: the limited number of hipsters who have an almost mystical belief in the ability of vinyl to give them a better listening experience. Realistically, the market for vinyl will never be much higher than said hipster population. Like Anderton and many older people here I grew up on vinyl. Hell, I still own about 300 vinyl albums myself, most from the late 70's and early 80's. Most of them are in mint condition, played only a few times. They'll stay mint because I don't play any of them now. I may look at the album covers but I will listen to a decent rip from a CD. A CD doesn't have that warm, analog distortion added to the sound but it also won't exhibit any vinyl surface artifacts. I used to take great pains cleaning dust off the surface of each album side before I played it. And I remember exchanging a lot of albums because of defects in the pressings. CDs won me over pretty fast because I didn't have to deal with any of that. The worst thing about CD's is the horrid dynamic range compression (AKA "loudness wars") that has been in vogue for years now and, like orange-and-teal color timing in movies, shows little sign of disappearing any time soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 I am not a fan of over-squashed masters either, but that can happen with any format - not just CDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlenK Posted April 11, 2016 Members Share Posted April 11, 2016 I am not a fan of over-squashed masters either' date=' but that can happen with any format - not just CDs.[/quote'] True, but it didn't really become much of a problem until CDs were ubiquitous (sometime in the 90's). And now it's worse than ever. It's to the point where if I want to buy a recent CD release (or download) of an older album I first check to see what people are saying about its dynamic range compression. If it's bad I look for a used copy of an older issue that doesn't have it (or a download ripped from an older issue), even if the mastering is supposedly inferior in other ways. Maybe dynamic range compression on CDs is one of the reasons some people prefer vinyl, at least older pressings. And if newer pressings exhibit similar dynamic range compression perhaps it isn't as severe as on the CD release. I wouldn't know since I haven't bought an album on vinyl in well over 30 years. PS. I should add that older vinyl LP's used compression too (to ensure the excursions in the groove did not exceed a certain width) but they would still typically achieve around 50db. Apparently, the compression was heavier for 45rpm singles back in the day that radio stations (and jukeboxes) actually played them. But consumers who cared about audio quality didn't buy 45's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 11, 2016 Members Share Posted April 11, 2016 I'm waiting for the holodeck version of the story, myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 11, 2016 Members Share Posted April 11, 2016 I'll just wait for the HD Vinyl plugin. [h=1]Vinyl[/h] [h=2]The return of the ultimate lo-fi weapon[/h] Back just in time for its 15th anniversary, Vinyl is a plug-in that lets you simulate the dust, scratches, and warp of a worn record and the electrical and mechanical noise of the turntable it’s on. https://www.izotope.com/en/products/...ruments/vinyl/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members techristian Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 I am not a fan of over-squashed masters either' date=' but that can happen with any format - not just CDs.[/quote'] Right, and from what I remember THEY WERE FORCED to compress audio for vinyl records to be heard fully above the crackling and other noise. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 It's now, it's free, but it's not HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 12, 2016 CMS Author Share Posted April 12, 2016 Right, and from what I remember THEY WERE FORCED to compress audio for vinyl records to be heard fully above the crackling and other noise. Nobody was forced to do anything. A cutting lathe setup included a limiter to protect the cutter from burning out - a more expensive version of overdriving a loudspeaker and damaging its voice coil. This is where the famous Fairchld 660 came from. It also helped keep the playback needle in the groove. A good mastering engineer (as the one that cuts the disk) was expected to follow the music and manually adjust the groove spacing to allow extra width for loud passages. Later, the preview head was invented which played the tape one revolution of the disk earlier than the signal that went to the cutter, which allowed an analog computer to adjust the groove width automatically. This served two purposes - first to cut a more trouble-free disk, and second, to allow the grooves to be more closely spaced during quiet passages. That's where the loudness wars started. Radio stations didn't like to play records with quiet passages because if a listener tuned in during a quiet part, he'd likely switch to a different stating, thinking the reception wasn't very good. So the mastering engineers started reducing the dynamic range of the program material so they could get more uniform groove width and get a louder compromise between playability and playing time. It became common practice for radio station music director to spot-play a single in his or her office before putting it on the air. Those with quiet spots went in the trash. Those that were uniformly loud, and as loud as all the other records went on the air. When people started listening to music in environments with a high noise floor, it was just natural to want everything to play at the same level so it wouldn't be necessary to constantly adjust the volume control to maintain that sweet spot between discomfort and difficulty in hearing. And if you're going to have a standard level, why not make it as loud as possible? Take that away and you lose all the listeners who listen in their car or while mowing their lawn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 Wait, can't you cut a master on a CNC type machine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 PS. I should add that older vinyl LP's used compression too (to ensure the excursions in the groove did not exceed a certain width) but they would still typically achieve around 50db. Apparently, the compression was heavier for 45rpm singles back in the day that radio stations (and jukeboxes) actually played them. But consumers who cared about audio quality didn't buy 45's. CD has superior dynamic range when compared to vinyl. It's not the medium, it's how it's being utilized. Yes, radio stations did all the sorts of things Mike mentions... and then they hit the signal with gobs of compression and run it through a infinity:1 brickwall limiter before it leaves their transmitters. Radio has always been squashed in terms of dynamic range. As Mike alluded to, PD's and broadcast engineers want to take maximum advantage of what they're allowed to pump out, but without overmodulating, which can get the station fined by the FCC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 Better yet! Oh... wait... =D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 No, out here on the coast, they had guys with guns standing around making sure the RMS was riding high. =D I think Dan was just trying to trick you into one of your excellent explainers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 12, 2016 Members Share Posted April 12, 2016 Wait, can't you cut a master on a CNC type machine? That technology seems to be progressing nicely. I think it's about up to 1888... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 12, 2016 CMS Author Share Posted April 12, 2016 Wait, can't you cut a master on a CNC type machine? I don't know about that, but someone has 3D-printed a record. It was noisy and didn't sound very good. And someone has designed a non-contact playing system that takes a photo of the groove, performs a spectrum analysis of the squiggles, and feeds the results into a digital-to-analog converter. It works remarkably well considering all the haywire, and is a safe way to play badly deteriorated lacquer disks where the lacquer coating is flaking off and would become a pile of shavings if a needle were placed in the groove. Traditional phonograph technology, when applied correctly, is about as advanced as magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 13, 2016 Members Share Posted April 13, 2016 Sure. They used NOS wood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 13, 2016 Members Share Posted April 13, 2016 Seems to me if you can print a CPU, you can print a record. (?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.