Why Vinyl Can't Survive

Well, yes. As an Old Git I was more than happy to switch to CD - easier to handle, collate and shelve, much more convenient in every way - and I don't miss vinyl at all. I only ever get something on vinyl if it's completely unavailable in any other format but I don't "not" buy something because it's only on vinyl. I don't draw a line in the sand but I'm fed up with people my age and older droning on about how much better their lives were than ours because they listened to a different sound reproduction format. I also feel it's had a kickback effect on British rock music which now does little except look back, or peer back in a "we can never be as great as..." fashion. It's like saying that the next generation are, somehow, failures.

What rock music?

I just liked vinyl more and switched from CD to it in '94 or so, btw

Two points re albums over CDs, hope you agree,,

1) An album is two discrete units of performance, side 1 and side 2. This promotes two 'start' tracks, two 'endings', and a performance between.

2) CD albums can be up to 78 mins or so, tempting the artist to use all that time, often not a good thing. (At least with double albums you could boff the artist with the point that the product will cost more and earn less. plus, four discrete performances, see 1.)

In most other respects, CD albums win.

I almost never skip tracks, LP or CD.

Totally agree with both of those points, of course.

Each to their own of course but it's merely CDs that I hate. I use MP3s/WAVs and vinyl in equal amounts, most of my DJ friends are switching back from digital DJing to using vinyl just because the skill set needed keeps the process more tactile and interesting and, finally, it's not a 'revival' for those of us who never stopped buying it. I'm not saying some people don't have rose tinted glasses on when it comes to vinyl but it feels like a strawman when I look at my peers. Newer labels who do a lot of vinyl tend to have a sonically progressive agenda and not just in electronic music but in more traditional forms like Southern Lord.

I'd be the first to admit that there are a lot of bellends who collect vinyl. Ebay profiteers are scumbags but I have more (irrational) dislike for 7" collectors (especially of psych, northern soul, reggae, dub, funk etc) who always, in my experience, value price and rarity over quality. But I collect records, I am not a record collector if you take the distinction. I'm more concerned with the quality of the pressing and the condition of the vinyl than I am with whether it's original or not.

But seriously, always vinyl over CD. Always.

Hahah, those 7" "collectors" who clog up MVE with their printed-out lists of "rare" funk 45s.

Still, I see the Soul & Dance MVE in Notting Hill is closing down, or moving upstairs in the main branch, so maybe they'll move somewhere else. Helmand Province, for instance.

Really? So, the 'collectible' 1st floor is shifting? or incorporating?

Stick them all on an island in the Pacific with no means of escape and Mark Lamarr as their tribal leader.

CDs have become litter to me, pretty much. Their worth has become inverted and I never buy them any more if I can help it, because all I'm going to do is rip them and then they'll sit on my shelves gathering dust and taking up space. Since receiving a small portable turntable for my birthday I've acquired a few pieces of vinyl and I rather like it. The change in medium makes a change in the listening experience for me. If I'm going to own music, and while it's great to have an infinite amount of songs at my disposal on my computer, I feel like having a physical artefact to hand can affect a stronger psychological tie to the music for me. Agreed that all vinyl should come with a download - if that were the case I'd buy a shitload more music than I do now.

Every record I buy that doesn't come with a download, I just download illegally. I'm kinda comfortable with the ethics of this system.

No-one ever cared abt CDs, is the thing.

That's not true and you know it's not.

any technophiles know if higher resolution 3d printers will actually mean we'll be able to make records at home?

"Make my own records at home, I can't go out in the rain," as Sting used to sing.

apparently the resolution is currently not fine enough

By the time I started buying LPs, the actual quality of the vinyl was pretty shoddy, and even brand new albs would often skip or jump, even when treated with great care (this seemed to be especially the case with back catalogue reissues). So I've always preferred CDs and will be sad to see them go.

I liked CDs when I had a use for them, but I don't any more.

This is several xposts, but I'm gonna post it anyway:

I've no huge emotional stakes in vinyl versus digital debate, but I've always found the current vinyl revival a bit curious... I do own a vinyl player and have a bunch of records on vinyl, but that's only because there's so much stuff that was only released in vinyl and never reissued on CD. However, what I don't get is people buying vinyl when the same material can be bought on CD (or as lossless files, if that's your thing), usually at a much cheaper price.

Basically, for me the biggest reason I buy records on CD is that they're easier and more comfortable to use. I love to lie on the sofa, read a comic book, and listen to an album all the way through. But with vinyl you can't do that, you have to get up every 25 minutes to switch sides, and with longer albums you have to do that more than once. That is quite irritating, and with albums that are supposed to work as a whole it can totally ruin the mood.

Another thing is that vinyl deteriorates much more easily than CD. Unless you treat your albums with kid gloves, you are are gonna get those crackles and pops, which can be pretty disruptive, especially on albums which have "quiet" sound. Other sorts of deterioration tend to happen to vinyl with age too, such as disruption at high sounds, which I personally hate a lot, as it sounds awful to my ears. None of this will happen to CDs.

I don't think anyone disagrees that vinyls are much more of hassle to play and handle than the alternatives. So what are the pros of vinyl? The myth of vinyl being able to reproduce sound better than CDs has been debunked many times, so forget about that. "CD rot" is another myth that's been propagated by vinyl enthusiasts, but that was only an issue in the pressing process of a particular pressing plant, and it was fixed 20 years ago. In general, your CDs are not gonna "rot".

Then there's the issue cover art, and obviously art usually looks better in bigger size, so I agree it looks nicer on vinyl covers. But I tend to buy records mostly for the music, not to look at pretty pictures, so this is not a big issue. And the bigger size also means vinyl takes more space in your flat.

So yeah, that's the reason why I only buy vinyl if there's no other option, and why I don't get choosing it over other formats.

I think there is still plenty to be said for the tactile pleasures of vinyl. Taking the record out of the cover, lowering it onto the spindle, getting the stylus in the right place and lowering the arm down, then hearing the kwika-kwika-floop as the needle finds the groove. These are small but not insignificant pleasures compared to the business of inserting a CD in a tray. Also a nice turntable is an aesthetically pleasurable device to have in one's front room

lots of records only have one track per side

they can be pitched up or down for mixing with

its a pretty redundant argument, these people who aren't concerned with the format sure seem to be paying attention to what format other people might be playing

XP^^^^This is essentially how I feel. If you want to invoke logic you can but it's an aesthetic choice governed by using all of your senses not just one. I can't drink a cup of tea out of a light blue or green coloured mug no matter how well brewed it is. Pour the same brew into a white mug and it becomes my favourite drink. The taste is exactly the same but the colour isn't right in the first instance and the way you perceive something has a massive effect on the way you appreciate it.

I don't care what format other people are using, but like with Nick, it irritates me when people tout vinyl as the superior format without any good justification, and that tends to happen a lot among music geeks these days. People are free to buy and listen to vinyl if that's what they prefer, but if they start saying to me that vinyl is the best, I have no problem explaining why it isn't, to me.

And sure, vinyls can "pitched up or down for mixing with", and obviously if you're a DJ vinyl is probably the best format. But most people who buy music aren't, and to them pitching isn't very important.

(xpost)

cds feel v disposable to me i don't really respect them that much, i never have, even when it took me a month to save enough money to buy one.

some music only sounds great on cd tho, with the full freq range available. my little classical / ecm / sound art cd collection is one of my most treasured things. i don't think i'll miss cds that much on the whole tho, high quality digital audio files can do that job better than cds can.

records are bizarre. limited bandwidth, will sound drastically different depending on your equipment. they age badly, get dirty, they're bloody massive, heavy, get fucked up easily but they make me smile. they inspire a different way of listening that i prefer. i like having the two sides, i find i explore the end of albums a lot more. some music also really benefits from having the limited bandwidth. i like the sound and the ridiculousness of them. music is cool and cds just aren't.

wrt to sound quality, they're different, all formats are slightly different. i do love digital but not as much as i love analogue. i don't care how many times a second you're sampling the sound, it still goes through a adc-dac conversion, it becomes static, stuck in time, it makes things bland.

i really do find format has a huge impact on my enjoyment of something. i found this on LP a while back:

http://www.discogs.com/Catherine-Ribeiro-Alpes-Paix/release/1274544?ev=rr

fell in madly in love with her, got the 4 cd boxset of reissues and it's just. not. the. same. thing. at all! hypnotic french psych folk prog sounds better when it's warbling a bit. her voice sounds better when it distorts in the high end and the shillness is toned down a bit, the silences work better when there are crackles and pops in the background, the album art doesn't feel like album art when it's 1/4 the size and printed on flimsy card.

if they start saying to me that vinyl is the best, I have no problem explaining why it isn't, to me.

which is the person that said it was the best, that you were responding to?

otoh, music for 18 musicians, for example, is a totally different thing on record, the information that's lost (those 'singing' harmonics dancing around right up there at the top) are all warbly and sometimes non-existant on my copy, and isn't that kind of the point of those pieces? when i've seen Steve Reich rehearsing it, that's the area where he seems to focus his attention.

I have a several friends (music collectors, and general vinyl fetishists) who are saying that quite often.

(x-post)

hypnotic french psych folk prog sounds better when it's warbling a bit. her voice sounds better when it distorts in the high end and the shillness is toned down a bit, the silences work better when there are crackles and pops in the background

Maybe someone should come up with (if someone already hasn't) with an application that adds these standard effects of vinyl wear to FLAC/WAV files. Then those who prefer that sound could switch to digital too...

well yeah, or just make a digital recording of the record itself. i can't stand the digital versions of annette peacocks's i'm the one that i have, so i made a recording of the record and it's much better.

and you're right there is that thing where if you buy vinyl you're seen as a ~serious music person who should be taken very seriously~ that's def a thing

I still buy both (as well as downloads), I do marginally prefer vinyl but I'll happily buy CDs if the vinyl isn't in print or is too expensive (often the case with new releases). I started buying music in the mid-90s and CDs seemed ideal, there are plenty from my teenage years I still feel attached to, too. I've got rid of loads over time but they still outnumber my vinyl by about 2:1.

In terms of the physical object, I think CDs sometimes get short shrift - there's lots of nicely-designed CD packaging out there and some artwork suits the shiny, clean lines of CD boxes. They look neater on shelves too, which I have to admit appeals to me.

I have to say, though, that something much more bizarre than vinyl revival is the cassette revival that's been going on here lately with certain genres, mostly local rap music. Cassettes are worse than CDs and vinyl in pretty much every aspect I can think of (dynamic range, sound deterioration, longevity, sleeve notes and art), so I can't really explain this revival with anything else than object fetishization. The most interesting thing I've noticed is that many/most of the cassette enthusiasts are people who came of age during the CD or digital age, and don't really remember the era when cassettes were popular. So my theory is that the main reason for this cassette fetish is nostalgia for an imaginary golden age they weren't quite part of (in rap music's case, the 80s and early 90s). I would suspect this same nostalgia is a big factor in the current vinyl revival too, as many of the people who sing the praise of vinyl are actually of the CD generation, not people who grew up when vinyl was the dominant format.

I have a several friends (music collectors, and general vinyl fetishists) who are saying that quite often.

(x-post)

so no one here even said "vinyl is best" for you to respond to with that?

The people who claim to be above "format bullshit" are the same people that bring up vinyl dislike in first place, then claim its other people that bring it up and go on about it

You can stop saying that same thing now, if you want.

np!

C'mon, vinyl vs CD vs digital is like debating your favorite beer - there's no wrong answer unless you're stating sweeping generalities like "vinyl is superior to CD". A mate of mine has an expensive system and has fallen in love with Blue Note jazz vinyl reissues - and they sound bloody MARVELOUS on his system. But I'm not going to invest in that sort of gear and I've ALWAYS preferred the convenience of CDs to what I perceive as interruptions, surface noise, unportabilty and hassle of vinyl. So y'all keep selling your CDs, I'll buy them and happily clog up my shelves with their liner notes and make my own rips. Everybody wins.

So y'all keep selling your CDs, I'll buy them and happily clog up my shelves with their liner notes and make my own rips. Everybody wins.

yeah. it has to be said in recent months my middle of nowhere charity shops have had some rather fine selections (far more than normally).
people are clearly ripping and clearing out shelf space.

"Cassettes are worse than CDs and vinyl in pretty much every aspect I can think of (dynamic range, sound deterioration, longevity, sleeve notes and art)"

ahh but sometimes these are good things, all about context! i mean cassettes sell pretty well in the diy/noise/punk scenes, do you really think all these people are frontin'? just being nostalgic? i don't. i think some music benefits greatly from limiting the amount of information that reaches your ears.

Very true.

C'mon, vinyl vs CD vs digital is like debating your favorite beer - there's no wrong answer unless you're stating sweeping generalities like "vinyl is superior to CD".

This is otm. The problem I have with the debate is when people claim one format is more faithful to the original recording than the other. Unless you were in the studio or mastering room when the final master was being played back, you don't know what the original recording sounded like (in terms of sound quality, I mean).

And the irony with vinyl fetishization vis-a-vis present-day reissues is that the overwhelming majority of them are digitally mastered (and nearly as many are mastered from digital sources). The Beatles box is, for all intents and purposes, the 2009 CDs remastered for vinyl. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, unless claims are made that it's "analog" and therefore "superior."

And the cassette revival is baffling to me, too. As Dave Marsh said, "rewinding is the longest distance between any two points."

If all my music I heard/acquired was straight digital from this point in I really wouldn't complain. And I'll indulge as/when I choose (thus buying the DVD-A files of the new MBV, which I don't think is even being released physically in that format...)

Just want to say that with a good cartridge needle and good record player, surface noise is not a huge issue if simply take reasonable care of your records

The whole ”records get destroyed everytime you play them” is hogwash, I have records from the 40s that sound fine.

lots of cds sound great, but hearing the original presses of records on vinyl can be just revelatory

I've a/b'd stuff like PIL Metal Box and it's not a small difference, if you haven't heard that on vinyl you haven't heard it

All this said I'm buying alot of cds lately, so cheap and lots of recent jazz reissues sounds great...we were finally getting cds and cd players pretty good when we abandoned them, I have a marantz cd player, might upgrade to an oppo, but it's made a large difference

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet.

haven't had time to read all this cos of work, but the idea that enjoying vinyl automatically = rose-tinted rockism is a load of old guff really.

God yeah I hate the pluralisation of vinyl to vinyls.

But CDs are records too, in that they're recordings...

I've been ripping a lot of my CDs lately for convenience, one thing I have noticed while doing this is that this whole "CD rot only from a few p-pressing plants in the late 80s" is bullshit, I've got several CDs from the late 90s with it.

not sure where that stutter came from

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet

this is a European thing, you hear it a lot from the mouths of non-native English speakers.

xps