That's what happens :\
Nostalgia is a great feeling,it can inspire you to write interesting music
Died a long time ago.
Death is certain,life is not

 

What you don't realise is, it is BECAUSE of you, and your struggles, the boundaries of hardware and computer software are forever getting closer. I too struggled for years to find that illusive sound!



You're all typing new content quicker than I can read it!!! Slow down will ya!!! )

 

It's just opposed views. As long as people wish to exchange and accept others p.o.v, pretty simple ones, it's a discussion. Obviously when it's not the case, and people start acting like kids in a schoolyard....No point whatsoever, it's like the daws talk, where people bash daws just for the sake of it, without informed pov about anything, just to feel a tiny bit better about their own choices. It's like political talks, but without the politics...
It's a matter of taste no more no less. You can't convert anyone with boggus technical explanations. Don't like analogue processed sound ? Well good for you, have a long sterile fun listening experience (or call it clean, transparent, whatever)...The gear, the emulations will still find people to buy and use them, listeners to have a great experience, and a 100 years from now the same kind of topics will be going on.
You can lead a donkey to water but you can't make it drink...

 

+1 What's the point of Vinyl when it's cut from a digital master anyhow? When it's digitally mastered is it really an analog medium anymore?

 

Sorry, missed your reply.

Still not following. Yes, the mic is an analog device, one that introduces the most noise/distortion in today's recording signal chain. The microphone transcodes changes in pressure (sound, or, as you put it, "human audible domain") into changes in voltage (electricity, which is not a part of "human audible domain"). Suggesting that since the mic is an analog device, the rest of the signal chain should be too makes as much sense as saying a 747 should drive around, because it starts on the ground, is destined to land on the ground, and already has wheels.

First time I'm hearing of ED (do you mean EV?) being designed for "recording onto wax," with "Condensers being for tape." Whence from haz u gleaned such learnings?

U87 was a great mic for its time, always ridiculously expensive (and expensive to make). Like a Patek Philippe watch, it's cool to have/status symbol. This will get you there at a fraction of the price.

Is this a digital vs. analog argument? The trick's to make CDs bigger & stick them into album sleeves instead of jewel cases. And make them out of recycled CDs, so that they're warped & very soft (to scratch/skip easily). That way the listener can become emotionally involved AND get decent sound

Not to me

 

i like to stick with heads and cabs myself but i dont judge i love the sound of deluxe tweed though but i like a more sturdy setup with head and cab myself
i do agree improvements come in handy and have done them myself with my own stuff
a guitar amp isnt that it is lofi it is that it uses harmonics generation to create part of the instrument tone the creation of tone and playback systems are 2 diff things
all instruments create harmonics

 

Last edited: Dec 4, 2017

and by the way 30 years ago was 1987 so....................
i cant think of much from 87' i want to bring back (um haircuts lolol)


it hurts it hurts
https://theredlist.com/media/databa...rick-kelly-/029-patrick-kelly-theredlist.jpeg
peek at it you know you want too!

 

Last edited: Dec 4, 2017

That's pretty much what lofi is. Mostly. "THD" in data sheets is Total Harmonic Distortion. There's other stuff that makes guitar amps lofi, like noise & hum & non-linear freq. response (guitar amps have no top end -- they don't need it, guitar speakers/cabs got no top end either) & some IM (nonharmonic) distortion, but it's mostly harmonics.

Isn't it weird those people already listened to decent recordings, without hiss, wow & flutter or scratches (CDs became commercially available back in '82)?
And (click on the timeline pic) analog audio recording was already on its last legs -- literally nothing worth mentioning happened since '85 ...

 

I think older guys may miss that the "vintage" sound is now being used as an artistic component of the sound.

Just like Hendrix started to use distortion/saturation as a character of his sound.

In other words, before Hendrix- saturation bad.... AFTER Hendrix- saturation good.

Before Hendrix, an artists could use paints of different colors to make a picture. Let's say red orange an yellow.

ANything that could be "seen" besides Red Orange or Yellow, would be attributed to the process needed to capture paint, and thus interfered with paint colors.

After Hendrix, it could be said, that he wanted to paint with not only Red Orang and Yellow, but also use the interfering "paint color" of saturation.

That's it.

PS: For many years we avoided ripping our pants... cuz that looked bad... THEN, someone thought it looked interesting, and so the rips were celebrated and offered a varied new EXPANSION of dimension and tools used to paint the picture that defined a fashion element.

 

Actually, for a good vinyl record to be cut, it has to be mastered for it specifically. The grooves of a record cannot physically hold current mastering levels. It has to be mastered analog-ishly.

 

maybe this will be interesting for some fellow members :

 

This is really all it boils down to. Something vintage is rough emulating the harmonics/distortion of the actual unit, not necessarily going to replace it (which it sounds like the actual vintage gear had a whole other bag of issues). If I use a plugin and it thickens or colors the sound in a desired way I don't really care how much its actually emulating anything, its done its job. Go with your ears.

 

If you can't hear what is better about vinyl vs MP3 I truly feel sorry for you. Even the highest resolution MP3 is missing something vital and deeply emotional. It is not a subtle difference. They are completely not the same things, just the digital one removes all the "negative" attributes like scratches, noise, and inconsistent frequency response.

Digital has many advantages and for certain genres of music it is the better platform.

For anything that actually hit the air and was recorded by a microphone analog is better. For software instruments/samples or digital synths going through an analog chain is a degradation of the original signal. (it can add interesting color but it is degradation)

If you are making music with voices, acoustic instruments, amps, drums and actual microphones digital is degrading the source. You are missing something essential by not printing to tape through a console or equivalent.

It is just economics. We got lazy and the easiest cheapest way won. Doesn't mean it is progress. MP3s sound TERRIBLE. But that is the world we live in now. We traded romantic candlelight for flourescent morgue bulbs.

 

Yeas but...
I was questioning the validity of Vinyl as a truly analog medium in 2017.

I know there are still studios live cutting direct to vinyl through an all analog signal path and these records are truly amazing (God Bless Them)

But what of the records done in the box only to be cut to vinyl, surely that would be sacrilege for the die hard analog aficionado!!? Why preserve digital on an analog medium apart from the obvious storage time.

 

Last edited: Dec 4, 2017

@ClaudeBalls did u consider even a MP3 can be cut to vinyl, you can thank me later for blowing your mind...

Mangoes to Marijuana my friend

 

this thread is becoming "Classic", love you all Audiosexers !

Timeless, cause age don't count in the booth
And your flow stays submerged in the fountain of youth

classic, better than I'v ever been

O you went platinum - yeah that's nice,
now let me see you do the same thing twice

Me I got no jewels on my neck, why - I don't need 'em I got your respect

 

I respectfully disagree that mp3 to vinyl is any better than mp3 to digital delivery. It may absorb some of the characteristics of vinyl but the damage is already done. Of course if you are talking about music that is of a genre that benefits from digital production then you are good to go, but if you are talking about music played by people in a room, on instruments, recorded with microphones... then you have missed the opportunity to achieve the highest level of quality. In my opinion.

We are past it.

We use the cheapest, easiest, laziest form of recording technology invented. Not the best sounding or best results producing.

 

If you didn't grow up with vinyl then you wouldn't know what you are missing.

- The sound enters through your body, not just through your ears.
- Every time you play the record you are killing it a little bit, so you pay attention.
- It is a stationary device so you must sit and focus on it, rather than drive, walk, shop, exercise.
- It has two sides that require you to turn it over at a certain interval to continue to hear music, this keeps you connected.
- The medium itself elevates music to a higher art form. It is a possession, a tangible yet invisible object. The MP3/stream reduces music to background noise. Endless, ceaseless and meaningless. Unworthy of love or respect because it is only an endless revenue stream for a soulless corporation.
- Vinyl (and analog studio technology) was a product of a culture that wanted to improve the quality of sound both for artists and the audience. We have been sliding backwards in this regard for the last 20 years, maybe longer. Now convenience and profitability are the only concerns. Not to mention the complete hegemony over what "artists" are allowed to express exercised by the 6 media corporations. If you bite the hand that feeds you, you will never reach an audience.

 

Think about how quickly studio technology went from "Love Me Do" to "Dark Side Of The Moon". In those 10 years the leap was incredible. Look at how we have stalled out for the last 20 years.

If you look at all the arguments against actual discrete hi-fidelity analog studio equipment it mirrors all of the arguments for digital delivery mp3/streaming technology.

If people actually care about tone and quality they will spend the money, take the time and work in a manner that yields the best results. Fuck recallability, endless instances and all the rest of the digital devil's bargain. Real music happens quickly, in actual real time. Too fast for computers. Signal chains have to be set up before the music is created. It has to happen at once.

About two generations have gone by now that people don't even remember what music actually sounds like. I feel fortunate that I got to experience what I did during the last gasp of real music.

 

@ClaudeBalls

Why is MP3 on this discussion.

Digital can be lossless, and so can digital delivery : FLAC, PCM, DSD, w/e.....
MP3 vs Vinyl is like comparing wheels to casters, best to stick with wheel to wheel. Also I don't really see the relationship between MP3, Vinyl and analogue processors vs digital processors.

BTW I have no dog in this race, I use both types of processors for w/e.

What always kills any actual progress in these types of threads which are political in nature and rarely have very much to do with engineering or science is that the scope keeps expanding like a playground argument between 10 year olds. It generally devolves into esoteric opinion based judgements (which is fine) and can not extricate itself from there as it becomes a - YES GI JOE MAYBE CAN BEAT UP SPIDERMAN - BUT SUPERMAN CAN BEAT THEM BOTH UP - WELL UNLESS TRANZOR-Z HAS A KRYPTONITE POWERCORE AND A POKEMON WITH A NUCLEAR CLOAX IS DRIVING HIM... BUT THEN SNOW WHITE ....

In short comparing MP3 to vinyl records is like comparing a kid in a wheel chair to Ursain Bolt and saying that the kid in the wheel chair can't win an uphill race because Ursain Bolt has legs.

Love Me Do ---> Dark Side of the Moon

Has more to do with business decisions, governmental institutional investment in art, and cultural development of societal outlets than it has to do with the technology that was used to capture sound at any era.

 

Last edited: Dec 4, 2017