Everyone Has Gone Digital?!

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

Erm if you check the frequency response, CD actually has better bass too.
As you have to roll off the bass at the cutting stage for vinyl (and you can`t have a wide stereo bass field etc) due to the needle not beeing able to handle the bass vibrations.

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I would have thought the reason for rolling off the bass is because the frequency response of vinyl is lower... sorry, don't want to get pedantic on you or anything, but I've just been looking at the specs of vinyl, couldn't find any cd specs (why is it when you search for something loads of stuff you don't want comes through).. anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, pull out the specs if you can find it, but I'm sure there is a reason why Laurie and Guy were mastering to 2" tape instead of digital format before cutting a while back....

Well, MP3 IS a success for the mainstream now.
Ipod is a perfect example of this.
Not that I like mp3 as a format.
All you get is data, no art, no info, it makes it feel cheap, and I think devalues the music in some way.
I think we may have to accept mp3 as an alternative format, but really, given the choice, it would be CD and Vinyl for me. At least there is a physical product for the money. And with the product comes the image that completes the ideal of the product.
It`s something I think we are all going to face.
I really hate the mp3 generation. As for the most part the mp3`s in illegal distribution are of such a low quality.

I like mp3 as a means to check stuff out, find old stuff (not just techno or electronic stuff) that I can't find in shops and that kind of thing, but if I like something I have to go and get it, I think the drop in sales has more to do with the fact that we're over 15 years on from acid house and things need a big shake up.. I remember the excitement of buying records back in 94/95, because you really didn't know what was going to come next.. ten years on and you have a lot more artists, labels and releases, and a lot of ground has already been covered i.e. the blank canvas that there once was has been filled..

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Originally Posted by crime

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

Frequency response on CD is just better. Fact

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well I just found this at http://www.badenhausen.com/VSR_History.htm

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Nowadays, high performance calculation techniques and electronic components allow the design of high accuracy phono pre-amplifiers that are guaranteeing a frequency response of 10 to 25,000 Hz at a linearity of ±0.1 db, and a THD factor of less than 0.001%. The S/N ratio, of special importance for digital audio, can be easily hold at nearly 100 db by High-Tec semiconductors.

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If I'm not mistaken CD audio specification goes no lower than 20hz, in which case the frequency response on vinyl actually goes lower (I could be wrong although I'm pretty sure)
Anyhow, I stumbled across another page of interest, which contains some pretty simelar arguments as what is going on here, this time between Audiophile types, check it: http://alcor.concordia.ca/~kaustin/c...rent/1364.html

At the end of it all though, I don't think everyone is going to stop buying records just because a few types in miami have "Gone digital" so to speak..

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These stats are based on a perect situation.
Vinyl will never meet it`s quted optimum stats.
Especially not in a club
A number of factors contribute to this, such as needle quality, alignment, bibration, vinyl imperfections etc
Vinyl should have a large dynamic range in theory with headroom of about 98db
In reality your average pressing has about 60, due to stereo width and above factors combined.

Especially the fact that most clubs have knacked decks, with bad vibration insulation, crap styluses, and average amplification processing and amp quality (all usually stuck through a hideous dynamic killing limiter), not to mention a sound engineer who has set up the rig for generic music use, it really is (the CD vs Vinyl) a totally meaningless argument.

It`s all academic really as the difference is psychological and not really audible at the end of the day.

As a rig engineer I will say that on most decent soundsystems these days, the signal will go digital at some point, so the analogue "warmth" of the vinyl still gets digitised. Sometimes at 16bit, but hopefully more often
at 24 bit these days.

I do have to say, if you play digital format, on a mixer with digital in and out, into digital processing, then into speakers.
It sounds sooo damn good you would cream your pants.
It`s like a mega volume hi fi.

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Originally Posted by Komplex

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Originally Posted by MARK EG

f that, let's get back to the real shit. what are we gonna do about this??

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Set up an online techno distribution centre that deals with all formats. Vinyl, CD, and if people want mp3 (which I don't really like either).

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as anyone checked out the Just music site BTW? I think they're selling MP3s of all current releases they're distributing, which is definitely a step forward.... Also Bleep.com cover a lot of the warp stuff, and a few other labels so it is happening....

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Originally Posted by crime

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Originally Posted by Komplex

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Originally Posted by MARK EG

f that, let's get back to the real shit. what are we gonna do about this??

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Set up an online techno distribution centre that deals with all formats. Vinyl, CD, and if people want mp3 (which I don't really like either).

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as anyone checked out the Just music site BTW? I think they're selling MP3s of all current releases they're distributing, which is definitely a step forward.... Also Bleep.com cover a lot of the warp stuff, and a few other labels so it is happening....

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For sure. Many people are doing it. Its just a pain in the arse trying to track it all down and find what you're looking for. A big database website, something like Discogs would be ideal to use as a tracker for finding out where and on what format labels sell their music.

And just a side note, I think it would be beneficial if more people in the techno community looked outside the square and noticed what people in other scenes are doing and took note of their sucesses and failures in this whole vinyl/cd/mp3 business.

The psy scene almost survives entirely in the digital domain.
I think we can have all sides and facets.
I`ve just never met more aversion to new formats in any other scene other than techno.

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

I`ve just never met more aversion to new formats in any other scene other than techno.

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Is there really a true aversion to new formats in techno? or is it just people gobbing off about it on forums?

Well it`s a subject I talk a lot about, and most people I encounter get kind of glazed expressions as soon as you mention anything other than vinyl.
Except when I deal with people in other scenes, who are on it already, and look at me like I`m a retard.

I mean, Tarrida was playing in Tresor on saturday, and he had, not final scratch, but another very simelar device which basically was the same thing, I forget the name of it... Maybe it's more of a UK thing, in germany right now it seems everyone is doing live acts more.. in fact it's getting to the stage where you get booked to play live that it's hard to find space with the 5 other live acts that are there.. I'm actually getting on a retro tip and getting right back into playing records, mainly to find inspiration and provide support to music that isn't being played so much, and to generally pay my respects...
I mean it's ridiculous, 7 live acts including subhead and myself in dresden next weekend, god know's how we're going to find the space to set up, thank god the Treibwerk has pretty big stage area...

Nah, it`ll just be 7 laptops
hehe

thursday, I should have said... been so confusing having massive parties here in berlin everynight as the tresor is closing... Steve Bicknall, Jay Denham, Dave Tarrida and subhead in the tresor, josh wink in the globus, on a thursday.. nuts...

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

Nah, it`ll just be 7 laptops
hehe

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I wish! it's more groovebox action here...

Vinyl has a narrower freq. range then CD.
There's a nice explenation on this subject on the NSC enterprise website.

2 Mark EG:
You were talking about surround sound in the producer forum.
Well I know for 100% that this is not possible on vinyl!

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

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Originally Posted by OriginalTechnobastard

I agree with whats been said about the fatness feel of vinyl. You can`t compare the sound from cd that to a vinyl :nono: ! Lets be real here. We all heard vinyls and cds. Cds just sound flat compare to vinyls. It might look more expensive and have its advantages, but vinyls(more classy look :cool: ) in terms of sound vibrations to your ear, just sound better. I really don`t understand why people would try to argue otherwise :eh:! Hmmmmmmm :evil:

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Dude, that`s just opinion.
I run a very good soundsystem, along with my mate who runs an even phatter and better rig, who is part of our collective
And play for play, the same tune, on CD (original master) and vinyl
CD sounds better.
Clearer
Deeper
Crisper.
Frequency response on CD is just better. Fact,
Yeah you get that added bit of warmth on vinyl, but if a track has been mastered properly on CD, then that`s not an issue.

Most techno is mastered on a digital medium
Then transferred to vinyl
Then played through digital signal processing (that most soundsystems use these days)

Sound quality isn`t really an issue at all any more

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Nope. Cds are clearer but it doesn't have the feeling of that you being there feel. Thats just the way it is.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

Is there some reason why you need to limit releases to one medium? This is what I find inherently bullshit about the "prove it" comments. Sell records, sell CDs and sell MP3s. If you can find mp3s of your releases floating around, there is your proff that there is a demand for mp3s of your label's music.

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That's exactly how I feel. Have to admit, when the first DJCD-players hit the parties years and years ago, I was spitting on DJs who were spinning CDs when I was all vinyl myself ;) luckily I got my head sorted - the point is the music itself, not the medium although I love vinyl, but it's not the reason why I'm into this stuff - the music is. Nowadays illegal MP3 file sharing proves that there's a real need for digital music files, and this discussion wouldn't be happening if CDs and digital music files were something we could completely overlook.

We are running a small digital distribution company foryourears.com (labels like Asymmetric, Jaxx stuff etc) so I think I can share some of our thoughts here. One of the main reasons for putting this together is something that's already said in this thread: people are waiting for new markets for vinyl with techno spreading into new countries etc, but what we are thinking is completely new markets for techno with people who don't own turntables, don't go out to parties/clubs for whatever reasons, but still like the music. Vinyl is a pretty restricted format in case you don't have a turntable, or you happen to live in a country where the distros don't deliver. CD is more widespread, but as said, most tech labels don't do CDs.

But also as Internal Error Recs already wrote, the vinyl thing is pretty self-promoting. That's why we don't believe (or even want) this thing to turn completely into only digital music files without a physical package in the future. The point is that all the mediums should support each other so this thing can move forward. If you already press vinyls or do CDs with your label, it doesn't cost you anything to add digital music files into your catalogue and see if you can sell some more - probably to people who aren't buying vinyls or CDs. Does that hurt anyone?


-markku/symptom

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Originally Posted by crime

I mean, Tarrida was playing in Tresor on saturday, and he had, not final scratch, but another very simelar device which basically was the same thing, I forget the name of it...

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Serato Scratch probably. I keep reading about it - esp. in more Hip Hop orientied forums, where people rate it because it tracks better than FS - hence better for turntablism. It's more solid as well, by all accounts.

On the point of mp3's - does anyone actually buy them / download them to play out? I have done this in one or two very rare occasions where it would be completely impossible to get hold of a better quality version. i.e. you can't get the vinyl, or a CD. And I felt bad, but I think I got away with it. I'd normally completely trust CDs though...

re: CDs. There is no lower bound on CDs for frequency response. If anyone has that Tipper CD with all the bass tones at the end, they'll know that once you get much below 40Hz you might as well not bother anyway - it's just taking up audio headroom which would be better used by other stuff. The 35Hz tone made our Genelec studio sub do some funny things, but we were buggered if we could HEAR it do anything sensible. This becomes a different ball game with big systems, but we're probably just splitting hairs over one or two Hz.

Anyway, I seem to remember someone explaining to me that vinyl has next to no bass on it when pressed, as otherwise the needle would jump all over the shop. That's why records sound weak if you accidentally plug your turntable into the Line socket instead of the Phono socket. The Phono socket runs the signal through an EQ curve which boosts the bass right back up. It looses definition in this process - and this is the "warmth" you hear people talking about. Though why this degradation can't be simulated if people really want it is beyond me...

So, on to high frequencies...

As I was saying in some other post, if you go by the Nyqust Sampling theorem then to avoid unwanted extra harmonic distortion then your sampling rate has to be twice the highest frequency you want present in your signal. This is the theoretical maths used by telecomms engineers when they're sending extremely high frequency signals down fibre optic cables etc.

http://www.animalbehavioronline.com/...erception.html

Anyway, look at this link, and you'll find that the range of hearing is from 20Hz to 20,000Hz - or 20kHz. CDs are samples at 44.1kHz, so that's well over twice the highest frequency in human hearing, so we're fine there.

Past that, it's up to you if you think the 16-bit resolution of CDs is enough to accurately represent the dynamic headroom of a vinyl cutting. It totally depends of the depth of the cut - which is then a complete science in of itself.

I'd be very interested to put some vinyl devotees - myself included, if I'm being completely honest, I love 'em - through a blind taste test. Or, even better, a similar test to the one which proved the Placebo Effect in medicine. I would bet good money that if you think it's coming off a record, you'll swear blind it sounds better.

Anyway, back to work.... :evil:

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Originally Posted by IntError

in return i would like to hear the mp3 fanatics concede that mp3's are not a profitably
viable medium.

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The only reason I don't concede that is because not enough people do it yet. But, every time you see a kid with MP3s, he is a potential lost mp3 sale. He could also just be a pirate. But, you never know. Since piracy will exist regardless, I just don't see a reason not to sell high quality MP3 (or any other digital format) off of a webpage. Especially if a label already has webspace. Personally, I think it makes the moral bit harder to ignore. The accessability argument surrounding a limited number of runs goes out the window. I don't see how selling MP3s off of a webpage is going to increase piracy either. At worst, it would probably stay about the same. So, if you're already losing out on some sales as a result of people using P2P networks, why not test out the water and see if anyone's willing to buy? Selling at $1-$2 a song probably will get you a nicer return than what you get through a distributor per record.

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Originally Posted by tocsin

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Originally Posted by IntError

in return i would like to hear the mp3 fanatics concede that mp3's are not a profitably
viable medium.

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I don't see how selling MP3s off of a webpage is going to increase piracy either. At worst, it would probably stay about the same. So, if you're already losing out on some sales as a result of people using P2P networks, why not test out the water and see if anyone's willing to buy? Selling at $1-$2 a song probably will get you a nicer return than what you get through a distributor per record.

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this is a good point.
many distro's and shops that are close with you, get offended if you directly sell your merchandise (of any medium) to djs for less money than your to wholesale buyers.

for example, if you stood to loose a large enough distro account, you might essentially have to charge $9 for a 4 track mp3 'ep' anyways.