Scratch Live/Vinyl

[perceptualChaos]

more faithfully reproduce digital sound

 

pretty much the definition of fidelity as I used it

 

vinyl adds something that can never be perfectly recreated by digital software

 

like noise?

 

 

nah but seriously he also says that most tunes put onto vinyl were digital at one point so the vinyl in this case is no more analog than CD.

 

If, as an engineer you wanted to go for a 'warm' sound you could just lo-pass your tunes and put it through some nice analog gear during the mastering... you'd get the same (or better) result without vinyl every being involved

[Phil O]

nah but seriously he also says that most tunes put onto vinyl were digital at one point so the vinyl in this case is no more analog than CD.

 

However once it has been pressed it is a physical thing that you can touch, a kind of instrument which the needle plays. Obviously it is processed by the mixer and amp so it becomes digital again on the way to the speakers and then converted into an actual sound once again, but the record itself still has a characteristic that can never be perfectly digitally recreated.

 

Digital recreations of reality are never the same because they don't adhere to the laws of physics as we currently understand them. They are our best attempt to recreate reality in information form.

[zeb]

i get hypnotised by the two decks spinning round.....

[phonetics]

Nice one Cludeo man, that's a good as reason as any to stay with vinyl

 

Well, after reading all that I can firmly say I'm staying with the vinyl. I feel that disadvantages (i.e. transportation, cost, sound quality deterioration) of vinyl are by far outweighed by the advantages...I guess it does just feel better, for me anyways...

 

That part mentioned about tracks being released in MP3 form only seems like the record label shooting itself in the foot? They'll always be hardcore vinyl fans in the future - i think i'm gonna be one of 'em!

[joachim]

Stop making me cut and paste to wordpad to read your posts Joe

 

Forum novice imo.

 

Just hit quote next time you dick.

[perceptualChaos]

However once it has been pressed it is a physical thing that you can touch, a kind of instrument which the needle plays. Obviously it is processed by the mixer and amp so it becomes digital again on the way to the speakers and then converted into an actual sound once again, but the record itself still has a characteristic that can never be perfectly digitally recreated.

 

Digital recreations of reality are never the same because they don't adhere to the laws of physics as we currently understand them. They are our best attempt to recreate reality in information form.

 

I think I know what you're trying to say bro but the way you're explaining it isn't really true and I think you might have a few misunderstandings about analog vs digital, sampling and signal processing. For a start, the mixer and amp do not make it digital again unless the mixer is a digital mixer (rare).

 

When I was saying most tunes were digital at one point I mean they were made on a computer and given to the mastering engineer as a wav file which is digital. That means when you zoom in on it, it looks something like the picture below which is about 1ms of a sample of a reese I made

 

 

When the engineer cuts the waveform to vinyl it still looks pretty much exactly like that picture so although it's analog in the sense that at any point in time there is a signal value - it's still digital in the sense that the waveform has discrete "quantized" values which change abruptly every 23 microseconds just like it does on a CD.

 

The extra stuff that the needle physically moving in the vinyl groove adds is mainly noise due to the random fluctuations and harmonic distortion due to the nonlinear characteristics of the cartridge... there's nothing special about it - if you wanted a little bit of extra overdrive you could run your mixdown through a nice analog valve limiter and it would sound phat

 

Personally I think due to economic reasons the number of record labels still pressing to vinyl in 15 years is going to pretty damn small... and DJ's are just going to have to adapt with technology. In saying that, I think there will always be some place for vinyl cause there's so much music that has been released solely on vinyl.

[Nato]

I prefer the slightly softer, rough around the edges sound of vinyl on a club soundsystem. This is probably due to the fact that the system is tuned to sound good with vinyl, which in turn causes the cdj's to sound overly bright. Sound aside both formats have their advantages:

 

Vinyl = tactile, collectable, sleeve art

MP3 = portable, easy to acquire & cheap, more manipulation options via cdj's

 

Personally I still enjoy the ritual of buying records, and will continue to do so as long as they are being produced I imagine. Djing-wise I prefer playing vinyl but of course I don't think anybody should restrict themselves to one format. I'm not going to be the elitist who claims 100% vinyl purity.

[Phil O]

All Im saying is that digital descriptions of a sound on a computer/CD and a real sound are not the same thing.

 

Its like saying a realistic video game is the same as reality, hence the Matrix comparison.

[Grind]

Vinyl sounds better, looks cooler, is more expensive, is heavier, has no lag, doesn't need an OS, comes with art (sometimes), isn't a CD, is old-school, is collectible, can get warped, has a resale value, is tactile..

 

mp3's are worthless pieces of data at the end of the day

 

CDs are really convenient for playing fresh/unsigned tunes, easier to cart round, can be backed up and replaced, and are cheap.. still don't really like 'em though..

 

Serato.. If you're just playing at home most of the time you should be sweet. But the more different clubs you play at the more likely you'll have a mare at some point. I don't wanna risk it, don't trust Windows either. Rane need to bypass the need for a laptop and just have their own USB/touch-screen fixed interface device.. ohhh yeah.

[perceptualChaos]

All Im saying is that digital descriptions of a sound on a computer/CD and a real sound are not the same thing.

 

k i still don't see how that relates to vinyl though... in a computer the information is represented as transistor voltages and on vinyl it's represented as groove displacements - neither of them are the original sound they are just representations of it.

 

on a potentially interesting geeky side note:

 

According to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem you can exactly reproduce any waveform after sampling it so long as the sampling rate is greater than 2 times the highest frequency in the waveform. One could therefore say that although digital waveforms appear to be missing information compared with analog waveforms - they infact still implicitly hold all the 'missing' information which can be reconstructed through appropriate interpolation.

[Merge]

on an extremely geeky side note:

[zeb]

Serato.. If you're just playing at home most of the time you should be sweet. But the more different clubs you play at the more likely you'll have a mare at some point. I don't wanna risk it, don't trust Windows either. Rane need to bypass the need for a laptop and just have their own USB/touch-screen fixed interface device.. ohhh yeah.

 

agree 100%......

im not afraid to jump out of my comfort zone to embrace this new technology eventually but when people on the d-floor are depending on you to entertain them and your lappy has a cry or a meltdown it must feel pretty stink...

id compare it to not landing one trick in a skate contest(which i have done),total letdown for yourself and anyone watching.

 

besides the obvious debate going on here has anyone noticed how serato tends to make "some" djs play a bit of wack shit cos its all of sudden easy to mix it..like who gives a shit if milli vanilli and new kids on the block mixes perfect,they sucked the first time around ,why revive that..???

or also the same "classic tracks"..i.e billy jean,shook ones,anything by biggie...

 

*disclaimer.....billy jean,shook ones and anything by biggie are amazing tunes and i was not intending to discredit their validity or brilliance...just getting a bit over hearing every hip hop serato dj do that mix....

[mike]

Just a matter of originality innit? If one DJ is doing a certain combo that sounds good every set (or few sets), then in my mind its been copyrighted as such, find your own tricks =p I don't mind hearing billie jean two times in a night if they are teasing it over a different tune.

 

Just like I don't want to hear every DJ play the same one tune every night. With Serato there is less of an excuse cause you got a ton more music to play with.

[zeb]

yeah thats what i mean...in theory with serato you have the entire history of recorded sound available to you so originality and spontaneity should be the most important factor involved but i guess classic tunes are classic tunes for a reason,everyone in the room knows the words and can sing along which makes the party better and brings up the vibe....

 

but i did like what marky did the other night with bob marley and billy jean...i dont think ive heard a dnb crowd all sing like that together before.good times.

anyway im rambling.....back to the lab....