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lost magic of vinyl


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Old 23-10-2011, 10:23
ffawkes
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with downloads now being he de facto norm for owning music, many mourn the move from CD, where you could touch and hold the medium, but for me vinyl held the greatest magic.

memories of music involved not just its sound, but also the album cover artwork for which the sheer size of an lp cover gave a big canvas to work on.

one of the other associations for me and one I still remember is the record label each artist recorded on, so i still have strong association of the beatles and parlophone, rolling stones and decca, hendrix and track, jethro tull and chrysalis, and so on and so on- and i can still picture the colours and lettering of the lp labels.

downloading gives quick nd easy access to music and the ability to store lots of music on a small device but the downside is not only a loss of audio quality in the mp3 format but also the loss of the touch feel and smell of the old medium.
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Old 23-10-2011, 10:27
zackai48
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I agree wholeheartedly.
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Old 23-10-2011, 10:49
CLL Dodge
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As much as I loved LP packaging the physical discs always were a pain in the arse. CDs are great, though most of the packaging is uninventive.

Downloads are more ephemeral. Not really for collectors and with zero value beyond the pleasure of listening to the tracks.
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Old 23-10-2011, 11:13
too_fast_4_u
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I loved vinyl for DJ'in but its all MP3 now and its easy to get hold of certain tunes
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Old 23-10-2011, 11:42
Inkblot
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Two big changes for the worse as far as I'm concerned: we've lost the sequenced album, where the order of the tracks increases the impact of the album as a whole; and we've lost the user-friendliness of being able to "see" the music on the disc. You used to be able to see where the groove darkened between tracks, and lightened where the music got louder, so it was easier to get a mental picture of the album as a whole.

That may sound nuts but nowadays I find I'm much less engaged with a new album until I've listened to it over and over several times, because it's now only sound, whereas before there was the album cover art, the track listing, the visible groove on the disc, the physical act of locating a song on the disc and so on. Take away the other dimensions and music somehow becomes less accessible.
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Old 23-10-2011, 14:20
Maccles
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Why all this talk in the past tense? In the year 2010 over 10 million vinyl albums were sold worldwide. The most number sold since 1992. Many artists still release their singles and albums on vinyl. Amazon's vinyl section is booming. CDWow's is larger than ever. HMV are still giving great prices on 7" and 12" singles and pretty decent prices for new albums although i disagree with the £8.99 price tag on Lady Gaga's You & I 7" vinyl single.

It's not a dead format by any means. Times have moved on and guess what? All those people that walk around with headphones on and sitting with PC speakers to listen to music? They don't hear the music the way it is meant to be heard. They probably can't afford to buy a decent turntable or even a decent CD player. They can't afford a decent hi-fi and they think spending a couple hundred quid on a tiny little machine is giving them good sound quality, mp3s that have been so compressed it is an insult to the people that made the music.

Let the young kids enjoy the music the way they want to. My system is around £450 altogether and I don't mind paying £15 for an album on vinyl, i don't mind paying £4.99 for a 7" single or a 12" single. These young teens don't have that kind of money. The average man and woman, the working class as i like to call them can't always afford that kind of money on music. Music has got to the point now where there is people who just wanna listen to the tracks for the sake of listening to them and then people like myself who really want the best sound quality possible and mp3s are not the solution for that. Gatefold covers with great quality printing, reading the lyrics, seeing the artwork, physically holding something which has the music on it.

It's chalk and cheese. Music is disposable to young people these days but it's fine cause their listening on cheap little tiny earpieces or through their computer which isn't very good either. Anyone who makes computers will tell you the sound is the ass end of the computer. That's the part developers spend the least amount of money on cause the person listening on the other end of the speakers probably doesn't know any better anyway. They're not made for music. Just like TV speakers, they're not there to play music or watch hi-def movies on. They're as basic as you can get and are made for speech, which is what most TV shows rely on, they rely on speech, the voice, so as long as that is clear then everything is ok according to them.

And as far as DJs moving to MP3s, you're not a DJ. A 5 year old can press a button. That's not DJing, another lost art. The way people buy and interact with music is completely different. No more do people sit in a room with the family or friends and listen on a system MADE to play music. It's a private experience now, hunched over on the bus with the headphones in, sitting at a desk trying to download mp3s. It's all very private and secretive and artists make their money eitherway. They make little effort in what their album does, someone else makes the decision what songs go on it, someone else decides what the cover art will be, someone else decides if they're gonna have 16 pages with lyrics and liner notes or 8 pages with pictures and designs that weren't deemed good enough to make it on the front cover. And as for the sequence of the songs? That don't matter either! You really think the people downloading music really sit and listen to an album start to finish? Course they don't. They play the songs they know then go through the rest. Maybe listen to 10 seconds of one song, oh i don't like that beat, double click on the next song, oh that sounds, double click on the next one to see how that sounds. And while we are at might aswell log into Facebook and speak to the family and friends, God forbid i leave the house and speak to them in person!
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Old 23-10-2011, 14:29
too_fast_4_u
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And as far as DJs moving to MP3s, you're not a DJ. A 5 year old can press a button. That's not DJing,
your out of touch dude.

theres still a skill in beat matching, linking phases, learning keys, timing to name a few.

yes i am a dj
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Old 23-10-2011, 14:39
Maccles
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I could learn that in 5 minutes.
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Old 23-10-2011, 15:40
ajman
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I agree with most of what you say although the annoyance of having to turn an LP over half way through playing an album was a major negative compared to the later formats.
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Old 23-10-2011, 15:57
too_fast_4_u
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I could learn that in 5 minutes.
please do so and post your results in 5 minutes then....troll comes to mind
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Old 23-10-2011, 16:31
m06een00
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I agree totally about vinyl. With a good turntable and decent cartridge with quality amp and speakers, the sound of CD bears no comparison. Fortunately I kept all my old vinyl, and turntable despite my changed tastes. I would still never sell any of my LPs.

We were sold a huge lie in the 80s that the sound of CD was as close you could get to the master disk. Many CDs soiund shrill and lack the depth that vinyl could bring. The recording quality of music today is not what it was either, at least in the pop/rock area, which doesn't help matters. But as kids today generally don't have the interest in music like they did for generations I don't see any improvement in recording quality coming. No wonder CD sales have slumped over the years, and it's not just illegal downloading.behind it. In the old days many people taped LPs, yet the sales of LPs still remained healthy.
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Old 23-10-2011, 18:19
leosw4
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your out of touch dude.

theres still a skill in beat matching, linking phases, learning keys, timing to name a few.

yes i am a dj
Many big name DJs are using MP3s. In fact its expanding there ability to play around with the music.

I preferred CDs to vinyl. Now prefer MP3s to CDs so its all good.
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Old 23-10-2011, 18:24
spiney2
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yes, SCRATCH SCRATCH something CLICK nice has POP gone from the world ....... SCRATCH SCRATCH THUD
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Old 23-10-2011, 18:54
Capablanca
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yes, SCRATCH SCRATCH something CLICK nice has POP gone from the world ....... SCRATCH SCRATCH THUD
You should have looked after your records a little better.
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Old 23-10-2011, 19:02
ffawkes
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i agree scratches were a downside yet funnily enough a click a nd pop or two could actually add a bit of character to an album

by the way this isn't just some nostalgia trip, mp3 files definitely hold less musical information that a cd or lp, and a well pressed analogue lp played on a good deck conveys more musical presence than either, though not the clinical precision of cd

hopefully with the ever cheaper cost of computer storage we might soon see a move to the flac format replacing mp3 which will give better quality to digital music for those who want it

just a final thought - that mp3 is that rare occasion where public demand is for something of lower quality than its predecessors
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