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I just complained about the post you're complaining about, but I'm also going to complain about yours. There is actually a "super-duper special master just for

by Nition 10y ago

I just complained about the post you're complaining about, but I'm also going to complain about yours. There is actually a "super-duper special master just for vinyl" in many cases, with more dnamic range. The reason I've heard for that happening, though this could be wrong, is that the needle would be more likely to jump out of the groove with the loudness that CD masters are often getting. Whether that's true or not, the vinyl release often has a different, less compressed master. Some people rip the vinyl versions to digital for that reason.

klodolph 10y ago
Skipping is caused by high acceleration, so vinyl masters might use something called "acceleration limiting". The vinyl master might also mix the bass down to mono. So, in order to fix problems with needles jumping out of the groove, the solution is actually to apply more limiting and not less. Vinyl has also been a production afterthought since about 1990. You'd create a stereo mixdown and send it to the mastering engineer--but by then it would often have some master bus compression already applied to it, equalization, and limiting. The mastering engineer would spend most of their time, day in and day out, working with music meant for CDs, and maybe they'd tweak the CD master a little bit to make it acceptable for vinyl. So, basically, by the time the loudness war started, people didn't care enough about vinyl to make a special vinyl master, and by the time the vinyl resurgence hit us, the loudness war was mostly over. Hell, there's a ton of vinyl out there where they used the CD as a master, rather than using the original mixdown. The mastering engineer will cut a normal CD and send it to another mastering engineer which specializes in vinyl. Of course, there are exceptions. There are records mastered separately for CD and vinyl, and there are artists who would deliver pristine mixdowns to the mastering engineers. But the vast majority of vinyl releases are not special. There are even plenty of cases where the vinyl master was butchered a bit compared to the CD. I'm not trying to argue that CDs are better than vinyl in practice. I'm just arguing that there's not a technical reason to prefer vinyl, at least for most releases. If the difference you perceive is important to you, then the difference is real.
- beat 10y ago
  That's changing these days, as vinyl mastering becomes a forethought and not an afterthought, and cds are going the way of the dodo, in favor of compressed digital formats like mp3. Vinyl is selling well and is profitable. And it's not selling because people are pretentious hipsters who don't understand quality. It's selling because vinyl creates a better listening experience. People are getting back to listening to music other than as something to decorate their jogging.
  - klodolph 10y ago
    The "better listening experience" is a tired argument, if you have a sentimental / emotional attachment to vinyl then the advantage is very real but for those of us not attached to the medium the listening experience is not better. Vinyl may sell "well" but not if you compare it to other media, such as CDs. Even though CDs continue to collapse in popularity they still move 8x as many units as vinyl (and they're more durable, smaller, higher fidelity, etc). Albums instead are getting mastered for iTunes and Spotify, and that's had a much better effect on master quality than the vinyl resurgence.

by Nition 10y ago

klodolph 10y ago

Skipping is caused by high acceleration, so vinyl masters might use something called "acceleration limiting". The vinyl master might also mix the bass down to mono. So, in order to fix problems with needles jumping out of the groove, the solution is actually to apply more limiting and not less. Vinyl has also been a production afterthought since about 1990. You'd create a stereo mixdown and send it to the mastering engineer--but by then it would often have some master bus compression already applied to it, equalization, and limiting. The mastering engineer would spend most of their time, day in and day out, working with music meant for CDs, and maybe they'd tweak the CD master a little bit to make it acceptable for vinyl. So, basically, by the time the loudness war started, people didn't care enough about vinyl to make a special vinyl master, and by the time the vinyl resurgence hit us, the loudness war was mostly over. Hell, there's a ton of vinyl out there where they used the CD as a master, rather than using the original mixdown. The mastering engineer will cut a normal CD and send it to another mastering engineer which specializes in vinyl. Of course, there are exceptions. There are records mastered separately for CD and vinyl, and there are artists who would deliver pristine mixdowns to the mastering engineers. But the vast majority of vinyl releases are not special. There are even plenty of cases where the vinyl master was butchered a bit compared to the CD. I'm not trying to argue that CDs are better than vinyl in practice. I'm just arguing that there's not a technical reason to prefer vinyl, at least for most releases. If the difference you perceive is important to you, then the difference is real.

beat 10y ago
That's changing these days, as vinyl mastering becomes a forethought and not an afterthought, and cds are going the way of the dodo, in favor of compressed digital formats like mp3. Vinyl is selling well and is profitable. And it's not selling because people are pretentious hipsters who don't understand quality. It's selling because vinyl creates a better listening experience. People are getting back to listening to music other than as something to decorate their jogging.
- klodolph 10y ago
  The "better listening experience" is a tired argument, if you have a sentimental / emotional attachment to vinyl then the advantage is very real but for those of us not attached to the medium the listening experience is not better. Vinyl may sell "well" but not if you compare it to other media, such as CDs. Even though CDs continue to collapse in popularity they still move 8x as many units as vinyl (and they're more durable, smaller, higher fidelity, etc). Albums instead are getting mastered for iTunes and Spotify, and that's had a much better effect on master quality than the vinyl resurgence.