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If the general consensus is that vinyl sounds better, and the improvement is largely from rolling off highs and mono-ing lows - why don't the digital masters us

If the general consensus is that vinyl sounds better, and the improvement is largely from rolling off highs and mono-ing lows - why don't the digital masters use the same technique? ie, why isn't there only a vinyl-ready master? I'm not disagreeing - just interested. I actually roll off the highs via EQ for almost all my headphones and speakers.

louthy 2y ago
Making lows mono doesn't sound better (although sometimes it can make the bass seem less muddy, but if you have muddy stereo bass you'd normally fix that too). Some of the highs and lows come back in the pressing. You cut more in the vinyl master only for them to be recovered somewhat in the pressing. You don't get it all back, so the effect I guess has an element of the unknown. Thought I'd just clarify that. The distortion and chorusing are definitely aspects of 'warmth' too. So, it's not just about the highs and lows. Producers absolutely try to 'warm up' their digital sound sources, stems, and masters with harmonic distortion. I guess you'll always get a bit more with vinyl. I think some of this is the culture of the industry itself. The major recording studios, engineers, etc. were on a 'war against distortion and noise' from the early 50s. Then digital came along and suddenly it was possible to have low-noise floors and pretty much zero distortion through digital sound sources (plugins). Because digital was deemed to be 'cold', there has been a bit of a backlash against that in the past decade or so: * Major mixing console manufacturers, like SSL, after decades of trying to make their mixers as clean as possible are now releasing desks like the Origin [1] which are throwbacks to their late 70s desks. Every classic compressor, EQ, delay, flanger, phaser... from the 50s onwards, still exists either in original form or cloned-form. People are still buying the equipment of the past to make music. And digital plugin manufacturers are stil releasing plugins that try to emulate the old gear. * New genres appeared like 'lo-fi' [2] that actively does what you say. It tries to degrade the sound for digital too. * The fact that vinyl isn't just still here, but resurgent, is I guess more evidence of that. But I still think, to a certain extent, that professionals in the industry want to use the full range and accept that some of it will be lost with a vinyl press. Brighter music is perceived to be louder, so on a radio or something like that, it will cut through better and be more likely to be noticed. I think the recent end of the 'loudness wars' [3] may well see some changes toward releases with different EQ curves. I own over 10,000 records. I don't buy them because they're 'warmer', I buy them for the UX! I have a terrible memory, but I remember the sleeve of every record I own. I don't know what they're called, just "it's the green one"! I think the warmth argument is slightly overplayed, but I also understand why subliminally people might feel that records are subjectively better because of it. [1] https://solidstatelogic.com/products/origin https://solidstatelogic.com/products/origin [2] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-lofi-explained https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-lofi-explained [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- turbojet1321 2y ago
  That's really interesting; thanks. I didn't realize the loudness wars had "ended", though I suppose with a lot of streaming services normalizing levels across playlists, there's less benefit. On the physical aspect - I do miss that from CDs, especially looking through liner notes. Streaming in particular made remembering albums difficult for me. I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though, so now I have everything ripped or bought digitally and available from my media server. It's not quite the same as browsing through CDs, but it's a lot closer. 10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room? My ~300 CDs were annoying enough to store, lol.
  - louthy 2y ago
    > I didn't realize the loudness wars had "ended", though I suppose with a lot of streaming services normalizing levels across playlists, there's less benefit. Exactly this. If you're destroying the dynamic-range of your song so that it sounds louder, only for it to be turned down based on perceived loudness (LUFS [1]), then all you're doing is making your song worse. "Ended" might be an extreme statement, you still need to maximise loudness, but destroying dynamic range, to the extent that was happening before, isn't needed any more. > I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though Me too. I play most music off Spotify, don't have an issue with that, just need to find out what everything I like was called :D I was a DJ at a pro-level for a long time (from 1999), so vinyl was how I got fresh underground music each week. Going to record stores listening to what had just come in. Used to get vinyl promos too, but those have long since finished, all promos are digital now. I haven't really taken DJing seriously for more than a decade now, but if I'm buying music to play then I still buy vinyl (again for the UX, not some pretentious 'vinyl is better' reasons). For home listening though, digital is better quality and easier to access. Personally, I prefer having the extra fidelity also. > 10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room? Two rooms, under the stairs, and some are used as to partially acoustically treat my studio [2], although that doesn't make them particularly easy to access! Not all vinyl was made equal ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS [2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IMG_1411.heic?rlkey=lvujqh9bk80juoxxtg01xatj7&st=72vvrywv&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IMG_141...

louthy 2y ago

Making lows mono doesn't sound better (although sometimes it can make the bass seem less muddy, but if you have muddy stereo bass you'd normally fix that too). Some of the highs and lows come back in the pressing. You cut more in the vinyl master only for them to be recovered somewhat in the pressing. You don't get it all back, so the effect I guess has an element of the unknown. Thought I'd just clarify that. The distortion and chorusing are definitely aspects of 'warmth' too. So, it's not just about the highs and lows. Producers absolutely try to 'warm up' their digital sound sources, stems, and masters with harmonic distortion. I guess you'll always get a bit more with vinyl. I think some of this is the culture of the industry itself. The major recording studios, engineers, etc. were on a 'war against distortion and noise' from the early 50s. Then digital came along and suddenly it was possible to have low-noise floors and pretty much zero distortion through digital sound sources (plugins). Because digital was deemed to be 'cold', there has been a bit of a backlash against that in the past decade or so: * Major mixing console manufacturers, like SSL, after decades of trying to make their mixers as clean as possible are now releasing desks like the Origin [1] which are throwbacks to their late 70s desks. Every classic compressor, EQ, delay, flanger, phaser... from the 50s onwards, still exists either in original form or cloned-form. People are still buying the equipment of the past to make music. And digital plugin manufacturers are stil releasing plugins that try to emulate the old gear. * New genres appeared like 'lo-fi' [2] that actively does what you say. It tries to degrade the sound for digital too. * The fact that vinyl isn't just still here, but resurgent, is I guess more evidence of that. But I still think, to a certain extent, that professionals in the industry want to use the full range and accept that some of it will be lost with a vinyl press. Brighter music is perceived to be louder, so on a radio or something like that, it will cut through better and be more likely to be noticed. I think the recent end of the 'loudness wars' [3] may well see some changes toward releases with different EQ curves. I own over 10,000 records. I don't buy them because they're 'warmer', I buy them for the UX! I have a terrible memory, but I remember the sleeve of every record I own. I don't know what they're called, just "it's the green one"! I think the warmth argument is slightly overplayed, but I also understand why subliminally people might feel that records are subjectively better because of it. [1] https://solidstatelogic.com/products/origin https://solidstatelogic.com/products/origin [2] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-lofi-explained https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-lofi-explained [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

turbojet1321 2y ago
That's really interesting; thanks. I didn't realize the loudness wars had "ended", though I suppose with a lot of streaming services normalizing levels across playlists, there's less benefit. On the physical aspect - I do miss that from CDs, especially looking through liner notes. Streaming in particular made remembering albums difficult for me. I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though, so now I have everything ripped or bought digitally and available from my media server. It's not quite the same as browsing through CDs, but it's a lot closer. 10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room? My ~300 CDs were annoying enough to store, lol.
- louthy 2y ago
  > I didn't realize the loudness wars had "ended", though I suppose with a lot of streaming services normalizing levels across playlists, there's less benefit. Exactly this. If you're destroying the dynamic-range of your song so that it sounds louder, only for it to be turned down based on perceived loudness (LUFS [1]), then all you're doing is making your song worse. "Ended" might be an extreme statement, you still need to maximise loudness, but destroying dynamic range, to the extent that was happening before, isn't needed any more. > I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though Me too. I play most music off Spotify, don't have an issue with that, just need to find out what everything I like was called :D I was a DJ at a pro-level for a long time (from 1999), so vinyl was how I got fresh underground music each week. Going to record stores listening to what had just come in. Used to get vinyl promos too, but those have long since finished, all promos are digital now. I haven't really taken DJing seriously for more than a decade now, but if I'm buying music to play then I still buy vinyl (again for the UX, not some pretentious 'vinyl is better' reasons). For home listening though, digital is better quality and easier to access. Personally, I prefer having the extra fidelity also. > 10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room? Two rooms, under the stairs, and some are used as to partially acoustically treat my studio [2], although that doesn't make them particularly easy to access! Not all vinyl was made equal ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS [2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IMG_1411.heic?rlkey=lvujqh9bk80juoxxtg01xatj7&st=72vvrywv&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IMG_141...