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A buddy of mine just acquired one of these machines (actually a beta version of a new product that will hopefully enter the market soon), and I've been helping

by Mizza 2y ago

A buddy of mine just acquired one of these machines (actually a beta version of a new product that will hopefully enter the market soon), and I've been helping him along the way as we try to get some good records out of it. It's not easy! It's not like plugging in a printer. There are so many variables to consider (materials, temperatures, pressures, angles, sharpnesses, volumes, phase), magical anti-static solution formulas, airflow, isolation, line control. The margin of error can be as low as 100 microns, and if you screw up, you might break a $200 diamond shank which have to be specially manufactured and imported. And that's before you even get to the actual audio quality! Still, it's fun to use and great to have 1-of-a-kind dubplates.

yapyap 2y ago
Reading this it sounds like an early 3d printer, where you’d have to manually align stuff and make sure its nicely flat and all that. All in all great fun though!
namaria 2y ago
Knowing what I learned about vinyl mastering back when I was DJing in college... There's about to be a whole lot of shitty records out there.
- 6stringmerc 2y ago
  Agreed, and that’s why I’m sitting this one out and instead pouring all my investment capital into the next craze, reel-to-reel machines!
  - IgorPartola 2y ago
    To me there is nothing cooler than a huge reel to reel when it comes to different formats. If I had some free time and space for it I would definitely want to buy one of the giant consoles and then hook up a write head right before the read head so that it can play off any digital source like Spotify but still do it with the huge reels and everything.
    - kylebenzle 2y ago
      Weird!
    - Nevermark 2y ago
      Why wouldn’t you just use the reel like a visual-only scroll bar for stylish physical feedback on play progress? Either way, the physical media in your imagined setup, and what you are playing, have no special relationship. No need to use it like a bad transmission wire. If it can’t transmit across time (storage) it is not a real “reel” anyway.
      - card_zero 2y ago
        I enjoy noise music, I just finished listening to a 20-minute arrhythmic improvisational jazz track with a guy singing in a kind of Simlish. So I can imagine that lower fidelity, or a bad transmission wire, might be part of an enjoyable experience. On the other hand, apart from the trivial detail of us all living in our own unique problem situations, I'm pretty sure that my preferences are the best and anybody else would be revealed to have stupid ones, if only we could communicate about them. But (speaking of bad transmission wires) detailed communication about ineffable private experiences is patchy at best, so regrettably we have to leave one another in peace to enjoy stuff, and lay off on the backseat driving.
        Nevermark 2y ago
        Touché!
  - miunau 2y ago
    You jest, but R2R is what some audiophiles are generally on about as being the bees knees, and has been getting popular again. I like physical music, but the prices on those is too much. I have heard some really good sounding reels, though I can never shake the feeling that they just have been recorded really, really well, using expensive equipment I can't afford to even rent, and would've sounded the same having been recorded digitally.
    - 6stringmerc 2y ago
      That I do and you’re also spot on that it does have a lot of merit as a medium - Les Paul did so much for music by lugging R2R gear around and proving its worth in the studio that his legacy is at the pinnacle of any and all people who, well, love music!
      - miunau 2y ago
        Could do worse than investing in some reels in this climate. At least they're fungible.
- maccard 2y ago
  You can still pay for a master and print the vinyl yourself. A 10 track album might cost an extra £10 per track for a vinyl master, but each print of a record is 3x that.
  - namaria 2y ago
    Professional mastering costs considerably more than 10 quids per track, and vinyl mastering, to my point, is a niche and somewhat arcane skill set.
    - maccard 2y ago
      I said an _extra_ £10. I've just recorded an album and had it's being mastered this week. We're paying £60/track for mastering, and an extra £10/track for vinyl mastering.,
      - namaria 2y ago
        Fair enough, I misread your comment.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Mistletoe 2y ago
It sounds fun but reminds me of my recent foray into cassette culture where I rediscovered that while I love everything about cassettes and making them, I had forgotten they sound like crap haha. I’m currently into making CDs.
- IgorPartola 2y ago
  I saw an estimate a while ago that cassettes have like 3-5 bit depth equivalent on average.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    https://youtu.be/UqiBJbREUgU?t=628 https://youtu.be/UqiBJbREUgU?t=628 Digital Show & Tell from Monty at Xiph > Those of you who have used analog recording equipment may have just thought to yourselves, "My goodness! That sounds like tape hiss!" Well, it doesn't just sound like tape hiss, it acts like it, too. And if we use a Gaussian dither, then it's mathematically equivalent in every way. It _is_ tape hiss! > Intuitively, that means we can measure tape hiss, and thus the noise floor of magnetic audio tape, in bits, instead of decibels, in order to put things in a digital perspective. Compact cassettes... (Monty holds up a tape, then glares at it and flips it over in his hand) ... for those of you who are old enough to remember them, could reach as deep as nine bits in perfect conditions, though five to six bits was more typical, especially if it was a recording made on a tape deck. > That's right - Your mixtapes were only about six bits deep, if you were lucky. The very best professional open-reel tape used in studios could barely hit - any guesses? - 13 bits _with_ advanced noise reduction.
  - miunau 2y ago
    It's not an apples to apples comparison, really. Tape is desirable for its nonlinear (read: saturation) characteristics, and those can't really be measured in a very comparable manner by taking a regular digital domain bit depth analysis and dropping it in the tape world using the background hiss and 0dB as a clamp. It's an OK talking point, but it's easily oversimplified. Hiss is variable, too. When calculating the low end of the range from the background hiss, do we consider a -80dB hiss above ~2000Hz affecting the "bit depth" more than -80dB hiss below it? The hiss is nowhere near white noise either, so some frequency ranges are more affected than others.
miunau 2y ago
Your buddy might like https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-simulathe-cut/ https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-simulathe-cut/ which simulates the vinyl grooves on your computer.

by Mizza 2y ago

yapyap 2y ago

Reading this it sounds like an early 3d printer, where you’d have to manually align stuff and make sure its nicely flat and all that. All in all great fun though!

namaria 2y ago

Knowing what I learned about vinyl mastering back when I was DJing in college... There's about to be a whole lot of shitty records out there.

6stringmerc 2y ago
Agreed, and that’s why I’m sitting this one out and instead pouring all my investment capital into the next craze, reel-to-reel machines!
- IgorPartola 2y ago
  To me there is nothing cooler than a huge reel to reel when it comes to different formats. If I had some free time and space for it I would definitely want to buy one of the giant consoles and then hook up a write head right before the read head so that it can play off any digital source like Spotify but still do it with the huge reels and everything.
  - kylebenzle 2y ago
    Weird!
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    Why wouldn’t you just use the reel like a visual-only scroll bar for stylish physical feedback on play progress? Either way, the physical media in your imagined setup, and what you are playing, have no special relationship. No need to use it like a bad transmission wire. If it can’t transmit across time (storage) it is not a real “reel” anyway.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      I enjoy noise music, I just finished listening to a 20-minute arrhythmic improvisational jazz track with a guy singing in a kind of Simlish. So I can imagine that lower fidelity, or a bad transmission wire, might be part of an enjoyable experience. On the other hand, apart from the trivial detail of us all living in our own unique problem situations, I'm pretty sure that my preferences are the best and anybody else would be revealed to have stupid ones, if only we could communicate about them. But (speaking of bad transmission wires) detailed communication about ineffable private experiences is patchy at best, so regrettably we have to leave one another in peace to enjoy stuff, and lay off on the backseat driving.
      - Nevermark 2y ago
        Touché!
- miunau 2y ago
  You jest, but R2R is what some audiophiles are generally on about as being the bees knees, and has been getting popular again. I like physical music, but the prices on those is too much. I have heard some really good sounding reels, though I can never shake the feeling that they just have been recorded really, really well, using expensive equipment I can't afford to even rent, and would've sounded the same having been recorded digitally.
  - 6stringmerc 2y ago
    That I do and you’re also spot on that it does have a lot of merit as a medium - Les Paul did so much for music by lugging R2R gear around and proving its worth in the studio that his legacy is at the pinnacle of any and all people who, well, love music!
    - miunau 2y ago
      Could do worse than investing in some reels in this climate. At least they're fungible.
maccard 2y ago
You can still pay for a master and print the vinyl yourself. A 10 track album might cost an extra £10 per track for a vinyl master, but each print of a record is 3x that.
- namaria 2y ago
  Professional mastering costs considerably more than 10 quids per track, and vinyl mastering, to my point, is a niche and somewhat arcane skill set.
  - maccard 2y ago
    I said an _extra_ £10. I've just recorded an album and had it's being mastered this week. We're paying £60/track for mastering, and an extra £10/track for vinyl mastering.,
    - namaria 2y ago
      Fair enough, I misread your comment.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Mistletoe 2y ago

It sounds fun but reminds me of my recent foray into cassette culture where I rediscovered that while I love everything about cassettes and making them, I had forgotten they sound like crap haha. I’m currently into making CDs.

IgorPartola 2y ago
I saw an estimate a while ago that cassettes have like 3-5 bit depth equivalent on average.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  https://youtu.be/UqiBJbREUgU?t=628 https://youtu.be/UqiBJbREUgU?t=628 Digital Show & Tell from Monty at Xiph > Those of you who have used analog recording equipment may have just thought to yourselves, "My goodness! That sounds like tape hiss!" Well, it doesn't just sound like tape hiss, it acts like it, too. And if we use a Gaussian dither, then it's mathematically equivalent in every way. It _is_ tape hiss! > Intuitively, that means we can measure tape hiss, and thus the noise floor of magnetic audio tape, in bits, instead of decibels, in order to put things in a digital perspective. Compact cassettes... (Monty holds up a tape, then glares at it and flips it over in his hand) ... for those of you who are old enough to remember them, could reach as deep as nine bits in perfect conditions, though five to six bits was more typical, especially if it was a recording made on a tape deck. > That's right - Your mixtapes were only about six bits deep, if you were lucky. The very best professional open-reel tape used in studios could barely hit - any guesses? - 13 bits _with_ advanced noise reduction.
- miunau 2y ago
  It's not an apples to apples comparison, really. Tape is desirable for its nonlinear (read: saturation) characteristics, and those can't really be measured in a very comparable manner by taking a regular digital domain bit depth analysis and dropping it in the tape world using the background hiss and 0dB as a clamp. It's an OK talking point, but it's easily oversimplified. Hiss is variable, too. When calculating the low end of the range from the background hiss, do we consider a -80dB hiss above ~2000Hz affecting the "bit depth" more than -80dB hiss below it? The hiss is nowhere near white noise either, so some frequency ranges are more affected than others.

miunau 2y ago

Your buddy might like https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-simulathe-cut/ https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-simulathe-cut/ which simulates the vinyl grooves on your computer.