The upcoming resurgence of the CD

Started by Yrjö-Koskinen, March 22, 2018, 11:01:46 PM

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Lazrs3

I've always steadily bought both vinyl and cd without a preference as both were about when I was a teen, cds just seemed to be coming of age. Over the last 10 years I have bought a lot of tapes and they're building up. Please point me in the direction of any tape storage threads on here ;D

MyrtleLake

#31
Honestly, I don't get the whole insistence on the tape format thing. I uphold its use as a music making--and specifically, manipulation technique--tool for artists.  When I purchase music, I expect to hear what the artist intended: an honest representation of the master recording.

If you want as an artist to add tape hiss to a recording, well, then, record the audio after duplicating to a cassette as a final task. If you believe I will pay "more attention" by sitting in front of a stereo for the length of your composition, you're wrong. The walkman was developed a generation or more ago. The ability to record to a digital format for the layman is very real today.

As an admirer of music and artistic endeavor, please don't put unnecessary issues in my way to experiencing the result of your expression. I am not against the tape format as a method of delivery as such; however, I have come across far too many sub-par duplications to respect the format. The US, perhaps, has a particular problem with this. Foreign releases / labels have never (yet?) posed an issue in this regard. US labels / acts have come through my hands in the last year with plenty of problems... Poor physical cassettes, poor dubbing, a blank side. It is enough to sour me on the medium. Add on top of this the issue of buying a reliable, quality tape deck in 2018, and it is fully frustrating for someone that just wants to listen to the artists' creation with fidelity to their intended work.

A CD has accuracy of representation on its side. In the grand scheme of things, though, it is simply a physical archival format for digital information. Hell, how many "analogue" masters are truly digital information? i.e. DAT How many vinyl recordings are produced from digital files? How many cassettes are professionally duplicated at the plant from digital recordings? For the "true believers" going into the future, I expect to eventually see talk of the superiority of 24-bit--or 32-bit or 64-bit--digital files. The CD standard format is 41,100 sample rate and 16-bit encoding. Bandcamp already offers larger files. Eventually, of course, you have to recon with what is truly distinguishable to the human ear.

One person who is wise to this whole debate, I would argue, is Tom Ellard (i.e. Severed Heads). On his last physical release, he sold a business card USB with physical artwork and an object. It was offered through Bandcamp, and the purchaser instantly received the digital file. The USB provides a physical archive (much like a CD) with various configurations. For example, a single track in .WAV and FLAC, that single composition divided into "songs" in MP3 format... that kind of variety.

Looking forward, I would encourage labels to consider their options. For example, I would love to see a digital download label that also offered physical artwork as an added option. Essentially, that is what CDs are now. The six panel digipak with full color booklet of images and lyrics accompanying the CON-DOM CD on Malignant? That is worth something to me... more than the piece of plastic digital information called a CD. I downloaded that to my computer upon purchase on Bandcamp and haven't ever touched the CD.

XXX

i'd wager there are some who love the ephemeral nature of life and music.

Theodore

I have gone through various mindsets in time. MyrtleLake, i was thinking the same things somewhen, pretty much. Now, i look back and i see me wanting it easy, now, cheap, free. And that i was trying to excuse myself disguising my lazyness with more or less the same arguments as you. Truth is i never really felt any kind of joy buying or pirating digital files. Actualy now i think i was a fool to even pay a dollar for them, the few times i did. More important, the proccess of obtaining digital files, their non-physical nature, made me value musical content less, it still does. Even ripping a release has something more than downloading files.

I guess music for me is half the fun. If it was on my hand, digital master files for purchase shouldnt exist.
"ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες"

Zeno Marx

#34
Bravo, MyrtleLake.  BRAVO.

I won't bother with my entire, usual diatribe.  I will say this (again):  I was surprised with myself how little I was attached to the physical thing.  If you'd asked me prior to digital files if I'd still be drawn to music at my normal enthusiasm level without the LP/CD/tape/packaging, I would have definitively said, "Not a chance!"  I didn't think I could separate it all.  I could, and it was natural and effortless.  Since going almost all digital, my enthusiasm for music and sound has grown, not dissipated.  A real surprise to me.  And I truly appreciated, and get wholly jazzed, when I get access to high-resolution and/or master files.  Honestly, it has been what I've always wanted.  To cosign MyrtleLake, I'm hearing what the artist heard.  It doesn't get better than that for me.

EDIT:  which is also why I was drawn, at all, to the CD format.  I only wish it wasn't such a fragile and temperamental medium.  I wish the polycarbonate they employed wasn't basically as durable as frozen butter.  They didn't do enough R&D (or maybe they did) on materials and chemical reactions.
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.

aububs

past a certain point i don't really give a shit about fidelity

and the bar is pretty low tbh

l.b.

yeah fidelity is nice but i hate when you get some ripping harsh noise on tape and then hear the files and it sounds way different. either mix/master for tape or dont make the files available afterwards OR make the files a fucking tape rip if you have to.

Theodore

#37
Quote from: l.b. on December 22, 2018, 05:14:29 PM
yeah fidelity is nice but i hate when you get some ripping harsh noise on tape and then hear the files and it sounds way different. either mix/master for tape or dont make the files available afterwards OR make the files a fucking tape rip if you have to.

Recording / dubbing to tape it is actually a new master on its own, unless you have adjusted the bias for exactly the tape -formula- you are using, for flat response, minimum distortion. Even then levels matter.

Harsh noise, to my ears, gets great advantage from tape ! Yes, it sounds so much better on tape than digital / CD. Cant tell really why. In most cases, digital files are compressed for maximum volume level. If you see their waveform, no space to "breath" . To me this doesnt sound well, sounds loud yes but not good. But the exact same file recorded on tape, 4-6 in the red, and listen the tape, it kills ! Probably it hasnt to do even with the digital loudness, cause if i rip the same tape and boost -but not compress- the waveform to -0.1dB peak, these new digital files still sound much better than the original / master ones. Tape magic !
"ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες"

ANDROPHILIA

 the CD format can return a fetish object not so much for the audio quality but for an aesthetic quality ratio of the package / price
-ANDROPHILIA
-LIM DUL



"Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture" 
(L.Cohen)

theworldisawarfilm

Quote from: Theodore on December 23, 2018, 07:07:13 AM
Quote from: l.b. on December 22, 2018, 05:14:29 PM
yeah fidelity is nice but i hate when you get some ripping harsh noise on tape and then hear the files and it sounds way different. either mix/master for tape or dont make the files available afterwards OR make the files a fucking tape rip if you have to.

Recording / dubbing to tape it is actually a new master on its own, unless you have adjusted the bias for exactly the tape -formula- you are using, for flat response, minimum distortion. Even then levels matter.

Harsh noise, to my ears, gets great advantage from tape ! Yes, it sounds so much better on tape than digital / CD. Cant tell really why. In most cases, digital files are compressed for maximum volume level. If you see their waveform, no space to "breath" . To me this doesnt sound well, sounds loud yes but not good. But the exact same file recorded on tape, 4-6 in the red, and listen the tape, it kills ! Probably it hasnt to do even with the digital loudness, cause if i rip the same tape and boost -but not compress- the waveform to -0.1dB peak, these new digital files still sound much better than the original / master ones. Tape magic !

Yes! Putting something on tape imparts its own EQ/compression on the signal and I have to agree that it does indeed breathe life into noise recordings especially. It is no secret that the development of a plugin or whatever that can accurately mimic the effect of saturated tape is a kind of 'holy grail' of digital audio processing yet to be achieved to my knowledge. So to my ears it doesn't matter whether or not the signal itself is digital or analog (granted it is not ruined by digital clipping, aliasing etc.) That being said, I'm not a purist or audiophile by any means but I do happen to work with cassette tapes for a living and can generally 'hear the difference' and will choose tape every time concerning how I release my own material and what I spend my money on. 

brutalist_tapes

caring about fidelity is sound, but some audiophiles go too far, in my opinion. lossless digital audio is great. tapes are nice for some things, cd's are good for other things esp. because of the long running time and high quality sound.. and vinyl is just classic, although i must admit it's mostly a must for me when listening to stuff from the "golden days".. 60s/70s. appreciate all formats, really, maybe except the really weird ones like 8-track..

Foss

I had a discussion with a few guys in their sixties, who listened to lots of kraut and industrial stuff in the seventies, and thought about the fact how cds also have pushed the genres in evolution a lot as well. As lp was the standard, songs would be badly chopped if longer than 20 min,  but with cds it was suddenly a possibilty to make 80 min songs!


Yrjö-Koskinen

Quote from: Foss on April 01, 2019, 07:57:53 PM
I had a discussion with a few guys in their sixties, who listened to lots of kraut and industrial stuff in the seventies, and thought about the fact how cds also have pushed the genres in evolution a lot as well. As lp was the standard, songs would be badly chopped if longer than 20 min,  but with cds it was suddenly a possibilty to make 80 min songs!

The internet is the final step in that evolution, making stuff like this possible:
https://wnanetlabel.bandcamp.com/album/wna-compilation-vol-9
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