Steve’s Music Roll

We thought vinyl records would be gone with the evolution of the CD in the eighties the same way that videos were thought to be the killer of the radio play. What is ironic now is that less CDs are being sold and the amount of vinyl records being sold has increased.

What is it about records that people would want this medium back over the clean sound of CD? Well, one has to look back at the way that music was recording when records were being produced. Unlike today where just about every new track and album is recorded digitally to computer, up until the mid 1990s all recording was done to analog tape. Even though we did not have the capabilities with tape that now can be done digitally, there was something with analog recording and that was the amount of sound that could be recorded. Sampling and thresholds were able to be pushed to allow for a more warmer sound; nothing in the recording was “lost”. Everything that was heard by the microphones was transferred to tape.

Once a master tape was made, it was sent off to the record plant for pressing. At the record plant, the master tape was played to a machine that would cut the acetate that would be used to create the “master”. What was and still is different is that everything gets transferred to the record as grooves. The deeper the grooves the more bass sound and the shallower the groove, the higher the pitch. Because of this concept, the amount of time had to be calculated into the mixing so that everything wanted could be fit onto the record. From the master plates, all the copies would be made.

So…Now that we’ve looked at the making of a record quickly, one can now look at the differences between CD and vinyl. Because of the fullness of the sound quality on records (Let’s forget about the pops, hiss, and other little characteristics that were part of records.), people have been picking up their records again and reliving what has been lost over two decades now. But not only did sound get compromised when we went to CD; we lost the great artwork that was part of the anticipation of going to the record store to buy the new album.

Since the CD came out, other developments have occurred as well. Digital music players have come into the market which has certainly made life easier. However, with digital music players even more is lost. We have lost more sound quality as frequencies are dropped in ripping, but we have also lost the artwork that was part of producing a CD. To a good musician and collector, the album art and insert information was very important.

So, digital was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread or the record. What is ironic about this whole vinyl record rebirth is that the youth of America has taken to this format. Their parents were happy to see it go, but the new generation has found gold in basements and garages. They have found a sound that they are not used to and actually like, the fullness of the sound that they were deprived of due to their years of growing up.

Right now, there are only a handful of presses left in the United States. There are many more around the world, but in the US there are only a handful left in business and their business has gone up in the last few years. Some artists are actually, once again, releasing their new works on vinyl record and CD. Once artist, is actually putting bonus tracks on the vinyl version in order to boost the sales of the record. Are we in a rebound? We shall see.

Tags: records, sound, Vinyl Records