Mastering for vinyl was/is necessary because it's a lower fidelity format
and generally needs all the highly skilled tweaks it can get. CD doesnt need
that "mastering".
It may be the other way around: the CD reissue is a truer representation of
the (pre vinyl mastering) master tape. The vinyl sound was necessarily
altered. The problem may be in regarding the mastered to vinyl sound as
"definitive", thereby making a virtue out of a necessity.
Tim.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barton, Matthew" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2017 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vinyl Sales DOWN - why? See interesting WSJ article
today
> Good point about EQ. I think this is much of what people like about the
> best vinyl. Back in the day, music was optimized for that format, and it
> can be a very appealing sound, or even an aesthetic, if you will. Often,
> it may have been what the artists were aiming for in the first place. If a
> CD remaster gets too far away from that, people who know the original
> vinyl well may not like the result. A recording engineer friend of mine
> who definitely favors digital over analog told me that he doesn't like the
> recent CD remastering of Graham Nash's "Songs for Beginners" because the
> drum sound had been altered in the remastering.
>
>
> Matthew Barton
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jamie Howarth
> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2017 11:03 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vinyl Sales DOWN - why? See interesting WSJ
> article today
>
>> Vinyl has many wonderful qualities, but accuracy is not one of them. A
>> vinyl record that sounds like the source from which it was cut has never
>> been made.
>
>
> Agreed!
>
> As for the Maria Muldaur reissue
> " I found that I like the sound of the Lp transfer much more than the
> commercial CD digital version, even though it had been nicely done, not an
> over-processed digital release.'
>
> The amount of hype built into an EQ ref to make the vinyl sound snappy was
> a real part of the art of mixing/mastering for vinyl.
>
> I loved the sound of "Heart of Gold" and it did well on early CD, partly
> because Elliot Mazer had access to the real mix masters, not the EQ refs,
> and Neil trusted him to get the CD to match their shared intent.
>
> Lee Herschberg IIRC might not have been involved in the Muldaur reissue,
> but I bet he rode herd on the LP for sure. The reissue - without his
> input - would have a tough job to match his skills.
>
>
>
> Please pardon the mispellings and occassional insane word substitution I'm
> on an iPhone
>> On Jul 24, 2017, at 16:45, Gary A. Galo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Any source will be distorted by the cutting process, plating and
>> pressing, not to mention the vinyl playback with imperfect phono
>> cartridges (all transducers are imperfect - like loudspeakers, it's just
>> a matter of degree).
>>
>>
>>
>> Digital audio had a lot of things wrong with it in the early days. But,
>> digital audio has evolved to the point - indeed, it has been at that
>> point for a long time - where there's absolutely no cause for complaint.
>> With current digital technology, it's possible to make a transfer of your
>> favorite analog source - whether that analog source is the output of a
>> microphone preamp, or an analog tape - that's all but indistinguishable
>> from the original.
>>
>> I have some 4000 LPs, and I still enjoy playing them and building better
>> mousetraps for playing them. A few months ago I even installed a new
>> tonearm on my turntable. But, I think - I hope - that I have both feet
>> planted firmly on the ground on this issue.
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> ____________________________
>>
>> Gary Galo
>> Audio Engineer Emeritus
>> The Crane School of Music
>> SUNY at Potsdam, NY 13676
>>
>> "Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener."
>> Arnold Schoenberg
>>
>> "A true artist doesn't want to be admired, he wants to be believed."
>> Igor Markevitch
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jamie Howarth
>> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2017 3:54 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vinyl Sales DOWN - why? See interesting WSJ
>> article today
>>
>> "Gary Galo wrote: "Thanks for sending that link - it looks like Michael
>> Fremer's web site is the source of info for both articles.
>> Cutting vinyl from digital files is really the P.T. Barnum approach to
>> selling records. Fortunately, there are reputable audiophile companies
>> that are cutting records from original tapes. Analogue Productions is one
>> of them, and there are others. It figures that the major record
>> companies, who care about nothing other than the next cash cow, are the
>> ones using digital masters. .... The whole rationale for vinyl lovers is
>> to be able to hear their favorite recordings from the analog tape era on
>> records made with the best possible disc cutting and pressing. I don't
>> know any vinyl lovers who want records cut from all-digital sources. For
>> them, the whole point is all-analog".
>>
>> A digital rendition of an LP, ogg vorbised and distributed via YouTube as
>> proof that the vinyl is superior is just stupifyingly bad reasoning. It
>> does however prove that there's a tremendous amount of re-invention of
>> the original material done by the vinyl process, and that digital (even
>> compressed for streaming at lo-fi) is able to convey the modifications
>> done to the original source by this massive mythological analog plug-in
>> that is "vinyl".
>>
>> "Cutting vinyl from digital files is really the P.T. Barnum approach to
>> selling records".
>> And as much as I love Fremer, who's a really sweet guy, who loves audio
>> and music --- he's the ringmaster of this circus.
>>
>> A digital rendition of an LP, ogg vorbised and distributed via YouTube as
>> proof that the vinyl is superior is just stupifyingly bad reasoning.
>>
>> I can only pray that at some point people begin to realize that a digital
>> source is massively distorted by the entire vinyl mastering/pressing
>> process.... and that the same thing happens to an AAA release.
>>
>> The digital rendition of the tape is better than the vinyl, and with the
>> recent advances in time-base correction and better repro accuracy and
>> transient response correction and simply the fact of sigma-delta
>> converters of near-inaudible transparency a serious case can be made that
>> the digital is better than the tape after some DSP work is done and that
>> cutting vinyl from that is a superior vinyl.
>>
>> But vinyl does NOT in itself constitute a highest-fidelity medium. Period
>> full stop. And the focus should be on distributing better master tape
>> digitizations than can be accomplished with a stock press-play on an
>> unmodified 40 year old Ampex.
>>
>> Custom solutions exist and are just drowned out by this retro-bs.
>>
>> No. A vinyl playback does not match the tape. It can't. If it *improves
>> it* then you like the mastering, and there's a business niche there. Do
>> the same to the HD digital and you'll be providing the best fidelity on
>> the market.
>>
>> This is clearly a case where externalities have overrun common sense.
>>
>> Jamie Howarth
>> Plangent Processes
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jul 24, 2017, at 12:51 PM, Steve Ramm
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> _Why Vinyl’s Boom Is Over - WSJ_
>>> (https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-vinyls-boom-is-over-1500721202)
>>>
>>>
>>> Steve Ramm
>
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