I have barely touched iTunes since I got Spotify. There is so much music out there that I have never heard, and it makes it easy to find. Using the Related Artists tab, I have found more bands that I love than I ever knew existed.

The best thing about it is that there are bands that I can’t find anywhere else, they may have only made one album, or they just were not necessarily the greatest band, but I still want to hear them. I have found many of them on Spotify.

There are two paid levels, but I am just on the free one. With the top one you can stream music to your mobile device.

I know that this is a vinyl album blog, but you can’t take your vinyl with you. This you can. And it is much better quality than your average 128K MP3. The best thing is that once you find a new band (or old band you never heard of), you can then find the album on vinyl, and you’ll know that you like it already.

If you use Spotify now, what are some of the playlists you’ve made? Have you published them?

The post author believes this is sort of funny because audiophiles are always complaining about how MP3′s will ruin music. I’m not sure it will ruin music, but I do believe that poor quality will produce engineers an sound people with a bad idea of what music should sound like.

By the way, this started well before MP3′s, it started with the consumers buying stereos with only a three band EQ.

I love this comment made on the post;

“MP3 Sound “quality”

Believe me, you don’t need to have an expensive audiophile sound system to hear how obviously superior vinyl is. Even a crappy system will fill the the room with three-dimensional sound compared to the one-dimensional, tinny, transparent bass of MP3s. This post confirms what I already predicted-that after a few years of MP3s being the dominant medium, pretty soon people wouldn’t even know what recorded music was supposed to sound sound like. The dumbing down of our culture is nearly complete.”

Ha! That’s good. MP3′s are convenient. Extremely convenient. But that does not mean they sound good. Kids are just getting used to a certain sound, and then thinking that it is best. The same thing happens with those of us who listen to vinyl, we are used to that sound. To a point, even after not listening to vinyl for years, I still think it sounds better.

Apparently, it is an audiophile version that is straight from the masters that the vinyl is recorded from. although compressed, it is not nearly as sqaushed as standard CD’s. This means that the sound is much better, more dynamic and more expressive. The following is a quote from producer and engineer Ryan Ulyate;

Standard CDs are designed to play back well on the many different systems which exist today such as iPod, car, radio, computer and home. To make it sound as good as possible on all these different systems, compression is added. What compression does is to make the CD sound louder. Too much compression can make the music sound harsh and distorted. Producers and artists today compete to make their recording sound louder and some have pushed the limit with as much compression as possible. Some have gone too far. On the other hand, without any compression, a CD would not sound as loud as other albums. This would be especially noticeable on iPods and other mp3 players and when played back to back with compressed music, uncompressed music would sound less impactful and not ‘jump out of the speakers’ which is the effect most producers are going for when they add compression. [You can see the effects of crappy sound and compression on the new Metallica album Death Magnetic.]

Great, so why don’t other artists and engineers do this? I believe that first of all, the majority of people don’t really care how their music sounds, otherwise we wouldn’t have such high sales of iPods. Second of all, there is a lot more money involved in putting out three versions of the same album. However, it seems that some people (like Mudcrutch) get it, and are willing to spend the money for their music to sound true to what they wrote.

The Wall Street Journal carried this post saying that even heavy metal fans are complaining that music is too loud. Following are some quotes from the article:

“…even though Metallica’s ninth studio release, “Death Magnetic,” is No. 1 on the album chart, with 827,000 copies sold in two weeks, some fans are bitterly disappointed: not by the songs or the performance, but the volume. It’s so loud, they say, you can’t hear the details of the music.”

“…audiophiles, recording professionals and some ordinary fans say the extra sonic wallop comes at a steep price. To make recorded music seem louder, engineers must reduce the “dynamic range,” minimizing the difference between the soft and loud parts and creating a tidal wave of aural blandness.”

“When there’s no quiet, there can be no loud…Louder recordings, with higher average sound levels, leave less room for such variation than quieter ones.”

This next one is amazing;

“…the critics have inadvertently recruited a key witness: Ted Jensen, the album’s “mastering engineer,” the person responsible for the sonic tweaks that translate music made in a studio into a product for mass duplication and playback by consumers. Responding to a Metallica fan’s email about loudness, Mr. Jensen sent a sympathetic reply that concluded: “Believe me, I’m not proud to be associated with this one.”" [Wow. Even the engineer who worked on the album isn't happy.]

“Sound engineers say artists who insist on loudness paradoxically give people less to hear, because they end up wiping away nuances and details. Everything from a gently strummed guitar to a pounding snare drum is equally loud, leading to what some call “ear fatigue.” If the listener turns down the volume knob, the music loses even more of its punch.”

“But many musicians, producers and record-company executives “think that having a louder record is going to translate into greater sales,” says Chris Athens, Mr. Jensen’s business partner and a fellow engineer. “Nobody really wants to have a record that’s not as loud as everybody else’s…” [These are most likely the same people who think that people actually love to pay for crappy music.]

Thousands of fans have already started petitions to have the band remix and re-release this album to make it sound better. That to me is just crazy, when your own fans say your album sucks because of the sound quality, you might want to make them happy.

Below is a graphical representation of the wav files for …And Justice for All, and Death Magnetic. There is no dynamic range to Death Magnetic, which makes everything the same volume. That isn’t music.

There are play buttons on these, but they don’t work as this is an image, but please, go to the Wall Street Journal link above and click on the graphic and listen to the sound files. The new Death Magnetic is unlistenable.

“There will always be a very special place for vinyl albums. That place is called eBay.

There they rest in peace, alongside trashed DC comic books, used Pinto cars (read: moving coffins) and 500-pound Atari PONG systems.

But for the rest of the living, breathing and dare I say evolving world, the medium of choice is any of the latest supergadgets — may it be incredibly convenient iPods, laptops or BlackBerry phones…”

“…Vinyl lovers are thereby unavoidably left in the Stone Age…”

“…Many vinyl users argue that the biggest difference between the modern digital album and the outdated … er, “classic” … vinyl album is the feel. Vinyl “feels warmer” or has a special crackling sound to it. I don’t hear many people pining for the days of VHS’s poor picture quality or dial-up Internet’s molasses-like speed, but I suppose to each his own…”

“…In indie music, nothing screams shameless pretension quite like vinyl records…”

“…I ask that if you make modern music, get with the modern age. I understand Radiohead’s Thom Yorke is obsessed with the “complete album” experience, which I respect. But people who want that experience will do so without buying a $100 vinyl packet. I’ll keep my pay-what-you-want (in other words, free) digital copy and still listen to it completely and in copious amounts…”

“…Let’s face it, we may be currently looking at the end of compact discs. Eight-tracks and casette tapes are long gone. Vinyl is as dead as disco, and the music-loving community needs to respectfully move on…”

Those quotes were from Emorywheel.com where the writer obviously doesn’t like vinyl. He brings up the old argument about vinyl “feeling warmer” or having a “special crackling sound”. I’ve never heard anyone say they love the crackle on vinyl.

The reason these articles annoy me is that there is a big, definite reason why vinyl sounds better. Most people hear it, but don’t know what it is. Vinyl inherently has a lower dynamic range than CD’s or MP3′s. Which means that the volume can’t be too loud on vinyl records. Therefore the sound engineering and mixing that goes into vinyl records is much more precise and musical. In a CD every instrument is taken to the loudest point, then mixed together, then compressed to the loudest point overall possible. The difference in listening is that on vinyl the separation between the instruments is very easy to hear, but in CD’s ( and especially MP3′s) every instrument is as loud as every other instrument or voice.

To understand why this is bad for CD’s, check out what fans are saying about Metallica’s new album Death Magnetic.

Now there are exceptions, but not a lot. That is why record labels love CD’s, because they can increase the volume of the music, at the expense of the musicality.

That is why vinyl records are better than CD’s.

What the crap?

Isn’t the point of records to enjoy the high quality music? I understand that a lot of people have records, but don’t really care to listen to them. So they want them converted. But what I don’t understand, is that downloading music is supposed to be illegal, UNLESS YOU OWN IT!

If I own the vinyl record, It is not illegal to own the MP3.

But this is where it gets kind of weird. I have talked about ripping MP3′s from vinyl records before, but it could probably be done again. There are two ideas about ripping MP3′s from vinyl.

Do you own the content of the vinyl, or just the vinyl? That is the question.

Some say we bought the album, we own the music on it, and can copy it (for ourselves) as many times as we wish in any format we wish.

Others (mostly record companies and their lawyers) say that we only bought a piece of vinyl that just happened to have music on it. We own the vinyl, but not what is on it. If you want to have the music on CD, then you need to buy it on CD. If you want to have MP3′s to take with you, then you have to go and buy the MP3. Even if you already own it on one format.

I agree with the first idea, and I’m sure most people do. However, if you agree with the second point of view, I’d love to hear why. Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, my point is that the Vinyl to MP3 industry is booming. These record players that convert vinyl are selling in high numbers. But why? If I can download it legally (because I own the vinyl), why would I want to buy something when I can just get it on U Torrent?

Anyway, whether you download it or rip it, you have still lost so much quality in the conversion process, that it’s almost pointless. I don’t like to listen to MP3′s on my big stereo. Small speakers are ok, but not the good stereo.

If you’ve picked up an arts section lately, you’ve probably seen a story with one (or both) of the following theses: “Vinyl is making a comeback.” “If you want great sound, you buy vinyl.” The hype is even starting to annoy some label folk, as it calls into question why non-audiophiles would bother buying tangible music at all. Sure, analog grooves of a vinyl record hold more information than any digital sample rate. But if an album was recorded digitally—a situation that’s becoming more and more common—are you getting more information by buying it on vinyl?

Time’s January article on the vinyl upswing offered that “LPs generally exhibit a warmer, more nuanced sound than CDs and digital downloads. MP3 files tend to produce tinnier notes, especially if compressed into a lower-resolution format that pares down the sonic information.” But what if that “sonic information” wasn’t there in the first place? Isn’t everyone using ProTools now? It would seem that this call for great sound and the rise of digital recording would be at odds.

Is vinyl mastering so superior to the “noise reduction” CDs are legendary for that even digital music sounds better on LP? Or is the hype just, well, hype? Do people just think they’re getting better sound on new records because they assume they’re getting a pure analog experience? Does the appeal of the gatefold overcome the fact that once a sound is digitized, there’s no turning back? The vinyl I buy tends to be used and $1.99, so I can’t speak from authority about the sound quality of new vinyl. But maybe you can.

Why do I say this is bad logic? First of all, yes, records are analog, they have all the information that is put on them. CD’s are digitally, they take ‘snapshots’ of information. Recording digitally takes ‘snapshots’ of the instruments. Do you see the pattern here? If something is recorded digitally, then put on CD, then you have music that ‘snapshots’ of ‘snapshots’.

To see what this is like, try to take a bunch of pictures in a row with your camera to show action. Then take those pictures and flip through them really fast, and take pictures of that.

That’s a CD.

Now, the second reason that this article is just plain wrong, is that not everybody uses Protools. A lot of people do, it’s a lot cheaper than investing in an analog studio, and it’s a whole lot easier than using 8, 16 or 24 track tape. However, a lot of artists still want that tape sound. A lot of engineers still like to record using tape. More artists are seeing the benefits of using tape, and usually those are the artists who are now releasing on vinyl.

So most of these records are being mastered from analog tape recordings. Not digital.

Is this a hint of the direction of formats?

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) has already experimented with something like this. Reznor dropped his record label, and released his new album on his website. Although he had the album available on CD, it was also on vinyl and MP3. You could download the first 9 tracks on MP3 for free, or pay $5 and buy all 36 tracks with a PDF booklet. You could buy the double CD set for $10, or 2 CD’s a DVD and a blu-ray for $75. The ultimate package though, you could choose to pay over $300 for the vinyl set. This set includes everything else plus two books of photos, and prints, and four 180 gram vinyl records.

Oh, and all the MP3′s are DRM free. In many different formats too, such as FLAC and Apple Lossless.

While everyone said that this wouldn’t work, Reznor pulled in over $1.6 million the very first week. The Ultimate Vinyl package is completely sold out. Had he stayed with the record company, he would not have seen most of that money.

True artists are doing things differently. The true artists are passionate about their music, and they want to share it with us, and for us to be as passionate about it as they are. They not only want us to be happy, they want us to experience what they are feeling, what they are thinking, their music.

What better way to express your music than on vinyl.

It’s nice to see that there are still stores open that sell vinyl.

With peer-to-peer programs and CDs making music far cheaper than buying vinyl records, it seems impossible that a store that sells only vinyl could still exist.

But they do.

On the corner of Maple and Cedar streets in downtown Santa Cruz, Metamusic Records is the sole vinyl-only store in the area, selling a variety of collectible and current vinyl records to the masses. UC Santa Cruz alumnus Johnathan Schneiderman, the store’s owner, founded it in honor of a lifelong obsession with the seemingly obsolete medium. He took some time recently to talk with City on a Hill Press (CHP).

CHP: So how did the obsession start?

Schneiderman: The thing is, I never really purchased CDs. I was raised on tapes as a kid. My parents had all these records, and I got into them around when I was eight. I started getting into records and being a record nerd. I would play my friends’ CDs and then play the records, and they would stand in awe because they felt the record sounded so much better.

CHP: How did you get the idea of opening your own store?

Schneiderman: It just sort of happened, really. When I realized I wasn’t going to make it as a professional musician, I continued playing music for fun and sold records from my collection. I started selling so many that it turned into a business. I was working out of a public storage container, and it eventually got so big I figured that I could start a store. So I moved everything into a really small basement across town, opened the doors, and had one.

CHP: What sorts of people shop at your store?

Schneiderman: It’s pretty split between hipster kids, DJs, and older people reliving their past. Most people seem to know what they’re doing when they come here. Others wander in confused. As a result, I don’t feel much of a need to advertise as people who like records actively seek them out, which I do whenever I go somewhere new.

CHP: Most people don’t go out to a store to buy music these days. What do you think they might be missing out on?

Schneiderman: I find that a lot of people enjoy going to record stores to get the little nuances when buying music. People will come in, ask for a recommendation, and feel satisfied when they get something they wanted but weren’t expecting. There’s an online program called Pandora, which allows you to type in some music you like and it gives you [other] music you’ll probably like due to their similarity. But people still enjoy coming here and asking me if I like a band and if I can recommend something similar to it.

CHP: What do you think the advantages are to listening to vinyl over MP3s?

Schneiderman: I feel the experience of listening to records is more enjoyable because you’re doing more than just hearing the music. You’re also experiencing the artwork that was intended to go along with it and getting a more in-depth look at what’s going on in the recording process because records have more of what’s going on.

CHP: What about the concrete, scientific differences between the two mediums?

Schneiderman: Scientifically, vinyl has a deeper bass response and better mid-range, which is what our ears actually hear and what our mouth actually produces. If you look at it on a graph, the waves move up and down, but when you look at a CD, it looks blocky with the peaks and valleys flattened out. CDs only possess sound frequencies you can hear. While you may not be able to hear some of the bass that records produce, you can still feel it.

CHP: Do you think MP3s can achieve the level of sound that vinyl produces?

Schneiderman: It’s possible, but it’s more of an imitative sound. Digital cameras have gotten to a sampling rate where they can appear better than developed pictures, but I think it’s different with sound. The record needle is like a reverse seismograph that reads over all the vibrations that have been etched into a record, while MP3s play ones and zeros that represent the samples taken from the vibrations, so it’s always a step behind a record. You also cannot really replicate the experience that listening to a vinyl record conveys.

CHP: Why do you think people continue to buy vinyl records?

Schneiderman: There’s a sense of nostalgia that comes with records. It’s the only format that’s made it through the ages. Records were invented in the 1920s, and they’re still around. CDs will come and go, tapes are gone, VHS is gone, and despite the fact that people can hold over 500 songs in their pocket, people still go out and buy a record that’s larger than their whole iPod.

CHP: Do you think vinyl records will still be around in the future?

Schneiderman: I think so. At the moment, I think they’re a bit more popular than usual. Demand for records rises and falls over the years, and once MP3s sound better than now, demand for them will probably decrease. I don’t think MP3s will ever be able to make up for the packaging that goes into a record. I may not always have a record store, but I’ll always love vinyl.

They’re like a time: I can remember everything that happened surrounding where I was in my life when I bought each of my records, and most people probably can’t tell you what they were doing when they were downloading songs off LimeWire. [That's so true, I can remember where I got every record I have.]

I think a lot of people go out of the way to collect something with nostalgic value and having fun collecting rare things. It’s a multifaceted interest that goes beyond just listening to music.

I think it’s great how the owner doesn’t really knock CD’s and MP3′s, but he makes the case for the superiority of vinyl. What do you think?

The one part that really stands out to me is the difference between CD’s and vinyl. It’s not saying CD’s are inferior, but just different. Which I can understand, CD’s have the sound that some people are looking for, those people don’t like vinyl. It’s all preference. The book says “…CD’s are convenient, portable and have great clarity, but an album just has a warmth and a depth to it that CD’s just can’t produce.” Then the best statement that really sums up the difference, “…a CD was like walking into a room with a high-watt, bare bulb illuminating every nook and cranny in the room. An LP was like walking into the same room, but with soft indirect lighting that bathed you in the warmth of its glow.”

Wow. Yeah, that’s it.

An LP might not have the clarity of a CD, but it has warmth and depth of sound that can sound more, I hesitate to say realistic, but more real I guess.

CD’s have a very clean, sterile sound. There are people who like the cleanness of a CD, they don’t like the warmth of records. Hey people are different. No one is stupid for liking a certain format over another, unless they like MP3′s.

CD’s have also been compressed and mastered to the loudest degree they can get it. This translates into more volume, less dynamics (and more hearing loss).Vinyl has a lower dynamic range, so it has stayed away from the “loudness wars” and has kept the dynamics that make music musical.

Benson also starts talking about MP3′s and the shortcomings of them. I have a lot of MP3′s. I had an extensive library of music before MP3′s came, and now I’m trying to replace it. But since I started listening more to my vinyl again, the MP3′s just sound like crap. And before you say that it is because of the people who encoded the music did a bad job, songs from iTunes sound the worst. They are (as I stated in the previous paragraph) compressed to get the loudest volume they can, and therefor are distorted. Almost everything I have off of iTunes is distorted and is fixable by lowering the overall volume. That’s wrong, You shouldn’t have to fix music that you’ve bought.