Vinyl LP record? Yes PLEEEASE! :D

If it's any comparison, the Shatter album I mentioned getting was a run of 1000, and sold for $35 each. It was also semi-translucent blue vinyl.

I'm sure you'll be finding more accurate numbers though since I have nothing to go on but the final selling price.

That's about what I'm finding (in terms of selling price), but a lot of that depends on me talking to Howard more. Most of it depends on how much remastering work is needed to make it really rock the vinyl.

No matter what, this would likely be a post launch thing, as there's no way we will have weeks of time to do a vinyl remaster prior to launch. At least, that's my guess.

Well 35 $ aint much. Hopefully € will get some points too till then.

Well you can add 1 for me.

Thank you sir!
I made some investigation.
This convinced me to from now on use lossless compression formats.

I make no claims to having so-called "golden hears", and despise the majority of audiophiles and their pseudo-scientific nonsense, but the argument for lossless formats makes itself once you start listening to your music through genuine Hi Fi equipment.

All those MP3's you've happily listened to for years through low-quality systems are instantly revealed for the muddy mess they are.

As for vinyl, if you like that sound you can just add a filter to anything digital to add that, same goes for a valve amplifier's "warmth", its only merit today is in novelty, nostalgia and collecting which are fair enough but spare me the analog superiority bollocks.

Can anyone enlighten me on the differences vinyl has? I'm guessing a needle acts like a LPF.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm
That's a good summary, albeit from the point of view of someone biased towards vinyls.

The thing is, vinyl does have an accuracy limit, which is compounded by the fact that it is often created from digital sources nowadays, or that when it is played back, it's through a digital system. Even if it were pure analog from source to playback, a lot is lost in the dynamic range, and noise is added due to the imperfections of the physical playback system.

The howstuffworks article mentions dvd-audio having the sample rate and fidelity to finally match vinyl. To be clear, dvd-audio ranges up to the 192khz/24-bit quality at best, so we'll just assume that ultra-high quality digital audio is our goal. However, if you take a look at the following article (which I linked earlier), you'll find that it turns out there are very good arguments as to why 192/24 and most of the audio qualities above 48/16 really aren't all that they're made out to be.
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

It turns out that cd quality is pretty darn awesome after all. And as was mentioned previously, since the whole concept of vinyl "warmth" comes from the degradation of the signal, it can be synthesized very well with equipment and filters.

That said, I won't begrudge anybody that loves vinyl. There are people that still love VHS tapes, despite the inarguable fact that anything digital is infinitely superior. It's part nostalgia and part personal enjoyment. So while I may not buy one, props to those who do!

Without diving into the links in the bottom of that HowStuffWorks article, I can say that it leaves out a very very important part of digital signal theory: reconstruction. If you know what you're doing, you can un-ruin a signal after you sample it.

This is what I'm interested in. Specifically, the nerdy parts (just finished an electrical engineering degree, that had a bit of a focus on signal processing). If you've got graphs of frequency response, I'll take those as a start.

I've heard "warmth" defined as everything from emphasized lower frequencies, to subtle reverb/echo, to smoother harmonics. The thing is, most of that stuff can be accomplished with equalization and filters. A pure, properly mastered recording will always have a somewhat "clinical" sound (as in, flat eq, no added reverb/echo, etc), and leave it to the listener's equipment to define the sound to their own preference. After all, while a jazz piece may sound great with a "warmer" playback, a classical piece would sound muddy (or unclear/indistinct).

That's what I was hoping to get: some information on those filters, so I could emulate them myself.

Yeah, don't bother trying to emulate those filters and settings to make your music sound good. It really depends on your equipment anyway. Most audio players have a graphic equalizer of some sort, and by adjusting that you can get good sounding output. (I find that presets tend to overdo it though.) The other effects, like reverb, I tend to avoid, as I prefer to hear my music as it was recorded.

Not even for academic curiosity?

Also, graphic/parametric equalisers are linear (or more accurately, FIR). Valves aren't at all linear.

If you insist. This should be a rough approximation of what some folks may consider a "warmer" sound.


Keep an eye on the approximate frequency values. Reposition the trough as desired. (Note that according to some definitions of "warmth," you would invert this, so that the trough becomes a peak. It's a very arbitrary word )
I recommend releveling it to 0 once you have it set. (So the peaks are at 0, and everything else is below.) This will prevent clipping on louder pieces.

Not sure what you mean by valves . . .

Well ****. That's an awful lot like what my eq looks like... except upside down. I usually ramp up to around 250-500Hz because I lurve me electric guitar.

I guess I should steer clear of valve amplifiers then. lolol.

Oooh, you mean vacuum tube amps. Yeah, those are overkill. There are a several audio qualities about them that people like, but in order to balance out the deficiencies, you need to hand-pick a lot of your equipment, most notably the speakers. Plus maintenance and upkeep tend to require a bit of effort, depending on the type you get. I tend to think they fall on the end of "rich-audiophile equipment."

For guitar life today is so much easier than it used to be. Line6 effects + whatever solid state amp and you are good to go if you are just an amateur.

Personally I have a marshall 100watt solid state half rack in my bedroom. It goes almost to 11.

Maybe if Uber don't want to make the vinyls themselves, they can make a 3d model of one and upload that, to be 3d printed into more modern vinyls

I am almost absolutely sure that would require a LOT more work than just sending it to a production company.