Vinyl Vs Digital

On my most recent Acid trip, I was looking at the album cover for Tool's Lateralus on my phone... seen below




And as I saw it 'come to life' and provide a whole new context to the associated music, I thought to myself how amazing it must have been having album covers with liners, lyrics and all that in an autonomous package.
There are those interactive record covers like Led Zeppelin III too, which is kind of neat as well.

Eventhough there are some really cool artwork for album covers still, I get the impression that for the records, album covers made more of a statement somehow. For instance, the prism for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is such an iconic image associated with that album. There is a disconnect between the cover art and the music, that I've even felt going from CD's to Ipods/youtube/etc.

 

Good points. Wether it sounds as it should/is preferred or not does not even solely depend on your record player. If you have shitty speakers (personally I like big analogue ones) or a fancy digital amplifier with all kinds of unwanted presettings you might not have the most optimal sound for listening to your vinyls. I guess some sound systems were just made for those classic vinyls. And most new ones aren't.

I agree with autophobe though, it all depends on the details. Digital nor analogue sucks or rules by default.

 

That image reminds me of Alex Grey's work.

 

I like Tool's sleeve art more than their music

 

I've downloaded FLAC lossless versions of albums that were sourced from vinyl ... i do believe i can tell a difference between them (the vinyl versions sound very good, sometimes better). Its still digital though since it's on my computer(originally from an analog source), so it must be the production that's different between the vinyl album and the CD production. I still believe that digital signal processing is capable of making something "sound analog" if that's what one wishes, though that's not what is usually done.

 

vinyl....record albums? They get scratches and things.....and I think my radio and u-tube sound better than any album or record i can play here. I like things remastered, too.

 

I've heard some stuff that was originally on vinyl - eg the Beatles, which has been remastered digitally. To me it sounds total crap, and when I first heard it I thought they would never have made it if they had sounded like that back in the early 60's. I've found the same with a lot of old stuff that has been remastered. It sounds much better in the original format.

 

does it?
i have not played any albums in so long....and they just sit in boxes.....for the artwork and stuff.....I don't know what to do with them....lol

 

I've got about 200 LPs in a box. I doubt I will ever play any of them again. It is hard to know what to do with them.

 

I hang onto everything for my brother.....if not for him...i don't know what i would do.....selling things....is alot of work to make it worth it.....

 

not to mention tons of CD's my brother dropped off on me that he did not want......as he went Ipod.....they just sit in boxes in one of the sheds here....i could open up a store here.......lol

 

It is Alex Grey art and actually talking about dynamic covert art... The Cd cover to this album Lateralus is more than just that picture, it's a several page transluscent 'flip book,' So I didn't even get to experience the album art how it is originally presented. I had the CD but never tripped to it.

This video sort of captures how the album art is actually intended to be laid out but still doesn't really show the transluscent effect very well.

http://youtu.be/bIG2DlGh3w8

 

I agree, it's a lot more about the sound concept of the people doing the final mastering.

 

Here's a list of vinyl I currently own. I only started a couple years ago. Most of these are "new" or new age bands released on vinyl. I got my eye on my daddy's old school stuff.

Vinyl

Amon Amarth:
The Crusher
Twilight of the Thunder God
Once sent from the Golden Hall
Vs the World
Deceiver of the Gods

Black Sabbath:
Sabbath bloody Sabbath

Burzum:
Det Sam Engang Var

Cannibal Corpse:
Eaten back to Life
Butchered at Birth
Tomb of the Mutilated
Vile
The Bleeding

Cradle of Filth:
Cruelty and the Beast
Damnation and a day
Bitter suites..
Godspeed on the Devils Thunder

Creedence Clearwater Revival:
Creedence Gold

The Doors:
13

Insane Clown Posse:
The Riddlebox
The Mighty Death Pop

Jimi Hendrix:
Jimi Hendrix

King Parrot:
Bite your head Off

Lynyrd Skynyrd:
Second Helping

Meatloaf:
Bat out of Hell

Metallica:
S&M
Kill 'em All
Ride the lightening
Master of puppets
Metallica - Black
And justice for All
Reload

Motörhead:
Bastards
Overkill

Pink Floyd:
Dark side of the Moon

Repulsion:
Repulsion

Rolling Stones:
Aftermath

Steve Earle:
The Mountain
I'll never get out of this world Alive
Guitar Town
Copperhead Road
The Low Highway
Terraplane

Townes van Zandt:
Our mother, the Mountain

Twiztid:
The Darkness

 

A good list!!


EDIT:

Some of that metallica stuff you have IS NOT TRUE ANALOG!! (digitally mixed,etc)

 

You're probably right. Probably most of the metal stuff isn't "real" vinyl, it's all newly printed. I can't see the country stuff being digital though or the old rock. They're all original stuff.

Still, I manage to hear a difference.

 

[SIZE=medium]I don’t have any vinyl but my parents have tons of that stuff stored in the attic at our old house including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Lena Horne, Etta James, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan…..Just collecting dust ...[/SIZE]


[SIZE=medium]Hotwater[/SIZE]

 

People expect a different sound from vinyl, they master them to cater to that. What really matters are the skills and the ears of the final mastering engineer. Some old school cat thats been in the biz since the vinyl days would have a big leg up on some young guy that grew up on digital.

 

Makes me think I ought to catalog my 200 LPs.

 

You are merely talking about how much data is used to reproduce the sound.
Analog is along a continuous spectrum with subtle changes and nuances across that sound range.
Digital is discreet packets or quanta of data, so the sound reproduction quality is completely dependent on the amount of data being converted/retained.
This is most obvious on albums that are more or less continuous, yet to convert them to digital it is necessary to divide the data into specific packets, so more often than not they have a break in between songs when originally there was no such break/gap. Dark Side of The Moon and Lamb Lies Down on Broadway are two albums that are TOTALLY ruined by digital because of those discreet gaps.
FLAC sounds almost as good as vinyl because there is essentially little or no data loss.
MP3's on the other hand can be created with a considerable amount of data loss/compression.

If the source data is lost in conversion, there is no way mucking around in the studio will be able to truly reproduce the data lost.