Recently I heard an interview where a vinyl-crazed radio-dj interviewed a vinyl-crazed vinyl manufacturer about the superb quality of his vinyl records. When talking about the proces, it turned out that the vinyl is crafted from a DIGITAL master. Because otherwise the transportation of the rather heavy master platters would give too much of a hassle.
I had to smile a little listening to the interview. And I understood why I appreciate the love of vinyl-crazed listeners to 'their' vinyl sound. And why I am not really vinyl-crazed.
When it is not created with compression, limiters and other stupidity, digital sound can have a much wider range between the softest and the loudest sound. Because it has a more favourable balance of sound and noise level. But when music got produced digital, it seemed that hardly any one actually realised the advantages of that. Instead technicians kept compressing more and more. Pristine analoge records became molested versions of the original recordings when they tried to sell the same recordings over and over again in the form of digital releases. A sound so compressed that it neared the sound of ordinary white noise. And when you compared the two you had no difficulty in favouring the original analoge recordings over the digital rubbish produced by the 'compression-generation'.
Gladly we see a change. It still goes slow. By using compression, technicians originally achieved to present us recordings that could survive the limitations of vinyl. This medium creates due to the scratch of the needle in the groove, it's own sound. When you want that a listener hears the soft tones of a whisper and the hard notes of a drum in one single recording, you need compression. To 'lift' the whisper 'over' the rumble of the needle. But when I first entered the studio technicians KNEW that they should use compression with caution, to preserve the distinction between loud and soft sounds as much as possible.
In the digital-age the compression generation kept compressing. But a violin, an electrical guitar, a single snare drum, a triangle or the human voice has, at any level, soft and hard tones. Those differences between loud and soft are taken away by compression. Reducing almost any instrument to noise.
Original analoge recordings are most of the time recorded on fast running studio machines that can record much more than could ever be put into a vinyl record. And luckily we have a movement against the loudness industry. Making it possible to re-issue those recordings with the preservation of loudness differences. There is only one catch. When you want to preserve the difference between louder and softer tones, you have to record at a much lower level. This enables the peak, to peak without limit. The soft notes therefor become much softer then they would be with use of a compressor. So when listening to digital non-compressed music: TURN UP THE VOLUME to fully enjoy. The best preservation of loudness differences is presently achieved with digital recordings.
But whether you enjoy them digital or analoge, is not so important. As long as you enjoy......
