Is It Me Or Do Many New 45's/reissues Sound Awful : Digital Recording To Blame?

[Guest]

Hope this isn’t too heavy for a Monday morning! Would love to hear your viewpoints comrades!

The ‘Which sounds better ?’ Vinyl versus CDs/Mp3s etc is a tired argument that has raged on for years and I hope I‘m adding something that’s new & relevant rather than treading the same old ground.

Firstly cards on the table, I’m a hopeless vinyl addict who loves the format as I reckon the majority of readers here do also. Its merits have been discussed many times so no point in going there. I have a background in recording and production. I’m seriously wondering if it’s worth purchasing new recordings/reissues that have been previously digitized.

This dilemma all started through me loyally purchasing vinyl releases of tracks recorded in the last ten years, mostly new soul & funk & some reissues. Often a response to a new release available on vinyl would be met with glee and many sounded great. The Daptone, Numero & Kent labels being fine examples amongst many, but often when I played a new 45 it sounded flat with poor definition & frequency range, often much quieter & muffled in comparison to my older records and sounding terrible when played out even with some drastic EQing. It genuinely surprises me that people bother releasing such poor sounding records, surely audio technology should have improved over time? Playing an original next to a newly issued copycat repro I was staggered at how poor the repro sounded in comparison.

I started to think about the process of today’s recording & mastering techniques compared to the 1950’s to early 1980’s. I would hazard a guess that 99% of audio recording these days is done digitally. Bands, groups, solo artists all are recorded into a computer and then this recording is mixed, mastered & farmed out in various formats. So is it actually worth having a vinyl record that’s been through this process? You’re basically getting CD/digital audio transferred onto vinyl. I think now would be a good time to point out the fundamental differences/ pros & cons between the two processes of analogue (tape) versus digital (computer/CD etc) recording and how they affect the finished music. Bear with me!

Basically a tape recording catches sound in a flowing continuous wave and usually within a smaller bandwidth of sound; it’s not so good at picking up frequencies that the human ear can’t hear. Digital recordings approximate this by recording in small steps , much like a 2D drawing of a flight of stairs, the higher the bit rate the smaller the steps, you basically get a blocky wave, to be fair at a high bit rate it’d be hard to notice the difference. Digital recordings can capture huge frequency ranges (if you have the right soundcard) but not a lot of that frequency is useful to us (Dogs maybe) & it still takes up valuable recording space (maybe the reason the resulting audio is so quiet.) However the digital process does lose information as it not a continuous free flowing line. Basically digital recordings, however good do lose some audio information.

When bands etc used to record to analogue tape, if the mixer monitor meter went into the red you distorted the audio, you introduced a ‘harmonic distortion' or 'saturation’ this actually added some extra musical information to the input sound (for instance a guitar) and modified the output sound. Basically an effect and often the results bonded instruments together like drums & bass & vocals very nicely. The Stones, Beatles, Spector and Motown et al used this to great effect as this added a lot of ‘oomph’ & warmth to the recording; the results were often pleasing to the ears & also perfect for Soul music. Tape recording also added ‘compression’ an effect again that can subtlety or dramatically squashe everything together giving a punchier more forceful sound.’ Again ideal for Soul and many other genres.

Recording digitally is a totally different ball game, if you go into the red you don’t get any ‘harmonic distortion’ instead you get all manner of undesirable non musical sounds, clicks, metallic clangs, feedback, white noise and it sounds bad. Best not to go into the red when recording digitally! Digital recording can produce a very clean sound which in itself has its merits (great for a lot of electronic music,) it’s often seen as a downside to the format but I’m sure in years to come it will be what people like about digital, much in the same way vinyl crackles and noise were originally seen as a flaw but is now part & parcel of what makes a record special.

After years of listening to analogue records this clinical digital sound may take some getting used to especially if you’re so used to a vintage sound. Often remastered records sound clearer, but to my ears it’s often to the detriment of the original recording, mistakes & background sounds are often more obvious and the sound can become sparser and more clinical when before it was compressed together. Also worth noting is that it’s not how the band originally heard their music so I’m always a bit cynical of remastering unless it was poorly mastered to begin with.

So in summary, analogue tape recording often added information to a mix whereas digital record can lose information and adds no harmonic distortion or compression. It begs the question is there any point in buying vinyl that has been through this digital process, you’re basically buying a CD pressed onto vinyl which kind of defeats the point if you’re looking for that true vinyl sound.

A good example to highlight this is the old 70’s boots, some of these sound far better than the reissues released lately (tho some sound bloody awful because the source was badly recorded) mainly I guess because they remained in the analogue realm and even more tape warmth and overdrive was probably added to the 2^nd generation transfer of tape to vinyl. Some of these now command high prices.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the whole mastering process from tape to vinyl is an art in itself and I suspect that many of the people who now transfer CD masters to vinyl are not skilled at this transition and often the vinyl issue is a token/novelty gesture.

Comparing some of my pre 80’s 45’s to current releases, there is just no contest and I think it adds a lot of weight to picking up original copies of records or the recording process remaining analogue from recording to mastering.

It sounds like I’m being negative about vinyl releases and digital music, but I just think as the formats are so different they need to be treated with respect for their inherent qualities, not just transferred from a CD. Unfortunately I think that whole process might be a dying art and this may weaken the merits of vinyl. There are definitely people who do things properly and I hope that continues. Nothing sounds better than an original 60’s soul 45 through a decent sound system but some of the newer releases just don’t cut it which is a real shame as people who purchase these will wonder what all the fuss about vinyl is.

More info here if you need https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_analog_and_digital_recording

[Biggordy]

It's the same with repros of ska, reggae and 50s tunes - they're done on the cheap then sold for a tenner a pop.

[Guest]

Yes Some of the 50's repros are shocking and a few of the ska sound like they've been taken from an ashtray lol Shocker!

[Geeselad]

do you think its a matter of horses for courses? The few folky bits I have, fleet foxes ect, and Jazz for example might fair a little better all in all from digi because of the issues you can with quiet passages, where as music of a dynamic nature, black music for example may bennifit from analogue?

[Guest]

That's a good point & makes perfect sense

[Sebastian]

The few folky bits I have, fleet foxes ect, and Jazz for example might fair a little better all in all from digi because of the issues you can with quiet passages, where as music of a dynamic nature, black music for example may bennifit from analogue?

Some of the best pressed/sounding vinyl records of all time are jazz, folk and classical records with lots of quiet passages.

I think it's more to do with the fact that vinyl mastering, stamper/plate manufacturing and record cutting is pretty much a dead art form (and has been since the mid-80's).

You have to look long and hard to find pressing plants and engineers who actually know what they're doing. And even then, it seems nigh on impossible to get a record pressed/cut REALLY loud (like Fabulous Peps "With These Eyes" for example).

[Geeselad]

Some of the best pressed/sounding vinyl records of all time are jazz, folk and classical records with lots of quiet passages.

I think it's more to do with the fact that vinyl mastering, stamper/plate manufacturing and record cutting is pretty much a dead art form (and has been since the mid-80's).

You have to look long and hard to find pressing plants and engineers who actually know what they're doing. And even then, it seems nigh on impossible to get a record pressed/cut REALLY loud (like Fabulous Peps "With These Eyes" for example).

I'm sure they are, I have some great audio file jazz albums but they have to be absolutly mint to to get the best, Vinyl is debatably less durable that other formats.

[Gene-r]

New release vinyl still holds out well, particularly the indie label releases. "Skyfall" by Adele on a new release 7" 45 is crystal-clear, and a much warmer sound to its CD or digital equivalent.

Actually, some of the batch of recent 50s / 60s boots still sound excellent. Charles Sheffield on Excello and Eugene Jefferson on Open are perfect, decent-sounding examples. The boot of "My Boy Lollipop" by Barbie Gaye, however, is quite a soft recording in comparison.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Gene-R

[Mal C]

I think all the Kent 45's are second to none personally, I have the Tommy Tates - If you got to love somebody release which really is a great sound, better than the Grapevine 45, probably even that the original which I think is styrene only...

any excuse to mention that record basically...

Edited November 19, 2012 by Mal.C.

[boba]

Just to be specific about the ways that a digital format might compromise the original audio, there are two separate phenomenons. One is quantization (which is how many bits the recording is at -- e.g. 16, 24, 36, etc.) and determines how many possible numbers are used at any time to represent the amplitude of the waveform. The other is sampling, or discretization, which represents how many snapshots of the waveform occur in the time domain. This is the sampling rate -- e.g. 22khz, 44.1khz, etc.

Discretization results in the limiting of frequencies that can be represented in the digital file. Specifically, the highest frequency that can be represented is half of the sampling rate. So at 44.1khz (which is the sample rate for all CDs), the highest frequency that will be present in the recording will be 22050hz. Higher frequencies have to be filtered out of the recording before being sampled because otherwise a phenomenon called aliasing will cause higher frequencies to instead become much lower frequencies. This is similar to when you're watching a car ad on TV and the wheels appear to be moving slowly backwards instead of quickly forward, due to the TV's refresh rate. Note that the upper range of human hearing is about 20khz, although it is said that even higher frequencies that you can't hear make some sort of perceptual difference in the vinyl playback.

Quantization error results in an annoying type of noise that depends on the amplitude (loudness) of the sound wave -- it is a weird sounding distortion that doesn't occur when silence is in the digital file (it's totally quiet at that point) but is loud and annoying when at a higher loudness. Unless you manipulate something to a very low bit rate, you generally won't hear this. However, the effect of this noise might be a cause of the "worn out" feeling some people report when listening to CDs for a long time. A common practice is actually to add white noise to a recording which will increase the noise floor so that the quantization noise falls under that level and is masked. This is called "dithering".

Modern digital recording is frequently done at 96khz and 32 bits. This means the highest frequency that can be represented is 48khz, well above the human hearing range (dogs can hear higher frequences though). 32 bits is a very detailed representation of the amplitude of the waveform. So I don't think the technology, if used correctly, inherently makes new vinyl sound worse.

There are other issues affecting new vinyl reissues -- e.g. the source of the master (e.g. tape or vinyl), the condition and degradation of the source, the original recording quality, processing of the audio, etc. I just wanted to make explicit the specific effects of digital recording and make the point that if used correctly it should not be responsible for any loss of quality given the current high bit and frequency rates available.

[Des Crombie]

A couple of other things to consider that may go some way to explain why modern records don't sound as good.

Firstly the song length, as for best loud punchy sound you need wide grooves played at a fast speed. So on a 7inch 45 rpm, two or three minute records sound best. From the sixties until present there has been a trend for songs to become longer, fitting these longer tracks onto 7inch reduces sound levals and punch. Hence the adoption of the 12inch single.

Secondly, traditional Lacquer mastering gives a much warmer and deeper sound in contrast to cheaper Direct Metal mastering which I suspect is being used on many repros today.

I'm no expert but I have also read that there is a difference in groove width and hence volume from mono to stereo with mono being wider and hence louder.

[Guest turntableterra]

i reckon its the digital recordings or the way things are re recorded.are they from the original tapes, the acetates or a re recording from the disc. the width of the grooves and the closeness of them can also cause distortion. i believe it was discussed on here a few years ago, could be wrong but the name ghosting comes to mind whereby you can hear whats coming on a record along with what is already there. i have the file copy master tape of "do i love you" frank wilson.( and i know its not everyones cup of tea) but six months ago i went to a recording studio and had it disected against the boot on IN, the 1979 uk issue and the 2009 release from the box set and there are major differences. the 1979 is almost a mono recording as is the 2009 version, boot these up really loud and they become distorted. some channels are missing and they really come across as poor recordings. and many will never have heard the original recording before. transfer from the analogue tape was difficult but a success nevertheless and the sound quality is tremendous. I HEARD INTSRUMENTS WHERE I NEVER KNEW THERE WAS. the major difference to me is that with most digital recordings played from cd mp3 etc can be played extremely loud with minimal, if any, distortion where as with a vinyl record it will distort at a lower range. i teach OHS and had a discussion with a 25 yrold who had his ipod and phones in, we could all hear it in the garden, i suggested he may go deaf later in life. at this point i probably heard the most stupidest comment i am ever likely to hear.........." ill just get some cochlea implants" WHAT!!!

Edited November 20, 2012 by turntableterra

[Sebastian]

A couple of other things to consider that may go some way to explain why modern records don't sound as good.

Firstly the song length, as for best loud punchy sound you need wide grooves played at a fast speed. So on a 7inch 45 rpm, two or three minute records sound best.

That is true, but I can assure you, even if I have a good sounding/mastered 1:45 minutes long song in mono that I want to have pressed as loud as possible onto a 45 I wouldn't get the same punch/loudness as on a decently pressed/mastered vintage 60's 45.

No one seems to know how to do it anymore. Apart from Timmion in Finland perhaps.

[Guest]

My point exactly Sebastian

[boba]

My point exactly Sebastian

your point was about digital recording though. Sebastian's point was about how pressing records is a lost art.

[Guest]

Er Actually Boba if you read through my original post I mention that as part of the problem : 'Another thing worth mentioning is that the whole mastering process from tape to vinyl is an art in itself and I suspect that many of the people who now transfer CD masters to vinyl are not skilled at this transition and often the vinyl issue is a token/novelty gesture.

Comparing some of my pre 80’s 45’s to current releases, there is just no contest and I think it adds a lot of weight to picking up original copies of records or the recording process remaining analogue from recording to mastering.'

[Only Dreaming]

i reckon its the digital recordings or the way things are re recorded.are they from the original tapes, the acetates or a re recording from the disc. the width of the grooves and the closeness of them can also cause distortion. i believe it was discussed on here a few years ago, could be wrong but the name ghosting comes to mind whereby you can hear whats coming on a record along with what is already there. i have the file copy master tape of "do i love you" frank wilson.( and i know its not everyones cup of tea) but six months ago i went to a recording studio and had it disected against the boot on IN, the 1979 uk issue and the 2009 release from the box set and there are major differences. the 1979 is almost a mono recording as is the 2009 version, boot these up really loud and they become distorted. some channels are missing and they really come across as poor recordings. and many will never have heard the original recording before. transfer from the analogue tape was difficult but a success nevertheless and the sound quality is tremendous. I HEARD INTSRUMENTS WHERE I NEVER KNEW THERE WAS. the major difference to me is that with most digital recordings played from cd mp3 etc can be played extremely loud with minimal, if any, distortion where as with a vinyl record it will distort at a lower range. i teach OHS and had a discussion with a 25 yrold who had his ipod and phones in, we could all hear it in the garden, i suggested he may go deaf later in life. at this point i probably heard the most stupidest comment i am ever likely to hear.........." ill just get some cochlea implants" WHAT!!!

I have had a similiar experience with the Tom Moulton "Philly Regrooved" Cd's. They really do add a new dimension to the music. Those CD's are so good that I have given up playing a lot of my original Philly Groove 45's. The same can be said of the deluxe double CD re-issue of the "My Generation" , LP. The clarity on this is incredible and again, my original vinyl just can't compete. Finally, hats of to those wonderful people at Ace/Kent who took the time and effort to re-release (remaster?) the incredible "Gone with the wind (is my love)", both sides of that 45' are a masterclass in how to do it properly.

best,

Dave

[boba]

Er Actually Boba if you read through my original post I mention that as part of the problem : 'Another thing worth mentioning is that the whole mastering process from tape to vinyl is an art in itself and I suspect that many of the people who now transfer CD masters to vinyl are not skilled at this transition and often the vinyl issue is a token/novelty gesture.

Comparing some of my pre 80’s 45’s to current releases, there is just no contest and I think it adds a lot of weight to picking up original copies of records or the recording process remaining analogue from recording to mastering.'

ok sorry, i missed that part of your post and was relying too much on the title. sorry.

[Guest]

To be fair Boba my original post was a bit too long in the tooth ha ha ha