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Posted by VoiDeT on Nov-07-2001 05:54:

Do you agree cd is winning?

Hello all,

i was talking to this dj the other day about vinyl, and cd's, and what he thinks....(his from sydney australia, name is Dj Ta$K) but anyways we were talking and i asked him why he cd dj's, and he reckons that cd's are more polular than turntables....He says that 10% of clubs only use cd dexx......he also says that vinyl is about to die...and i know we have a lot of turntable lovers and vinyl enthusiests, so what do you have to say? i guess this is a cd Vs. Vinyl... But do you agree??

Me btw, i use turntables, i prefer the physical manouvering....

Thanks


Posted by DJ LIQUID on Nov-07-2001 10:16:

Thats just his opinion........when you think of a dj whats the first thing that comes to mind.........RECORDS/VINYL

Vinyl is #1 and will stay that way.....plus it would suck to have to wait till they press a track onto a cd when you can get it months ahead of time on Vinyl.

Vinyl = More Punch in the mix

of course thats my opinion


dont flame me because i have both Turntables and a cd deck


Posted by VoiDeT on Nov-07-2001 10:20:

Yea, well he wasn't saying it in his opinion, he was more of saying it in a fact kinda way. Nahh i ain't burning you for you have cd decks, i just bought some 1200's not so long ago, and for him to say that stuff really got me a little uneased, so yea, i got nothing against cd decks, but i prefer turntables far higher....thanx,
Anyone else got anymore comments


Posted by Pjotr G on Nov-07-2001 11:09:

Well for me I'd have to say cd's can't beat the "hands-on" feel of vinyl. But something more is going on.
Some people whine about CD sound being higher quality than vinyl sound. If you define quality as a lack of hiss..pops...i guess cd's are better.
WOOPS somebody forgot to mention WARMTH....and DYNAMICS. To my ears Vinyl sounds better "quality"....Pearl Jam only released some albums in the CD era on vinyl...because of the warmth...the analogue "feel"...they did not want it to be released on CD.
So maybe it's not CD versus Vinyl, but a dispute about "what is quality sound". About the same is going on in the hardware scene...
digital mixer vs analog mixer
digital synth vs analog synth
(CD = digital, vinyl = analog)

DIGITAL VS ANALOG
I'll take analog any time of the day


Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-07-2001 16:32:

Vinyl is an analogue wave cut into a a piece of physical material. the needle actually travels up and down in waves, like a real sound wave.

CD is an approximation of that wav, using 1's and 0s, to make staircase pattern that resembles the original wave.

therefore vinyl is more true to the original sound, it has more dynamic range, and better high and low frequency response..

BUT

CD is clearer(no hiss, no pop, no wow and flutter), it never degrades in quality no matter how much you play it, and where there is silence, the speakers are SILENT(as long as all your audio equipment is working silently, which is rarely the case)

anyway... vinyl, CD, MP3, it's all just ways of bringing music to people.. DJing will never die, but technology will change..

that being said, I want what I got in my signature, plus 2 of them new pioneer CDJ1000s for CDs, and a pentium 4 2Ghz with 512mb ram for my mp3s. then I can use whatever I want!

soo... that's my $0.02

what's this about pearl jam only realeasing some albums on vinyl? which one?


Posted by Eugene on Nov-07-2001 17:58:

No, I don't think vinyl and the vinyl culture will ever die, but I'm against people dissing CD's just because they think it's "not cool".


Posted by DJTJ on Nov-07-2001 18:02:

I guess it all depends on what equipment the music was actually produced on. If it was made using a computer, then CD is going to be the best medium because the computer samples at the same rate as a CD, and it is digital like a CD. If you put this onto vinyl you can only lose quality through converting it from analog to digital.

However, if it was created using analog synths, then you will lose far more sound quality from the conversion from analog to digital than you ever will leaving it as analog and pressing it to vinyl.

Apart from these technical issues, vinyl is just sooooooooooo much more fun to play with and looks a thousand times cooler!


Posted by j_spot on Nov-07-2001 18:49:

k, well here in calgary there are very few clubs that use vinyl. Most of the 'popular' clubs where u go to get pissed drunk used CDs, that is with some exception, but most clubs here do use CDs, and some of em just CD players, not even cd Decks..so if u just have CD players, and idiot can mix 2 songs.

Course mixing trance and mixing pop and rap and rock are completly different. Id like to see you beat match britney to AC/DC! soo....i dunno, I like vinyl, i think its more versatile,but with teh new cdj 1000, who knows.

FINAL SCRATCH is all I have to say...get it and youve got the best of every world out ther!


Posted by Pjotr G on Nov-07-2001 19:27:

quote:
Originally posted by RavingLunatic
Vinyl is an analogue wave cut into a a piece of physical material. the needle actually travels up and down in waves, like a real sound wave.


I'm sorry but this explanation is just ye olde bullshit. The vinyl groove does not resemble the actual wave as you would see it on an oscilloscope. What you refer to as "staircasing" also happens on vinyl...the needle goes over a very large number of very small bumps....yes...separate bumps...not one continuous flow. So you can't say analog is better becuz of physical reasons...actually it's mostly valued better because of trancendent reasons ("warmth") and where physics come in, CD wins the battle. Digital allows for more "bumps" per millisecond that you can press on vinyl. Digital also allows frequencies so high that when pressed on vinyl the groove would be too narrow for the needle to play. So....the reasons why you favor vinyl apply to CD.
PS dunno which pearl jam album i talked about

TO DJTJ: Have to disagree with you too....What you're saying is that dance music does not come to it's right on vinyl....that's right. Every complete studio setup has a sampler. They are oooften used in production believe me. Analog samplers don't exist...unless you call a mellotron a sampler, which i don't. I don't think there are many producers out there with a complete analog setup....everybody uses FX....who doesn't use digital delay?


Posted by Synergy on Nov-07-2001 19:35:

I agree with Pjotr G and RavingLunatic about the warmth of vinyl.

From a DJ standpoint, there is just something more compelling when spinning vinyl. It's like driving an automatic vehicle versus a standard. You definetely are in more control of the vehicle with a standard transmission.

IMO, Cd's cant touch vinyl


Posted by DjPablo on Nov-07-2001 20:10:

I think every DJ should use what he wants or is best in.
The people on the dancefloor won't hear if your using CD's or Vinyl.
I play both Vinyl and Cd's and both have their charmes.
It all started with the vinyl mixing and I think it will continue for a loong time.


Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-07-2001 20:22:

quote:
Originally posted by Pjotr G
[B]
I'm sorry but this explanation is just ye olde bullshit. The vinyl groove does not resemble the actual wave as you would see it on an oscilloscope. What you refer to as "staircasing" also happens on vinyl...the needle goes over a very large number of very small bumps....yes...separate bumps...not one continuous flow. So you can't say analog is better becuz of physical reasons...actually it's mostly valued better because of trancendent reasons ("warmth") and where physics come in, CD wins the battle. Digital allows for more "bumps" per millisecond that you can press on vinyl. Digital also allows frequencies so high that when pressed on vinyl the groove would be too narrow for the needle to play. So....the reasons why you favor vinyl apply to CD.
PS dunno which pearl jam album i talked about


Are you sure Pjotr G? I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that a soundwave is cut into a vinyl, not an encoded stream of 1's and 0s like a CD. why else can I hear the record without the deck even plugged into a mixer or amplifier? The simple needle riding in that groove makes a sound. but yes, you are right, even vinyl is limited, the wave can only be as precise as one molecule of vinyl, or PVC as someone else called it.

everything is a series of small bumps, even a molecule of water is not smooth, it's made up of 3 atoms!

I have heard that there is something called the RIAA curve, which is a slight distortion of the signal, so that you have to put the output into phono plugs instead of line ones.. this is supposedly something the RIAA did to protect copyright..

and I'm pretty sure vinyl is capable of higher and lower frequencies than CD. 44khz means that the highest frequency that can be reproduced is roughly half of that, or 22khz. most people can't hear over 20khz though, so it doesn't matter much. but I think good quality vinyl, with a tech 12 and a super accurate diamond tipped needle is capable of producing higher sounds than 22khz.. I welcome you to prove me wrong.


Posted by inatrance on Nov-08-2001 05:50:

but 22 is half of a cd's 44khz.. so still it wouldnt compare


Posted by Pjotr G on Nov-08-2001 09:11:

quote:
Originally posted by RavingLunatic


Are you sure Pjotr G? I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that a soundwave is cut into a vinyl, not an encoded stream of 1's and 0s like a CD. why else can I hear the record without the deck even plugged into a mixer or amplifier? The simple needle riding in that groove makes a sound. but yes, you are right, even vinyl is limited, the wave can only be as precise as one molecule of vinyl, or PVC as someone else called it.

everything is a series of small bumps, even a molecule of water is not smooth, it's made up of 3 atoms!

I have heard that there is something called the RIAA curve, which is a slight distortion of the signal, so that you have to put the output into phono plugs instead of line ones.. this is supposedly something the RIAA did to protect copyright..

and I'm pretty sure vinyl is capable of higher and lower frequencies than CD. 44khz means that the highest frequency that can be reproduced is roughly half of that, or 22khz. most people can't hear over 20khz though, so it doesn't matter much. but I think good quality vinyl, with a tech 12 and a super accurate diamond tipped needle is capable of producing higher sounds than 22khz.. I welcome you to prove me wrong.

I am VERY sure of all that I've said. Indeed, vinyl doesn't have 1's and 0's in it...that would have made it digital. And yes you hear the record play if you keep your ear near the needle. What you hear is the needle bumping all these tiny "bumps". Look, what you're saying is that if you pressed a sub-bass sine wave on vinyl. The needle would very slowly go uuuuup and doooown, in a wave shape. I can assure you you would hear JACK. When a sine is pressed on vinyl, even though the natural wave is one slow smooth sine, the needle play all these small "bumps" real fast after each other...you could compare it to "samples" in digital recording. If you would press a sinewave bending up to infinity on vinyl, when it gets very high, you would get a "essing" sound......if you know what i mean. I'm ABSOLUTELY sure CD is capable of higher AND lower frequencies. Doesn't matter how diamond tipped your needle is...the groove is still the groove...and it just can't get too narrow (read: high) for the needle to go thru. No i have none of your so called proof in my hands. Search the net, I'm sure it's like mentioned a 10.000 times.
[edit] oh yeah and try to plug a cd player into a phono jack. What do you hear? Overdriven sound. What does that tell you? Apparently the incoming phono signal is so weak that it needs to be amplified a lot more than the other channels.[/edit]


Posted by inatrance on Nov-08-2001 23:32:

im just starting and I use cd's.. that doesnt mean I'll always use cds, but its just easier... and my opinion says that vinyl will always survive but the cd industry is gonna get a lot bigger.. well thats my $.02


Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-09-2001 00:55:

quote:
Originally posted by inatrance
but 22 is half of a cd's 44khz.. so still it wouldnt compare


44khz sampling allows for roughly half that frequency of sound to be recorded.


Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-09-2001 00:59:

quote:
Originally posted by Pjotr G

I am VERY sure of all that I've said. Indeed, vinyl doesn't have 1's and 0's in it...that would have made it digital. And yes you hear the record play if you keep your ear near the needle. What you hear is the needle bumping all these tiny "bumps". Look, what you're saying is that if you pressed a sub-bass sine wave on vinyl. The needle would very slowly go uuuuup and doooown, in a wave shape. I can assure you you would hear JACK. When a sine is pressed on vinyl, even though the natural wave is one slow smooth sine, the needle play all these small "bumps" real fast after each other...you could compare it to "samples" in digital recording. If you would press a sinewave bending up to infinity on vinyl, when it gets very high, you would get a "essing" sound......if you know what i mean. I'm ABSOLUTELY sure CD is capable of higher AND lower frequencies. Doesn't matter how diamond tipped your needle is...the groove is still the groove...and it just can't get too narrow (read: high) for the needle to go thru. No i have none of your so called proof in my hands. Search the net, I'm sure it's like mentioned a 10.000 times.
[edit] oh yeah and try to plug a cd player into a phono jack. What do you hear? Overdriven sound. What does that tell you? Apparently the incoming phono signal is so weak that it needs to be amplified a lot more than the other channels.[/edit]


s'ok man.. just a misunderstanding.. I know it isn't the actual soundwave cut into the vinyl, but it's a physical representation of it anyway.. I was saying that a physical representation is still more accurate than a digital one.

but anyway.. thats for the lesson


Posted by Peter Campbell on Nov-09-2001 05:00:

heres something I found off the net to read



Analog Vs. Digital

by Howard Massey

Once upon a time, life was uncomplicated: All synthesizers were analog machines. Then along came the moon landing, Tang, the birth of Silicon Valley, and�lo and behold�digital technology began infiltrating everything from our synthesizers to our drinking water. And that�s when the real confusion started for synth players. Just what do these two terms mean?




Analog is a term that refers to the ability of an instrument�s circuits to produce and process continuous electrical fluctuations, which correspond in some one-to-one fashion to the back-and-forth movement of air that we perceive as sound. In fact, these electrical fluctuations are converted to movements of air when they are passed through an amplifier and on to a loudspeaker. This may seem like a lot to digest, but it�s really a pretty simple concept. Take a look at Fig. 1, and contrast it to the definition of digital that follows.

Digital synthesizers, on the other hand, create sounds by working with digital representations of sound waves, in the form of binary numbers (groups of 1s and 0s). These representations can then be treated in a variety of mathematical ways, but in order to hear the results of these manipulations, the numbers have to be passed through a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which changes the numeric representations to equivalent electrical (analog) voltages. Ever connect the dots to draw a picture? Well, that�s pretty much what the DAC does. It receives a series of numbers and responds by connecting the dots from number to number and outputting a voltage that changes in the same way.

These voltages only become sound (that is, movement of air) after being fed into an amplifier and out of a speaker system�just like the voltages of an analog synth. Many people describe digital synths as sounding thin and crisp, while saying that analog synths sound fat and warm. These descriptions are misleading, since what�s really being described is the sound of the particular synthesis technique used by the instrument. While digital synthesizers may use any of a number of different techniques, virtually all commercially available analog instruments use a system called subtractive synthesis to create sounds.

What complicates matters is that most instruments produced in the late �70s and early �80s were hybrid combinations of both analog and digital technology�though most, if not all, were actually subtractive synthesizers. These machines often used analog sound-producing circuitry linked with a digital microprocessor (computer) that kept track of the analog settings in order to memorize sounds. Time marches on, however, and slowly but surely these hybrid instruments began incorporating more and more digital circuitry. By the early �90s, it was hard to find any instruments that used analog circuitry, but their popularity is on the upswing again today.

How do you know if a particular instrument is using subtractive synthesis? The answer is simple: look for a filter. Subtractive synthesizers build sounds by starting with a broad palette of audio components (called overtones) and then removing unwanted ones. A device that�s capable of removing some of the frequency components of a sound is called�you guessed it� a filter. It doesn�t matter if the filter is analog or digital, or if it�s a lowpass, highpass, or bandpass filter. It also doesn�t matter if the instrument is called a "wavetable" synth or not. The bottom line is that, if it�s got a filter, it�s basically a subtractive synthesizer.

But what about samplers? After all, most of them have filters, too. Even though samplers technically aren�t synthesizers (since they can�t create sounds from scratch), if they contain filters, they are using a subtractive processing technique. Their filters simply remove unwanted overtones that were in the original sampled sound.

Let�s focus on how subtractive synthesizers actually work. The sound source in these instruments�the place where everything begins�is a device called an oscillator. If the instrument is an analog synth, the oscillator will be a physical component that generates regularly changing electrical signals. If the instrument is digital, the oscillator will simply be a table of numbers (a wavetable) that is stored in memory and repeatedly read out.

Controls on the oscillator, whether digital or analog, allow you to alter the frequency, or pitch, of the sound. You can also select the waveform (different waveforms produce different sets of overtones, making for different tone colors). In addition to responding to dials or sliders on the front panel, the oscillators react to controlling signals from the keyboard and other sources, such as envelope generators, LFOs, (Low Frequency Oscillators), and various MIDI messages.

A signal from the keyboard (or an incoming MIDI message) tells the oscillator what note to produce. Other sources, like the envelope generator, produce a one-time-only pitch change, the shape of which will vary depending on how you set the envelope controls. An LFO can be used to add periodic pitch change�better known as vibrato, although other effects, such as trills, are also possible. In analog systems, the controlling signal will be a voltage; in digital systems, it will be a series of numeric (digital) commands.

If the oscillator in question is built to react to voltages, then it is said to be a voltage-controlled oscillator, or VCO. If, on the other hand, it responds to digital control signals, then it is said to be a digitally-controlled oscillator, or DCO. Typically, there will be two or more oscillators present so that you can blend different frequencies and/or timbres together in order to create a richer sound. The signal from the oscillators is routed to a passive mixer so that you can determine the relative volume of each. But it�s after the signal leaves the mixer and enters the filter that the real fun begins.

The filter is where hardcore subtractive synthesis takes place. Its task is to remove harmonics (overtones) from the waveform produced by the oscillators. Which overtones get removed�high ones, low ones, or both�is determined by the type of filter used. The most common kind of filter cuts out high frequencies and lets the low ones through�that�s why it�s called a lowpass filter. A control called the cutoff frequency determines the point in the frequency spectrum at which the filter begins working. In the case of the lowpass filter, frequencies above the cutoff frequency get rolled off (gradually attenuated, or lessened).

A highpass filter does just the opposite. It cuts frequencies below the cutoff and passes those above it. If you plug a lowpass filter into a highpass filter (or vice versa), you end up cutting both high and low frequencies, allowing only those in the middle to pass through. This is how a bandpass filter works. There are other types of filters, but you�re not likely to find them on many instruments. In every instance, however, the filter is removing frequency components�and that is the key to subtractive processing. Many filters also have a resonance, or emphasis control that boosts those frequencies immediately around the cutoff frequency, thus making the sound thin and nasal.

To round things out, the signal will then move on to an amplifier, which will be either voltage-controlled or digitally-controlled, normally by an envelope generator. This will have the effect of finally shaping the loudness contour�changing the amplitude of the sound throughout its duration. If the synth is analog, the resultant signal appears at the output jack, ready to be routed to your mixer/amplifier and loudspeakers; if the synth is digital, the signal first has to pass through a DAC before arriving at the output jack.


Posted by Peter Campbell on Nov-09-2001 05:04:

Sound is made when objects vibrate producing pressure waves that can be picked up by our ears. These waves can be picked up when they vibrate the membrane of a microphone and can be created by the vibrations of the membrane in a speaker. If we graph the intensity of the wave, or the motion of the microphone membrane, over time, we will get a smooth waveform curve in which the frequency of a sound is the number of peaks per second (Hertz). The distance between two peaks is the wavelength. As with most physical properties (e.g. temperature, pressure, velocity, the shape of the groove of an LP), this is an analog signal: between any two points in time we might make infinite number of different measurements, between any two intensities there can be an infinite number of different values. Although the graph shown below is very simple, waveforms can be quite complex because many different frequencies are usually present simultaneously (a spectral graph will show the distribution of frequencies in a sound).


Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-09-2001 19:53:

Very Nice, thanks dude.


Posted by Danstar on Nov-13-2001 02:18:

Well they both have there advantages and disadvantages but one thing is special about vinyl. U know the feeling when u find a rare really hard to find track that hardly any people have got. The feeling is great and when u drop it in a set you know people are going to go off to it. With CD's u can simply go on morpheous or any other file sharing program and download any song u want. It just takes away from the experience I guess.


Posted by slumbermonkey on Nov-13-2001 04:19:

this goes way back to the first page, but i don't think anyone answered it. Pearl Jam released Vitalogy only on vinyl, initially (hence the song "Spin the Black Circle" ) but of course the industry couldn't live with that and now the cd is sitting in my binder.

and while i'm here, speaking for myself (as a fully digital producer, aspiring to be a dj as well) i'm looking to get some turntables, not cd decks. vinyl just looks like so much more fun. and digital sound is often too sharp and cold, too...


Posted by VoiDeT on Nov-13-2001 05:41:

I totally agree with all of you when you say vinyl has a much more warm and deep feeling. Deeper than digital music. And i think that although vinyl might have a lower bitrate as i think it is called (the movement and gaps between bumps in the record) but i think it is still good quality. And apart from the pops and hiss's now and then, i love the sound.. thank you everyone who replied


Posted by DJ Veg on Nov-16-2001 12:29:

Exclamation CD vs Vinyl

I am from the Isle of Man and I started out using CD dexx and got the hang of it quite quickly and I said that CD were better than Vinyl, but then I invested in a set of 1210's and now i use both. I find it easier to use vinyl's but I like the challenge a cd deck gives you but over here i don't think vinyl is dying but mp3's are taking over a bit which could overtake vinyl and the purchasing of cd material. It would be a shame to get rid of the vinyl for cd's but i think there is a lot of life left in the old vinyl yet!


Posted by slumbermonkey on Nov-16-2001 18:20:

seems to me (this is a hypothesis) that vinyl is a much more hands-on deal. i know there's cd decks with scratch features and all that, but its still an emulation. my background is all live instruments (piano, guitar, drums) so a more manual, hands-on deal appeals to me. it seems that with cd mixers you're pushing buttons and switches and sliders and stuff, where with vinyl you've actually got your hands on the record. seems like more of a performance with vinyl, while you're more just playing music with cd decks. but i don't really know, i'm not even a dj yet. thats just my impression.


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