Do you still buy vinyl?

But I like vinyl and will start buying it again soon I'm sure.

I really love vinyl as a format: there's something so nice about seeing a nice big album cover and an illustrated picture sleeve. I guess I enjoy the graphics aspect of it. The sound quality isn't that much different, imho, though I do know certain vinyl purists who will tell you how much warmer vinyl sounds compared to sterile cds. I just don't hear that.

I don't buy much vinyl anymore mainly because it isn't portable, and I like to have cds take to work to listen to and also have in my car, etc. etc. etc.

I actually own a lot of vinyl but I left it in Arizona with my dad because he had a turntable at the time. But his broke and now he has no use for them either. I keep asking him to stay his hand on selling them because I want them back one day.

I went to Camelot the other day and almost fainted at the sight of a $18.95 CD. Time to dust off the turntable.

However, I do have to ask something: maybe I've only been looking into rarer vinyl these days, though I don't reckon I'm looking for things particularly obscure, but everything I try to buy on vinyl LATELY is unreasonably more expensive than a CD, or than I remember it being when I was younger. Granted, since I'm only buying them for the artwork right now, I justify the expense in my mind by pointing out to myself that buying the French ads that I"m so fond of set me back way more than an expensive vinyl. But everything's like $30 or more. Which I can understand for things like the Motown Junk vinyl, but for beaten up madonna albums?

I'm still pretty astounded by the *hostility* which new-converts-to- CDs started exhibiting towards vinyl, the minute CDs started getting big... I understand record companies wanting buyers to pay 5-10 extra dollars for the same damn thing, but why music fans started getting this attitude of "now that CDs are out there, vinyl shouldn't be available to anyone at all ever", I'll never know. Spending 20-25 $ for every record you buy is just nuts

Also, that old scratching thing is just not true. Once a CD is scratched it's utterly fucked, whereas a jump on a record can be remedied by the judicious use of a 2p piece. I have exactly one record that's unplayable (out of a few hundred) and three cds (out of a similar number) that jump like buggery.

But with new vinyl -- I remember seeing that double vinyl of Kid A for about $28 maybe? That's just ridiculous. At least you can usually find cds much cheaper than that, especially when there's sales.

I suppose this is another thread but why doesn't anyone take decent care of their CDs? They're not meant to be tossed around or thrown shiny-side-down on a desktop or anything like that. I almost came to blows with the IT guy at my workplace for taking my copy of THB out of my computer at work and hurling it, VIOLENTLY, face-down on the desk (he apparently does this to everyone, and I was left unwarned that you're meant to clean out all disks from your computer if you know he's coming because he tries to break things). I told him that if I took it home and it skipped, I'd hunt him down, and I would.

My CDs are all in fantastic condition, so I'm wondering what everyone does to make their CDs skip so much :)

I suppose I was always careful with them because I couldn't really afford them and had to pay with my own cash, etc, so I was like, oh, don't want to screw this up and have to shell out another $15, let's be nice to this one.

Whoever mentioned the Rice Krispies crack is onto something -- by the time I got that player, I had been into music long enough to be utterly frustrated by skips and crackles and stuck grooves and the like. Bah. I want to hear the music, not the mistakes of the medium, thanks.

The cover art deal...*shrug*...eh. Again, music, not the artwork. As for expense, this is why I shop used.

Like Ally, I've had no problems with CDs, except in my portable player, which skips sometimes. My 'best' stereo is starting to skip very occasionally on CDs, but it's always OK after cleaning the CD. In other words the laser seems to be getting more sensitive to small amounts of dust.

The only CD I've bought which skipped horribly on each one of my 4 CD players was the Lemon Jelly album. I got a replacement and, guess what, the same thing happened. However the the reason for the skipping had NOTHING to do with the surface of the CD or the tracking. Each time I loaded it into the player I heard a tiny scraping sound as it spun the CD around. It turned out that the hole in the middle had a sort of slightly raised "lip" on the underside which was "catching" on something and physically moving the CD out of alignment. Once I filed it off it worked fine.

The reason for boring you all stupid with the details of this is that it might be something to check for if you've got a skipping CD.

Last year I considered buying a copy of _Surf's Up_ on vinyl used, but they were going for $20 because it was out of print. Now that it has been reissued on CD, I just picked up a perfect copy for $2. Interesesting how vinyl used to be sequenced; the title track of this record would have never been the last track on a CD if it had come out on that format originally. As it ends, it ends the album on the perfect note.

I presume yr refering to the "Long Box" format, where the CD case would be at the bottom of a 12" x 5" cardboard sleeve. This AFAIK only happened in the USA (over here, "Long Boxes" were quite prized among CD import fetishist types. I didn't go for it that much, but I still have a couple of blue oyser cult boxes from when these LPs were unavailable over here in the attic somewhere. Anyway, the reason for this was that when the CD format started to take off, US recors stores concerted their 12" vinyl racks into CD racks by putting dividers down the middle. The long boxes were so you could browse more easily.

I don't buy vinyl anymore, mainly due to lack of space, and partly due to having a 2-year old wandering aruond, looking for stuff to put jammy fingerprints all over. Personally, I prefer CD sound. A lot of the complaints RE the sound of early CD reissues was down to cheap ass & stupid rekord kompanies using master tapes EQ'd for cutting to vinyl to do their CDs from. What converted me to CD was hearing a disc of Dvorak's "Hymnus". Before the choir came in, you could hear them drawing breath. I know it's a bit wanky, but it was really spooky, & sent shivers up me spine. Also, I got a CD of "Leige & Leif", and it just sounded so....good

x0x0x

I don't mind CD's. But I've always wondered why don't they package CD's in a vinyl album sized sleeve - with the CD positioned in a thin card tray or something? Best of both worlds.

Vinyl artwork is superior of course. I recently purchased Air's 'Playground Love' 12" single. Aside from the fact that I love the song and it only cost 99p, the real clincher was the artwork. I have one wall in my bedroom covered in choice album sleeves - cuts down on the decorating, I can tell you.

The only time I buy vinyl now is if it's used, new at a good price, or if it's something rare that I can't find in any other format.

I've found many vinyl delights in charity shops and car boot sales recently... Stevie Wonder, Chic, Donna Summer, Astrud Gilberto. I do find vinyl more *engaging* than CDs, though the surface noise is still a big pain in the arse.

It took me a long, long, time to disengage from vinyl and go to CD. Mainly because I didn't own a CD player until about 1997. I still haven't made up my mind which I prefer. Obviously, I like the "not having to get up to turn it over" and the programability of the CD, but I do admit that it misses something, both sonically and in terms of packaging.

It's probably something I learned at home- my dad was a sound engineer at a folk cafe, and utterly loathed *any* form of digital sound- be it CDs, digital effects, or even digital direct boxes. He was the one who pointed out the frequences that "you can't hear, but you can feel" and I think that's why I notice it.

I still own loads of CDs, in fact, at this point, I think I have more CDs than records (sigh, especially in the UK) but some things just sound ridiculous on CD - have you ever tried listening to the first JAMC album on CD? It's like watching a home movie on widescreen, it just misses the point.

I think that's also part of it- when and *how* recordings were made. I suspect a good engineer or masterer will compensate (maybe subconsciously) for frequency loss on music which is digitally generated, digitally recorded, and created for CD, and will compensate with certain tonal ranges that actually sound good on CD. While it's much harder to get music which was created and recorded on analogue to sound "right" on CD.

I also remember in music lectures at college, my soundgeek proff talking about how the recording techiniques have changed because of digital- not just the problems of recording totally digital instruments, but the problems of recording completely acoustic instruments to digital media. Especially with orchestras and things where you can't have absolute sound isolation. Multiple mic-ing becomes a problem because of differences of phase cancellation which are much worse in digital than analogue. (Ironically, the way this proff recommended recording was a return to sensitive single-mic-ing as used in the days before the invention of multi-tracking!)

So, yeah, maybe it takes a soundgeek to notice it, but there are differences in sound, and differences in recording technique.

And I just like the packaging of vinyl so much better. And skipping? Schmipping! Invariably, the people who complain most about skipping records are the ones who lose their inner sleeves and never have dust jackets.

Luckily, Paul has no less than FOUR turntables, and if he had his choice, would probably own nothing but vinyl, as it's "better for DJ- ing with", so I'm slowly being pulled back into my bad old habits.

However, it's annoying, knowing that vinyl is cheaper to produce, why the heck are records still more expensive? Or is this just cause of the ridiculous "ten inch, coloured vinyl" formatting type of them or what?

But most of all, vinyl just feels nicer. Don't know what it is about it. I love the warmth of it, and the crackles when you play something you've played to death. I love the noise you get when the record ends and gets stuck in the last bit of the groove. I have a copy of Add N To (X)'s 'Metal Fingers In My Body' which I play almost every time I DJ, to the point that it skips in the same place every time. And if I hear that track without the crackles and the skips, it just doesn't feel right.

In fact, I'm such a flipping vinyl fan that even when I get sent free records on CD, if I like them, I'll go and buy the vinyl version...!

An album that sounds fantastic on CD is the Mojave 3 ('out of time' I think). It sounds warm even in digital.

Digital recording actually cuts off sounds above and below certain frequencies, the argument being that the human ear cannot hear them.

However, due to harmonic overtones and undertones, those frequencies which the ear cannot hear, can still combine harmonically with audible frequencies to produce a certain "warmth". A good engineer or a good mastering process can compensate for those lacks by adding EQ in certain frequency ranges, so good EQ will produce the illusion of warmth.

However, this does not account for modern records which were recorded digitally which were then transfered to vinyl- the missing frequencies were never recording in the first place, so mastering them to vinyl will do nothing, as they cannot be replaced.

Good god, I'm starting to sound like a Sound On Sound reader, help me, please.

About record care. I understand that it is important to be able to listen to the song without it stopping in the middle, but I still can't completely identify with caring for objects that much. It almost seems like an *affront* to the content, to me, when the superficial manifestation of it is cared for so deeply. I feel suspicious when I see bookshelves filled with glacially clean books. On the other hand, the people I know who take good care of their records are generally very good themselves.

Count me in with the camp who believe vinyl 'warmth' is an issue of EQ and mechanical resonance, rather than greater bandwidth (the vast majority of LPs are curtailed in the bass [summed to mono below 80Hz, rolled off pretty sharpish below 45Hz] and truncated in the high treble [not much above 15kHz], to spare cutter head problems). The greater sense of spaciousness that one can get with vinyl is another happy accident of euphonic distortion - phase anomalies in the upper-mid producing that 'front-to-back' imaging which (according to one of the more fanciful audiophile theories) 'fills in' what's lost twixt performance and recording (i.e. turning plain old stereo into something more 'real').

There are issues with 16/44.1 digital, of course - different dither algorithms (dither is a method of eliminating quantisation noise) produce different effects wrt: ambience and preservation of below-LSB information (some none too pleasant, allegedly), there are filter artefacts associated with the brick-wall cut-off at 22.05kHz, etc. But I'm fairly sure that yr average CD is a whole lot close to the master (whether it's 24/96 digital, DAT, 1/4" analogue, whatever) than yr average vinyl LP; doesn't mean that it necessarily *sounds* better, of course.

On the one occasion I made a CD-R of an LP, I couldn't tell the difference between the original and the copy - proof enough for me that if CD's distortions are subtractive, then they don't amount to much, and that vinyl's 'magic' is captured within the hard limits of CD.

I'm really dubious about claims of being able to hear the 'granular' nature of digital recording - it's not as if any discrete sample-steps survive the analogue reconstruction. And Neil Young can sod off.

Actually, Bob Weston, Shellac's bassist, addressed this when the LP/CD came out. He said you can't make any money with vinyl, but it still sells for less than CDs, whereas CDs cost nothing to make, and if they sold them to stores for only $5, the stores would still jack the price up.

As for me, I try to buy nothing but vinyl. CDs (a format I've been buying since 1986) mean nothing to me anymore since I got a burner. Fuck, I can make my own CD if I have to. The obscene amounts of relatively cheap vinyl reissues I've seen in the last two years (Miles Davis' entire CBS catalog of single LPs, Herbie Hancock's CBS LPs, Curtis Mayfield's first four LPs, Ornette Coleman's Atlantic/CBS/various others LPs, Bob Dylan records, Sugar Hill 12"ers and LPs, Parliament's catalog, James Brown's catalog, the Modern Lovers, the Stooges 3 LPs, both New York Dolls LPs, Wire's Harvest LPs, What's Going On, Pere Ubu's "classic" albums, Rhino/Scorpio Records reissues, the Get Back label, etc etc) make this an amazing time to buy vinyl.

no, I can't go on.

i decided to buy a turntable because there are so many great current releases being released exclusively on the vinyl format it seems, especially as others have mentioned in the experimental/electronic/etc genres. i constantly read the boomkat new release updates and also forced exposure and i felt i was missing out on some great stuff. since my turntable purchase i've been trying to form some semblance of a record collection and have some pretty nice stuff like new city-centre-offices, kompakt, and ai records releases. my father took note of my turntable purchase and decided to go through the attic back home and ended up pulling out a few out of his old LP collection - al green "call me", a beach boys concert album, some old beatles LPs and also a few that are vietnamese? bootlegs (i think) of crosby, stills, nash and young and the rolling stones.

it's been quite a bit of fun and has kept me off the mp3 binaries newsgroups/soulseek for a while.

But I don't have a tape deck, nor a good way to record vinyl to CD, so I have to have a CD first.

That's my main motivation - I end up listening to music more in my truck than anywhere. I'm also a lot better about listening to music as an album that way. When I've got it in a CD player with remote or iTunes, I'll listen to half or 2/3 and then move on to another.

ADD = fun.

I also buy tons of 7" singles (mostly indie/noise/hardcore).

As for casettes, I buy 'em if they're cheap and if they're the only format available (lots of noise stuff is cassette only.)

Vinyl is lots cheaper and if you know your way around you can buy a record for a couple of euros and sell it for 100 euros or more on ebay.

The truth is (and lucky for me) that not many people know what the value is of a good piece of vinyl.

CD repackages can be sweet, though, with rarities and oddities and the like, though, still not as sweet the sweetest of LP packages.

In the end, anybody who swears OFF a format, is certainly missing something.

Side question: does anybody else listen to music broadcast over the A.M. waves?

I buy it more often than CD's. Quality used vinyl is so cheap if you search hard enough. Crate-digging is fun too. I like 12"s and used LP's and an occassional 45. Despite its bulk, I like vinyl more than a CD. There's no question it is warmer. Old funk 45's are very loud and Sly & the Family Stone sounds better off wax anyday. I have great rare soundtracks that probably will never come out in the CD format. Eventually, I plan to rip a good bit of my record collection to CD/MP3 and polish it up using Cakewalk or something. One day, I know I can sell items in my collection for 100 times what I paid for them.

I also would like to try DJing in the near future. I don't own two Technics 1200's and mixer though. I still feel my collection isn't quite deep enough to DJ solo. I wish I never bought most of the garbage but I have about four or five solid crates worth of quality records. I think I need more "danceable" music.

I listen to A.M. when I'm bored in the car. I like Latin A.M. radio stations sometimes.

Rolling Stones - Between the Buttons
Rolling Stones - Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out
Blondie - Best of
New Order - Movement
Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
Public Image Ltd. - The Flowers of Romance
CCR - Willy and the Poor Boys
B-52s - S/T
REM - Murmur
REM - Document
Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow

Some stuff I'd never pay full-CD price for (Surrealistic Pillow, Blondie's Best of), some that's just a sweet bargain for $2.

I was hoping for an Exile on Main St. LP, though.

the other day, for 1.99 apiece, I picked up:

Glen Campbell - By The Time I get To Phoenix
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind
Carpenters - Close To You
Martha and the Muffins - This Is the Ice Age
Bruce Cockburn - Humans
Bruce Cockburn - World Of Wonders
Bruce Cockburn - Trouble with Normal
Gordon Lightfoot - Summertime dream
Alan parsons Project - Eye In the Sky
The Pursuit of Happiness - Love Junk
Dire Straits - s/t
Gowan - Strange Animal

I passed on a Boney M and a Nik Kershaw, but may go back for them soon.

Cheap vinyl is the best way to build a collection, bar none.

More evidence of a vinyl revival:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2127350,00.html

i have been buying a lot of dance 12"s of late. i've cut way back on CDs, too. i have only ever bought one mp3.

I only buy Serato vinyl now!

That article is missing a key figure: 13% x What = What?

I'm all for vinyl when it comes to 12"s,7"s,10"s, oop stuff, stuff that hasn't been properly remastered yet

But I see no point in buying anything else on vinyl now that I no longer get the employee discount (never had to pay more than $4 for single LPs, and $4 would be for a VF original copy of Zoso or something)

Buying (full-length) new releases on vinyl when you can get it on CD is just insane to me, unless there's bonus tracks or you're the dude who runs Elektra who has the 15,000 turntable

$15,000

CDs need some more lovin

I think I stopped buying CDs roughly around the time that I sold my car. Nowadays all of the music I purchase is on vinyl, new or used. If I need a digital copy for some reason, like making a mix for someone, I download it.

I think free album downloads plus limited edition vinyl is the way I'm going with my releases from now on.

I think I stopped buying CDs roughly around the time that I sold my car I bought a turntable. Nowadays all of the music I purchase is on vinyl, new or used. If I need a digital copy for some reason, like making a mix for someone, I download it.

-- Z S, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 2:40 AM

Labels that do free dig downloads for vinyl buyers are golden.

er

I got a single by my favorite underground dude in the mail today. Sadly, I have no way to listen to it/rip it to digital.

It's also great when there's some sort of vinyl-only bonus, like the recent Deerhunter and Of Montreal releases, with the free EPs tacked on to Side 4.

I bought vinyl today! Lots of it!

I totally overspent this month. Bye bye new glasses.

:(

tape 'em up, nerdlinger! as long as you got ears, you are golden!

I love to dig and to get my hands on all kinds of records. And I buy vinyl to DJ with, and couldn't see doing it any other way (despite understanding the many advantages of going digital).

I also often find that vinyl-oriented DJs play more interesting stuff than digital DJs do. It's just so easy nowadays for anyone to grab flavor-of-the-month MP3s or to download all of those "sure shot" tracks that everybody knows.

I still buy vinyl. All the time. Never buy CDs; well, rarely anyway. Don't really download (that will change once I get new computarr though, probably.)

i only really listen to metal and reissues of 60's stuff on cd. for the most part.

and i listen to tapes. i bought a bunch of no-name 80's crystal healing/astral projection/cosmic vortex/subliminal/flute harp synth tapes today.

Used tapes are the ultimate. I hardly ever find anything great, but when I do they are super-mega cheap. I'm talkin Nitzer Ebb and Eazy-E for fitty cents. I pray that one day my wall-of-tapes dream will be realized.

I'm dubious about this vinyl revival - there's nowhere in Exeter, for instance, to buy vinyl; a handful of singles and so on in HMV but seemingly nothing in Virgin or anywhere else.

i never stopped buying vinyl, but now for the first time in probably 10 years i'm buying more vinyl than cds again

I mostly buy CDs over LPs but I still buy a lot of 7"s. Mostly old punk singles though, not much new stuff.

i bought a whole load this week, so exciting

i started buying vinyl again 2 years ago, didn't think i was going to but lots of these underground type bands have vinyl only releases. same with tapes, i'm no sentimental tape dude but cant miss out on some of these things. i;ll sell them on ebay when i get tired of them, but i doubt i ever will. i will never leave this tape/vinyl/cd-r swamp i'm stuck in. i loves it

I think I bought around 200-250 CDs tops, between the early and mid-90's. Since then it's blank ones only- it truly was a parenthesis, whereas I'm still adding to a vinyl collection started in the late 70's. Hundreds of tapes rotting away in the attic too, hoping to convert some to digital format one of these days.

It seems to me that the big argument for CD over vinyl was it's portability. These days CDs aren't even the most portable format, it's MP3, so they lose even that USP. I only ever buy vinyl now - I'll download an album to see if it's any good, if it's not I'll delete it, if it is, I'll hunt down the vinyl. Vinyl sounds better to my ears, and looks loads cooler - CDs are no use to me.

I'm dubious about this vinyl revival - there's nowhere in Exeter, for instance, to buy vinyl; a handful of singles and so on in HMV but seemingly nothing in Virgin or anywhere else.

in virgin (bristol) the 7" racks are stuffed with piles of these so called limited offerings, however i rarely see anyone buying them.

yeah, "up 13%" sounds good but could just mean 113 rather than 100.

i've just spent £26 on vinyl (8 tracks total, about 50 minutes) that are available as mp3s from snocap (ie US only) for $11. he did have decent digital distibution in the uk but seems to have abandoned it so i'm back to buying vinyl at 4 times the price and digitising them myself.

the new long blondes remix single (limited to a thousand or so) is available on vinyl only. this is extremely annoying for people who have thrown away most of their vinyl and all of their vinyl-playing equipment. ie me.

i just ordered a bunch of vinyl singles over the weekend, the first vinyl i've bought in ages. i can't wait! there are some songs that i just know are gonna be hard to find on 12" in a year or two so i needed to act now.

Pisces: Just get one of these

I listen to almost my music purely digitally now. Buying CDs seems like throwing good money into a dying format.

But I still feel funny paying for downloads, esp. when they are DRMed in some restrictive format that could cause problems down the line.

I don't like nicking it all though, so my general policy is to belatedly buy vinyl versions of music I've already downloaded and liked, even though I don't have a turntable at the moment.

Problem is availability. Just bought a lovely heavyweight 7" of Lily Allen's Littlest Things, though.

(vinyl may still ultimately be dying, but at least it's a nice thing to own, unlike a crappy little jewel case and flimsy insert).

Only buy vinyl - haven't bought a new CD in about 2 years; will download stuff, but if I like it, I'll get it on Vinyl - as for driving, only have radio in the car.

> i just ordered a bunch of vinyl singles over the weekend

couldn't you just listen to them "in your mind"? 8)

my audio cds, still my prefered format, end up being the backups for my mp3s (oggs / flacs)

"They maybe will buy the download to listen to, but they get the vinyl to own. It's looked at like artwork."

yes

(vinyl may still ultimately be dying, but at least it's a nice thing to own, unlike a crappy little jewel case and flimsy insert).

yes

I'm not sure how buying CDs is "throwing good money into a dying format"? If you have a CD player and take care of it, it's not as if you're going to be unable to play CDs suddenly. And people selling their phsyical CDs is great as far as I'm concerned - it means cheaper, more available stuff in the second-hand market for me.

Still not a vinyl person (see post way upthread) -- in ways the sheer ephemeralness of mp3/ripped files is exactly where I want to be in terms of 'possession' now, embracing that more fully is a means of letting go. I'm still transitioning fully (and get promo CDs in the mail all the time) but as I've muttered elsewhere buying music in general comes down to limited/special CD issues, total bargain bin scrounges and the occasional (very occasional) 'must have' item. Vinyl just doesn't enter into it for me -- the space is not here, neither is the ease of listening to something.

I think there is definitely something in the idea that, as more immaterial formats take hold, if you get a material format, the more material it is the better.

Obviously, something like this is the logical endpoint of that!

Anyway, I struggled with why I still bought vinyl - was it just affectation on my part - but now I'm totally comfortable with it. Plus I just got a lovely new turntable, and it really does sound good.

My external hard drive just packed in totally, so I lost ALL my mp3s. Interestingly, I wasn't that bothered. I think this emphasised to me how much my records do mean to me, but also made me more comfortable with all the file-sharing I'd been doing. I hadn't nicked this stuff, I'd just been listening to it!

I must be getting something more than use-value from the records then, I suppose. Although the physical act of putting a record on is just more fun than firing up itunes or sticking a CD on.

Music=wonderful

Fetishising any particular music deliver system (ears excepted) = dud

My external hard drive just packed in totally, so I lost ALL my mp3s.

Right now all my mp3s are burned to CDR/DVDR as backups -- and the amount of physical space that takes up is very compact. So if I ever had a full failure I'd just shrug and re-up.

Fetishising any particular music deliver system (ears excepted) = dud

Wise man...

Although I do admit it's very difficult (not impossible!) to roll a decent j on an ipod shuffle.

"it means cheaper, more available stuff in the second-hand market for me."

totally. i only really buy CDs at yard sales now. CDs and DVDs/vhs are treated as one step from the garbage can for a lot of people at yard sales these days. which is why it's hard for me to pay more than a dollar for a cd. and yet, i just paid 17 dollars for the new kemialliset ystavat album on vinyl yesterday. go figure.

"Fetishising any particular music deliver system (ears excepted) = dud"

if fetishising = enjoy a whole lot cuz they are so cool and sound so good and are so much fun to look at and listen to and collect, then call me a fetishist!

As far as I can recall the only things I've bought on vinyl in the last 2-3 years have been a couple of Beefheart albums (purchased new, and which I only really got because the mastering of the available CD's is so abominable) and a few odd bits that simply weren't available on CD (of which at least half have subsequently become available - Kangaroo? and Soldier Talk by Red Crayola; The Tenement Year by Pere Ubu; that Pseudo Existors album that Colonel Poo are currently talking about on another thread).

Buying CDs seems like throwing good money into a dying format

This makes no sense to me, which is why I'm glad that this was said later:

I'm not sure how buying CDs is "throwing good money into a dying format"? If you have a CD player and take care of it, it's not as if you're going to be unable to play CDs suddenly.

Just like vinyl and turntables, so long as I have a CD player, any CD I buy now I'll be able to enjoy for decades. CDs are still readily available and will be for a number of years, even if they do become extinct sooner than we think, so how is my buying a CD a waste of money? Even despite the minor vinyl resurgence, vinyl is still, by and large, much more of a dying format than CDs -- yea, DJs still use 'em along with a few collectors like us -- but not many of us here would claim that buying vinyl is a waste of good money as we would about CDs. Why? Is it just the artwork? I'd take the minimal artwork you get from a CD over the, well, nothing that comes with an mp3.

Also, I only access the internet at work, so I rarely download anything. CDs (and vinyl) remain the medium of choice for someone like me who listens to most of my purchased stuff at home. (At work it's mostly internet radio or other streaming music).

So yea, for any new releases or (obviously) stuff that isn't on vinyl, I still buy mostly CDs, and I buy vinyl exclusively for used stuff.

if fetishising = enjoy a whole lot cuz they are so cool and sound so good and are so much fun to look at and listen to and collect, then call me a fetishist!

otm.

Even despite the minor vinyl resurgence, vinyl is still, by and large, much more of a dying format than CDs -- yea, DJs still use 'em along with a few collectors like us -- but not many of us here would claim that buying vinyl is a waste of good money as we would about CDs. Why? Is it just the artwork?

if humans went extinct and aliens came to earth and found a bunch of records, they could probably work out how to get a sound out of them - no "decoding" mechanism is required - this is why they are not a "dying" format in the same sense that every digital format will always be

I guess I meant "dying" in terms of how many people are using/buying the medium, rather than in terms of having the available equipment to use it. But I see your point -- but I'm not sure people who still lovingly buy vinyl but completely shun CDs are thinking of it in the terms you just stated. I could be wrong though.

if humans went extinct and aliens came to earth and found a bunch of records

...they would probably think "A fully baked organically-derived snack product with a paper part and a hole for one's eating finger!" and devour them.

If they have fingers.

;>)

Pseudopods.

i'm just glad they sent a gold record of chuck berry up in that space capsule instead of a CD; it's a bigger snack, too

I once derailed another thread with similar wild sci-fi musings.

While playability in the year 5000 isn't going to be the primary factor among collectors, it is a real issue for libraries. To digitise or not and to what format and whether to continue aquiring physical formats &c.

MP3 is not going to last 10 years anyway, so either get a huge hard drive and buy wavs, or keep to vinyl or CD, or just relax a little and embrace the ephemerality.

put your loving pseudopods around me

The library side of format obsolesence is BIG in my mind right now.

Yea that's a really interesting issue. I gather from the other threads that you work in a media library, what's your take on it?

MP3 is not going to last 10 years anyway

Most of what I have mp3wise either was only readily available in that format or consisted of stuff I ripped and haven't touched again -- which'll probably be a huge advantage as the price of memory collapses/hard drive sizes grow/etc. when it comes to storage of uncompressed files.

i've been buying a ton more new vinyl lately, esp. cuz subpop and 4ad and t&g and things have been including free downloads w/vinyl purchases.

Yeah, you'll still be able to play your CDs for ages to come, but my point is I can't imagine wanting to. Nowadays, CDs seem to have all the disadvantages of a physical format (inconvenience, inflexibility, bulk) but don't have the one advantage that vinyl has (being a nice object to own, with decent-sized artwork).

The only reason I can see for carrying on buying CDs over downloads, if you're an audiophile with a really nice set up, is the sound quality issue, but as bandwidths and storage spaces increase, how long that will remain an issue I don't know.

you have to be an "audiophile" now to like good sound? honestly, CDs w/a decent player and stereo sound way better than on PC...

i wonder if the recent 'resurgence' of vinyl sales, is down to people downloading tracks, and then that thing of "oh i'll buy the ones i really like" now translates to "i'll buy the object", ie the 7" single to be owned as artifact, probably to never be played

i dont think thats a bad thing though, necessarily, though it wanders into heritigization territory

you have to be an "audiophile" now to like good sound?

Well, the sound you get from a computer with a half-decent soundcard, hooked up to something like some Harmon Kardon Soundsticks (or just streamed to your regular stereo), with 192VBR or better MP3s (my set-up) is going to satisfy 90% of the population. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

i wonder if the recent 'resurgence' of vinyl sales, is down to people downloading tracks, and then that thing of "oh i'll buy the ones i really like" now translates to "i'll buy the object", ie the 7" single to be owned as artifact, probably to never be played

Well that's kind of what I do, but I think I'm unusual, and I do plan to actually play my vinyl when I get around to having a cosy sitting room with a nice turntable set-up.

"if you're an audiophile with a really nice set up", above should read "unless you're...".

No, wait, it shouldn't! I am misreading my own posts. As you were.

honestly, CDs w/a decent player and stereo sound way better than on PC...

True enough, but MP3s aren't tethered to the PC anymore - or even to the iPod/iRiver/whatever. There are near-audiophile-grade devices out there like the Transporter and the Squeezebox which wirelessly stream from yr hard-drive and plug into yr stereo. You could always stream FLAC or WAV if you wanted to.

True enough, but MP3s aren't tethered to the PC anymore - or even to the iPod/iRiver/whatever. There are near-audiophile-grade devices out there like the Transporter and the Squeezebox which wirelessly stream from yr hard-drive and plug into yr stereo.

Yeah, you'll still be able to play your CDs for ages to come, but my point is I can't imagine wanting to. Nowadays, CDs seem to have all the disadvantages of a physical format (inconvenience, inflexibility, bulk)

At least for me, it would be a hell of a lot more inconvenient to achieve a set-up for listening to mp3s that can equal what I already have (and have had, for years) for listening to CDs/vinyl.

Really, it isn't too difficult for me to put a CD on to a bookshelf with all the others once I buy it, nor is it to stick it into my stereo -- apart from listening to music during a commute, for which iPods/mp3 players are obviously more convenient, I don't understand why CDs are claimed to be so inconvenient.

Excepted, of course, are those who have thousands of CDs that require more than a bookshelf to store. mp3s would definitely be more convenient in this sense. I have a good amount of CDs, but not so many that they're causing storage problems.

There are near-audiophile-grade devices out there like the Transporter and the Squeezebox which wirelessly stream from yr hard-drive and plug into yr stereo. You could always stream FLAC or WAV if you wanted to.

-- Michael Jones, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 4:43 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i dunno...that doesn't really sound easier than buying a CD, putting it in a CD player on the stereo I already have and listening to it.

yea, it kind of takes out the convenience argument, at least to a certain extent

they can be inconvenient if you have a transitory or insecure lifestyle. we do seem to be attached to objects, just look at all the personal storage spaces for people who dont have room for them!

I just listen to almost all my music through iTunes these days and have become used to flicking around and hearing what I want to hear instantly, maybe making playlists and smart playlists as I go. Streaming it to my stereo, now I've bought the Airtunes thing, is a piece of piss. I can't do any of that with a CD.

If I want to go back to an old "put an album on and listen to it in my chair" thing, I'd rather go the whole hog of putting an LP on, hearing the needle hit the groove, watch it spinning, all that malarkey.

CDs are some worthless halfway house to me, so I don't buy them unless there's no alternative now.

People in the UK tend to have to live in small spaces and even a modestly sized collection takes up a lot of room.

I just listen to almost all my music through iTunes these days and have become used to flicking around and hearing what I want to hear instantly, maybe making playlists and smart playlists as I go. Streaming it to my stereo, now I've bought the Airtunes thing, is a piece of piss. I can't do any of that with a CD.

This is a really good point, and yea I can see how this beats CDs for sure. My brother, who for years collected CDs and did the album-only thing, did a similar thing as you and it really did wonders for refreshing his perspective of his collection. He doesn't really buy CDs anymore.

Occasionally, I stare at my collection and can have a hard time picking out a whole album that I really want to hear -- even a few hundred CDs and LPs can seem stale every once and a while. But picking out individual stuff for playlists or smart playlists, which you can only do of course with mp3s, makes you hear individual songs or parts of albums in all kinds of different contexts, and can really refresh how you hear music that 1.) might have otherwise grown a little stale or 2.) has gone neglected for some reason or another.

i don't actually keep the stuff that i download on the internet. i just listen to it and then i delete it. i have no music stored on my computer. i kinda treat the internet like a radio. which is why i LOVE stuff like last fm and actual internet radio stations. and i have my computer hooked up to my stereo, so everything sounds pretty good. unless it's a crappy quality youtube video or something.

In Chicago, the used cd stores are disappearing, while well-managed record stores appear to be thriving. I'd assume this is a result of people buying fewer cds and/or making fewer blind purchases due to downloading, and therefore not having so many unwanted cds to sell.

My record:cd purchase ratio is about 10:1.

Just as I was posting that, I realized that the city recently passed some pretty strict regulations on the 2nd hand cd market, which made it much harder for a person to sell stolen discs. So maybe that's a factor as well.

MP3's will be readable for decades to come. Since the home computer era began, I don't think there's a single significant format that's been abandonded completely - old document, spreadsheet, picture, etc formats can still at least be read. Every single device made to handle digital formats handles at least MP3.

I'm one of those guys who gave up on vinyl when CDs first emerged. Even today I want a CD copy of something because I want to be able to rip it myself. I hate 128 bit MP3s but can't hear much difference after 192 LAME VBR's (too many concerts). I have an entire room full of CD shelves and am a devout album-listener who is slowly appreciating playlisting.

But I do forsee a day when I've ripped everything and boxed them up (won't sell 'em!).

I still listen to everything.

Currently, I have maybe 80 CDs-worth of MP3s that fall into three categories:

1. For preview only (and are eventually pitched).
2. Are out-of-print and only available in MP3 -- ebay premiums are rarely endured.
3. Are compilations of artists that i've genuinely pirated (but would still prefer to one-day buy outright).

--Storing music on a hard drive is only a weigh-station in that it stays there long enough to find enough companions to fill the 700MB of a CD-R.

While 7-hour-long artist anthologies or "mixes" are an adventure all on their own, i have a limited amount of tolerance for the hobbled fidelity of even the highest-grade MP3s. A solid four or five hours is about all i can handle listening before i either have to turn the volume down, or, switch to an LP, a CD, or even a cassette. The sonic fatigue of MP3s can be likened to the old days of AM radio (as mentioned WAY upthread) in that the more you lower the volume, the longer you can listen before it starts making your head hurt. My everyday rig has a decent 100W amp, middle-of-the-road bookshelf speakers, and a nice CD player (i.e. non-DVD) that also plays MP3s, -- so i'm giving the medium as good a shot at sounding good as anyone (save, your higher-end earbud/headphone users). My "audiophile" rig has the old-school amp and proper floor speakers, etc -- and is where i enjoy full albums.

...And what's this about music getting stale? Nothing i listen to is ever stale since the variety of thoughtfully-crafted assemblages are just a single disc away. When technology gets around to making a portable player that holds something in the 500GB-range, maybe then they'll get my interest.

But yes, I still buy vinyl - probably half the time.

I'm one of those guys who gave up on vinyl when CDs first emerged.

one of those millions and millions of guys lol. including myself(i was too young to collect in the lp era anyway so the charm might be lost on me). ned otm, i'm letting go of cds as a format but vinyl seems like 3 steps back in terms of accessibility, portability, space issues etc. I buy vinyl maybe once or twice a year but hardly listen to it so what's the point.

I listen to hours of internet radio a day (mainly Pandora and Last FM)and buy only 2 or 3 CDs or pieces of vinyl a year, always albums, which I choose very carefully and listen to a lot. We have a record rack in our lving room and it's always the first thing people go to when the come to our house. We still do the whole album sleeve on the floor thing.

i like music.

<i>It seems to me that the big argument for CD over vinyl was it's portability.</i>
equally big argument would be durability.
you could argue sound quality, too, although that gets a bit tricky (especially these days with fuckers like robin guthrie remixing their old tunes)

mp3s are ok but what is wrong with you people who don't like buying music/going to record stores???

i mean, just browsing for music in a store is so much fun.

i can't believe that people actually pay for digital music files. getting off topic here, though

i'd pay for pristine files if companies were willing to, i dunno, factor out the cost of molding plastic/vinyl and distributing units throughout the country via trucks and planes. fuckers just don't quit huh?

Well, how can they, really? The whole economic system is screwed. I'd imagine it's really just a bunch of people trying to hold onto their jobs as much for identity reasons as to maintain their level of income.

i mean, just browsing for music in a store is so much fun.

It used to be, back when I had a large want-list and sometimes bought things blind based on the cover or a vague recollection of being told about a band. But now, the thrill of the hunt is dead for me, just gimme the CD.

xpost yah but see I, Mr. Customer, just explained to the world what would make me buy into THEIR future in one sentence. Instead of listening to me and others like me(and others waaaay more tolerant than me of their hijinx with equally simple ideas) 'they' got whole divisions dicking around trying to lock down a Zune somewhere. I refuse to believe they're more clueless than me when it comes to selling/branding music.

this is a tangent, and one that's been done, sorry. i only listen to the beatles on vinyl if i can help it, forgot to say

I used to hang my record sleeves all over my wall as artwork

I am toying with the idea of revising this. Like a big mural.

Big music murals are good - as long as they don't have Jimi or Jim Kurt in them.

i do still buy vinyl and id buy a lot more if it was a bit cheaper but half the time now its pricier than cds, and postage for vinyl is more too. i dont mind paying a bit more sometimes but now its become like a 'you want sonic quality? you have to pay more' luxury rather than just an option about format.

i almost never buy new albums on vinyl, cds are smaller and yeah like you say often cheaper.
i still buy tons of 2nd hand vinyl, though.

xp

now its become like a 'you want sonic quality? you have to pay more' luxury rather than just an option about format.

yup. it's bloody ridiculous in the US - i guess it's just the failing dollar, the new 'prestige tax' for vinyl (most of which is probably mastered from digital sources anyway), high shipping, etc. but i regularly see new LPs from $30-45 for a single LP. fuck that.

i regularly see new LPs from $30-45 for a single LP. fuck that.

http://img01.picoodle.com/img/img01/9/10/13/f_preachm_094ca26.png

i was in newbury comics today and i could have sworn i overheard some girl saying "ooh look, it's those disc albums" in reference to the vinyl bin

my girlfriend does lots of work in inner city schools and was talking to some toddlers about what they want to do/be when they grow up and one said he wants to be a DJ and play those big black DJ CDs.

And he wasn't talking about albini.

xpost - that 'prestige tax' is turning it into some sort of elitist format (which is surely going to make it pricier).

as far as it being obsolete, in all those articles about indie 7"s selling again, there were kids saying they dont even own turntables but just liked how 7"s looked.

I don't like to buy vinyl. It takes up space. But sometimes I just feel I have to. I do have about 4 boxes of it I could do without, though. It just sits there.

Desert Island = merely two boxes of vinyl, methinks.

new shelves!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2177/1564484515_e6d2ffef22.jpg?v=0

more new shelves!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/1564484353_04181c21fb.jpg?v=0

even more new shelves!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2300/1564574285_a061378559.jpg?v=0

new chair to listen in!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2281/1564574193_5c736701e5.jpg?v=0

waiting for their own shelves!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2134/1565456024_cb4b0ec065.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2121/1564574483_aa6c63f7d7.jpg?v=0

now i just need shelves for 45s. and tapes. and CDs. and more records. maybe before i am dead everything will be in full view.

u go to ikea, scott?

Never, ever move. My back starts to hurt just thinking about you moving.

Fantastic, Scott. Cheers.

but yeah, mate. don't EVER move.

I still buy ONLY vinyl, but generally thru' e-bay.

"u go to ikea, scott?"

yeah! it's crazy there. i posted those pictures to the ikea thread on ile actually.

Never, ever move. My back starts to hurt just thinking about you moving.

The last time I moved I thought I was being smart putting a big chunk of my vinyl in a cardboard box about the height of a fridge/freezer combo. This isn't at all smart unless you're the world's strongest man or fancy fucking your back up big time, which I was probably quite lucky not to do

Phil, can I come over to your house for a listening party?

I buy reggae vinyl even though it is expensive because I am a reggae DJ and I do not know any other way to DJ and can not be bothered to learn any other way to DJ.

the shelves look good, but i don't know about that chair.

"Never, ever move. My back starts to hurt just thinking about you moving.

-- Mark Rich@rdson"

haha, thats not even that many records. i moved 2 years ago, my boss (owner of the record shop i work at) moved last year, and my best friend moved this year. that shit was seriously too much. hopefully by the time any of us move again, we will be less broke and we will pay people to move the records for us! the worst part is, my and my best friend's records went up to the third floor of our respective new houses. argh. my guess is that in total, we moved 20,000 12"s at least between the 3 of us.

"the shelves look good, but i don't know about that chair."

it's a recliner! it's very comfortable. i can go completely horizontal. plus, it was only ten bucks.

i'm getting those ikea shelves once i move in a few months. i've got these older ikea shelves which fit records perfectly, but one day they collapsed (with all my records) and now they're being held up with duct tape and old, heavy speakers. physics saved my records. i was pulling out a kate bush record when it happened and for a brief moment i thought that i'd be vinyl-less and depressed save one copy of 'the sensual world'.

I actually just got those IKEA expedit shelves too, and -- while they're great -- I kind of regret the purchase. I think I might sell them and just get big plastic shelves that I can put crates on. I'm a DJ and I can't flip through my records anymore. Instead, they're all filed. The IKEA system would probably work if I could keep everything genre-categorized and alphabetized, but that ain't gonna happen.

I was so traumatized by these crappy "shelves" I bought years ago -- particle board that bowed immediately -- that I went out to the hardware store and bought thick solid wood planks and then anchored them at each end and in the middle with metal milk crates. Looks "industrial." "Shitty" might be more accurate. But it works.

As for moving, this point may be moot by now, but last time I moved it was VIDEOTAPES that screwed my back up. Thinking those little plastic VCR tapes didn't weigh much, I managaed to pack a huge box with them that when it came time to lift proved to be worse than an air conditioner. I sold most of my books before the move, but never once thought about trashing the videotapes, most of which I haven't watched since I moved, of course...but they look swell on the wall on top of my records...

i want solid, non-warping, preferably non-plastic or cardboard 7" boxes. and a crate for new LPs and stuff i'm listening to (my shelves are downstairs and in the bedroom, stereo i usually listen to in the living room).

"Phil, can I come over to your house for a listening party?"

if you don't mind being subjected to hours of Chrome and Savage Republic, then of course you can!

vinyl prices are actually way down on the shit i buy, mostly bcuz of serato

just copped a copy of
http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/w/ware_leon~~_musicalma_101b.jpg

it's a recliner! it's very comfortable. i can go completely horizontal. plus, it was only ten bucks.

awesome. i was actually gonna ask you if it was one of those chairs that helps old people get on their feet.

So carrying on with the IKEA talk above, are the Expedits in it for the long haul? I keep trying to convince my wife I need a couple of the 2x4 ones. I figure this allows more functionality and less a chance of the middle squares collapsing or warping than with the 4x4 or 5x5 ones. But someone tell me about the life span on these things? Those black ones look oh-so-nice.

I've had a white 4x4 expedit for at least 4 years, and it was my sisters for some time before that. It's been dissassembled, moved, moved again, reassembled then moved without dissassembling and it's still 100% sturdy.

Oh my, very good news Dan. My wife really wants the 4x4, so maybe we'll be safe with that one.

they're a bitch to put together, yeah?

so i hear

nah, it's not that bad. make sure to tape the key to the back of it in case you move in a few years.

"they're a bitch to put together, yeah?"

once they are up, you kinda forget about the pain and suffering.

i guess i should have explained that the 2nd picture i posted is of two smaller black ikea shelves on their sides. one on top of the other. but people probably figured that out. they fit really nicely like that in the corner.

ikea has saved my life with regard to record storage solutions. well, ikea and jed_e_3 who installed them.

i've been getting stuff mailordered from hard to find records lately - you don't get the 'thrill' of flipping through 18,000 dusty robert palmer and englebert humperdinck long players but they offer a really good service - you can say you're interested in something, they add you to a queue of people also interested, and when that record comes in the person at the top of the list gets an email about it. pretty cool!

accompanied someone on a dig in upper street (flashback/haggle) (reckless rip) yesterday.

could not get into it again at all. AT ALL.

probly 4 the best though.

also these days knowing i could d/l and be listening to something like that leon ware in like, 4 minutes tops kills everything really. fucking great album tho. and can it really be that no g-funk dude ever sampled 'share your love'?!?! easiest money ever.

I never liked looking through huge amounts of LPs to find something good for too long. The web has made it even more boring though, because now many used records stores often look up the value of stuff online, so there are even less big surprise bargains to be found.

Also, my neighborhood store wants twice as much for their ratty copy of "The Kick Inside" than the CD costs new. Bah!

Oh, I sometimes buy vinyl. I feel more odd these days for still buying a lot of CDs. Vinyl is a sort of fetish thing a lot of people "get", while buying CDs is seen as old-fashioned and stupid.

There are 2x4 Expedits? This is the solution that I've been looking for [Also my wife, who is tired of my small, but annoying collection of LPs cluttering up the guestroom.]

Yes indeed fukasaku tollbooth as seen in Scott's picture above and here on the US IKEA website: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70103085

My question is did folks actually anchor their shelves to the wall and how much of a pain was it? And is it necessary?

Oh, I sometimes buy vinyl. I feel more odd these days for still buying a lot of CDs. Vinyl is a sort of fetish thing a lot of people "get", while buying CDs is seen as old-fashioned and stupid.

Yea, I'm the only person I know of among my friends who still buys CDs regularly. It's not bad though, as the market for used cds is becoming somewhat similar to that of vinyl maybe 10 or 15 years ago (maybe not that great, but still). I've found a ton of great used cds in past couple years, even a lot of recent, well-reviewed stuff, in used bins for less than $6. But I still buy tons of new cds.

Vinyl is still, for the most part, a great deal. There are still plenty of places that charge no more than a $1 per record. And you can often find good deals on used vinyl on Discogs, etc., other online places.

What does suck, though, as was mentioned above, is that a lot of the better-curated shops are now realizing that vinyl is seen more as this fetish sort of thing, that they'll charge $15 for a used LP (in many cases a lot more). Here in DC, a couple new vinyl shops have opened in the past year or so. They often have a lot of decent stock, but the prices keep going up.

I hardly ever download stuff, but I think I probably will in the future. So long as vinyl prices don't get too exorbitant, I might just start buying vinyl for the product/home listening, and then downloading the mp3s for the convenience. I'm sure I'll still buy cds here and there, though, especially since used cds are just going to get cheaper and cheaper.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/1564484353_04181c21fb.jpg?v=0

i guess i should have explained that the 2nd picture i posted is of two smaller black ikea shelves on their sides. one on top of the other. but people probably figured that out. they fit really nicely like that in the corner.

-- scott seward, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 02:33 (11 hours ago) Link

this pic made me doubletake, i have long bookshelves and a 2x4 expedit in a corner, which is slightly too small to add another. the wife is going to get me another 2x4 for my birthday, she thought of fitting 2 by putting them on their side and stacking much like you did. does this work? any undue stress? i'm pretty sure they're built to lie any way you choose.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/212/518440591_877a9bdbe7.jpg

Except those shelves are all full now, and there is a fourth box of 45s now. plus a big stack of free 45s that should be sitting next to the turntable. i dunno what i'm gonna do. maybe sell some stuff. i'm moving the table outta the room though, to move my stereo under the window, so if i really need to i can maybe fit some more shelves in the corner.

i like vinyl, it's cool.
i just bought two replacement stylii from J&R, via amazon actually. my turntable is nothin special, but i was noticing how warn down and slightly bent my needle was the other day, and i knew my records deserved better.

also these days knowing i could d/l and be listening to something like that leon ware in like, 4 minutes tops kills everything really. fucking great album tho. and can it really be that no g-funk dude ever sampled 'share your love'?!?! easiest money ever.

-- r|t|c, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 6:25 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

hah i had this thought too re: 'share your love'

to me there is an element of lifestyle accoutrement to my record purchases. i'm definitely not a 'collector' in the soulstrut sense either ... the prizing of rarity is pretty minimal to me. I like all the albums i own on vinyl but the albums i own on vinyl dont really represent my music taste anywhere near 100%, or even 60%; its mostly disco + some quiet storm/sexytime R&B shit, a few rap singles, dj quik lps and random one-off things i enjoy that i come across for cheap. i've dj'd a couple parties and at small clubs a couple times around town and that x bachelor pad music is pretty much the extent of my interest. Plus i love the album art (see: the ware record upthread)

all you dudes are a bunch of slobs ;)

I need a better way to store my 7"s. I have 4 or so boxes from Boxes Unlimited that sit on top of one of my record shelves (an expensive custom job I had made in the days prior to the Expedit) and then I just have piles of 7"s everywhere. I need shelves for them. Any ideas?

Dan, I snap up old beat-up antique boxes, which fit 7"s perfectly. I then store them on my shelving unit.

buying vinyl for the product/home listening, and then downloading the mp3s for the convenience.

This is what I do... I still buy CDs though, mostly new releases that aren't on vinyl/are too expensive on vinyl.

New Balance shoe boxes fit 45's pretty well but the tops of the 45's will stick out the top so you cant stack them. its easy for going through them though.

As many have pointed out, it looks like vinyl will outlive CD. I'd like our next release to be vinyl-only with a code to download for a DRM-free digital download included in the price. A good idea? Too soon?

united record pressing is running a deal on this right now, complete with hosting and tokens of some sort. i don't know if its a good deal though.

Vinyl only is always a good idea!

URP's download voucher + vinyl service looks interesting. Anyone know of anything similar in the UK/Europe?

My Electrelane LP came with a download voucher, but I had err ... already downloaded it.

I just bought the Metal Box reissue. It's soooo hot. and not a bad deal for $40.

There's this grim looking record shop near my house that I drove by countless times. I was always curious but finally stopped by last weekend. The place is a mess (as I expected) but is a veritable gold mine for old vinyl. I found a Stranglers Live record (X-Cert) that I have been hunting for for years. Also got the "Miles in the Sky" LP. Thee appears to be tons of old psych. records as well but I am going to need at least a few hours to dig around.

I had no idea places like this still existed.

Yes...vinyl lives.

"I just bought the Metal Box reissue. It's soooo hot. and not a bad deal for $40."

you shouldve got an original from ebay for that real analogue to analogue experience ;)

haha yeah, they actually had one at the store but it was 100 bucks!

to be a real vinyl a-hole though, i've had metal box on mp3/cd and a friend brought the reissue over and i kinda had to have it...it's really like a totally different record on vinyl, at least compared to the shitty mastered cheapie CD version (they should do some kinda nice deluxe one someday) that i have...i never really got the deep bass like a reggae record before, it doesn't sound brittle or tinny at all like i thought before.

thats odd - i like it on cd too. i have the cd that came in a metal cd case which im guessing was made in the 90s/80s (avoiding cd reissues/remasters that came out in the last ten years is my new passion) and it sounds pretty good. the vinyl just of course sounds fuller and richer though, and if i didnt find the packaging so fiddly i would probably get it out more often.

@caek:

Our new album </spam> is only available as vinyl (with free mp3 download coupon) or as digital files (on Amazon, iTunes, etc.). Not sure if it will be a "success," but it wasn't too hard to do (one of our band members is a database coder), and the vinyl definitely sounds better than the CDRs I've burned.

i have the cd that came in a metal cd case which im guessing was made in the 90s/80s

mine isn't in a metal case, it's just a really bad blurry picture of (i think) lydon and there's really no liner notes or anything, it says "second edition" not metal box, so maybe yours is a newer, better version

i mean i liked it on CD, until i heard the vinyl, and it was pretty different sounding to me.

my cd is in a metal box. i got it sometime in the 90s when it came out.

hmm i must have some shitty jewelcase version. it sounds more like an 80s cd, mastering and soundwise

yeah second edition cd sounds like crap, i think the metal tin one is a large improvement

schwantz, that's exactly what I have in mind. Do you know if your authentication system for the download codes is totally home-brewed by your bandmate, or are you using something off the shelf? How many shots are you giving people at downloads? One, three, as many as they like?

Answers:

"1) Totally homebrewed.

2) All the tokens sent out with records have a max of 5 download attempts."

thanks

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/06/vinyl-sales-to-hit-another-high-point-in-2009.html

Vinyl sales to hit another high point in 2009
01:40 PM PT, Jun 11 2009

The resurgent vinyl market isn't showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, recent figures released by Nielsen SoundScan indicate that overall U.S. vinyl sales will once again set a benchmark in 2009, with sales up 50% through the first five months of the year. SoundScan predicts vinyl sales will reach 2.8 million units in 2009, up from 1.9 million in 2008, a record since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991. Already in 2009, vinyl sales have topped 1 million. At this point last year, vinyl sales stood at 701,000 copies. To be fair, the number is still tiny compared to overall album sales.

Vinyl, SoundScan points out, accounts for less than 1% of overall album sales. In other words, vinyl sales represent about six months in the life of Taylor Swift, whose late 2008 release, "Fearless," has already sold more than 3.3 million copies. To date in 2009, 121.8 million CDs have been sold, versus 33.2 million digital albums, compared to 151.01 million CDs and 27.52 digital albums for the same period last year.

Yet vinyl appears to be a niche market that's here to stay, and one that's showing signs of expansion. Rock albums account for 70% of all vinyl sold, but country vinyl is enjoying a growth spurt. Year-to-date country vinyl sales are already at 15,000 copies, compared with 5,000 for the comparable period in 2008.

Of course, if someone wants to rain on the vinyl good news, there's this stat: Vinyl sales were up 90% in 2008 over 2007, and the rate of growth has certainly slowed.

-- Todd Martens

i had a great day selling vinyl!

the store going well skot? : )

Haha the pic in that article was taken in a store just down the street from my apartment!

I left all my vinyl in the UK and have only bought CDs for the last five years (and downloaded a ton), but recently got a turntable and am now sort of selling them all off in favor of rebuilding my collection around records (VINYL records) I really love. So now I really do get to buy my favorite records a second time around, which I always wanted to do anyway. This probably has as much to do with me as the format, but CDs seem oddly throwaway and records tend to encourage me to listen a bit deeper. Also yes it's nice that LA suddenly has a couple of new vinyl-only stores even if their selections are frustratingly "vanilla" (vinylla?). Also I'm just getting old.

Ian and Scott are my heroes on this thread.

i went to amoeba in LA for the first time. it was too overwhelming.

plus i thought the prices on used vinyl were kinda spendy overall.

i ended up buying an arvo part CD they had a great used classical cd collection

yeah I kind of forgot that records are pretty expensive. Atomic in Burbank is pretty reasonable though

i think i might just be spoiled a little in mpls as compared to west coast prices maybe

though the most evil fucks in the entire ebay vinyl industry now opened a store here

i sold a lot of used tapes today too!

i really need to find a cassette deck

what kinda cassettes you got (not to derail a vinyl thread). I've got a tapedeck in my car (and it hates those CD/ipod adapters for some reason) so I'm always on the hunt for cheap tapes to crank while driving.

oh mostly rap and metal. some kid bought, like, 12 tapes today and he got music of the andes, a dead kennedys bootleg, a dri album, a kool moe dee album, a couple of sonic youth albums, and some other stuff.

Interesting profile of a historic L.A. pressing plant that’s shutting down: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-01-27/rainbo-records-vinyl-pressing-plant-closes

Black Flag’s “TV Party” 7-inch single? Richard Pryor’s first comedy album for Laff Records? Both pressed by Rainbo, as was “Panic Zone,” N.W.A’s 1987 debut 12-inch, Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic,” Hüsker Dü’s “Zen Arcade” and the Minutemen’s “Double Nickels on the Dime” albums for SST and 2Pac’s “California Love.” (...)

One imposing 300-page book from the mid-1990s tracks orders from punk labels including Epitaph, SST, Touch and Go, Frontier and In the Red; rap imprints Death Row, Priority, Delicious Vinyl, Cold Chillin’ and Sugar Hill; early dance labels Moonshine, Mushroom and Thump; and Concord Jazz, Rhino, Scotti Bros. and American.

I started buying vinyl again. The ex gave me of his technics. So hooked it up. It’s great. Immediately went out and bought a few recs (nas, soulwax,...)

My mate has been transitioning from decades of CDs back to vinyl, and taking the opportunity to thin out his library and really focus on stuff he loves. I admire his restraint!

yes, I just wrote a blog post about it

https://critterjams.wordpress.com/2020/01/24/on-becoming-an-insufferable-vinyl-dude-again/

back when this was a big hobby for me (say, 2004-2006) there were a ton of albums I could only dream of ever getting on vinyl that are now getting repressed. so that's cool. whats not cool (as I mentioned on the other thread) is that you can't just get a stack of Devo & XTC records for $20 anymore

was just thinking yesterday "man I've got a lot of stuff still in the post"

today:

https://i.imgur.com/eFunVSE.jpg

happy Friday y'all

I've never bought vinyl because I've never owned a record player and because shit's expensive. It's an evergreen hip habit I wouldn't mind cultivating some day, though.

yea I used to be concerned that I was spending too much when I'd buy 5-6 LPs every week for 20-30 bucks, now there's a ton of shit I regret not picking up for a few bucks when I had the chance. most recently No. 1 in Heaven by Sparks