How can I add the vinyl's "broken" sound at an mp3?

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I would like to add some charm to my mp3s by adding the famous "vinyl sound". Is there a way to do that? Thanks.

― Panagiotis Pileidis (Panagiotis Pileidis), Thursday, 15 May 2003 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

sample the noise in the run-in groove of a record

utilise a multi-tracking sound editor (eg cool edit pro)

loop the vinyl sample the length of the song

mix the tracks

voila

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 15 May 2003 12:17 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a plug-in that allows you to do this. You can switch the dial to increase the amount of crackle too... anyone remember its name?

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Thursday, 15 May 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"vinyliser" or something equally literal

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 15 May 2003 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

what a weird question.

anyway, slightly off-topic: has anyone noticed that vinyl records sound better when converted to .mp3 than cd's do? i've done this comparison on a number of albums and the difference is pretty staggering. somehow .mp3 retains some of the warmth of the vinyl (even though it is compressing/truncating the high and low end quite substantially).

anyone got a semi-scientific explanation?

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Thursday, 15 May 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I certainly don't have an explanation, but I agree with you wholeheartedly. I've also noticed this when recording to a Minidisc, which is comparable to an mp3. I hear virtually no difference between the recording and the original vinyl.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Thursday, 15 May 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone noticed that vinyl records sound better when converted to .mp3 than cd's do?

I find that the version of the Slits' "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" that I got off Napster that boasted being mastered from the 12" that played at 45 rpm actually sounds better than the version on my remastered Cut CD. I've never been able to figure out why.

― Vic Funk, Thursday, 15 May 2003 15:51 (twenty-two years ago)

The simple answer may be that vinyl does actually sound better than CD. Maybe it's because we respond better to sound that is reproduced naturalistically, rather than digitally. Audiophiles (I don't consider myself one) swear that vinyl reproduces music far more pleasingly than CDs. How this translates to mp3's, I haven't a clue.

― Davlo (Davlo), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Davlo you'll find just as many audiophiles who will tell you that the human ear can't tell a difference. There are a million slips twixt the cup and the lip that can change the quality of a CD rip; the diff your hear is down to those, Vic.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a plug-in that allows you to do this. You can switch the dial to increase the amount of crackle too... anyone remember its name?

iZotope vinyl

― David (David), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

a badly-mastered CD can easily sound worse than a decently mastered LP of the same material. listening to both formats of stuff that came out in the 80's will make this clear. at the time, people knew how to get great sound out of vinyl, while the record companies were speedily releasing stuff on CD and putting no effort into making it sound nice. and that's not even getting into the huge variation in quality between different mp3 encoders at identical bit rates.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 May 2003 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

my point being that you don't even have to make any reference to audiophile-level differences in how CDs represent sound vs. how vinyl does to explain why some stuff sounds better on vinyl than CD.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 May 2003 23:14 (twenty-two years ago)

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