Vinyl vs. iPod
A Studer 2-inch tape machine is a huge cumbersome beast that takes up a lot of space and might need pampering and attention when you make records. It requires that you use big, heavy rolls of 2-inch tape that need changing when you record two or three songs on them. And hardly anyone produces or manufactures vinyl records anymore. And nobody has a turntable. But it's making a trendy comeback.
Just because something is easier doesn't make it better. It certainly doesn't make it sound better. I had a digital recording rig in my home studio for a month or two and got so depressed. I quit writing songs, my guitar collected dust and I thought my creative life had ended. So I jerked it all out of the wall and threw it in the garage and that's where it will stay.
My new album, "Just A Little Lovin'" was made on a 2-inch tape machine. I demanded it. I like working with engineers and producers who love and appreciate tape. I love the sound, smell, and feel of tape. That's why I enlisted legendary record producer, Phil Ramone, and the brilliant recording engineer, Al Schmitt. They didn't mind my insistence. They put up with my hardheadedness. Hardly anyone uses tape anymore because they claim it's so expensive and it's just easier to use a computer. Most engineers can operate any computer rig in studios these days. But if you ask them to run a Studer and put on a reel of tape, they run down the hallway screaming for Mommy. I'm sorry, but I can't get turned on looking at a computer screen. First of all, it's not more expensive. By the time digital users spend the time and money to buy the software needed to put that "tape sound" on their digital record, they have spent more time and money than I have. While their downloading "tape sound" software, I'm kicking back on the houseboat drinking beer with a fishing pole in my hand listening to Django.
It's not for everybody. Tapes are not perfect like digital. If you want to sing the word "love" 40 different times and 40 different ways, then digital's for you. Tape requires attention. You can't just push the space bar and go to lunch. For example: When I put on my vinyl (yes vinyl) of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," my favorite part is towards the end when you hear the "print through" of Robert's vocals. You know the part when he sings "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"? For years, before I made records I thought that what I was hearing was on there on purpose, for effect. But while making my new record the same thing happened. There is no reason, it's just a tape thing. Sometimes that happens. It's not as noticeable or as cool as Zeppelin but if you listen to my first track, "Just A Little Lovin'," towards the end you will hear my voice. I made a record with print through. Wow. Everybody wanted to fix it but I insisted on keeping it. This is a true testament to using tape. The "real" comes through. It makes me proud to be such a hard head.
I was born in '68. Mama and Daddy had albums. I grew up listening to their vinyl. I have discovered that having a vinyl collection is so much cooler than having an iPod. Now, I have an iPod and I admit they are genius especially for travel and convenience. But they aren't really any fun. I don't call up my friends and say "Hey why don't y'all come over and bring your computers and let's have a party"? Hell no! I say bring pot, wine and vinyl. That's sexy. It's really a great excuse to get together and listen to music. Everybody takes a turn looking through the collection and it's interesting to see what each person plays. The vinyl way is just me. I think if if we all listen to more music together, it really doesn't matter how we do it. Music will save us all just like it always has. We feed our souls with it. Vinyl just creates a little more discussion for us. You get to look at the covers, the liner notes, sometimes the lyrics are included. Plus you can roll a doobie on it. That's hard on an Ipod.
Times are tough. Concert tickets are high and records are, too. Hell, everything is high and nobody has any dough. With our economy and the way it's headed, my guess is that we'll all be staying home drinking bottles of Two Buck Chuck listening to music, however we choose to do it. Cheers, music lovin' fools!
Keeping the dinosaur way alive y'all..........
Rockingly yours,
Shelby Lynne
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Honestly, I don't have any vinyl anymore, but I absolutely agree with what you say about the sound loss. I have a bunch of songs on itunes, and I never listen to them. I'd love to see a resurgence of vinyl albums. I don't know where i could even find one anymore.
I'm also really excited to hear you have a new album. I've been a fan since "Feeling Kind of Lonely," and think you greatly improved since then. Cheers.
Amen, Shelby.
I bought an ipod last year but I have never gotten around to actuall using the damn thing in there. I too, despite being a year younger than you, prefer LPs, CDs and cassettes to the ipod. I still use a cassette walkman when I go out for my daily runs. Thanks for your honesty.
Lovely thought and nicely written. Mostly when we choose the easy way just because it's the easy way, we lose something. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, so, in some way, I think we often sell out on something we should value just for the sake of that convenience. Nice to see that not everyone will make that sale. Brava!
My daughter is a musician. We had this discussion the other day where she tried to tell me that CDs will be obsolete in a few years. She says everything will be iTunes. I disagree. I told her people like me (ie. over 40) want to have something REAL, something concrete that they can hold onto that is their music, not just an iPod and a computer. I remember my brother's reel to reel that he bought inJapan on leave during the Vietnam war. It was FABULOUS! The sound quality was amazing.
The album cover is also useful for separating out the stems from the buds.
What a lovely post and you're so on the money. Bigger, easier or newer doesn't necessarily equate to better, and more often than not it doesn't. I envy your friends, what with dobies, wine and vinyl, that's a nice trio to share with those you're close to.
Shelby--
First off, I love your singing voice!
I remember one of my cousins, a self described audiophile, explaining to me why vinyl was far superior to digital back in the late 80's or so.
You keep making *your* music, I'll keep buying it.
It's easy to make Vinyl sound bad. It's easy to make CD's / digital / whatever sound bad. The trouble is that it's really easy to be tricked into thinking that digital sounds good, no matter how bad it actually sounds. That's because the cues and clues about bad sound are not the obvious ones like the pops and scratches of a record.
Music is "produced" and used today like a radio: it provides the background noise to keep people from concentrating on how uninteresting their work or environment actually is. The sound quality is completely beside the point; it's made to go unnoticed.
Perhaps the data is recorded and read with 100% precision. However, the converters, amplifiers, and transducers are very poor; often with poor response, driven from poor power supplies made with poor parts. The music "industry" today supplies a palliative, a placebo in place of the real thing.
totally agreed, records are way more fun. Plus as cds phase out...I hope they'll make at least a little of a comeback. I mean a cd is just another way to store digital media anyway, there isn't anything special or romantic about owning a shiny copy of the file instead of having it on your hard drive. Not to mention that a slight phase-back of vinyl would be good for the music industry. You can't pirate an lp. And I know a lot of people who almost only download pirated mp3s but still go out of their way to purchase their favorite artist's albums on vinyl. They can listen to whatever they want for free, but they will go out of their way and pay to listen how they would like to. I'll be really disappointed if the quasi-resurgence of vinyl turns out to be a fad rather than a trend.
I agree vinyl sounds way better as do all analog. I will try to listen to the track you mentioned but it was not on my yahoo jukebox yet. Digital is cleaner with less white noise, but it loses some of the warmth and dynamics of the analog recordings. Didital "sqares off the top of the sine wave, this is where a lot of the noise lies. analog is a regular rounded wave, like on an EKG it leaves the full dynamic sound. It has a fuller rounder sound. I can live with a little noise to get the essence and soul of the recording.
As a blues guitar player, I feel the same way about tube amps and analog effects. I do not like the synthetic sound of digital.
What could be a great idea is for Record co's do sale LP's with a little memory stick that goes into usb port to dl the tracks to mp3 or or comp. This would be the best of the both worlds. I understand they are making a way to dock mp3 players to car stereos, I hope in the future all manufactures will build int this technology. Soon all CD's will be gone, and there will just be like little portable drives.
It would be smart for record companies to do a subscription service to make little ram drives of pre orderd songs. You get so many songs for so much money. The are hurting for money so bad now because illegal file sharing, you think they would welcome another market nich.
I've been listenging to some of your songs. I'm sorry I did not know much about you but I like your voice very much and you are a very good song writer. If you ever never a really wailing blues guitarist please let me know. :
) yahoo.com@yahoo.com
Right on, Shelby—as the kids used to say. I started on vinyl and hauled boxes of the stuff all over North America, and now my 13-year-old son is hooked on the stuff, too. He saves up to buy vinyl releases of new artists and notices when album design riffs on old releases by the Who or Lovin' Spoonful, or whatever. There's music and there there's the whole trippy gestalt that goes with it. Them iPods are handy, though, of course. But maybe they are the shorthand version of something we'd like to be more tangible.
Your new album is great, by the way, as all your stuff has been since you went independent and started playing all those cool guitar parts — that transfer so well to tape! Or so it seems on CD.
Out of curiosity, what happened to my comment this morning? I found your post most interestin
I can remember when I was a little boy and walking to the record store in the small town where I lived, to purchase a 45 of Elvis Presley singing Hound Dog (No, I don't still have it). A few weeks ago I picked up the magazine that comes in the New York Times, and there was an interview of you. I enjoyed it.
Shelby's post is almost as great as her new LP (though, United's pressing is noisy through the first cut--every copy from what I've been told--),but it's easy to hear past that to the spectacular recording and of course, her gutsy performance. With Phil and Al behind it you know it's going to sound great. Phil did Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By" too, which shocks the crap out of people who grew up with it on the radio, when they hear the original Scepter vinyl. It's incredible! There's a new CD reissue from Collector's Choice that sucks, of course, like most CDs. He also did "Getz/Gilberto" (he knows how to charm the ladies in the studio, that's clear!) The idea that CDs sound better than vinyl was the greatest single mass deception put over on the populace since the election of Ronald Reagan and you can quote me...Shelb
A lady after my own heart. I too love the vinyl! Ticks and pops lend character I say. I can listen to albums for hours where as after listening to an mp3 for 15 minutes I need a break. The only thing that comes close to the sound of vinyl are SACD and DVD audio, two formats that are dying because they aren't convenient. Lord spare us from convenience!
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