Why are vinyl records preferred to Digital?

C

crimsonhawk47

New member
I get that formats like mp3 should be avoided, but why do people want the vinyl records? Sure, they've got that special sound, but aren't they just a nightmare sound quality wise?
 
vinyl records are preferred by some because it's the traditional way of sampling. If you know how to EQ. it doesn't matter whether you use vinyl, wav, or mp3...

Edit: also because they want those rare finds, you can only get on vinyl
 
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doesn't matter from what format you sample. as long as if you're being creative with it it doesn't matter where a sample comes from.

MP3's from 70's songs are basically all recorded from vinyl into software as well.
so you basically can do the recording yourself or just download it.

Im thinking about downloading my entire vinyl collection and just keep the records that i can't find on Soulseek in my record collection.
Before im gonna buy vinyl records in the future im first gonna look up the artist on google on my mobile phone to see if theyre stuff is rare or not.
Thats the way to go for the future i think.
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
I get that formats like mp3 should be avoided, but why do people want the vinyl records? Sure, they've got that special sound, but aren't they just a nightmare sound quality wise?
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This goes back to the old analog vs digital debate. Which one is better depends on which one you prefer and is largely based on the era you are in tune with most likely. For me when I started making music most things were analog and you could really hear it when people made the jump. The clarity was a culture shock at least for me. I rejected digital for a long time until I realized I was already working 90% digital anyway. Now I work pretty much all digital and don't worry about it.
 
Well to my knowledge, the audio quality on vinyl is better than cd's (may or may not be bro science?)
But a big part of it is just the nostalgia/history of it all, not to mention turntablism and the dj scene.
Not too long ago it was all tape or vinyl, and some albums were only released on vinyl.
Plus, hitting play isn't nearly as satisfying as setting that needle down.
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
I get that formats like mp3 should be avoided, but why do people want the vinyl records? Sure, they've got that special sound, but aren't they just a nightmare sound quality wise?
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Vinyl recorded as a wav file is better quality but that doesnt mean you cant sample Mp'3. The proper eq can make the song sound decent. I prefer vinyl because recording from the original sound source is better than downloading a copy of a recording but if dont have access to it, you have to make do with what you have. That's the beauty of hip hop. Some of you guys act like you dont know that a MP3 is a compressed audio file. The quality was sacraficed in exchange for file size. Companies realized the average consumer wanted to be able to store hundreds of songs on their portable mp3 players rather than have less songs that were better quality.
 
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I can find any song i want on youtube and download and sample all within the laptop. On a second note, coming across a good song to sample is completely spontaneous for me. It's like the record comes to me without having to dig in a crate for it.

If you want grit, just add a vinyl sound effect to it.

I think a lot of dudes stick to crate digging because its so cultural.

Edit: also because they want those rare finds, you can only get on vinyl
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This too though
 
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Majestic Mastermind said:
I can find any song i want on youtube and download and sample all within the laptop. On a second note, coming across a good song to sample is completely spontaneous for me. It's like the record comes to me without having to dig in a crate for it.

If you want grit, just add a vinyl sound effect to it.

I think a lot of dudes stick to crate digging because its so cultural.



This too though
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The bigger issue is the sound quality good enough to compete with songs that we hear every day on the radio. When you're just making beats for yourself, this issue may never arise but when you start making songs for rappers and a audience, that's when sound quality matters. You'd hate to make a beat that a rapper likes but cant use because the quality is bad. Some producers(not all) have good enough engineering skills to improve the quality.
 
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Ehhh for me its about the quality of the source material. There are plenty of good crates online that people just recorded into digital format, but it comes from a vinyl record.
I just dont want no shit from youtube that's bad quality. It could be digital and still sound bad with artifacts all in it cause whoever recorded it didnt know what the hell they were doing.

With the vinyl, if the only sound issue is dust, but overall the sound is rich, then I'll chalk the dust up.
 
for me personally its a question of me ending up getting f'ing many computer files for me sample because i just downloaded everything that seemed like it might have a ill sample.
At some point i was looking at my itunes library having around 10000 files in my samples playlist, and i realized that i would never ever be able to sample through it all, since i knew that i would keep downloading, because its too easy left-clicking on that button ...

so i ended up just saying to myself that i would only sample from vinyl because its easier for me limiting buying records than downloading on my computer, since i would have to go dig.
to this day i still have a huge pile of records that im slowly, but surely digging through, only buying well-known records online that i know i will get to use, or at least being interested with having in my collection eg. Billy cobham "crosswinds"
 
but aren't they just a nightmare sound quality wise?
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I'm not a hundred percent sure about this but I believe that a vinyl in perfect state has the best possible audio quality because it mirrors the original analog signal.

With a vinyl record you'll have more control over sample rate etc. because you can sample from an analog source. I think that, in addition to the other reasons that have been given in this thread, is why people like to have vinyl records to sample from.
 
why anyone would want to sample mp3 is beyond me as it is at best 1/4 the quality of a 16bit 44,1khz wav file and is a compromise at so many different levels in terms of what exists in the file.

as for vinyl vs digital it makes no difference once sampled it is all digital anyway....
 
I'd rather use vinyl because I enjoy going to a record or thrift store, talking with people, digging through crates, looking at the album art, making big stack, narrowing it down to 10-20 records... it's an event.

If I know exactly what song I want to sample, I won't be like, "I won't use this until I can find the vinyl." I'll just go on the internet and download it. MP3 is fine. Obviously some ultra low bitrate treble modulating all over the place MP3 is going to be shit quality, but let's not pretend that's the typical/only MP3s one can find on the web.

I don't really digital dig though. I don't think I'd get any joy out of the process. I'd probably just end up dicking around on the internet and doing nothing. I have well over a hundred albums that I still haven't listened to. I'd rather just play those or spend the time making a non-sampled beat.
 
xansid said:
I'm not a hundred percent sure about this but I believe that a vinyl in perfect state has the best possible audio quality because it mirrors the original analog signal.

With a vinyl record you'll have more control over sample rate etc. because you can sample from an analog source. I think that, in addition to the other reasons that have been given in this thread, is why people like to have vinyl records to sample from.
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On paper digital is better. Vinyl is more appealing to ear for many though. it has a lot of its own character that makes it sound good but where it really lacks is in the low end. You can get a bigger bass sound with most digital mediums as opposed to vinyl. There is a lot of music on vinyl that is not available in the digital realm yet. A lot actually but many people deny it because most of what you want is available digitally. Also something to note sample rates are a digital term. They do not exist in the analog world.
 
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bandcoach said:
why anyone would want to sample mp3 is beyond me as it is at best 1/4 the quality of a 16bit 44,1khz wav file and is a compromise at so many different levels in terms of what exists in the file.

as for vinyl vs digital it makes no difference once sampled it is all digital anyway....
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I think this depends on the sound you're looking for. If you're making songs like "Toxic" by Britney Spears that's one thing, but, if you're making stuff equivalent to a 1990s sampled beat anyway, no big deal. Think about how things used to be down sampled to mono 22khz 8bit loops to save space. And if you're smothering the sample in other sounds, even a 128kbps mp3(where you can obviously hear a difference) can still work.

I'm an advocate of sampling anything from anywhere. I always try to find the best quality, but if I'm sampling a McDonald's training video from 1970 on youtube in 360p and can't find a better version, i'm still sampling, I just gotta make it work. While I totally agree you should always go with the best quality possible, with grittier hip hop, once it's smothered under drums and a bass line, and vocals over the top drown out alot anyway, it sounds just as good as any other hip hop song.
 
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