E-Digging SUCKS!? Really?

DustyVinylJake said:
I have been looking at this site on and off while i'm bored at work, and had to sign up just to respond to this idiotic debate. Anyone that thinks e digging is even remotely close to digging vinyl records is sadly mis-informed and won't last long in the business. The only good metaphor i can come up with is cameras. A camera with actual film will never pixelate no matter how close up you zoom up into it. A digital camera will pixelate and show little boxes the closer you zoom up. Same thing with audio. An mp3 or other formats have a sample and bit rate. These are binary code equations that use 0's and 1's to represent each sample. The higher the sample and bit rate, the closer to analog you get. No matter what, if you zoom up on a digital audio file (especially mp3) you will see boxxy lines similiar to a pixelated digital photo. This shows you that the full wavelengths of the audio are not being accurately respresented but more of an approximation of the sound. Anyone who thinks mp3 sound as good or better than vinyl need their ears checked and shouldn't be making beats. I'm sure all my vinyl heads out their know how much better vinyl sounds than digital. At least if your sampling onto a digital format (ex. computer, mpc, asr, etc...) you are sampling straight from the analog source and you will have a more accurate representation of the sound. Especially when you start getting into sampling at 96k and up sample rates at 24 bits. Their is not even a debate, vinyl sounds much better and is of a higher quality. All you dudes with hissy and poppy ass sounding dollar bin records(thats cool), look up vinyl facelift with wood glue on youtube. Do this to ur shitty sounding vinyls and they will sound amazing and way better than any digital could ever sound.

Aside from the sound quality issue, which vinyl is obviously better, why the hell would anyone dig online. Shouldn't even be called digging, more like random finger clicking youtube links. To cats like me who have spent years researching artists, labels, and different styles of music, its sad that some teenager with no respect or knowledge of the music he's raping can just click a youtube link and have instant gems. The internet may be great for researching music and finding artists, but don't sample youtube and mp3s, thats just a sleazy kind of thing to do in my opinion. This is the difference between a hardworking self made man, and some kid with a silver spoon getting everything handed to him. Have some respect for the artists ur sampling. Buy their shit. Don't be scared to ruin your diesel jeans, Get dirty and get in those crates. Wear a dust mask if you have to. This is what separates the men from the wannabees. Be intimate with the music and you shall be rewarded. Rip audio from youtube to ur mpc and call urself hip hop --->Shame on you.

Ok enough rambling, I shouldn't even care. Let these kids make their shitty youtube beats, that just means less competition for all the real producers who do things the right way.
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there are too many limitations and mpcs cost money these kids dont pay for gear or samples lol.
 
DustyVinylJake said:
I have been looking at this site on and off while i'm bored at work, and had to sign up just to respond to this idiotic debate. Anyone that thinks e digging is even remotely close to digging vinyl records is sadly mis-informed and won't last long in the business. The only good metaphor i can come up with is cameras. A camera with actual film will never pixelate no matter how close up you zoom up into it. A digital camera will pixelate and show little boxes the closer you zoom up. Same thing with audio. An mp3 or other formats have a sample and bit rate. These are binary code equations that use 0's and 1's to represent each sample. The higher the sample and bit rate, the closer to analog you get. No matter what, if you zoom up on a digital audio file (especially mp3) you will see boxxy lines similiar to a pixelated digital photo. This shows you that the full wavelengths of the audio are not being accurately respresented but more of an approximation of the sound. Anyone who thinks mp3 sound as good or better than vinyl need their ears checked and shouldn't be making beats. I'm sure all my vinyl heads out their know how much better vinyl sounds than digital. At least if your sampling onto a digital format (ex. computer, mpc, asr, etc...) you are sampling straight from the analog source and you will have a more accurate representation of the sound. Especially when you start getting into sampling at 96k and up sample rates at 24 bits. Their is not even a debate, vinyl sounds much better and is of a higher quality. All you dudes with hissy and poppy ass sounding dollar bin records(thats cool), look up vinyl facelift with wood glue on youtube. Do this to ur shitty sounding vinyls and they will sound amazing and way better than any digital could ever sound.

Aside from the sound quality issue, which vinyl is obviously better, why the hell would anyone dig online. Shouldn't even be called digging, more like random finger clicking youtube links. To cats like me who have spent years researching artists, labels, and different styles of music, its sad that some teenager with no respect or knowledge of the music he's raping can just click a youtube link and have instant gems. The internet may be great for researching music and finding artists, but don't sample youtube and mp3s, thats just a sleazy kind of thing to do in my opinion. This is the difference between a hardworking self made man, and some kid with a silver spoon getting everything handed to him. Have some respect for the artists ur sampling. Buy their shit. Don't be scared to ruin your diesel jeans, Get dirty and get in those crates. Wear a dust mask if you have to. This is what separates the men from the wannabees. Be intimate with the music and you shall be rewarded. Rip audio from youtube to ur mpc and call urself hip hop --->Shame on you.

Ok enough rambling, I shouldn't even care. Let these kids make their shitty youtube beats, that just means less competition for all the real producers who do things the right way.
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This is a funny post - but it's wrong.

Wav files sound better than mp3. There is no comparison, they are simply more accurate. However, vinyl is a very very inaccurate form of audio distribution. Vinyl distorts(colors) the sound much more than a a typical 192kbps mp3 file. The camera analogy, while accurate to a degree, is useless. For what reason would you zoom up that close to an image other than editing? Human beings cannot possibly even begin to imagine what a real, solid curve looks like. That's why we invented infinitesimal calculus to zoom up REAL close and find the slope of a line.

The way we design digital technology is based on the fact that even though it is a binary approximation, it is far more accurate than ANY human could possibly hope to discern.

That's why the images we download off the internet look practically exactly the same compared to the originals (remember that internet signals get converted for people with cable service). Vinyl is not better. Just because you like the smooth, warm sound of vinyl, does not ultimately make it better. Warmth and thickness and dimension can always be added in the mix with analog compressors, eq's, and proper mixing.

As for vinyl vs. e-digging this is debatable. But really it just sounds like you're pissed off at the young dudes who have it easier than you. It's like the guys on horses back when cars were invented, shaking their head at the young dudes driving big ol' fancy cars.
 
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Scorchin while I kinda agree with u vinyl doesn't color the sound. That distortion came from the recording before being pressed to vinyl. It was already there. In the analog realm distortion (or clipping to the guys who have never worked on tape) actually does sound good and is what they tried to emulate with these distortion fx. Vinyl is pure analog just like tape. That part of the argument is very valid. Listen to songs produced in Pro Tools and then pressed to vinyl. They still sound like digital recordings for the most part. I always find it strange however how so many people think that the anti e dig guys are angry about the young guys who e dig (not saying this guy isnt because I think hes angry too) but many like myself just like accurate sound. Nothing on the consumer market today sounds as accurate as vinyl. The digital format itself only takes in perfection. Analog and real world sound is not always perfect if that makes sense. Parts of the audio are filtered out in a digital recording though at higher resolutions that is happening less and less. That's really beyond the point though.
 
Xabiton said:
Scorchin while I kinda agree with u vinyl doesn't color the sound. That distortion came from the recording before being pressed to vinyl. It was already there. In the analog realm distortion (or clipping to the guys who have never worked on tape) actually does sound good and is what they tried to emulate with these distortion fx. Vinyl is pure analog just like tape. That part of the argument is very valid. Listen to songs produced in Pro Tools and then pressed to vinyl. They still sound like digital recordings for the most part. I always find it strange however how so many people think that the anti e dig guys are angry about the young guys who e dig (not saying this guy isnt because I think hes angry too) but many like myself just like accurate sound. Nothing on the consumer market today sounds as accurate as vinyl. The digital format itself only takes in perfection. Analog and real world sound is not always perfect if that makes sense. Parts of the audio are filtered out in a digital recording though at higher resolutions that is happening less and less. That's really beyond the point though.
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That's true about a lot of distortion (usually good distortion) coming from the mix/master but the fact remains that digital is more accurate. Vinyl is primitive - it's about pressing little lines into a piece of vinyl. Digital works completely differently - it uses mathematics.

Comparing that to high fidelity digital is like comparing a TI Calculator to a Difference Engine from the 19th century. Which is more accurate? I'll give you a hint, the one that can find PI to 100 significant digits.

There is a reason that computers are as wonderful as they are. Simply put, very smart people made sure that the information being transmitted through computers was more accurate than needed.

Imagine a sinusoidal waveform. This can (obviously) be expressed as a f(x). Essentially, if all songs were as simple as wave functions, computers would be able to calculate these songs with absolute precision. Unfortunately, most songs appear very randomly in real music, and so the computer simulates these curves (which, like I said, are an impossibility) with many small lines. But luckily for us, the computer is very very good at interpolating (filling in the blanks) during playback. On the other hand, vinyl is filled with little bumps and ticks and noises that ruin the song. But honestly, the audible difference between the two is almost not there when chopped up and put into the mix- but the most important thing is to gethigh quality wav's. Not some 240p youtube video. I think that is where the problem lies. Not in computers, but in shitty azz compression.

Short explanation: computers > machines.
 
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ScorchinBeats said:
That's true about a lot of distortion (usually good distortion) coming from the mix/master but the fact remains that digital is more accurate. Vinyl is primitive - it's about pressing little lines into a piece of vinyl. Digital works completely differently - it uses mathematics.

Comparing that to high fidelity digital is like comparing a TI Calculator to a Difference Engine from the 19th century. Which is more accurate? I'll give you a hint, the one that can find PI to 100 significant digits.

There is a reason that computers are as wonderful as they are. Simply put, very smart people made sure that the information being transmitted through computers was more accurate than needed.

Imagine a sinusoidal waveform. This can (obviously) be expressed as a f(x). Essentially, if all songs were as simple as wave functions, computers would be able to calculate these songs with absolute precision. Unfortunately, most songs appear very randomly in real music, and so the computer simulates these curves (which, like I said, are an impossibility) with many small lines. But luckily for us, the computer is very very good at interpolating (filling in the blanks) during playback. On the other hand, vinyl is filled with little bumps and ticks and noises that ruin the song. But honestly, the audible difference between the two is almost not there when chopped up and put into the mix- but the most important thing is to gethigh quality wav's. Not some 240p youtube video. I think that is where the problem lies. Not in computers, but in shitty azz compression.

Short explanation: computers > machines.
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Depends on the machine. I personally prefer working on machines myself. But saying digital is more accurate still is not right because of the recording process itself. Digital still loses more info based on the idea of perfection when there is no such thing as perfect audio. Analog recordings even without coloration (2" Tape for example) is a lot clearer and cleaner than any digital recording I've ever used. Not to mention analog offers a lot more head room than digital does for recording and has a smaller noise floor. I am speaking from experience of recording and editing on both formats for accuracy analog > digital. Not everything can be done with math especially not audio which does involve integers that digital recording does not even acknowledge. As far as vinyl goes also if you don't want those bad sounding things in your recordings buy better condition vinyl and clean it. Comparing old beat up vinyl which has the characteristics you bring up doesn't make digital a better format either it just makes it cleaner than vinyl in bad condition. Thats like saying a scratched cd sounds as good as a record in perfect condition.

---------- Post added at 09:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

btw yeah lofi digital rips suck and should not be considered in a quality conversation. A good piece of vinyl recorded well vs a good recorded digital file encoded well as far as sound quality goes vinyl well analog in general wins.
 
Xabiton i totally agree with you as far as the sound quality issue and vinyl. Just to be clear, I am not angry at younger guys out their sampling digital material, i just feel like its cheapening the artform that I have enjoyed my whole life. I believe that it is somewhat disrespectful to the original artist to just rip a song digitally and make a beat with it. I'm not against digital technology at all. It's cool if you want to learn about artists on youtube or blogs and get to hear music you've never heard before: thats awesome. But once you find artists that you like, give them some respect and go buy their shit at a record store. I also find thaT when people have instant gems at their finger tips, it leads to less creativity and more straight up audio jacking. I think that anyone out their who is a current "e-digger" would find it much more rewarding and intimate to actually dig in the crates and help keep the artform alive. I remember digging at this secret location in greenpoint brooklyn. It's a thrift store, but the whole basement is stuffed to the tee with about 500,000 pieces of vinyl. We would put on our dust masks and dig their for hours, sometimes finding incredible music we never knew existed. While digging their it was not uncommon to bump into people like HAvoc, pete rock, j live, khrysis, dj eclipse, evil dee, diamond d and many others. It was so satisfying to know that i was a younger guy following in the footsteps of the people i grew up listening to. It felt great to know that i was helping to keep this dying artform alive. It gave me a sense of gratitude, and a profound understanding and respects for those who came before me. Vinyl records and samplers is hiphop. Youtube and plug ins is something completely different. I'm not trying to hate on e-diggers just trying to throw a little culture and history into the mix. As hip hop producers/beat makers/whatever we owe it to those that came before us to keep this shit alive and not turn hip hop into a cheap free for all. This is just my opinion and i know many will disagree, but hip hop is way too important to me to treat it like some 5 dollar crack whore.
 
Dare I ask why you are anti plug in lol. I grew up in the 90s as well. I was born in 83. I came up listening to the G Funk era being from the west coast but I am not sure why plug ins are bad. My only real issue even with E Digging is the sound of the recordings themselves in a lot of cases more so than the person actually going out there and digging. A lot of E Diggers don't know wtf to look for anyway. They just grab anything with an afro on it.
 
well im not anit plug in, maybe it came out the wrong way. i used plug ins every day for recording and mixing, im just saying that someone using a vst drum machine for instance with youtube videos is not hip hop lol. im definately not anti plug ins and their are some dope as plug ins out their that sound really close and sometimes better than outboard gear
 
DustyVinylJake said:
well im not anit plug in, maybe it came out the wrong way. i used plug ins every day for recording and mixing, im just saying that someone using a vst drum machine for instance with youtube videos is not hip hop lol. im definately not anti plug ins and their are some dope as plug ins out their that sound really close and sometimes better than outboard gear
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hip hop isnt about how u get it though. I personally am all for software if one wants to use it. I have hardware samplers if I do the same things in software then who cares how i got there. I love my EPS but compared to Reason the EPS is a lot harder to use imo.
 
DustyVinylJake said:
Xabiton i totally agree with you as far as the sound quality issue and vinyl. Just to be clear, I am not angry at younger guys out their sampling digital material, i just feel like its cheapening the artform that I have enjoyed my whole life. I believe that it is somewhat disrespectful to the original artist to just rip a song digitally and make a beat with it. I'm not against digital technology at all. It's cool if you want to learn about artists on youtube or blogs and get to hear music you've never heard before: thats awesome. But once you find artists that you like, give them some respect and go buy their shit at a record store. I also find thaT when people have instant gems at their finger tips, it leads to less creativity and more straight up audio jacking. I think that anyone out their who is a current "e-digger" would find it much more rewarding and intimate to actually dig in the crates and help keep the artform alive. I remember digging at this secret location in greenpoint brooklyn. It's a thrift store, but the whole basement is stuffed to the tee with about 500,000 pieces of vinyl. We would put on our dust masks and dig their for hours, sometimes finding incredible music we never knew existed. While digging their it was not uncommon to bump into people like HAvoc, pete rock, j live, khrysis, dj eclipse, evil dee, diamond d and many others. It was so satisfying to know that i was a younger guy following in the footsteps of the people i grew up listening to. It felt great to know that i was helping to keep this dying artform alive. It gave me a sense of gratitude, and a profound understanding and respects for those who came before me. Vinyl records and samplers is hiphop. Youtube and plug ins is something completely different. I'm not trying to hate on e-diggers just trying to throw a little culture and history into the mix. As hip hop producers/beat makers/whatever we owe it to those that came before us to keep this shit alive and not turn hip hop into a cheap free for all. This is just my opinion and i know many will disagree, but hip hop is way too important to me to treat it like some 5 dollar crack whore.
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it all depends on what qualifies as e-digging. if i can sit at home when i'm bored and still do what i love (dig) then why not? to me it's all about finding out about new artists, ones you definitely wouldn't find at your local record store. embracing that music, then hitting up some stores or online stores and trying to find them.

i'm not gonna only dig in person at record stores in the jazz section just so i make sure i'm "hip-hop".

as for if kids wanna sample youtube videos thats up to them. it's not gonna sound as good, despite the debate, that's the bottom line, NOTHING sounds like vinyl. if they're ok with that then let them get on with it. they aint hurting anybody.
 
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