Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 12:21 PM CST

This video and this article are pretty interesting. Young talks about the poor quality of most of today's digital music and the possibility of a new format and player that will give the same quality sound as vinyl and analog recording. Good stuff.

Plus, it's just really cool to think about the conversation that would have taken place between Steve Jobs and Neil Young.

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 04:43 PM CST

Do we all want to dust off the old cassette-to-cassette mixing machines and start ping-ponging tapes again?

I didn't think so. However, I do see Neil's point. I know that if I see someone in concert live, then listen to one of their MP3's, it nearly always sounds cheap by comparison.

Anyway, that's my two cents' worth.

Cheers,
Jim

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 05:38 PM CST

Oh Yeah

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 06:13 PM CST

The only saving grace of the MP3 format (and its brethren) is that it is small, but that’s not saying too much because IMHO the space-savings comes at a dreadful price of quality.   Like XM radio (a basic necessity of life on long road trips...) it might sound okay until you hear The Real Thing.

So... I think that Neal is once again on to something, but it does seem rather odd to me that he would resurrect the ghost of Steve Jobs (sigh... RIP...) in order to do it.

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 06:24 PM CST

yeah MP3 is small - but what's a factor of ten in the long run? zippo!

i still maintain that we, the public, will soon look back at MP3s and say "what a mistake - i ripped all my music to MP3s and sold my original vinyl, cassettes and CDs"

from the movie Men In Black:

This is gonna replace CD's soon; guess I'll have to buy the White Album again...

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Wednesday, February 01 2012 @ 10:56 PM CST

um I am hoping 2012 is the year I can pick up an otari 2 track and lay down some fat analog

I am quite tired of digital.

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Thursday, February 02 2012 @ 06:58 AM CST

I have an old tape-to-tape mixer, but the recording tape doesn't run at quite the same speed as the playing tape, so it's pretty much useless for that purpose. And even if you could stay in tune while recording, you couldn't play along with the final results.

But heck, I bought it for $15 at a yard sale. I think I got hosed.

Cheers,
Jim

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Thursday, February 02 2012 @ 08:24 AM CST

"128K CBR should be enough for anyone."

-Bill Gates (paraphrase)

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Thursday, February 02 2012 @ 12:55 PM CST

Yes he does make a very good point. I suppose it means that we are settling for the "demo" of the songs. It's why we only use mp3 for auditioning, and then send the high res part to be imported into the DAW and saved with the project file. We do post the mixed, mastered mp3 at the end, but we (at least the group I work with) will also post a high res copy of the mix/master. For the very reason Neil speaks of. But if you think of it as other than sonic gold, we are talking about a representation of an idea or a feeling. If that idea or feeling is indeed represented by an mp3, isn't the goal met? This is not an arguement against what Neil is talking about because I agree with him, and this is why we use the routine I just described. because in essence I agree with what he has said. But there is indeed a very real use for the format (mp3). It's like the difference between reading a story from hand written cursive, or typed out on a typewriter. The story is the same. The feeling is the same. It doesn't get any better if you have gold laced lettering. Well maybe a little better yes. But you see what I am saying. The mp3s do indeed convey feeling and mood. And i gotta tell you that SOME of the mp3s I've listened to just blow me away. I almost never walk away thinking "damn that was good, but sure would be better if the highs were covered better". Maybe it's just because my hearing has declined, but I find myself getting strong content from mp3s all the time. Of course we are settling for less, and yes we should have the option to get the high res. Isn't there companies who will deliver high res after the demo of mp3 is listened to? Like for instance the online company called Jamendo. They only accept high res wavs. You can't upload mp3s to their site. So if you buy a song from them, you are buying a high res version of it. You listen to the mp3, and then buy the high res with Jamendo. So obviously what Neil is talking about is not totally the case on the net. Jamendo is onto that already and has been for as long as I've been a member there. Remember I am agreeing with what Neil is saying.

Re:Neil Young, Steve Jobs and vinyl
Thursday, February 02 2012 @ 08:27 PM CST

even 44,1 is missing a bunch of info. nothing beats analog imho