Fake vinyl crackle/hiss on CDs

Gaah, this is really annoying. I've just listened to the track 'Isn't it Good Tonight' by Shea Seger and its got this stupid emulated sound of an old scratchy LP all the way through. Its not as if the song has a particularly retro style or anything its trying to recreate, it just seems like an annoying production gimmick.

Other tracks that have this are Craig Armstrong's 'Rise' and I know there's a song on an Everything But the Girl album that does this but I can't recall which one now. About the only instance I can think of where its use is justified is for the few seconds in 'Honey Pie' off the White Album.

So is this just me, or does this bug anyone else?

 

If it's just at the start, I don't mind. if it's thru the whole song, then it bugs me.
Klaatu's first LP had the fake "needle hitting the vinyl" sound.....that was way before cd's!

 

It doesn't bug me. There are a few generations who weren't raised on vinyl, so when that is heard in a song, it's definitely something that perks people up. I go back to an issue of the Ice Newsletter in the early 1990's when someone asked if the crackle at the beginning of LL Cool J's "Jingling Baby" was an accident, perhaps a flaw from the mastering plant. The answer was simple: no, it was intentional.

In some genres it is meant to give off a "retro" feel, but in others producers do it to say "I'm a fan of vinyl, and I can make good music with that crackle still in there." A friend of mine had said that when surface noise is used as part of someone's production style, it is a distraction from the music. For me, I would add more to my tracks.

A few people, such as Fatboy Slim (back in the days of Beat International) and Jan Jelinek, will go out of their way to make rhythm patterns from the crackle.

 

Koop's Waltz For Koop (an otherwise deliciously beautiful jazzy ambient track) has this all the way through. It's very annoying, particularly since the "sonic signature" of the crackle doesn't match the rest of the production.

 

the allison moorer song, "light of a clear blue morning" on the dolly parton tribute CD, has this all the way through. it is a quiet song and it ruins it.

renny

 

This generally bugs the hell out of me.

 

Hmm, I see your point and I don't think that the examples above would trouble me, I can see that this is making creative use of 'extraneous' material. But that Shea Seger track is a particularly heavy-handed example of 'gratuitous' hiss for no particular creative reason as far as I can tell.

There's a bit of hiss and crackle on parts of DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' also, but I don't mind that since I assume it was there on the records he took the samples from.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind real crackle on real records though, even though (and I realise this may be a hanging offence in these parts ) I haven't really listened to vinyl in a while since my turntable died three or four years ago, and I still haven't replaced it.

 

There's a bit of LP crackle on Matthew Sweet's 'Girlfriend' album IIRC. It sounded like an LP ended and was flipped over. After the needle settles in the groove it goes quiet again and the music starts.

Very cool I thought.

dan c

 

I hate it! It reinforces the idea in peoples heads that vinyl is noisy.

Like at the beginning of Jet-Move On, it drives me BONKERS!!

 

There was also a Colin James song that was made to sound like an old 78. It was cute the firrst time around, but annoying after the fact.

Brian

 

They do it to make it sound more "old school", but I for one feel it is an over-used effect...

 

XTC's- Respectable Street

 

I agree it would be most aggravating. If they wanted the entire song to sound like a raw needle-drop (meaning dubbed from a clean record but not treated to subsequent declicking or decrackling etc) why didn't they just make a clean mix, have it transferred to an acetate and then do a proper needle-drop from it? I think we all pretty much agree that would be a tad radical in these times, but then the noise and distortion patterns arising from the mechanics of disc recording and reproduction are organically built into the total sound of the reproduced music, and appear to exist on the same plane with it. (I once tried doing otherwise, just dubbing the leadout grooves of an indifferently-pressed LP under a short bit of material once, and the result 'didn't work', if you know what I mean.)

I also don't like hearing little patterns of record noise repeating themselves over and over in the background....the dead giveaway of the practice of 'looping'.

 

IIRC, Portishead - "Sour Times" had fake vinyl crackling throughout the song. Very annoying. Maybe sometime we'll get a remastered version of Dummy including a non-fake crackling version of "Sour Times".

 

Really? I have it on the Upsy Daisy comp and don't hear it.

 

This crap usually happens on contemporary R&B and hip-hop. I never liked it.

 

if I want to hear "vinyl sound," I would listen to vinyl and not all vinyl is noisy.

 

It has always been my experience that, if used tastefully, a bit of fake vinyl crackle and/or hiss can create a pleasantly calming effect. For instance, I've always enjoyed the background noise on Portishead's "Sour Times." But, then, I grew up listening to vinyl--much of it in rather questionable shape--and so, for me, such sounds have nostalgic associations.

 

I don't like it. It's at the beginning of David Bowie's "Black Tie, White Noise".

 

On Amy Grant's song "Simple Things," she does have simulated hip-hop scratch sounds in a few places. The programming was done by Keith Thomas.

 

in other words, this effect is overdone.

 

The "Black Sea" LP version has a quiet intro, played on a piano, which sounds like an old tinny, scratchy 78. It's the bridge melody and lyrics ("It's in the order....").

The great thing is, I got my copy of the LP for 95 cents because the used record store assumed the album was trashed!

 

There's a Mike Nesmith Monkees song with the effect, complete with a skip at the end.

 

Magnolia Simms from The Birds, The Bees and the Monkees.

 

One can add it themselves if they choose to if they have a sound editor and the iZotope Vinyl plugin.