Is new vinyl mostly digital?

Read somewhere that "in the old days" disc-cutters used a tape deck with two playback heads. The first play head would feed a circuit that controlled the adjacent-groove spacing and the second (delayed) play head would feed the cutter head. The article further stated that these 2 head decks are seldom used now and have been replaced by digital delay lines: as in the signal that goes to the cutter-head is now digitally delayed. If true, then most new vinyl is digital (even if the original recording was analog tape and never converted to digital for remastering purposes).

True or un-true?

One can only claim a source to be analog if it has never been converted to digital.

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Could not tell you percentage wise, but yes, there are quite a few digitally remastered. Some companies you can rely on I think (Mofi, Analogue Productions, Rhino) that stay true to form most of the time. Hopefully someone with more knowledge than me can chime in.

 

This is not a question about digital remastering vs analog remastering. It's about cutting the disc. If a tape is remastered in the analog domain and then fed to a disc-cutter with a digital delay line, then the resulting record will be digital and not analog. Example: What if I record a CD to tape and then play back that tape. Am I now listening to a true analog source? No. I'm still listening to a digital recording.

 

Most cutting lathes use digital delay stages, it is still possible to get lacquers cut on machines without them, I have a friend who does so with all his releases, but not that easy, personally I don't worry about such things, but then we don't charge £30+ for our vinyl LPs.

 

It's like most things, both true and false.

Neumann introduced new cutting equipment using digital delay instead of tape read-ahead in the late 1970s. Not everyone used those lathes, not everyone used the digital delay. It's the same now. There are a few cutting studios that have customised their Neumann lathes for analog look-ahead.

It's complicated because doing all analog means having a custom tape machine. With the digital delay any source can be used. There is also a custom digital look ahead system used by GZvinyl, that digitizes the master then syncs that to the analog, with the true analog signal going to the cutter and the digital driving the look-ahead. Lots of ways.

Most records state something like 'cut using the original analog tapes' and this could mean anything unless a better description can be coaxed out of the engineers. FWIW, I doubt you'll find a non-analog cut from any major audiophile label. 'audiophile' labelled disks from major labels, that's another thing.

I've never tracked down the (very proprietary) details of the Neumann delay. I don't believe that initially it was even actually digital, (as in A>>D>>A) but was a clocked analog delay line.

 

Y

 

I think people fuss too much about maintaining every aspect of recording in the analog domain. Digital has a legitimate place, and can improve many parts of the chain with better reliability and potentially improved performance. It's probably near impossible to maintain every phase of the chain as analog, and probably not the smartest thing to do just to say it's 'all analog'.

 

I'm kinda amazed at how good digital mastered vinyl sound really.

 

Are you sure about this? Digital delay before 1980 on cutting equipment? I didn't know that and it certainly worries me

Where did you get these details about the method used at GZ? From reading posts by one of the people running GZ that participates here, I always get the impression that the cutting is digital...

If the actual information being cut is 100% analog (never converted), it autmatically rises GZ status in my "to buy" list. If not, it goes back to the "never buy" list...

Is this in any way confirmed?

Indeed... been complaining about that myself I wish labels (even the trusted ones) could be really CLEAR about what they do...

 

It's on their web site in the description of their processes. Apparently it's not that popular, as most of the work they do is from digital anyway. There's no guarantee, and their engineer said here that they weren't in any way going for audiophile quality. http://www.gzvinyl.com/vinyl-27/

All the GZ vinyl I've heard has been OK. Flat, quiet and reasonable sounding. Since they don't do much reissuing, it's very difficult to compare quality.

The digital delay used on the new Neumann lathes is switchable. It, and the DMM copper blanks were blamed for a lot of poor sound from the LPs cut on it. Yet many are astounding. (Tom Waits Rain Dogs, Kate Bush Dreaming, Paul Simon Graceland...). I don't think it was possible to use the Neumann without full electronics overhaul without the computer and delay. That's what people do now.

 

For me, buying vinyl is not all about getting an entirely analog signal. It's simply that I am getting something that has much more room to breathe in its mastering and sounds much less muddy compared to the far more maximized CD versions.

 

Vinyl could adopt a code to inform buyers:

AAA
-analog source (tape or vinyl)
-analog mastering (or no mastering at all)
-using 2 head tape deck to drive disc cutter (no digital delay)

ADD
-analog source
-digital mastering
-digital-delay disc cutter

DDD, DAA, DAD, AAD

Example: Reference Recording has a new Stravinsky vinyl release. It's production was described in detail in a recent article. It's an ADD.

 

That type of code was used 30 years ago (it's called SPARS) and was recently discontinued. The meanings were not as you describe.

A full description of the process in the liner notes is better. Engineers still have favorite recordings, and steal techniques from them.

And yes, there's pretty much no doubt that the majority of new issues on vinyl are from digital recordings or digital copies. Unless we know otherwise, from labeling or liner notes.

There are other anomalies, too. For example, all vinyl is called analogue in Japan, since it's an analog recording (groove) reproduced by analog methods.

 

I know about SPARS. This would be a new (different) code specifically for vinyl and the meanings for each letter would be different (as I described). Just something I'm proposing.

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GZ Vinyl mastering system

Hello MikeyH and all,

It would be nice to have such a mastering system, but unfortunately it would be very very difficult to properly synchronize both the real-time analogue tape and the pre-processed digital signal for driving of depth and distance of grooves (for an analogue cutting computer inside Neumann's lathes). Our system calculates corrections every 5 ms (200 times per second) and needs to know the audio signal very precisely to be able to place grooves close to each other to save space on a record.

Maybe it is possible to develop such a system, but for now it isn't our priority. Our customers supply us with digital sources 99.9% of cases so we have to adapt to their wishes and requests. Max. 10 analogue tapes have been processed last year compared to more than 12000 copper plates cut here from our new digital mastering system. We need to work on more important improvements of cutting technology and costs of such new analogue system would be extremely high compared to its benefit for those several tapes per year. Sorry, but also any development needs to be paid somehow

All four ways we can work with now are described here:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=5745653#post5745653

If there are any technical questions please ask there.

 

I understand GZ's business plan perfectly, it is quite OK.

However, today there is a big market for 100% analog cuts, other companies have been making large profits because they do that.

If I had a mastering company I would definitely not put myself out of that market deliberately.

It's not all that expensive to get all analog gear for true analog preview, with current market demand it would pay for itself in no time and the overall reputation of GZ in the market would benefit hugely from that simple move.

 

Most digital remastered vinyl sounds way better than the analog originals IHO so why fret about something like this? Just enjoy the music.

 

Obviously, you do not understand their business plan because you follow up with this:

If you read closely what Jiri posted, you would see that his business ran "Max. 10 analogue tapes have been processed last year compared to more than 12000 copper plates cut here from our new digital mastering system". This is clearly not a "big market" as you claim.

And again, you show no business sense with this statement. In order for Jiri to cut 100% analog, it would cost him 10's of thousands of dollars. For 10 cuts a year? Guess how many years it would be before that equipment was "paid" for (because it's not a simple dollar for dollar equation)? I'd guess it'd be 20-30 years. That is not good business plan.

Not being mean or anything, but I think if you started a record cutting business, you might find that you'd made a mistake if you invested a lot of money in "all analog". You do know that almost all new recordings are 100% digital, right?

 

Kevin Bresnahan, how many albums were mastered from analog sources last year? 10?

What are you talking about? Are GZ production numbers the absolute reference to what was produced worldwide?

If another mastering facility made 100 albums from analog and 5 from digital, does that mean that there is no business to be made from digital sources?

Of course GZ had only 10 analog tapes to work with, they ask their customers to send digital sources as it is their assumed preferred method to work.

I'm sure something very different happens with Sterling, Cohearent, AIR, Bernie Grundman, Mastering Lab, Golden...

 

And again, it is not very expensive to have full analog preview and cutting. If you make only 10 albums per year, it's not good business. But that is not the market reality, it would be only your option!

 

Yes, when it comes to most people defending their favored medium, whether analog or digital, it's an ideology rather than a rational process. For me, and I am a record collector going back 35 years, I don't get hung-up on analog vs digital and I listen to both. Many recordings were produced years ago on all analog equipment and will likely never be released on digital format. Similarly many modern recordings are all digital and will likely not be cut to Lp for analog playback. Of course I have many recordings of hybrid processing and I would not toss any of them based solely on their "analogness".

-Bill

 

most NEW vinyl is digitally sourced anyway. I still buy it though, because my listening habits are so vinyl oriented that it's simpler for me and in the cases where they mix and master in ProTools HD it's a little nicer to have the vinyl, but a lot of new vinyl is from 16/44.1 mixes so really all you get is the experience of listening to digital music on really good equipment

when you get analog vinyl these days I think you pay a premium, like a BIG premium.

but, like, I have Black Eyed Peas on vinyl and CD and the vinyl sounds so much better, probably because of the care taken or something, or because they tailor the mastering to the potential audience, or because vinyl will just not hold slammed sound the way CD will. Either way, it's an improvement.

 

Here's another nugget to ponder: What of digital sources, even if they are recorded and handled analog all the way to being cut to vinyl. What I mean is say a Devo album where they play synth. Early Brian Eno stuff. Pretty much any rock guitar band that uses digital guitar effects. If it's intended to be digital by the artist via digital instruments, even if it is a "holistically pure" analog recording, is it digital or is it Memorex?

-Bill

 

FYI There's a recently closed thread about this very subject over on the Music Corner forum. Many, many opinions... and some facts, too.

 

The early Devo and early Eno stuff is all analog synths. Devo's Freedom Of Choice is analog synths run through amps mic'ed in a room. Just sayin'