“Vinyl sounds better than digital”

I listen to music very often, but only a small amount of that time is spent on vinyl. Because of the era I live in, I find it much easier to use streaming/downloading to access music. Having said that, I do own a record player and have a handful of records that I put on very occasionally. When I do listen to vinyl, I can’t deny that there is a certain tactile satisfaction and sound quality that I find very pleasing. For this reason, the Chivers Yochim and Biddinger reading resonated with me when they argued that “when vinyl collectors expound upon the aesthetic, tactile and sonic superiority of records, they are not simply romanticizing the past but are articulating an abstract relationship between technology and humanity” (Chivers Yochim & Biddinger, 2008). I wanted to explore why vinyl is still popular in the modern world, beyond simple nostalgia. So I came up with the statement “Vinyl sounds better than digital” and decided to see where that would take me.

Audio is not a medium that I am experienced with, except in video editing. The track that I made is the first straight audio track that I have developed. The approach I took was experimental. I wanted to just gather some different relevant sounds and try to remix them into some kind of semi-cohesive format. I ended up tracking down a few different vinyl recordings and chopping them together. The track is intended to be a kind of celebration of vinyl recordings, demonstrating some of the different sounds that are created through vinyl (with the unfortunate irony that they are actually digital recordings of vinyl recordings).

For me, the distinctive sound of vinyl was always characterised by crackling and popping, as demonstrated in the track. However, it is not necessarily these faults that have served to maintain vinyl’s popularity. Many modern vinyl records actually have higher quality sound, when compared to “quickly produced digital music with subpar, lossy encoding… rushed to the music market” (Edmund, 2015). This suggests that the source of vinyl’s enduring popularity is its tactile nature rather than the “vintage feel” of the audio.

Surprisingly, I found that creating an audio track to comment on the debate of vinyl sounding better than digital was actually quite limiting. This was because the experience of vinyl records is so enhanced by the ritual. Woodward and Bartmanski point out that “it is good when a medium is instrumentally effective but it feels good when it is aesthetically satisfying” (Woodward & Bartmanski, 2015). The experience of listening to vinyl records is so inherently linked to the physical interaction with the medium, that I think the sound cannot be separated from the ritual. For this reason, I would hope to find a way of including the physical aspects of vinyl in any future investigations.

Works Cited:

Chivers Yochim, E. and Biddinger, M. (2008). `It kind of gives you that vintage feel’: vinyl records and the trope of death. Media, Culture & Society, 30(2), pp.183-195.

Edmund, M. (2015). Music to Whose Ears. Quality Progress, 48(2), pp.14-16.

Woodward, I. and Bartmanski, D. (2015). Vinyl: The analogue record in the digital age. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

Audio:

Desmond, P. (1976). Wendy. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_XU8Vdbr8Q

Everybody Loves Raymond. (1996). Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQM6GwUancI

inFact: Vinyl vs Digital. (2015). Brian Dunning. Available at:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnxexlHRY2E

Original Dixieland Jazz Band, (1917). Livery Stable Blues. New Orleans. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WojNaU4-kI

Vinyl. (2008). [online] Available at: www.archive.org/details/BattleForTheEarthVinyl