What is the problem about music medium?
Its sometime confusing when we talk about analog and digital, its two difference world. That why i choose 'music medium' than 'music format' coz format is like .mp3 .flac .etc.. in digital world. Yes we in digital world right now, reading pc kokak's blog.
Vinyl can 'store' more than others. I believe vinyl can store 98% of the master tape (please correct me if I'm wrong). That mean if the master recording is mp3, the vinyl will sound 'same' to the quality of the mp3. It depend to the master tape/file. So if the vinyl mastered from master tape it should sound closer (than others medium) to the master tape. But you know, 'handling' the vinyl is hard.
The medium is not important because its '
transparency'.
Sometime you listen to mp3, cd, vinyl of even the master tape is the same. because it transparent, human hearing can only hear specific range. That why the dog coming to the speaker to hear the 'outter human range' frequency produce by the speaker, they can hear wider range than us. The transparency mean enough to hear. Our hear cannot proses the lower or the over sound frequency. That mean mp3 is just enough range for music sound that's our human ear can proses.
Faham?
The problem is
loudness war.
Most Cd mastering in this modern digital world today is corrupting the music. I don't know if the producer want it be sound like that. Loudness war is '
bunyi pecah' or like speaker broken or the 'negative distortion'. Yes distortion have negative and positive. I mean the guitar distortion is positive, mean the distortion we want to hear and headbanging. But the negative distortion from loudness war is like wanna '
patahkan cd tu sambil mencarut'. You rockametalhead really know how to spot the negative or positive dissto666orrtionnn right?
Its about
Dynamic!
loudness war mean corrupt, because no dynamic. That's why Earache release Full Dynamic Range series for the classic album, they want the releasing near to the master tape in term of dynamic and quality.
What you prefer to collect?
But of course it must be nearest to the quality of the master tape right? That why if the master tape is gone, and you still want to release that rare kult album you 'needle-drop' or mastered it from the lp.
Faham? Its depend on your budget and the nostalgia factor to collect something right? But today buying music medium is like 'main saham' so called investment, even cassette tape now '
saham naik'.
Siapa kaya boleh la main saham. I don't like like that. Like lps sellers at Amcorp Mall are crazy as Soros.
What about cd?
Cd is nice medium, it mean to be 'accurate', because its digital, its only 0 or 1, No wear out problem like vinyl. Early year when cd came out its like Flat transfer from master tape to digital signal, with nice balance of dynamic. I love cd like that's. But this day almost all cd mastered with Loudness War, the loudness or the volume is not in your hand anymore, it belong to mastering engineer now. Old days when you tweak the EQ or ON the LOUDNESS button the music is still great at your own flavor. But now digital music has to be listen with default setting only, when you tweak it sound abnormal and
pecah. When you listen to slow volume it feel not 'KICK'. Today cd packing is shit with shit loudness war with shit price.
What the better music medium?
I really cannot say
lah, but for me I love vinyl. But remember any medium has his pro and contra, nobody or things are perfect right? You really cannot mix the analog with digital medium, but I list it maybe like this;
1. master tape or high resolution digital file
2. high resolution cd/blueray audio?
3. Vinyl record
4. regular cd
5. flac or 320kbps mp3
6. cassette tape
What to buy?
Hahaha why you want to waste your money buying music? You can listen it for free on youtube or download it, some band give free legal download, that's I like. The record label and the band is already
kaya raya. But we still buying the cd/tape/vinyl why? I tell you why, because we all are crazy with music, we all crazy in this materialistic world, we all love to collect material, we all has choose its this way, its our decision. Do you realize? We are the
FREAKS.
