The Case for Vinyl: Why LPs Will Outlast CDs
A few months ago I schlepped over to Manhattan’s far West Side to catch bird-obsessed electronic duo Ratatat at Terminal 5. Between dodging unexpected hordes of tweens and watching seizure-inducing videos featuring similar quantities of white budgies, I wandered over to the merch table and noticed that opening act, Dom (named after the lead singer, who won’t reveal his last name because he “owes a lot of money”), wasn’t selling CDs. The band’s only sonic offering was an LP with a download code included.
So why would the band that refers to itself as the “Madonna of garage rock,” made up of twenty-somethings all presumably raised in the compact disc era, decide to hawk vinyl to a crowd that could just as easily have shown up at Justin Bieber‘s birthday party?
To be fair, Dom was probably just as surprised about the crowd’s demographics as I was, and I later learned that the group’s albums are indeed available on CD. But they were exclusively selling LPs at the concert because, as many in the music industry have known for years, vinyl is making a comeback. And it’s quite possible that the venerable medium will outlast the compact disc.
Much has been made of the decline of recorded music, and indeed, much has declined. According to Nielsen SoundScan, total album sales dipped from 373.9 million to 326.2 million last year, a drop of 12.7%. The 2010 sum is less than half the 2004 total of 666.7 million. But vinyl sales rose a healthy 14% — the third straight year of gains for the format — and this year’s 2.8 million total was the highest in the post-1991 SoundScan era.
“Vinyl will always be there,” says David Shebiro, owner of Rebel Rebel Records in Manhattan’s West Village. “It’s the way artists intend music to be.”
Shebiro has sold both LPs and CDs since opening the store in 1988. In the early days, LPs made up 90% of his sales. By 1998, the ratio had flipped, with CDs accounting for 90%. Today, he reckons, 60% of his sales are of the vinyl variety. He believes the main reason behind vinyl’s comeback is a desire to re-conjure the magic of buying music lost in the era of immediate gratification offered by Apple and Amazon.
“There used to be this anticipation when you bought a record,” he says. “You’d take it back with you on the subway and rip open the packaging, and you couldn’t wait to get home and play it. That magic of anticipation has gone with downloading, and that’s what people want to regain.”
In Shebiro’s eyes, the main reason people still buy CDs is that songs can be easily transferred to computers. In cases where LPs are sold with download codes, though, the playing field starts to level out. That trend is growing, but record labels sometimes refuse to include download codes with vinyl releases from superstars like Katy Perry, Shebiro says, because they think consumers will want the music so much that they’ll buy the LP and the mp3 separately. He also worries that the labels will raise the wholesale prices of vinyl records, which retail for $18 on average, to the point that they won’t be able to compete with compact discs, which retail for about $14.
Ultimately, the compact disc will stay alive as long as CD players remain a staple of late-model cars and computers. But those look to be fading — witness the MacBook air, which contains no CD drive, and the increasing availability of Bluetooth mp3 players and satellite radio in cars. Cassettes and their random manglings at the hands of devious tape players seemed to be eternal facts of life just fifteen years ago.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/03/04/the-case-for-vinyl-why-lps-will-outlast-cds/
Start cataloging to vinyl now.
http://capsulelabs.com/direct/
Early recording systems were nothing more than a stylus attached to a diaphragm, etching a groove directly into a spinning wax disc. The sound waves produced by the musician vibrated the diaphragm causing the stylus to carve grooves into the moving disc.
by Keith Nelson Jr.
Vinyl, with its rich vintage sound, limited edition runs and catnip effect on hipsters alike, are more so representations of history rather than simply relics. Imagine if you could turn any 30 minutes of music into history? Straight from Southern Germany engineering duo Fritz and Ulrich Sourisseau comes The VinylRecorder T560 equipped with stereo recording capabilities onto 7”, 10”, and 12” vinyl blanks, (even colored vinyl), at speeds of speeds of 33rpm, 45rpm, and 78rpm.
While the VinylRecorder T560 has been floating around in internet obscurity for a few years, it was recently showcased at SXSW. During an age where musicians are recording albums on their iPhones, the VinylRecorder T560’s durability and novelty will attract the casual DIY artists and DJ enthusiasts. However, the price tag (3200 Euros, $4261.12 US) and intricacy (a turntable, amp and vacuum cleaner are prerequisite items) turn the VinylRecorder T560 a sizeable investment for any musician. Fritz and Ulrich Sourisseau understand the steep learning curve and includes detailed assembly instructions, basic information on vinyl, and more useful resources on their official website to help you turn Justin Beiber’s whisper rap (or your own talent) into vintage gold with the VinylRecorder T560.
http://www.soundctrl.com/blog/2012/03/29/gadget-of-the-week-vinylrecorder-t560/
