The paradox of life is that sometimes, imperfection is better than perfection. As a collector, sometimes we pursue misprints as they are of higher rarity. As much as we often seek “perfection”, in reality we actually prefer a less-than-perfect situation as it makes us more human. This is so much more elemental in the world of growing utilitisation of artificial intelligence.
Therein lies the beauty of vinyl sound. It is more imperfect and hence it sounds more real and less manufactured. But how can our ears tell? I don’t want to sound like an academic, but you know that an instrumental sound is formed by the fundamental musical pitch but layered with harmonics and overtones. A synthesized tone does not have them, so they sound very clean.
During vinyl playback, some harmonic distortion is created, due to the playback mechanism interacting with the turntable and the environment. The real time action of the turntable cartridge stylus vibrating along the grooves to generate electrical signals is essentially a live performance of a physical plane.
It is possible to simulate the vinyl warmth sound on a digital playback, but it would be too artificial, relying on some human-derived logic to fake the effect. By playing the actual vinyl on an analog system, you leave it to the laws of nature to achieve the genuine chaotic outcome.
Have you heard of the recording technique of “miking the amp”? Instead of feeding the guitar amp directly to a mixer console, the audio engineer places a physical microphone against the amplifier speaker to record the sound which is created by the speaker diagraphm movement mixed with the room acoustics, as well as the mic characteristics.
This also means that not all recording sounds better in vinyl. I feel that genres using synthetic instrumentation will not benefit from vinyl record playback other than getting a more ritualistic experience. The other reason for me to buy new releases is the album design and the full deluxe package that come with it, for instance, gatefold, additional liners, unique vinyl colour.
Cutting My Own Vinyl Record – pian.o.log album by Chester Tan
Cutting records are expensive because it requires a stamper to press hundreds of identical records. The process is manual and labour intensive, unlike manufacturing compact discs. There are many small companies that offer cutting lathe directly onto vinyl records, which is also a laborious process as the cutting is done in real time. If a record is 25 minutes per side, it would take about an hour to cut one record, and 100 hours to cut 100 records. Besides cutting, you also need to print the record label and the vinyl cover.
Recently, I found Elastic Stage which offers a one-stop service for on-demand vinyl record. Just upload your high-quality audio files, fill up the titles and ISRC for royalty tracking, upload the artwork using their Adobe Illustrator templates, sign a release for the albums, and publish. In no time, your record will be on the Elastic Stage website with an artist page, album page and track listening samples. When someone orders the record, it will go through a queuing process to cut and print the records. The waiting time from order to shipping is about 2-3 weeks, sometimes longer depending on the backlog.
I ordered 3 test records for my first version, then after getting some feedback, I finetuned my artwork and tracks then sent for a second version test press. Meanwhile, the limited quantity album can be ordered (details here).
Even though I sent the same digital files as my original master, it sounded different when playing it through the turntable. The vinyl actually lost a bit of the midrange, I get clear upper midrange, the overall mix sounded less veiled. There was surprisingly no loss of fidelity at the treble. Essentially, it is a variant mix to the original master in digital medium.
This outcome was not expected because I previously tried doing a lathe cut with another provider and it sounded lo-fi and lacked resolution. I suspect that they applied pre-cut mastering process to compensate the lathe-cut limitation. The other possible reason for this different sound is the cartridge I used which contributes to producing more detail. A very interesting phenomenon is that with different cartridges, I hear different cutting defects. An elliptical stylus picked up some noise along the grooves, while a microline stylus get clean playback. The turntable and phono preamp all contributes to the output.
The other variable is the consistency of the vinyl quality. Since the records are cut individually in real time, defects may occur. Of all the six test presses I made, I only get two perfect cuts. One of them was so bad that I requested for a replacement, the other three have some groove cut noises within the acceptable limit.
Conclusion
There is a time and place for digital playback that delivers flawless perfect sound, but no one should doubt the sonic beauty of the imperfect vinyl sound. Just like attending live concerts, the vinyl experience is akin to a live performance of the turntable stylus. It never fails to amaze me how such micro movements could generate so much sound.
