Recording studios producing for CD ( digital)

[RMutt]

As I am now the owner of a turntable but still buying CD's, I am in a quandary as to which format to buy. So I have decided to go for a fairly arbitrary production date, where, if before I will buy the record, if after I will get the CD. So what do you lot think would be a good date to go for? I am looking for a date where the mastering changed to CD (digital) becoming the priority. I realise the date would be different for different studios and perhaps some overlap where they considered both CD and vinyl, but as I said the date would be somewhat arbitrary. I'm thinking maybe about 1985. What do you think?

[PaulStewart]

In 85 Iwas certainly still producing, mixing and madtering for vinyl. I would think if you had to have arbitrary date, then not till digital recording on computers became the norm would be right. But of course, you now have artists to whom analogue is again king and are again using vinyl as the benchmark.

[struth]

Digital recordings started in late 70s so from then on its difficult to know unless you can get info on the recording. Many of the better recordings on vinyl will say if it was originally mastered analogue and if they remastered it that way too. I believe there are sites out there that specialise in this info but dont know for sure...
It would be nice to always know

[crackorama]

Really interesting post.

[RMutt]

I remember when buying CD's they used to sometimes have on AAD or ADD label or some such. It meant analogue recording, analogue mastering and digital format or analogue, digital and digital, I think. I suppose at some point it all went DDD. Maybe that's the date I'm after.

[Macca]

I'd guess around 1990 for rock and pop - earlier for classical.

[Moko]

I worked for probably the most successful Indie in the mid 90s and even at that point it would be impossible to give you a guide date. Some of the acts recorded to tape and mastered from tape, others recorded to tape but the cut would be done from a DAT copy of the tape what probably matters more was whether a separate production master was cut for vinyl and CD or if the vinyl was just cut from the CD master but you would have had to be in the mastering suite on the day to know that so good luck finding anyone who remembers.

The main switch to digital production would have occurred in the very late 90's early 2000's when bands ditched recording to tape and went over to ProTools

[Lodgesound]

My studio now custom masters specifically for analogue tape.

[RMutt]

Thanks for your input everyone. Given that, I suppose, I'm an indie kid at heart. I'm going to go with Moko and set my date at 1995, which is, to my surprise, a full ten years after I thought. I must at some point, work out what was the last record I bought back then.

[Audio Advent]

Although Moko didn't say that....

Some of that vinyl you'll be buying before 95 may well be recorded digitally or recorded with CD mastering in mind, whilst the vinyl cut was made from a derivative of that CD master, perhaps from a DAT sent off to a separate mastering studio for that purpose.

I'm afraid, as Moko suggests, you will end up with vinyl where the CD was better and CDs where the vinyl was better... so it's going to be a case of research on a band by band basis, if not album by album.

And that my friend is where you decend into the craziness of music collecting! Next you'll be working out which is the best sounding vinyl pressing, CD master...

[Audio Advent]

But, think of the practicality of the exercise versus reality...

Are you intending on buying everything new? Well, then you'll have to research where that vinyl cut came from, is it the original? Is the CD a re-issue?

If you're NOT buying everything new then would you pass on a cheap vinyl copy because it's post-95? Or would you buy it because it's there and it's cheap? And if you're not buying everything new then you will find CDs can be had for £1 so why worry about having both CD AND vinyl?

I say just go with the flow and whatever comes under your nose at each moment, make a decision based on how you feel! No need to over-think anything.

Also, as 90s kids become middle-aged and the druggery of their lives and 9-5s seem more desperate, so they spend their money chasing down rare copies of 90s indy (rare because many indy kids were buying CDs and cassettes to play on their all-in-ones and CD/cassette ghetto blasters) and so prices seem to be quite high these days...

[Macca]

Dire Straits 'Brothers In Arms' was a 1985 recording that was famously (mostly) digital and digital recording was already possible well before that date so I am sceptical that it took a full 10 years after that before it became the norm, certainly for any major label recordings, although I am willing to be educated on that.

Digital cutting lathes were commonplace by 1980 so any vinyl produced after that date will have been run through an ADC even if it was an analogue recording. This will also apply to any re-issues of older stuff too.

That fact alone should indicate that it is pretty pointless worrying too much about it. In addition whether it was 'mastered for CD' or not is fairly irrelevant to the sound quality.

The main factors for me would be 1) How well the actual recording process was done I.e how expertly things were miked up, how much attention to detail was paid, number of takes, overall ability of the musicians and the engineer, the quality of the mics, the desk and the studio environment itself.

2)How it was recorded: analogue tape, digital or a mixture of the two. Personally I think a good digital recording easily tops analogue for clarity and realism but I accept that is subjective.

3) How well it was mixed

4) How well it was mastered - too much overall compression added so that it can be listened to in noisy environments or on crap equipment, or minimal compression for good dynamic range.

After all that which format it goes onto for replay is a pretty minor thing and providing the vinyl pressing has been done competently (which seems rare nowadays) I really don't think it makes any significant difference given a replay system that is equally competent with both vinyl and digital.

[RMutt]

Just to reply to a few things. Don't worry I'm not going to go all OCD about this. I always said it would be a somewhat arbitrary date exactly because the overlap would makes it impossible to pin down. Neither will I pass on something just because it doesn't fit with my date rule. Nor will I be researching every album I buy to check it's provenance. There are quite a few albums I already own in both formats because I have bought the CD whilst the records have been in the loft, so I won't be worrying about that either. I will be using my arbitrary guide mostly for second hand stuff, whether it is vinyl or CD. New releases I'll just make a decision based on ' how I feel' like Sam suggests. In the end I won't be losing sleep on my decisions it will just take one major factor out of the equation. Interestingly, no one as as committed themselves to giving a year they might go for if they were me. Actually Macca did say 1990 with his guess, I guess.