compresion on vinyl?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

i have posted a thread specifically about sigur ross 'takk', but the more i think about it, the more i am interested to know about this as a whole.

i have a few albums that i feel dont sound as good as i think they could/should on cd, and i know that im not alone in this!

i have seen people mention compresion on vinyl?

if i bought a cd that sounded compressed would that same compression be used in the production of a vinyl version of the same album? ie is the compresion aplyed for the creation of the cd - to fit the music on the cd, or is the comression aplyed to the music for any release before it leaves the studio?

if this sounds daft i apoloise, i have no idea about how this sort of thing works!

[Alex_UK]

Not sure if I've understood "for the creation of the cd - to fit the music on the cd" correctly or not, but "compression" in the musical sense isn't the same as in data storage - "Dynamic Range Compression" is the musical issue I think you are talking about, where the different aspects of the recording are "averaged out" for want of a better description, so there are less peaks and troughs. wikipedia explains it better

Probably you didn't mean "data compression" but just checking!

[Alex_UK]

...and I suspect Dave DSJR will be our man to explain the differences in mastering for cd vs vinyl, though I could be wrong - it has happened once before!

[The Vinyl Adventure]

yeah i understand compression in the sence of music compression and that it differs from data commression
but from a final studio master of a recording, surly data comression needs to be applyed to make a cd? or have a got the wrong end of a stick somewhere?

[DSJR]

Look at

www.skyemastering.com

and navigate to "The Whole Story." Denis Blackham did some super vinyl cuts as "Bilbo [boppa]." He describes briefly what often went on with "production" master tapes to aid the cut and the fact that other cuts were done "on-the-fly" and if cutting notes weren't followed when digitising you had a potential disaster on your hands.

www.wendycarlos.com had an essay regarding the remastering of her Walter/Wendy Carlos articles, comparing the CBS masters with the mixdown masters which were used for the CD mastering...

[The Vinyl Adventure]

ta, il read tomo when im less tired!

[DSJR]

http://www.wendycarlos.com/repairs.html

The first few paragraphs discuss some of what goes on when LP's were "commercially" cut. Artists didn't always have any say in what the final product sounded like (and definitely don't now I suspect).

[Beechwoods]

Her site is damn interesting I might add. Thanks for the tip

[mike1210]

this may be a little off topic as such but links are worth a look as it's not just vinyl releases on these links or compression per say.....even though they are compressed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkkqs...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIA...eature=related (use HQ mode)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTBoMlsw-0I

albums I have recently bought that were brickwalled beyond belief and recorded about 6dB too loud were just as bad on vinyl.

Stuff I buy I'ts been getting worse but hopefully now it can only get better.

[Varun]

Hi Hamish,

Before you listen to a record just have a look at its thickness. People have ranted and raved about the thinness of some records as though you can almost hear the otherside.

All this started as a profit making exercise in the 80s. What I can not say as I do not know- is whether the appearance of CD about the same side was the cause. I suspect that the thin vinyls (compressed) appeared first.

There are other issues of cutters having problems what DSJR talks about- I shall return to it later.

Must rush off.