Vinyl and its place in today’s music market
Well, like most people seem to forget, vinyl is a lossless format. It’s ability to retain uncompressed sound from any of our latest high end digital systems allows it to be a fantastic carrier of pristine sound quality.
Many major labels have always stocked small runs of their artists on collectable vinyl. Many more smaller labels have been primarily releasing vinyl formats as an ongoing unit both for it’s ability to be used by dj’s, but also because it’s helping them make money.
Cd’s are pretty much going out the door now, what’s left is free mp3’s, better sounding mp3’s for digital sales, and the collectable vinyl (your premium product).
The new steady rise of vinyl sales leads us to believe that the younger generation are buying them mainly as a gimmick. It’s the cool thing to do and it helps to support their favourite artists, who otherwise won’t make that much out of mp3 sales, as most people want that for free. Fair enough some could say. Vinyl basically is like merchandise these days.
Let’s also take into account the habit of our new listeners. The younger generation love to skip tracks, listen to certain sections of songs, find their favourite catchy and memorable sound cherries.
What vinyl does, and has always done, is slow us down, to appreciate the full impact of what the artist has crafted.
You literally have to get up every 20 to 30 mins and turn the vinyl, it’s just fantastic! You also have the possibility of hooking up a pair of great sounding active speakers directly to your vinyl player, eliminating any form of digital to analogue conversions, meaning your hearing as true of a sound to that the artists would have been working with in the studio.
Another funny truth from this, is that if we all had better sounding music play back systems, music producers wouldn’t have to crunch and smash mixes to a point where they really only sound good coming out of your iphone or small laptop speakers. It’s all getting really graaaaaaa.
A quick note, quite often the mixes on vinyl releases are different to those found on cd’s. More dynamic range is left in the recordings and of course, no down sampling.
So all this article is saying, is that vinyl is the best format for those collectors of music out there, who want both quality and an equally enjoyable listening experience. It’s a bonus for the labels, as it’s another form of income and helps to build solid fans that want something they can keep for life, with the added advantage of real design and a hands on feel.
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