Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

Totally read this as 'Steve Reich' and thought there was a corresponding minimalism vinyl/mag series.

oh that needs to happen, i would buy a shit ton of that! it's kinda sad that there are so few genres that would ever be treated this way. imagine how great a classic hip hop series would be! could see a punk one working but i'm sure it would be sex pistols, the clash, the jam, more clash, more jam, green day, um...

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlp1/v/t1.0-9/12348065_1655040304776399_3873388622681942857_n.png?oh=a6a5d7cec8fed75144b9123d6fb42f41&oe=573393F9

lol perfect

lol

between the sheets

the best way to spread christmas cheer is reselling vinyl for all to hear

That's on their official instagram profile, so they're actually proud of it. Still at it.

feel like elf soundtrack is kinda perfectly in line with vnyl's target demographic. i mean anybody who hasn't bailed on their scam service at this point and just loves to get some #vnyl in the #mail is probably also someone who likes to quote elf and would be very happy to display this in their #home.

stick it next to the ukulele on the mantle

Holy jesus, that's too perfect.

feel like a lot of rabid VNYL people are so deep down the irony coachella douche-hole, this is probably the most awesome lol album they could have received

a festival father john misty could actually headline

ok i understand the reasoning behind 99.9% of vinyl reissues even if i don't agree with all of it but WHY DOES THAT EXIST

People like Christmas music?

never knew elf was in the christmas music canon but ok

*elf soundtrack*

i just mean, it's fine to have just a normal 00s hans zimmer or w/e soundtrack being reissued on vinyl, people are into him, whatever... this is a bridge to far, in my jackass opinion, though

People like Elf. Elf soundtrack is full of Christmas music. Elf soundtrack gets reissued. Feel like there were a bunch of way weirder reissues on Record Store Day's past but maybe I'm just finding all of this too silly to be shocked by anymore.

some people in this thread are on the naughty list

my 13yo daughter loves the Elf soundtrack (starts playing it before Thanksgiving, if not forbidden) and now has to have her favorite records (hello Marina and the Diamonds) on vinyl, so I'll be trying to keep that away from her eyes.

i stand corrected

this was from back in May but I dunno if it got posted on this or another of the myriad vinyl revival threads, but fascinating stuff here:

“There are only two companies worldwide that produce lacquers. One of these companies is a one-man operation in Japan run by an old man who produces the lacquers in his garage. It’s excellent quality, but who knows how much longer he can and especially will want to continue to do this. When we are in contact with him, we attempt to order as many lacquers as we can in order to stock up as much as possible. You don’t really know when you will reach him again. The other company is in the USA and serves a large portion of the market. It is practically a monopoly. This is not good for business.”

Then there are the cutting machines. The most popular and well known of these were developed in Germany by Neumann and were produced until the early 1980s. To operate these machines a so-called stylus is needed, which carves the groove into the lacquer to store the music on the disc. “Today, these styluses are produced by one company worldwide,” says Lubich, “by Apollo in the USA, where the lacquers are also made.” One person, Maria, was responsible for the entire production of the styluses and she had mastered the process, according to Lubich. “Maria knew exactly which adhesives were the right ones, and that you couldn’t use the large vats because the consistency of the adhesive would change. Then she retired, and for a long time the styluses were qualitatively just not as good.”

http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/07/pressed-to-the-edge-vinyl/

it's okay, there are plenty of records already.

"We've had sixty, seventy years of making records. That's stage one. Now we sample them".

My first Urban Outfitters: Vintage Vinyl=Roached looking Traffic albums in bags for $12 a pop.

Excellent!

This is truly a Golden Age for garbage vinyl.

saw the second issue of that jazz on vinyl partwork in the newsagents the other day (John Coltrane's Blue Train), and it's priced at £9.99 rather than £14.99, don't know if that indicates that the first issue sold better than anticipated or worse than anticipated

that's how is was in the advert: https://www.deagostini.com/uk/collections/jazz-vinyl/

"Standard Subscription: Issue 1 is just £4.99, Issue 2 is £9.99, Issue 3 onwards is £14.99"

My partner has just given me a subscription to Wax & Stamp for my birthday, which gets me a newly released LP and 12" each month. This makes sense, as he knows what I like but doesn't know where to find it, and so he's had some detailed discussions with the curators in order to establish compatibility. As past selections confirm, the shipments jump around genre-wise, which is a key reason why he went for it. So for starters, I got a Tuff Love 10" EP (Glaswegian C86/dreampop jangle, chosen by Josie Long) and a Mo Kolours album (UK hip-hop/jazz/soul cut-ups, akin to Flying Lotus/Knxwledge). Very happy with both, good start.

Half speed mastered vinyl reissues of albums by the Rolling Stones, Cream, Free, the Police, Simple Minds and John Martyn

Wasn't that what Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs used? I seem to remember half-speed mastering being their selling point (or one of them) in the '70s and '80s.

(and I'd love to hear that Cream in mono -- the stereo mix is moronic -- but not for $40 or whatever)

The process involves the original master tape being played back at 16 2/3 RPM, precisely half its recorded speed, while the cutting lathe is similarly turned at half the desired playback speed.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but this doesn't make sense to me... Aren't master tapes normally literal tapes? So how could their playing speed described as "16 2/3 RPM", which is a vinyl term? Also, shouldn't the precision of the cutting lathe be more important than the cutting speed? I guess cutting them at slower pace can increase the precision somewhat, but this sounds kinda snake oilish. And most importantly, if the listeners are care so much about the fidelity of the sound, why not just by these albums on CD instead of (what I presume will be) much pricier vinyl?

if the listeners are care so much about the fidelity of the sound, why not just by these albums on CD instead of (what I presume will be) much pricier vinyl?

Vinyl people don't want the sound to be better in an objective sense, they want it to be "better" in a "it just has more warmth" sense.

Official explamanations

In overly simplified form, the master tape is played back at precisely half its recorded speed while the cutting lathe is similarly turned at precisely half the desired playback speed. This process gives the cutting head twice the time to cut its musically complex and physically demanding analog groove into the lacquer. This luxury affords considerably more accuracy with matters such as frequency extremes and microdynamic contrasts.

sounds plausible and somewhat BS-y... aka the audiophilia sweetspot

this sounds right. by packing in twice the waveform definition into the same space it would result in a better sound. it's sort of the principle that makes 45 sound better than an album. or when you are recording on a 4track, you turn up the speed to get a better quality recording. playing back a more accurate master will result in better sound.

Vinyl people don't want the sound to be better in an objective sense, they want it to be "better" in a "it just has more warmth" sense.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, February 18, 2016 12:26 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go on...

xp
The waveforms end up occupying the same space, it's just cut slower, which is supposed to make what's there more accurate.

Vinyl people don't want the sound to be better in an objective sense, they want it to be "better" in a "it just has more warmth" sense.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, February 18, 2016 12:26 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go on...

Whatever the reason for preferring vinyl, CD has inherently better sound reproduction capability than vinyl, no matter how the vinyl is mastered. And if you really want to go to true audiophile territory, most of the albums mentioned in the article are also available on SACD (which has even better sound reproduction than CD), though you really have to have the proverbial golden ears to notice the difference between that and a regular CD.

So preferring these half speed vinyls isn't really a matter of wanting the best possible sound quality, because that can't be acquired on vinyl. I completely understand if people prefer vinyl for other reasons, be it larger cover art or nostalgia or the fact than many records aren't available in other formats, but when they say they prefer it for its inherently better sound quality, that's just snake oil.

i'm not talking about half speed masters, i'm talking about "vinyl people"

So preferring these half speed vinyls isn't really a matter of wanting the best possible sound quality, because that can't be acquired on vinyl.

i don't know about this particular set of half speed mastered vinyls we're talking about, but in general this isn't necessarily true.. and i'm not talking about obscure shit, major stuff like Deep Purple - In Rock, Duran Duran's self titled, it's hard to get a decent CD.

but when they say they prefer it for its inherently better sound quality, that's just snake oil.

you've heard of the beatles, right? well in the 80s they put their albums out on CD. they sounded like shit. they put them out again 7 years ago and they sounded really good but NOT THE SAME as the original "vinyls". almost "remixed". the beatles! so people aren't just being dumbass hipsters when they want good vinyl.

but i agree in a perfect world or whatever, every CD would be mastered properly with the correct tracklisting and without dave mustaine re-recording his vocals

or something

also vinyl people buy vinyl because it (used to be?) cheap

signed, captain obvious

Yeah, I agree that in some cases there's aren't a good CD master available, but I wouldn't have thought it applied to a band as big as The Beatles. I would've thought their albums would've been remastered at least three times by now, considering how many people would buy them. What was the problem with those remasters from 7 years ago?

(xpost)

also vinyl people buy vinyl because it (used to be?) cheap

Yeah, that used to be the reason why I bought many albums on vinyl too. But nowadays with vinyl being hip and CD being unhip, CDs are as cheap as dirt. Often you can get a new or a good quality used copy of an album for less than it would cost to buy it as MP3s on Amazon.

Anyway, that's not pertinent to this discussion, because I assume these half-speed super-mastered vinyls will cost much much more than the same albums on CD. (Or even on SACD, in some cases - you can buy an SACD version of the Police album they mention for 20 quids on Amazon.)

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/sound-leisure-new-vinyl-jukebox/