Wow, this got re-active in a hurry!
In the most complete guide that I am aware of to Digital Music (
The Ultimate Digital Music Guide: The Best Way To Store, Organize, and Play Digital Music) is a Chapter (Page 317) that goes into great detail on "Ripping Vinyl Discs and Analog Tapes to Digital." ("Detail" meaning equipment, formats, etc.)
However, the Author adds emphatically that:
There is the additional question, of course, of whether there's value in digitizing vinyl albums that are also available on CD or available for digital download. If you're a die-hard vinyl devotee, you might think that the supposed warmth and fidelity of the vinyl release would trump the CD release, and thus justify ripping your vinyl to digital. But that's a fool's argument; if a commercial CD can't reproduce the warmth of the original, then neither can your homemade rip. ...
Not sure I 100% agree, or that it's important, but ... I can see the argument that the LP
adds 'warmth' to the playback. So going to a CD made directly from the master tapes would skip this step. Think of the LP/stylus/cartridge as a post-processor. That's not why I convert LPs, but to each their own.
There's another effect that I've heard about. Sometimes (often?), the engineer is doing a 're-mastering' for CD. You can end up with a different sound, depending on how much artistic licence the engineer decided to apply. I can't think of titles offhand, but I recall hearing that some CDs had mixes with the drums brought way forward from the LP, etc.
These snippets are what I want to hear more about. First, the 25 days. I simply mean that if I press play on iTunes, it will be 25 days before my library starts playing again from the beginning. If my entire collection were digitized this would be a 60+ day interval. ....
OK, now I follow you. Sure, if you already have plenty of music already in digital format, there might not be any advantage to you to add more. Only you can decide that.
I think I get the playlist thing, but if I really want to LISTEN to a single piece, it is not likely that I'm going to place it in a playlist.
My collection is probably 90% classical, could this be part of the reason I struggle with understanding the advantages of digital? ...
Not being argumentative, this is one of those areas where I really want to believe that there are advantages that I haven't identified, but I just haven't been able to see them.
No, I don't think you are missing anything. I threw the term 'playlist' out there, but I actually don't use them all that much. I have several 'smart playlists' for Christmas music, so I can pick instrumental versus vocal, 'sacred' versus 'jaunty' versus 'mellow' versus neither. I use tags for all that, and the playlist allows logic so I can do any combination - like 'contains CMAS AND contains jaunty AND contains instrumental' or 'contains CMAS AND DOES NOT contain instrumental AND DOES NOT contain Sacred' etc. and I have playlists for a few different occasions, 'mother-in-law' music, and a few other 'background' playlists of varying 'intensities'.
But I really don't use playlists all that often, I generally pick out an album to play, just as you would for Classical. So it's really just a convenience thing - I find a few keystrokes easier than digging through the LP collection and loading up the turntable, etc. Or if I get bored or change my mind, a few keystrokes to bring up a different album. Some people have no problem with that 'inconvenience' (or actually enjoy the 'experience').
... On the other hand, MP3 does have the advantage of being the most universal -- very few playback devices cannot play a MP3 file.
True, but either they are far and few between, or I've made sure they support FLAC and ogg before I buy them. But that's why my original conversion is always FLAC lossless - I can convert to whatever I need w/o generational losses.
Apologies for butting in, but to provide a counterpoint to this conversation, I am considering digitizing some of my vinyl collection. Most of the music I already have in digital form, but my reason for wanting to do this is actually because I was so intimately familiar with all the clicks and pops on my records that, for me, those sounds became an integral part of the way I experienced the recording. In other words, I'd like to be able to listen to my old record collection with all the surface noise, pops and clicks. If I want to hear it without the noise, I'll listen to it on CD.
DW would talk about how she likes the clicky sounds from an LP. OK, it sounds really weird on one hand, but I kind of get it. I had some cassette tapes I made of albums many years ago, to preserve the album. And one in particular had the tape rolling as the LP ended, and I can hear my much younger self brushing the dust off the stylus. It would always take me back to the day I made that recording.
But mostly, the clicks interfere with my enjoyment of the music, so out they go!
As I digitized my lp collection I decided to not break the tracks up but leave them as side 1 side 2 etc. This is how I at least listened to them in the past. Since mine are almost all classical, I kept the selections intact. ...
The few LPs I converted I also left as side 1/side 2. This does make more sense to me. Perhaps I'll try a couple more and see if I change my mind. It would be nice to have at least a few of the old favorites available at my desk instead of only in the music room.
I've been breaking them up for flexibility, but almost always listen to an album straight through, so I see your point. If there was, for example, one tune/track that also would stand out on its own, you could always make a copy of that one track on its own, then you also have the flexibility for that track, w/o the work of breaking up the whole LP.
-ERD50
