The Rise of "Hybrid" Vinyl-MP3s

Khyber writes to let us know that First Word Records, a U.K.-based record label, is now selling vinyl records that come with codes that allow you to download a 320-kbit MP3 of that record's content. The article mentions another independent label, Saddle Creek, that also offers DRM-free downloads with some vinyl records. The co-founder of First Word is quoted on why they didn't DRM the download: "Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."

vye....null?

[by Anonymous Coward]

What is this vye..null?

Re:vye....null?

[Reverend528 (585549)]

It's an ancient musical recording that is etched into a circular rock. A bird presses it's beak to the stone and rotates it, producing sound.

Re:vye....null?

[aneurysm36 (459092)]

here is an illustration [deadsquid.com]

Re:vye....null?

[Worthless_Comments (987427)]

It's turtles all the way down.

Possibly better than CDs?

[powerpants (1030280)]

If the MP3s are coming straight from the record label, maybe they could be encoded straight from the master mix, rather than a down-sampled 24-bit, 44.1kHz CD. My understanding is that CDs go up to 20 kHz (which is pretty close to the highest pitch humans can hear), but that the bit-depth is somewhat course at that range.

Is there an audio engineer around who can explain if there's much to be gained this way?

Re:Possibly better than CDs?

[Tuoqui (1091447)]

I'm not an audio engineer but from a telecom course I took the basic idea is that you sample at twice the highest frequency (IE. 20kHz frequency would require 40k samples a second).

For the most part humans focus on the 300Hz-3.3kHz range which is why the phone companies only give you about 3k Bandwidth and sample at about 8k samples a second over POTS.

Re:Possibly better than CDs?

[Mattintosh (758112)]

Yes. Nyquist. There's a Theorem, a Limit, and a Guy that discovered these, all by the same name.

A 44.100kHz sample rate will theoretically get you up to a 22.050kHz max frequency in the audio signal. Humans can focus on any part of the audible spectrum, but voices won't typically fall outside the 300-3300 Hz range. Thus aLaw (US) and mu-Law (outside the US, a.k.a. "uLaw", since the Greek mu looks like a u with a tail) are typically 8000 Hz sample rate, 8-bit-sample, monophonic (who has a stereo telephone?) signal when digitized.

The GP was worried that the bit depth is "coarse". This is not the case. Bit depth "distance" is constant for a given depth.

CD's are 44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo. Always. So there are always 44100 samples per second per channel. There are always two channels (stereo, one left, one right). And each sample in each channel is always 16 bits. A 16-bit integer can represent numbers from 0-65535 (2^0-1 through 2^16-1), and since there's no need for negative numbers (this is Pulse Code Modulation, or PCM, so no, you don't need to represent a +/- of a waveform) you get the full 0-65535 swing. From there, the value is directly translatable into a DC voltage that goes to the speakers. (Most of the heavy lifting is done in the A/D phase, D/A phase is a simple value-to-DC conversion.) The change in DC voltage over time is what causes the magnets to move, which moves the speaker cones, which moves air, which moves your tympanic membrane, which blah-blah-blah... eventually you hear sound.

So there's no need to worry. Nothing gets coarse. Nothing loses fidelity. Nothing loses audible quality. This is why vinyl fanatics get laughed at by people who know how and why digital audio works. The limits of even now-mundane CD audio are far above the possible limits of even hypothetically perfect human hearing. Nobody can hear 22kHz. Nothing below 22kHz is misrepresented in CD-quality audio. For mastering work, where effects will be applied later, higher quality recordings are wonderful, since you can guarantee that it will stay high-quality when downsampled to CD-quality, but other than that (and "economies of scale" where better parts are just as cheap to produce), there's no need for anything better.

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[[Marvin] (46773)]

Actually, the max. frequency that can be sampled is 22kHz, not 22.050kHz - what the Nyquist theorem states is that in order to construct a signal accuately, you need to sample at twice the maximum frequency + a little more, because then you can also deduct the phase of the original signal.

The REAL reason behind 44.1 kHz

[darkain (749283)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD#Audio_format [wikipedia.org]

"The sampling rate of 44.1 kHz is inherited from a method of converting digital audio into an analog video signal for storage on video tape, which was the most affordable way to get the data from the recording studio to the CD manufacturer at the time the CD specification was being developed. A device that turns an analog audio signal into PCM audio, which in turn is changed into an analog video signal is called a PCM adaptor. This technology could store six samples (three samples per each stereo channel) in a single horizontal line. A standard NTSC video signal has 245 usable lines per field, and 59.94 fields/s, which works out at 44,056 samples/s/stereo channel. Similarly, PAL has 294 lines and 50 fields, which gives 44,100 samples/s/stereo channel. This system could either store 14-bit samples with some error correction, or 16-bit samples with almost no error correction."

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[tuba_dude (584287)]

"...no need for anything better." I beg to differ, but I will preface this with the fact that I haven't studied the engineering or the physics behind it. It could just be the fact that I'm an audiophile and musician, but there's an audible (very subtle, yes) difference between a 24-bit/96KHz (or higher) recording and a CD-quality recording. Some people are better tuned for listening than others. It's like sitting some people in front of a CRT. Some will be able to tell the difference between refresh ra

Re:Possibly better than CDs?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (613870)]

Look, if you're going to make up justifications for using vinyl, make them more convincing. Much of the theory about human hearing is based on the assumption that the ear acts as a linear system. If the ear were a linear system there is no way it'd be possible for "certain confluences of sound react with each other and produce further sounds". In linear systems harmonics at different frequencies simply add, there is no possible 'interaction' that can happen between them.

But nonlinear systems are quite different. The classic example is soliton waves [wikipedia.org]. When two of these meet, they don't simply combine additively. In particular, different harmonics don't necessarily pass straight through each other and its quite possible for two very high frequency signals to interact and produce a low frequency signal in the result. And of course there really is no reason to expect the ear to remain close to a linear system, even ordinary sound waves in air become nonlinear if the sound is loud enough.

So if you want to sound convincing, talking about nonlinearity is your best bet. I can guarantee that 90% of the engineers you talk to won't have a sensible response because they've never studied nonlinear signal processing, and they'll be less likely to laugh at you.

Hmm...

[Ayanami Rei (621112)]

I think it's disingenious to talk about air as a non-linear system. It doesn't start acting non-linear until you're talking about distances (and/or/which imply) amplitudes that would shatter your eardrums or kill you.

I mean, let's talk about the non-linearity of speakers! They're damped oscillators!

And you can prove to an audiophile (hearing is believing) that sound is sufficiently linear to make such arguments irrelevant.

Take two frequencies (say... 14000 and 14300). If you play them, you get a 300Hz beat.

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[kevinadi (191992)]

Even though these typically fall outside the range of human hearing, we are still able to sense and feel them.

Nope, it's been proven that humans cannot hear ultrasonic sounds. Dogs, yes. Humans, no. Otherwise, you'll be reacting to a dog whistle.

The only argument against CD is that people are getting concerned that 16 bit is a little on the low side, and getting 24 bit or more is better. For the time being, there's no argument that the sampling rate is too low. What you hear coming out from your speaker is

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[grub (11606)]

Nope, it's been proven that humans cannot hear ultrasonic sounds. Dogs, yes. Humans, no. Otherwise, you'll be reacting to a dog whistle.

When I was a wee lad of ~8 I could hear one of the high frequency sounds made by our TV remote control (way back it was done with high frequency sound). Our dog heard it, too. No one else in the family could hear it but we did tests where I'd have my back turned and could hear the sound of that one button. You'd hear the buttons being depressed but I only commented when

Re:Possibly better than CDs?

[leenks (906881)]

Not strictly true. If you play two frequencies, say 28000hz and 28500hz together, they will beat and you will hear that. Sure, you can't hear the frequencies but you can hear the effect. This could be why mediums that apply a hard filter appear dull at times.

Modern digital equipment sounds far better than it should because of the tricks employed in the converters. Oversampling and noise dithering has a massive effect on the sound, and you aren't really hearing the true digital signal but a smoothed one. Before such techniques were used, digital equipment got huge criticism for being clinical sounding (quite rightly). Vinyl and other analogue systems don't have this problem obviously, but bring loads of others to the table (wear and tear, damage, static, etc).

For some material, 16bit is definitely not enough. It's fine for a lot of modern chart material, where the mastering has multiband compressed it to hell and back to make it sound louder than the competition, but those tracks don't need the dynamic range of a Chopin valse, or a Beethoven symphony. The quiet bits on 16 bit recordings definitely lose a lot compared to 24bit (side by side comparison using old and new gear) - but I think it is really the recording and production stages that need 24bit or more, not necessarily replay because of the tricks that can now be applied.

Anyway, what does it matter? It's the material played that is ultimately important, not the method of reproduction.

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[FST777 (913657)]

That is true. However, with a turntable it's quite easy to change the characteristics of the produced sound (presence, warmth) by just replacing the cartridge / stylus. This is why I still love hearing a good DJ use vinyl in a club: he knows what kind of cartridges he should use.

On a home system, I never heard a reasonably priced stock CD player produce the warmth and precense my turntable gives me. The filters used in stock CD players are too "commonplace" for my taste. My turntable gave just the right

NOT better than CDs

[mangu (126918)]

I'm not an audio engineer but from a telecom course I took the basic idea is that you sample at twice the highest frequency

You are correct, the Nyquist theorem states that you must record at a sampling rate that's above twice the higher frequency in your recording.

All this debate over vinil is rather tiresome. Anyone who has studied electronics engineering like I did knows that vinil records have a rather low signal-to-noise ratio. I did a course on "Probabilistic Models in Electric Engineering" where we learned how to calculate noise due to the fact that electric charge is quantized. Now, get this vinil fans: ELECTRIC CHARGE IS QUANTIZED. There is no such thing as a charge smaller than an electron, which is 1.6e-19 coulomb.

There are no such thing as analog values in this universe, everything is quantized. You cannot possibly have an electric signal that's totally free of noise, what you get is a number of "clicks", one for each electron that goes by. The same way, you cannot even hear a sound without noise, what you get is a number of "plocs", one for each air molecule that hits your eardrums.

Now, I know people will say, "sure, but these effects are very small". Well, think again. Human hearing evolved to be as sensitive as it physically could be. Inside an anechoic chamber you can hear the blood flowing through your veins. The sensitivity of our ears is just short from hearing individual molecules hitting the eardrum. In any analog pick-up, be it moving coil or moving magnet, human ears are sensitive enough to hear the noise due to the quantization of electric current.

Digital equipment have much better signal-to-noise rations because they have high currents in low-impedance circuits, the effect of charge quantization is diluted by averaging a large number of electrons. In analog vinil pick-ups either the impedance is relatively high for moving magnet models or the voltage is very low for moving coil types.

And all this is considering only the most fundamental effects, not to mention problems as dust on the record. The cleanest cleanroom specified in the ISO-14644 standard has 12 particles per cubic meter. The lowest spec in ISO-14644 allows over 40 million particles per cubic meter. Does the room where you do your listening conform to an ISO "cleanroom" specification?

Digital sound standards were created to be as good as they need to be. CDs have all the bandwidth and dynamic range one needs in the final recording. It's only when you are going to mix and resample the music that you may need better quality to avoid round-off error in the processing. Because of this, professional equipment normally use something like 24 bits @ 192 kbps. The widespread acceptance of MP3s show that the CD standard has actually a better quality than the majority of people need or want.

Re:NOT better than CDs

[neomunk (913773)]

There are no such thing as analog values in this universe

You tell that to my friend pi and his buddies. But be careful, I understand they can be quite irrational.

Re:NOT better than CDs

[Endo13 (1000782)]

No, "better" in this case is not subjective at all. I think you entirely missed his point. His point is that you can create any sound you want with digital. Any sound at all. If you wanted to make a digital version of a track that sounded like it did on vinyl, you could do that and put it on CD. The issue here is that CD audio is a lot closer to the original live audio. Therefore it's a better reproduction. Just as 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10 is a better representation of Pi than 3.14 is. So the question isn't so much "do you like CD or vinyl better". The question is "do you like live music or vinyl better". Because with CD, you've basically got the exact same sound as if you were actually at the concert.

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[Cadallin (863437)]

Arg. There are Audiophiles and there are Audiophiles. Some of them are idiots with too much money who buy "magic" cables. Some of them are actually intelligent and realize stuff like that is bullshit. They don't buy "magic" $100/ft cable, but they don't by $0.10/ft Ratshack 22guage speaker wire either. Some realize that there is actually a way to calculate what guage of wire you need depending on run length and load impedence. It is actually possible for speaker wire to improve the quality of sound re

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[c_fel (927677)]

You're right. But still, the higher sampling frequency, the better it sounds, even when it's over 40kHz. It's because two near frequencies form a beat frequency that is the difference between these two frequencies. So even if you reproduce two frequencies that are not audible by humans, their beat frequency often can be eared.

But you have to have a very high fidelity sound system to reproduce these frequencies, so for most consumers, the sampling frequency of a CD is Okay.

It is also true that for most pe

Re:

[Hao Wu (652581)]

I wonder -- what is the real ability of a vinyl record to store digital data?

Re:Possibly better than CDs?

[iangoldby (552781)]

My understanding is that CDs go up to 20 kHz ... but that the bit-depth is somewhat course at that range.

You are probably thinking of 'one-bit' (or bitstream) digital to analogue converters. (Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org].) It gets around the problem of producing 16 bits of resolution with a single bit by switching at a frequency many times that of the sampling frequency and averaging over time.

In its purest form, it would switch at 2^16, or 65536 times the CD sample frequency. If one CD sample value is 0, the DAC would be off for 65536 DAC output samples. If the CD sample value is 65535 it is on for 65536 DAC output samples. For intermediate values it is on for the given proportion of the time. In other words, the CD sample value determines the duty-cycle of the output from the DAC. The one-bit on/off output is then averaged over time. This results in a conversion with almost no non-linear distortion of the signal.

Unfortunately a frequency of 65536 * 44.1 kHz would be in the THz range, so the actual frequency that a 1 bit DAC operates at is somewhat lower. For lower frequency audio signals the averaging process is still very accurate, but it loses some accuracy for the highest frequency audio tones mostly when there are rapid transients in the high frequencies. You might refer to this as a 'coarsening of the bit-depth'.

A full 16-bit DAC doesn't suffer from this problem because each sample from the CD is converted straight into a voltage proportional to that sample value in a single step. But it is very difficult to make a completely linear 16-bit DAC, so the non-lineararity of the DAC introduces its own distortions. But these distortions do not depend on frequency as they do with a 1-bit DAC.

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[zippthorne (748122)]

But this doesn't have anything to do with the failings of CDs, but rather the failings of MP3s encoded from CDs. And how they relate to MP3s encoded from a source upstream of whatever downdsampling process is used to create the CDs themselves.

There is no doubt that a 320 kps MP3 encoded from a superior source to CD could potentially be superior to a 320 kps MP3 encoded from CD. The question is whether this is noticeable, and indeed, whether the MP3 in question could have higher fidelity than the uncompres

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[PitaBred (632671)]

The problem is that with vinyl, you are required to sanely mix their tracks, whereas with a CD you can blow out everything with no repercussion. On vinyl if you do that, you wind up with the needle skipping. It sounds better than a CD simply because of the physical limitations of the medium. Which wouldn't be an issue if "artists" didn't think blindly that louder is better, period.

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[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Which wouldn't be an issue if "artists" didn't think blindly that louder is better, period.

It's often not the artist that makes this decision. Rather, it's whoever does the mastering that decides this. Sure, the label and artist sign off on it, but remember that the artist's ears are usually pretty shot from playing live music day in and day out. And the label doesn't want to have to pay to have it done again.

Hybrids everywhere

[linguae (763922)]

I guess I will be looking forward to playing my hybrid vinyl records in my hybrid Toyota soon.

Pulseblack has done it for a long time

[Echo5ive (161910)]

http://pulseblack.com/ [pulseblack.com]

They've been doing this for a long long time with CDs. Very nice record label.

This is the future

[tentimestwenty (693290)]

As silly as it sounds with Indie Rock, Hip Hop, Jazz and to an extent, Classical, the sales of vinyl are growing at a quick rate and CDs are slowly massively. People value the sound quality and physicality of the vinyl and generally download the tracks from file-sharing to use portably or in the car. While I don't personally care too much for the free downloads, it will save a lot of people a lot of time and it keeps them "in-tow" with the record label's marketing. Everyone wins.

Re:

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

With CDs? What, you buy the CD and they'll let you download mp3s? If I have the CD, I'll encode it myself...

Funny coincidence

[50000BTU_barbecue (588132)]

I just bought a turntable as an impulse purchase, a Pionner PL-516 for the curious. I have about 30 LPs lying around. I saw that HMV (a music store) had some new vinyl titles in stock, so I grabbed one at random, "The Arcade Fire". An abominable album to be sure, but it was just to hear how new vinyl sounds. Sounds pretty good. Got this famous coupon in there as well.

My conclusion is that this is how things should work. Obviously there's a demand for vinyl, and the convenience of digital is undeniable. Somehow, music companies got this right.

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[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

The most impressive thing I have ever seen with vinyl disks was a friend saying "you have to listen to this" and searching the disk for a particular pattern and dropping the needle on it.
Deadly accurate and spot on.
You could see the entire album and know where quiet sections are and how much to skip to to get past the annoying interlude or whatever.

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[TenBrothers (995309)]

I must be old to see this comment as cute and quaint.

Wow, this is awesome

[ProppaT (557551)]

I'm in a small minority, but I'm a rabid music collector. Often times I'll buy both the cd and the vinyl versions of an album (the vinyl to listen to at home, the cd for the car or to rip to portable player). Basically, this allows me to only buy one version of the album (vinyl, the version I really want anyway) and just burn a copy for the car and drop one on the mp3 player. The only way this could get better is if they start supporting flac...then I can convert that to whatever format I want. This is great news for the indie / record junkie scene, though.

Really go retro: old tape recorder interfaces

[G4from128k (686170)]

Codes to access an MP3 is so lame. I thought they were resurrecting the audio data file format used in early home computers that read data to and from a normal cassette tape recorder.

If they're going to go retro with vinyl, they might as well go retro on the computer formats too.

DRM - no sense

[Skadet (528657)]

"Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."

And herein is the best anti-DRM argument there is. Just this sentence and no further. If I were writing a thesis on DRM, this would be my main point.

Of course, expading the "doesn't make sense" part is important. It's also critical for the surely-to-be analogizers below to realise that this has no usefulr real world (as in, tangible) comparison. If three clicks of the mouse provides you with something far more useful than something you've shelled out your hard-earned cash for, something is wrong. Lax enforcement -- not to mention the difficulty of enforcement -- and fuzzy laws make this so.

It's not as easy as saying, "Stealing a car has more utility than buying one, we should all steal cars!" since enforcement and history are so vastly different. See, the car analogy is wrong! Ha!

Been doing this for awhile

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

I know I've seen various rekkids put out by Merge and Matador Records that had stickers on the front offering exactly this sort of thing. The thing is that I saw those albums about 1-2 years ago. This isn't exactly new...

The Fools!

[zmollusc (763634)]

Don't they realise that evil hackers will make multiple copies from the vinyl to audio cassettes and listen to it on portable tape players? Home Taping Is Killing music!

Re:

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

We must outlaw candles immediately, since pirates can use the wax contained in them to make copies of these vinyls. Only a pirate would own a candle!

Somewhat pointless

[11223 (201561)]

Given that I can buy totally unmolested WAVs from Beatport [beatport.com], what's the point? I find it hard to believe that there are vinyl purists who want MP3s, or that those who would work with an MP3 wouldn't rather deal with a master-quality WAV which can be manipulated even more.

Lossy compression is just as insidious as DRM when the bandwidth for CD-quality uncompressed audio is available.

And to those who say you can't hear the difference, if you slow the track down by 50%, you can. If you don't know why you would do that, ask a DJ.

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[TeknoHog (164938)]

Lossy compression is just as insidious as DRM when the bandwidth for CD-quality uncompressed audio is available.

And lossless compression like flac [sf.net] makes even more sense.

someone gets it

[timmarhy (659436)]

"Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."

BINGO, YES why can't the rest of them understand this?

320kbit/s noobness.

[by Anonymous Coward]

320kbit/s CBR mp3 encodes are the ultimate "I have no idea what I'm doing" sign in the audio coding world. All the downsides of mp3 (lossy, huge files) with none of the benefits. "I'll just turn all the knobs to 'highest' and hope that's good".

Looks cool, and functional too

[CheeseTroll (696413)]

Perfect, now audiophiles can look cool with their 'retro' collections of vinyl (even if they never listen to them), and still get easy access to the far-more-functional digital copy.

Ah, vinyl...

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

the original, rental model, of DRM!*

-
*Yes I know what the D stands for.

Even better idea...

[keithmo (453716)]

...distribute the MP3 files on vinyl [artsci.net].

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

[Opportunist (166417)]

Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense.

Someone selling content realizes the "value" of DRM? Excuse me for a moment, I gotta check for flying pigs. And could someone who has his number call the big red guy and ask him if the temperature in his home is still cozy?

BAH

[hurfy (735314)]

Sounds great....now if they only had some records to sell :(

There seems to be one album and 11 (sidebar says 8) singles.

That was a waste to follow that link :/

I did the same as another poster and grabbed new vinyl at random just too play a new one. Next time i'll be more careful, hehe. Full blown vintage Pioneer system with 4-channel 8-track player/recorders :) My buddy never realized we were listening to an 8-track mix tape ;)

Not a True Hybrid

[PPH (736903)]

Its not a true hybrid until they figure out a way to get MP3s to skip and warp if you leave them in a hot car.

They do have MP3 turntables you can use to 'scratch' recordings.

What's the point?

[Daishiman (698845)]

What's the point of a vinyl of a digital master?

As I've mentioned on a previous thread, I'm a huge fan of classical jazz and I have invested very seriously on a pile of records from the time, and I'm of the opinion that mastering was done more carefully back then and made to sound well with the way vinyl colors the sound.

But sheesh, if you're going to master an album digitally then why add noise of the line by converting it to a physical medium with a low S/N ratio?