Why archive vinyl?

[Sansui Louie]

An oft-seen thread here is that of people wanting to 'archive' their vinyl collections on to their computer.

I would make the argument that vinyl, as a source medium, is far far far more durable than digitized medium on either self-burned cd's or hard drives. Computers are basically disposable junk (I know, I'm a programmer) with a 3-5 year life cycle at best. Hard drives have to be backed up, they crash, data gets damaged or lost, etc. CD players are on the downside toward extinction already. Yet Edison's simple mechanical means of reproduction marches quietly on.

Anyone with a meagerly substantial record collection isn't likely to wear out an individual record with proper and properly set up equipment unless they're playing it with the frequency of a teenage girl with a star-crush. (Does that still happen? Are there still Bobby Shermans and David Cassidys to this generation?).

I'd argue that the best way to archive an LP collection is to maintain a quality turntable set up and store the records properly.

Now, doing transfers of favorite cuts and albums for the sake of *convenience* (i.e. turntables arent' all that portable), that's a different story.

[spartanmanor]

An oft-seen thread here is that of people wanting to 'archive' their vinyl collections on to their computer.

I would make the argument that vinyl, as a source medium, is far far far more durable than digitized medium on either self-burned cd's or hard drives. Computers are basically disposable junk (I know, I'm a programmer) with a 3-5 year life cycle at best. Hard drives have to be backed up, they crash, data gets damaged or lost, etc. CD players are on the downside toward extinction already. Yet Edison's simple mechanical means of reproduction marches quietly on.

Anyone with a meagerly substantial record collection isn't likely to wear out an individual record with proper and properly set up equipment unless they're playing it with the frequency of a teenage girl with a star-crush. (Does that still happen? Are there still Bobby Shermans and David Cassidys to this generation?).

I'd argue that the best way to archive an LP collection is to maintain a quality turntable set up and store the records properly.

Now, doing transfers of favorite cuts and albums for the sake of *convenience* (i.e. turntables arent' all that portable), that's a different story.

Well put. I agree completely with all of your points. I love vinyl and all the proper care and set up it takes for great sound. I also know that the period that my albums sat unused they experienced the most abuse. They were stored away and some of them suffered from water damage.

That being said the main reason that people want to transfer it to another form of media is ease of use. For me playing vinyl is a ritual and one that I enjoy. There is selecting the album, cleaning the vinyl, lowering the stylus and being near by when the record ends to start the process over. Not to mention the proper handling and storage of lp's. A lot of people want to hear there tunes and not fuss with all this. I guess I can understand this reasoning but by the time you go through the trouble of properly transferring the music it seems to me you might as well just go ahead and enjoy it the way it was to be heard.

[OscarEmmy]

Well put. I agree completely with all of your points. I love vinyl and all the proper care and set up it takes for great sound. I also know that the period that my albums sat unused they experienced the most abuse. They were stored away and some of them suffered from water damage.

That being said the main reason that people want to transfer it to another form of media is ease of use. For me playing vinyl is a ritual and one that I enjoy. There is selecting the album, cleaning the vinyl, lowering the stylus and being near by when the record ends to start the process over. Not to mention the proper handling and storage of lp's. A lot of people want to hear there tunes and not fuss with all this. I guess I can understand this reasoning but by the time you go through the trouble of properly transferring the music it seems to me you might as well just go ahead and enjoy it the way it was to be heard.

Excellent points from both of you - I tape records to reduce usage of this precious resource, for day to day listening. I do not digitize my LP s because I haven't the gear to do it - not sure I would enjoy doing it that much, but who knows? I used to use minidiscs for making backups, but programming track divisions and naming the tracks was a pain. Still, since LP's don't have track name displays, really there's no need to name the tracks when transferring to CD or minidisc, is there? I think track separation is important, for obvious reasons.

For now, I'll stick to LPs and tapes, but everyone will have their own reasons for 'digitizing' analog sounds.

[wiredbecker]

Sometimes I'll transfer entire albums in order to be able to listen to them outside of the house. For instance, one of my favorite records is an environmental recording of various foghorns around the San Francisco bay. I'm in Oregon today and enjoyed listening to this album on repeat on my laptop while my wife napped yesterday. In times past, I would have made a tape of it to listen in my Walkman. Fortunately for us, we have more options for storing audio data for personal playback these days.

[gkimeng]

I'd argue that the best way to archive an LP collection is to maintain a quality turntable set up and store the records properly.


The "best" way to preserve an LP collection (but not necessarily to enjoy it) would be to dub it to another format, play that format, store the LPs well and only pull them out when it becomes necessary to replace worn or damaged dubs. During the 70's most people I knew did that by taping onto cassettes; today it would probably be CD's. Archiving by digitizing makes the most sense if the source platform is one whose longevity is questionable, if the source is already damaged and will benefit from digital restoration, or if you have a need to make the material accessible to many other listeners, as in a library.

[SaSi]

I share the OP's view that computer hard disks can be very very fragile and can evaporate, however I cannot agree that a well designed and maintained digital archive can vanish or wear out. And PCs, yes, I change them every 1-2 years at most, but not my "data" that has now grown into the 2.5TB terittory.

CDs may not be all the rage, but even the new Blue Ray decks will play them. the medium (CD spindle) is remaining standard and so easy integrated into new generation of devices (DVD/BRD/HDDVD) that CDs still remain readable.

And when CDs stop being viable as a storage (due to low size/space ratio) one can easily copy the CD contents onto DVD or HDDVD and decrease space requirements by 7:1 or 30:1 ratios.

Same thing happened with my floppy collection of stuff some 15 years ago, when a full drawer of floppies was fit into 1 CD. I made a couple of copies all the same at the time. The original CD is still readable as I confirmed when I had to look for some obscure MSDOS utilities.

Now, in the practical issues, I did make cassette copies of my new LPs on first play. I listened to the tapes instead of wearing the LPs while I played the music that was new and even kept some of those tapes for LPs that I wanted to listen to in the background. It did feel somewhat strange that I "enjoyed" an inferior medium instead of the LPs, but this is how I managed to preserve most of my LPs until today, some 30 years later.

[BrocLuno]

Good lord, I still have 5 1/4 floppies and they work. It's about how you take care of your media. Putting everything on a HDD and tossing the original is asking for premature death :( But, converting favorite tracks to digital and archiving them so you can make personal mixes is a cool and fun way to do things.

I used to make tapes to share - still do, but some of my friends and the more modern set want it as CD or MP3. If it's a cool tune, I'll burn a CD and send it to them. I'm not talking piracy here, stuff from old or obscure 78's or LPs clearly off the catalog. We need to keep that music alive and having two copies (original and digital back-up) is a good way to make sure it has a better chance to survive :)

[Mark W.]

All comments about digital medium are true.

BUT the point was the a record itself is already archival. So why would you need to put it into a medium that would need upgrading to archive it.

If you place a copy of DSOTM in a good quality inner sleeve and then place the whole album into a good quality fold over jacket. And place it in a place that does to get to warm or have to high of humidity. Chances are you could reopen that Album 200+ years from now put it on a TT and it would sound (depending on the play back system) the same as it does now. Since PVC does not readily break down.

[sabocat]

I'm glad this thread was posted. Last week I started a thread on archiving vinyl to computer and CD, simply because I was interested in the idea of archiving, and yes, listening to some really old originals without having to worry about degrading them. There is also a bit if ego involved. I fantasize about giving my friends relatively uncompressed CD copies of say, original Monk or Miles on Columbia. I'm also interested in software that will allow me to make higher quality copies of redbook cd's, using a MAC version of exact audio copy called Max.

I agree that vinyl, if properly cared for, is virtually indestructible. I guess I'm looking for a contemporary version of what we once did, which was to copy new lp's to cassette tape and listen to the cassettes in cars and for parties, breaking out the vinyl only when hanging out with a small coterie of vinyl junkies, if you know what I mean. :smoke:

Anyway, I'm buying a new turntable, so my very next investment will be a top flight record cleaner.

[gkimeng]

BUT the point was the a record itself is already archival. So why would you need to put it into a medium that would need upgrading to archive it.


I think it boils down to some confusion over which object is the "archive." If you dub a vinyl original with the intent to play the dub on an everyday basis and reserve the original for more critical listening purposes, the vinyl *is* the archive. This is true even if the vinyl original is seriously degraded and the dub will be processed for "restoration," because you're preserving the vinyl original and will go back to it in the future if you need to reproduce lost or damaged everyday usage dubs or if future processing techniques make it possible to redo the restoration with better results. Your dub only becomes the "archive" if the original becomes unavailable.

Dubbing your vinyl originals to any other format and then discarding them is just, well, weird.

[op135]

I would consider archiving vinyl for the sake of convenience. Having your favorite tracks quickly available to play on the road is nice, and you can get nearly the same quality as a vinyl player.

This is the way I look at it:

You are about to go on a hiking trip, and you will be drinking beer at the end of the hike to celebrate. You take the beer in a resealable bottle for the sake of convenience, but the quality diminishes due to the abuse it takes during the trip. You don't care because it's beer and you like beer. But when it comes time to sit in your home and relax with a nice beer, you would probably have an import in a glass.

[Tapehead47]

I copy them to MD or CDR to preserve the vinyl. Once used R2R and Cassette. It's just that vinyl can be scratched so easily if you're not careful.

I just bought a TT and am listening to/archiving my 500 or so albums in case we have a hurricane or atomic war.

I'm glad I took good care of my old LP's! I've not played many of them in almost 20 years and they sound great! :yes:. I was really shocked. I'm starting to believe Vinyl sounds better than CD. In it's own way...

Also, the portability of CD. And CD changers are better than record changers! CD jukeboxes are great for parties. Just turn on the stereo and set the player to 'shuffle'. That's about as high-tech as I can go for now.

Rick

[meggy]

My thinking is to archive my vinyl to reel tape. Primary objective would be to preserve the best possible sound quality. After all, analog in=analog out.

[pbda]

Convenience aside, I suspect that folks archive into digital because vinyl degrades each time it is played.

[RWFE]

I would not mind doing it to put some albums on my Ipod to play at the gym but thats about it for me. That is the only place I play the thing anyway.

[perryinva]

gkimeng hit the nail on the head. Plus, with a cassette tape, I can take my music on the road or to the office, with 2 albums per tape. Once I align the K-960, or get a another quality Nak dek, I'll probably dupe the few quality pre-recorded to metal. Better (and fun, as well) to have a copy of something you like than insist on having only one good copy then having to find another one if it breaks.

[OscarEmmy]

Sometimes I'll transfer entire albums in order to be able to listen to them outside of the house. For instance, one of my favorite records is an environmental recording of various foghorns around the San Francisco bay. I'm in Oregon today and enjoyed listening to this album on repeat on my laptop while my wife napped yesterday. In times past, I would have made a tape of it to listen in my Walkman. Fortunately for us, we have more options for storing audio data for personal playback these days.

So no ships grounded on dense fog in Oregon yesterday then? :)

[OscarEmmy]

I would not mind doing it to put some albums on my Ipod to play at the gym but thats about it for me. That is the only place I play the thing anyway.

What's a gym?

[aperh]

copy the CD contents onto DVD or HDDVD

I don't think you're going to be doing that now that Toshiba has dropped out of the bluray/hddvd scuffle =D

The main point I'd like to make about recording vinyl onto any optical medium is that whatever optical medium you choose, it's going to be a lot more forgiving than vinyl when it comes to scratches, soda cans, kitties, and dust.

These days whenever I buy a sealed lp, i record it onto my pc and use a lossless compression format. I'd like to say I only play the records on special occasions and that i use the digital copies for day to day listening, but I really enjoy spinnin vinyl more :)

[groovemaster]

I also agree with SL. It is nice to see so many people supporting the vinyl format.

The funny thing is my profession is IT. I design implement and support large datacenters and have the ability to use many Terabytes of storage. To top it off most of my SANs are Fibre Channel which is the most reliable disk array available. You know what the funny thing is?

I still spin vinyl. The only achieving I do is with an Alesis Masterlink HD recorder @ 24/96. Although this transfer is probably one of the best options out there I still prefer the source to be wax!:D

[Sansui Louie]

I also agree with SL. It is nice to see so many people supporting the vinyl format.

The funny thing is my profession is IT.

Me too, Groovemaster. I'm an out of work Lotus Notes admin/developer. Let me rephrase that. I'm a retired Lotus Notes admin/developer, who's retooling to start a rewarding career as a Goatherd.

All these years of witnessing the klugeyness of computers makes me really appreciate simplicity in nearly everything. Hence my love for vinyl and direct drive turntables. The less shit there is to break or go sour, the better.

[melofelo]

to preserve your records and stylus without losing out on the vinyl sound...and improve on the sound of a budget or mid priced cd player...get yourself a sony mds jb-930..
trust me on this..:thmbsp:

[Klownschool]

Convenience aside, I suspect that folks archive into digital because vinyl degrades each time it is played.

seconded!

[Tapehead47]

to preserve your records and stylus without losing out on the vinyl sound...and improve on the sound of a budget or mid priced cd player...get yourself a sony mds jb-930..
trust me on this..:thmbsp:

I don't have the jb-930 but my 2 Sony MD decks do a fine job of archiving. I still transfer the MD to CDR.

[aperh]

The funny thing is my profession is IT.

Hah, I actually do IT work for the university where I am studying computer engineering :-D

Analog ftw!

[Karma16]

HI,
I also consider my vinyl collection as my music archive. Since I never dumped my records during the CD "revolution", my 4000+ collection is still growing (slowly) and adding to my life.

I transfer to alternative media for several specific reasons, all mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Here is my overall strategy. It has holes in it.

1. For my normal listening mode, I listen to the vinyl because it sounds the best and, from moment to moment, I can't predict the next play. It's more or less random depending on my mood.

2. If I have a record I know I will be listening to a lot until I tire of it, I record it to cassette in order to save the vinyl. The recorded sound quality is good. I don't give up much there because I have four 3 head Nakamichi's scattered around my house. When I no longer want to listen to a particular piece I recycle the tape for something else.

3. For the car where I have only CD capability, I have recorded my favorite "road music" CD's onto CD-R's using the computer. This saves the original CD's from the wear and tear of the road. This works OK because the car is a poor place to get overly critical about sound quality. I use uncompressed formats only. Of course, this can't take advantage of all my vinyl.

4. My recent purchase of an iPod has changed my road strategy. I'm really still trying to come to grips with this new capability. Since my main music source is my vinyl collection, I want to take advantage of the collection with the iPod. Right now the only way I can do this is to make a cassette recording, then digitize the cassete using a Soundblaster A to D converter and download to my computer, then download it to the iPod through iTunes.

I may buy a CD recorder to digitize my vinyl to CD-R's. That's probably the way to go for the iPod.

Boy, this is a complicated game. I need to make it easier at the iPod level.

Sparky

[Joey1127]

I put my vinyl on 10.5" open reel so that I can load 4 or so LP's on one reel and NOT have to turn them over or change records. I use RMGI SM900 for this and it really works out GREAT!

Joey

[Tapehead47]

....that MiniDisc didn't catch on in These Here United States :tears: Great for archiving any audio Media!!

Go to Circuit City or any of those places and ask about a MD deck for the car and they look at you like you just landed. :scratch2:

MD's really simplify editing and labeling. CD-RW's are a genuine pain in comparison. With a CDRW you can only erase the previous track. With MD you can erase any track, no matter where it is on the disc. And you can move selections around, add new tracks, fade in/out, erase the whole MD and 'redo' if you screw up.

I'll copy an entire LP or Cassette to a MD and afterward edit it, title the tracks, whatever. I don't have to sit there during the initial recording and hit a button to start a new track at exactly the right time as required when copying to a CD-RW (Or CDR).

It's just the most flexible recording media there could possibly be. Faster than recording from a PC. And splitting the tracks is so very precise! It's just amazing.

Ideally, there should be an automobile deck that would play CD's and MD's.

Rick

[marantzluver]

I'm starting to believe Vinyl sounds better than CD.

Uh ... ya think? :music:

[dread31]

I like to listen to my vinyl straight from the grooves.

If I want a cd, I buy a cd.

Degrades with each play?

I have lps that I bought 30 years ago. I've found that with proper care, and proper TT set-up, they can last a long, long time.

In the car, I mainly listen to the radio.
At work, I don't have time to kick back and listen to tunes, and it's too damn noisy on the factory floor anyhow.

I do occasionally record to reel to reel, however. Borrow lps from friends, record to tape. That sort of thing.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Dave

[alphacourt]

Why archive vinyl?

Because music on the move (on the streets and at work, i have a small hi-fi in my office - iPod goes into the aux) is ultra inmportant to me - and 90% of my vinyl insn't available on CD or other formats - or will it ever be.

Everything gets recorded to wav and encoded to loseless files.

[KentTeffeteller]

Hi,

The vinyl is my archive. However in broadcasting work on air and travel, CD transfers are needed. So I transfer my LP to my venerable Tascam CD-RW 750 and use that disc at work and in the car. The best of both worlds. I even rip vinyl transfers to iTunes for iPod use. :tresbon:

[eteller]

I'm an IT guy too. When I get home the last thing I want to see is a PC!! I actually got into vinyl to replace my cassette collection I was burning to CD with. You can make excellent CD's from vinyl via PC!! It is something of a pain in the arse, and now I only do it for rare lp's or something I really want to hear in the car. For the most part my listening is strickly vinyl, well, except for the 3 cassette decks I now own, damn Audio Karma!! :D

[Sansui Louie]

I'm an IT guy too. When I get home the last thing I want to see is a PC!!

Amen, brutha.

[beatcomber]

I create 'needledrops' for two reasons:

1.) Convenience. I listen to music often in the car.

2.) Restoration. Most of my records were made before 1970, and I am able to clean up pops 'n' clicks and other defects nicely using Audacity.

3.) Compilation. 45s and 78s are a pain in the butt to listen to.

At home, I mainly listen to the vinyl though, not the needledrops.

[FredC]

Is this actually a thread advising people NOT to back up their media when they have the resources to do so? There are many unforeseen circumstances that even the most careful storage of LP's will not protect against.. Fire.. Tornado.. Flood... Theft. I had a simple problem 2 months ago when my air conditioning went out (living in Palm Desert). The last 2 or 3 albums at the end of each row began warping from the heat and are now unplayable. Thanks to my digital backups, I was able to at least run replacements off onto CD for the car and to Tape for home listening.

My advice is to certainly digitize your irreplaceable vinyl and upload them onto an online media storage site for safe keeping (MediaFire, etc.) I also have Backups on DVD as well as the digitized albums on my hard drive for quick sharing with friends and iPod burns.

[jazzgoose]

I like the fact that I can only certain things on vinyl - I have music up the wazoo on cd and mp3. So I listen to lp's at home for that reason now. I guess it going thru all motions that does it for me. Like cleaning my albums and tinkering with my table etc. I won't get that anywhere else. And on top of that I have a ton of music on cd/mp3 I will never have on vinyl. Anyway thank God I live in a place that rarely climbs above 79 degrees or below 40. But each to their own I guess. For me - when it is gone it is gone.

[ke4jhj]

I have a small (compared to most A-Ker's) LP collection of about 400 albums and about an equal amount of 78's. If there is something that I wish to listen to, I pull the album and play away. I see no need to convert to another format unless I wish to take a copy along to play in the car or at work. In that case, I copy to the PC and burn to CD-R.

I have no fear to play my records. For those who claim that records degrade each time they are played, there must be a definite problem either with your turntable, stylus, setup or how your records are maintained.:nono:

I have records that I have played more times that I can count and can detect no wear. With that in mind, and considering I have had a love affair with the turntable for fifty years, I will still spin my records and sit back and enjoy!:music::banana:

[niklasthedol]

I just listen to my LP's, as I've done the last 40 years.

Today I've got beyond 5000 LP's.

My first LP's are still in use as non-marked.

What's the problem?

"dolph"