Vinyl pressing in digital world.

[Hiten]

Hello everyone,

A friend wants to produce a music album in both CD and vinyl format on a small scale. Since I guess almost all recording studios may have switched to digital format would it make sense to bring out vinyl ?

I believe if recording is done in digital format with high bit depth and sample rate a vinyl pressing sound quality would be good compared to normal audio CD (16bit & 44k sample rate). Am I right or are there any other things involved (beside bit depth and sample rate) in pressing truely analogue vinyl pressing ?

Are there any small affordable analogue recording studios in US/UK/Germany/Australia ?

Thanks and regards.

[h_a]

Vinyl needs entirely different mastering than CD (mono-bass, limited left right separation, bass cut off, upper frequency limit of 22kHz and so on).

I'll pm you an adress in germany that might help you.

Hannes

[gpapag]

Upper frequency limit of 22kHz for Vinyl mastering ?

[jcx]

if you're talking "power bandwidth" as limited by cutting velocity limit then the frequency corner should be a lot lower

where do you set digital max "0 dB" - 25 cm/s ?

you get even more roll-of of frequency as you move to the inner grooves

digital recording practice has evolved to incorporate much higher high frequency content than during the era of vinyl only commercial recording production

possibly of interest:

Sick Of Talk

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by Hiten

Hello everyone,

A friend wants to produce a music album in both CD and vinyl format on a small scale. Since I guess almost all recording studios may have switched to digital format would it make sense to bring out vinyl ?

I believe if recording is done in digital format with high bit depth and sample rate a vinyl pressing sound quality would be good compared to normal audio CD (16bit & 44k sample rate). Am I right or are there any other things involved (beside bit depth and sample rate) in pressing truely analogue vinyl pressing ?

Are there any small affordable analogue recording studios in US/UK/Germany/Australia ?

Thanks and regards.

Hello Hiten,
Here is a link to a vinyl studio in Nashville. United Record Pressing - Your one stop record shop since 1949
I would suggest that you try to find a studio near you because vinyl records are heavy and the shipping cost is going to be expensive.

[Hiten]

Thanks a lot h_a, gpapag, jcx, c2cthomas.

c2cthomas this is exactly the same company I recommended to my friend. Thanks again.
Here is the link : Lucky Ali's new Album on LP?

I guess my friend will only be producing vinyl format of the artist's album, and has probably zeroed in on one or two vinyl pressing cos. in US and Germany (I dont know which are they). I think they will be recording here in India and give masters to vinyl pressing cos.

My curiosity is if they record in digital format and don't have analogue master is it worth producing a vinyl format ? How would an audio cd(16bit, 44k) compare to vinyl pressed from higher bit depth and sample rate digital master ?

[ide2003]

hi, I got the same 'doubt' as Hiten, after 20years with my old record collection, I want to start investing in new pressings, I did hear some of them, not at home though, agreed better & got more depth than CD although they're fully digital mastered..but...is it worth it?
please enlighten me

regards
TeguhPS

[Hiten]

Thought I should update. The album mentioned in first post was out on 8th of July in digital format. But probably (I am guessing) vinyl format will not be produced. Digital format won this time I guess.
But I sincerely thank everyone for their input and time.

Regards

[flavio81]

Originally Posted by Hiten

Hello everyone,

A friend wants to produce a music album in both CD and vinyl format on a small scale. Since I guess almost all recording studios may have switched to digital format would it make sense to bring out vinyl ?

I believe if recording is done in digital format with high bit depth and sample rate a vinyl pressing sound quality would be good compared to normal audio CD (16bit & 44k sample rate). Am I right or are there any other things involved (beside bit depth and sample rate) in pressing truely analogue vinyl pressing ?

Let's see if i can help.

Is it worthy in terms of sound quality? YES! Even if the vinyl is made from a 44KHz/16bit "cd-standard" digital file, chances are that the DAC (digital to analog converter) used at the vinyl mastering phase is 500% better than a consumer dac on a common cd-player or even an 'audiophile' CD-player.

The vinyl medium, when done right, is very sonically transparent, thus using an excellent DAC at the vinyl cutting phase can potentially give a sonic advantage to the final LP over the final CD.

If the source file is high resolution digital, then even better.

[flavio81]

Originally Posted by h_a

Vinyl needs entirely different mastering than CD (mono-bass, limited left right separation, bass cut off, upper frequency limit of 22kHz and so on).

I wouldn't say "entirely different", simply taking care of not over-exaggerating the high frequencies (15Khz+), making sure to use a de-esser in the vocals, or to elimitate sibilant vocals from the beginning, and to be mindful that bass content below 40Hz will have to be severely reduced.

Also, highly important, taking care that your digital file never clips. But that is a good practice in digital audio, not a 'special' measure confined to vinyl mastering.

The "mixing the bass to mono" can be done by the vinyl mastering engineer at the mastering phase, and it's not a mandatory thing. You CAN put 20Hz bass, you CAN have full bass in only one of the two channels (left-right), but the record playing time will have to be cut.

Basically i would say that the first thing you need to be careful, is to be sure your record side playing time is as short as possible. I'd say 12-20min (per side) for the best audio quality.