# $1B in revenue, Vinyl records sales growth has outpaced music subscriptions & streaming like Spotify / Pandora.



## Daren Audio (Jul 7, 2022)

Source (Digital Music News):
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/07/06/vinyl-record-manufacturer-backlog-demand/




Source (AP News):








Manufacturers struggle to keep pace with vinyl record demand


The arrival of the compact disc nearly killed off record albums, with vinyl pressing machines sold, scrapped and dismantled by major record labels. Four decades later, with resuscitated record album sales producing double-digit annual growth, manufacturers are rapidly rebuilding an industry to...




apnews.com





Source (NPR Podast):



<iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1048288997/1048288998" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"></iframe>


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## ssnowe (Jul 7, 2022)

Contrary to popular opinion where everything is rented, leased or some type of subscription this shows that people like to physically own things.


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## Nico5 (Jul 7, 2022)

I found this one quite interesting:


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## Pier (Jul 7, 2022)

ssnowe said:


> Contrary to popular opinion where everything is rented, leased or some type of subscription this shows that people like to physically own things.


At least some people do. I seriously doubt the majority do though.

Vinyl might be growing faster than streaming, but $1B is still a lot less than the $10B Spotify did in 2021 (and that's only Spotify).







Another point is what percentage of that went to the artists? I mean, considering vinyl is super expensive to manufacture and distribute compared to digital.


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## Technostica (Jul 7, 2022)

I recall reading a survey a few years ago which showed that about forty percent of people buying vinyl nowadays didn’t even own a turntable! 
Vinyl is fine for the average person as they don't buy many albums once over the age of 25 or 30.
But if you love listening to a lot of different music, the cost and storage space becomes an issue, plus most music isn't available on vinyl anyway.
I bought over a thousand albums on vinyl many decades ago and don't miss them at all.


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## Pier (Jul 7, 2022)

Technostica said:


> But if you love listening to a lot of different music, the cost and storage space becomes an issue, plus most music isn't available on vinyl anyway.
> I bought over a thousand albums on vinyl many decades ago and don't miss them at all.


As a DJ some 20 years ago I hurt my back a couple of times carrying bags of vinyls...

The tactile experience was cool, but I don't miss them at all either!


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## José Herring (Jul 7, 2022)

It isn't either or. There's room for all music formats. It's not like Streaming is going a way, but as a father whose son just recently left his teen years he listens to CD's, has a Beetles Album, streams music from his phone, and wants to buy a car with a cassette player from the 80's ( on that one I'm like, what's the point. Not like cassettes were the highest level of playback acheivement). Some of it just nostalgia. This younger generation is really nostalgic of the 80's and 90's for some reason. 

The market is huge and all we really need to do to balance it even further is to start demanding greater royalty payments from streaming services providers. 

That vinyl is now selling in the billions means that there are a lot of people that still a) want to hear music in better quality than mp3, or arguably CD and b) they like the actual fact of having physical merch.


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## MusiquedeReve (Jul 7, 2022)

Note to self: If I ever release music, make a super-special edition vinyl version


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## Technostica (Jul 7, 2022)

MorphineNoir said:


> Note to self: If I ever release music, make a super-special edition vinyl version


Bob Dylan is auctioning a new recording of Blowin' in the Wind as a one off release with an estimated price of over half a million. 
It has ended and went for a bit more:









Bob Dylan One-of-One Re-Recording of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ Sells for $1.7M at Auction


The sale of the new version, recorded on one of T Bone Burnett’s patented Ionic Originals discs, soared past initial estimates.




www.billboard.com


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## Daren Audio (Jul 7, 2022)

José Herring said:


> It isn't either or. There's room for all music formats. It's not like Streaming is going a way, but as a father whose son just recently left his teen years he listens to CD's, has a Beetles Album, streams music from his phone, and wants to buy a car with a cassette player from the 80's ( on that one I'm like, what's the point. Not like cassettes were the highest level of playback acheivement). Some of it just nostalgia. This younger generation is really nostalgic of the 80's and 90's for some reason.
> 
> The market is huge and all we really need to do to balance it even further is to start demanding greater royalty payments from streaming services providers.
> 
> That vinyl is now selling in the billions means that there are a lot of people that still a) want to hear music in better quality than mp3, or arguably CD and b) they like the actual fact of having physical merch.


Vinyl comeback is great for artists. Both music formats can co-exist just like movie-going theater experience and on-demand streaming (Netflix, Disney+, etc). _Many thought streaming would kill off movie theaters._

The more revenue streams an artist has, the better to promote and sell their brand through merch and promotional items, etc.


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## chillbot (Jul 7, 2022)

I like having the physical record. I have two turntables, one in the house and one in the studio. I think I'm probably the typical kind of consumer driving the vinyl comeback, in that I'm not going to be replacing my entire music collection with vinyl and I'm not taking vinyl on a run with me or in my car or attaching to an email, but I still love having a few records. (Also vinyl really sounds fantastic hooked up to a pro audio system.) I have maybe 150-200 records all of which I've bought in the last 6-7 years, as mentioned there's also a cost and physical space issue. But putting on vinyl is so satisfying when you are actually listening to something. You put on spotify or pandora or itunes and it can just become nonstop background music. When you put on vinyl it's a physical tradition like grinding your own coffee beans or grilling on charcoal instead of gas. One side of a record doesn't last very long so you are constantly aware of flipping and changing the records. It can't become background noise it makes you pay attention to it. Also, vinyl records make excellent gifts if you know anyone that uses a record player. A couple friends of mine love randomly sending records we're digging to each other, sort of like a record-exchange. Lastly, there's really nothing in the world better than putting on Charlie Brown's Christmas on a real record player next to the tree during christmas.


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## jbuhler (Jul 7, 2022)

I still remember the days of vinyl before CDs—bad pressings were common and at higher rates of production, I imagine that we are not too far off from bad pressings becoming common again. I have no particular nostalgia for LPs—though I did recently unbox my old collection (it's been boxed up for 30 years!) and placed the records on shelves in my studio, even though I haven't had a working turntable in decades.


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## Alchemedia (Jul 7, 2022)

Technostica said:


> Bob Dylan is auctioning a new recording of Blowin' in the Wind as a one off release with an estimated price of over half a million.


The answer my friend, is the highest bidder wins.


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## cedricm (Jul 7, 2022)

It's easier to grow spectacularly from a tiny turnover than from a mature one. 
$1 bn sale is tiny. It's about 3% of the streaming market.


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## sean8877 (Jul 7, 2022)

Pier said:


> Another point is what percentage of that went to the artists? I mean, considering vinyl is super expensive to manufacture and distribute compared to digital.


Probably more goes to the artist than with streaming, have you seen the prices of new vinyl records lately? And there are companies like Jack White's Third Man Records which are very fair to artists.


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## Pier (Jul 7, 2022)

sean8877 said:


> Probably more goes to the artist than with streaming, have you seen the prices of new vinyl records lately?


I'm sure they are expensive, but there's a lot more people to feed in the chain.


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## Henu (Jul 8, 2022)

I don't get this vinyl hype. At all. As a someone who lived his teenage years in the 90's, vinyl was inferior and clunkier than a CD to use, and as a scientifically proven fact, worsens the sound compared to a 1/1 digital version.

And don't get me even started with cassettes. Compressed and distorted low-end mush compared to the CD's I copied them from. For me, cassettes were the poor teenager's last chance to listen to the music he couldn't afford on CD. I still have my collection of 900+ (dubbed) tapes in my carage, but hell freezes over before I prefer them over my CD collection. It's not "nostalgy", it's fucking shit, really.

Don't get me wrong- analog sound is nice and makes wonders to the recording sessions when done right. But there is absolutely no need to artificially worsen the sound quality _after the mastering process _by using inferior and distorting mediums to listen to it. If you want the album to sound like it was intended to sound like, buy a CD or listen to wav files. Don't buy a vinyl (or god forbid, a tape) and tell that "this is how it is supposed to sound like", because that is absolutely rubbish.


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## chillbot (Jul 8, 2022)

If you're lumping vinyl in with cassettes you're definitely missing the point. Cassettes are shit.


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## Henu (Jul 8, 2022)

Yeah, but vinyl (albeit for the packaging) is technically too!

And don't get me wrong, I am a huuuuuge fan of physical music releases as a fan, collector and also as a recording artist (like everyone else's, also my income from music releases has dropped dramatically during the last ten years), but I just think vinyl is completely overrated and inferior medium against a CD.


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## re-peat (Jul 8, 2022)

chillbot said:


> Cassettes are shit.


Many well-dressed (and less-well-dressed) people in several locations would disagree quite a bit with you, Chill. The “cassette sound” is still very much a thing (used to be limited to hip- and trip-hop and adjoining genres, but has spread much wider since) and loads of producers keep a cassette deck in their studio to record tracks onto and then route the results back into their DAW’s. There’s something about that sound, shitty and lo-fi as it may be, that still has great appeal and can’t be reproduced completely satisfactorily with plugins just yet.

Early March of last year, when Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette (and, amazingly, a key contributor to the invention of the compact disc as well) passed away, I wrote this post for The Sound Board:



> A few days ago, Lou Ottens passed away. The name probably won’t mean much to most people, but Ottens is the man who, in 1963, as an engineer working for Philips, invented the audio cassette , a compact audio carrier which revolutionized the way people all over the world consumed music from the mid-60’s onwards right through the 70’s and 80’s until it was replaced by the compact disc which was … ALSO developed under Ottens’ supervision.
> 
> If you’re still in your teens, twenties or thirties, the importance of Ottens’ work might elude you, but the fact is: the man changed the lives of millions of people (and that change went far beyond the realm of music, see below). I know he changed mine. I’ve spent I-don’t-know-how-much time of my life listening to cassettes and compiling my own. And my very first recording device was a Tascam Portastudio which made it possible to do 4-track recordings on an audio cassette. In other words: I probably wouldn’t be here, and a very different sort of musician, if it weren’t for Ottens.)
> 
> ...



And do watch the video below. It shows how much passion and affection is still bestowed on cassettes and their sound.


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## chillbot (Jul 8, 2022)

I think you are proving my point? Yes if you want that shit sound, cassettes are the way to go. I don't disagree, I love the effects you can get with it but as far as accurately reproducing a piece of music, no.


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## el-bo (Jul 8, 2022)

ssnowe said:


> Contrary to popular opinion where everything is rented, leased or some type of subscription this shows that people like to physically own things.


Well...Lots of people like to own certain things. I'd bet that no-one is lining up to get rid of Netflix and have to buy all the binge-and-forget dross they've binged-and-forgotten, on Blu-Ray.


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## Polkasound (Jul 8, 2022)

Henu said:


> I don't get this vinyl hype. At all.


That's because people like you and me are old enough to remember when music was transitioning to digital, and everyone still owned record players and cassette decks. But to the younger generation, vinyl records hold the same wonder and mystique as uncharted territory. So when a pop star like Ariana Grande or Harry Styles releases on vinyl, their young fans see the vinyl as new, fresh, and exciting.

On Milwaukee's eclectic East Side, purple-haired, tattooed, nose-ringed youngsters have been hitting record stores for the past 25 years, because vinyl always maintained a kitsch factor long after it became obsolete. Although it took a few decades, that kitsch factor caught on and morphed into a resurgence, and it's now grown to where A-list artists are reinventing vinyl records for a whole new generation.

So I can understand the growth in the demand for vinyl, but at 52, all I have are bad memories of crackly records skipping and hissy tapes dropping out. I have no desire to revisit music in any form of analog.


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## Henu (Jul 8, 2022)

As a weird-haired, tattooed and nose-ringed oldster I understand, but I still reign supreme over the bad sound on top of my massive CD collection! 

As a sidenote, one of my hobbies every summer is to go through various flea-markets and second hand stores on our family trips to search for interesting CD's people are selling dirt-cheap. My family isn't pleased sometimes, though, because "dad's still in that store he's been for the last 25 minutes and we can't go until he's done". 15 minutes later I come back with a victorious smile, "Look, I found an obscure Wagner overture compilation and Paradise Lost's first album from the first press for only 6 €!!!". Then my daughter comments ironically "well hurray", and we can finally continue our trip. :D


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## Nico5 (Jul 8, 2022)

re-peat said:


> The “cassette sound” is still very much a thing





the lo-fi sound: 😇


the mangled tapes: 👿


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## danevaz (Jul 8, 2022)

A well recorded, well pressed Vinyl LP, played on a fine tuned analog sound system can still sound better than the corresponding regular CD. The Super Audio CDs (and similar formats) were better, but their higher prices and incompatible proprietary playback hardware discouraged their mass consumption. (I have a few of them, along with a multi format HD Audio player, which will probably never be hooked up again).

New Vinyl LP re-releases are expensive (overpriced), and buying second hand LPs is risky re: scratches, skips, warps, etc. And who wants to go back to messing with phono cartridge calibration, tonearm weight, moving coils vs. moving magnets, and all that (spoken as a recovering audiophile)?

I prefer CDs, but now consume 90% of my music via You Tube or on-line streaming services.

I listen to CDs in the car, but alas, new cars (at least here in the US) no longer come with built in CD players.

Oh well, if you can't beat 'em...


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## Daniel James (Jul 8, 2022)

Vinyl feels like a collector's item. Something about the size and grandeur of it all. The ritual of placing it on the turntable and applying the needle. I think this is what people are loving about Vinyl it's making listening to music more of an experience.

Alternatively CD's and Cassettes feel like data storage mediums for music. They exist to playback the music as cleanly and as quickly as possible. Which was perfect before we had streaming, but now we have streaming they are redundant. Any place I would listen to a CD or Cassette I would rather just boot up Spotify as the point of the music in that situation is contextual and usually. I'm not looking to have an 'experience' with music when driving, working out, or doing chores.

So yeah you may not be the kind of person who sees the value in collectors' editions of things. But for some people having a physical representation of something they are a fan of, and the extra ability to create a little ritual experience around the music is exactly what they are looking for and I think Vinyl perfectly scratches that itch.

I don't think anyone is really making a case for it being superior quality (compared to things like lossless streaming). Not only is that objectively inaccurate it completely misses the point of why Vinyl is succeeding. You have to look at the bigger picture and include the human element, not just the numbers or technical abilities.

-DJ


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## Kevperry777 (Jul 8, 2022)

Teenagers are buying vinyl. That’s the shift….sooo many of my teenage daughters friends have bought record players in the last 2 years. And then proceeded to buy Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, etc.


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## tressie5 (Jul 8, 2022)

Harry Styles, Taylor Swift huh? Well, maybe I'd better think twice about creating LP's of my ambient music as I'll end up having to eat them all.


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## Polkasound (Jul 8, 2022)

Kevperry777 said:


> Teenagers are buying vinyl. That’s the shift….sooo many of my teenage daughters friends have bought record players in the last 2 years. And then proceeded to buy Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, etc.


I think vinyl is trending because teens are discovering the human element DJ talked about above. Streaming has made accessing music extremely convenient, but having the physical product in your hand, with the artwork on the cover, gives you so much more than just the music.

I can definitely see parties where everyone is bringing over their vinyl albums to share, trade, and borrow. The experience of being in a room with all your friends and spinning a vinyl record is going to catch on with this younger generation. It won't replace streaming, but I think it will enjoy a good run.


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## jbuhler (Jul 8, 2022)

I would say that listening to an LP is much more like a ritual, especially with the open style turntables. It is a ritual perhaps akin to going to a live concert. Cassettes, CDs, digital files, streaming—with these the music is completely inside the box and with the CD and cassette, the machine literally ingested the recording medium. So there is maybe a ritual component to feeding the machine in such cases, it differed very much in feel. (And that ritualistic aspect of listening to recordings was one loss I felt in giving up vinyl for CDs. The other is the void of the vinyl itself, which reflected the self only poorly, as opposed to the high reflectivity of CDs...) Cassette tapes always seemed a bit odd. First, I rarely bought commercial cassettes but used them for convenience and to save wear and tear on the vinyl. So they were a kind of supplement to record listening. They were also not random access (not that vinyl allowed a lot of access, but by comparison it was), so they were kind of a pain if you wanted to skip a song, say. And even if you had an auto advance to skip songs, you still had to wait for the tape to fast forward. But you could make mixtapes and share those with your friends. If there was a ritualistic aspect of tapes, it lay largely in that, exchanging music through tapes, which of course didn't make the record companies very happy. Digital downloads and streaming solved some of the issue with tape but at the cost of being even more intangible, and the ritual of the mixtape has transferred to the even more intangible playlist. Sending a friend a playlist seems much less a gift than giving them a mixtape, and making a playlist and playing it back hardly feels like a ritual to me (maybe it does for others who spend more time curating them). And the value of music seems to have plummeted as the form of its commodity became intangible and the friction of digital exchange became almost non-existent (following perhaps the economic law that over time the price of a commodity falls to its marginal cost, which in the case of a digital file is practically zero).


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## tressie5 (Jul 8, 2022)

I wonder, then, if we'll see a rise in jukeboxes? Maybe a malt shoppe ala Happy Days 1955? The return of bobby soxers?


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## jbuhler (Jul 8, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> I wonder, then, if we'll see a rise in jukeboxes? Maybe a malt shoppe ala Happy Days 1955? The return of bobby soxers?


I would be surprised, though my 22-year old daughter (who doesn't own any records) did recently see a jukebox and was totally fascinated by the concept. So who knows.


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## re-peat (Jul 8, 2022)

Vinyls smelled much better than CD’s, at least, quality pressings used to. And for a graphic designer (for the music industry), which is what I am during 80% of my professional time, the vinyl format is a much more inspiring and satisfying playground than anything that came since. Which is why it’s so great to see it re-emerge. I used to design tons of LP’s and 12 inches until, 10-15 years ago, the format gradually disappeared (the last stronghold was dance music — techno and such — which, fortunately, has always embraced design & packaging creativity) but since a few years, things are picking up again.

The big difference with before however is that a high percentage of today’s vinyl releases are re-issues. Vinyl can no longer keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening musically, the way it used to, because it just takes way too long these days to produce them. If, as a record company, you have to wait anywhere between four or seven months to get your product delivered, you can hardly hope to be in sync with what’s hot at the moment. To give an example: I had to deliver the artwork for two Christmas vinyls to the record company two weeks ago. They wanted to be absolutely sure the albums would be ready in time for the Holiday Season. And a design I’m working at the moment, is for a release that’s scheduled for the Spring of next year. 10-15 years ago, the production of an LP or 12 inch took just a few weeks. Completely different situation for a record company and one that has a very profound impact on what is being released and what isn’t.

If the production proces remains what it is, no one in the business will be surprised or broken-hearted that the vinyl revival (for the masses) won’t last very long. No vinyl-oriented record company is pleased about being months out of step with what’s popular, or having to plan months ahead and then hope there will still be some momentum for the new music they release on vinyl, bands and artists are *extremely* unhappy about it as well — the period between finishing an album and holding the actual LP in your hands is simply much too long — and the pool of material that is considered interesting or economically viable enough for re-issue is inevitably going to dry up pretty soon as well.

I rather liked the vinyl era though. (Had, literally, an entire wall of albums at one time.) The format looked nice, the sound had a certain something quite special, but more importantly, it inspired/stimulated people to care more for the music they brought into their lives than most are prepared to do these days. Music wasn’t a fleeting "hype of the week” diversion in those days the way it often is today for many consumers. (We’re thought of as consumers now, we used to be music lovers.) Albums were companions or friends for life. The great albums of the vinyl era had a significance which no longer exists in quite the same way, and the format itself, the vinyl LP, was an essential part of that.

_


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## Pier (Jul 8, 2022)

re-peat said:


> more importantly, it inspired/stimulated people to care more for the music they brought into their lives than most are prepared to do these days. Music wasn’t a fleeting "hype of the week” diversion in those days the way it often is today for many consumers. (We’re thought of as consumers now, we used to be music lovers.) Albums were companions or friends for life. The great albums of the vinyl era had a significance which no longer exists in quite the same way, and the format itself, the vinyl LP, was an essential part of that.


Correlation does not mean causation though.

My hunch is these things you describe (which I agree with) were not related at all with vinyl, but rather with the fact that there was a lot less music produced and it was less available.

Producing, marketing, and distributing music was much more expensive which in turn made labels much more selective about which artists they decided to invest their money in. Now anyone can produce music in a bedroom, market it, and upload it to all streaming platforms without any filter at all.

Also, we can now listen to all the music available literally anywhere. Even when the walkman was introduced (and later the discman) you were limited to the music you were carrying with you.

Finally, another factor that probably influenced this, is that until 1980 the world population was less than half of what is today. This must have had an influence in the quantity of music produced too.

It seems inevitable that music scarcity would make it more valuable. And I don't mean economically, but rather emotionally, personally.


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## chillbot (Jul 8, 2022)

I still have a rackmount minidisc player racked in the studio.


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## Pier (Jul 8, 2022)

chillbot said:


> I still have a rackmount minidisc player racked in the studio.


Minidisc was really the most cyberpunk media ever.

Edit:

David Rudnick has a whole series of cyberpunk minidiscs


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## tressie5 (Jul 8, 2022)

Does anyone remember or had a DAT player/recorder? I had one that cost me $2400 many moons hence. Didn't last long, though. The tray mechanism broke.


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## chillbot (Jul 8, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> Does anyone remember or had a DAT player/recorder? I had one that cost me $2400 many moons hence. Didn't last long, though. The tray mechanism broke.


For the sole reason that I've never needed the space for anything else, I have a racked and wired up Tascam minidisc player, DAT deck, CD player, and cassette deck in the studio.

As soon as I need the space for anything else they're going in the bin. But yes I can still play and record on DAT.


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## Pier (Jul 8, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> Does anyone remember or had a DAT player/recorder? I had one that cost me $2400 many moons hence. Didn't last long, though. The tray mechanism broke.


I lusted after one for years but I couldn't afford it. I ended up getting a rack minidisc recorder which I used for a couple of years until CD burners became cheap.


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## rsg22 (Jul 8, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> Does anyone remember or had a DAT player/recorder? I had one that cost me $2400 many moons hence. Didn't last long, though. The tray mechanism broke.


Mine is still running strong. I only know that because I got really nervous last summer and finally transferred all of my DAT's to my computer


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## tressie5 (Jul 8, 2022)

I was encouraged to buy mine because the salesman at J&R Music in NYC played me David Benoit's Every Step Of The Way on headphones and I was blown away by the fidelity. It was a Tascam DA-30, I believe.


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## Uiroo (Jul 8, 2022)

re-peat said:


> Vinyls smelled much better than CD’s, at least, quality pressings used to.


Probably the vinyl chloride mentioned in the video @Nico5 shared.
Honestly I had no idea about the toxicity of vinyls nor did I ever think about the environmental impacts (beyond the obvious fact that it is all unnecessary compared to streaming).
And almost 3 years after he made that video it still seems to be true, people are not really interested in talking about it? I certainly won't get vinyls ever again.


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## Mike Fox (Jul 8, 2022)

I never understood why anyone would pay $10 for a digital album when you could own the CD for $12.

Call me old fashioned, but playing a CD or vinyl has always been an experience for me. I love the artwork, reading the lyrics, and just physically holding the media. The tangible or resell value is also there.

Needless to say, i very rarely buy digital albums, nor do I subscribe to any streaming services.


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## tressie5 (Jul 8, 2022)

About 20/30 years ago, I used to think that they'd make it so that you could walk into a record shop and buy an album that was packaged like a traditional album, cassette or CD but the carrying medium would be a thumb drive or memory card of some kind. I wonder why that never materialized?


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## Arbee (Jul 8, 2022)

As someone who released an album during the early crossover period between vinyl and CD (1988), I vividly recall the torture of trying to mix and master for both formats. The constraints of vinyl like "don't mix too much bass on the inner tracks" vs the relief and simplicity that came with the CD prep.

Having said that, I ventured back into listening to my old vinyl collection a couple of years and my Tower of Power and Michel Colombier LPs sounded awesome on vinyl!


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## Gingerbread (Jul 8, 2022)

The word is RECORDS, not 'vinyls'. The word vinyl is already inherently pluralized.

Anyone actually using the word 'vinyls' should be shot.


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## Arbee (Jul 8, 2022)

Arbee said:


> As someone who released an album during the early crossover period between vinyl and CD (1988), I vividly recall the torture of trying to mix and master for both formats. The constraints of vinyl like "don't mix too much bass on the inner tracks" vs the relief and simplicity that came with the CD prep.
> 
> Having said that, I ventured back into listening to my old vinyl collection a couple of years and my Tower of Power and Michel Colombier LPs sounded awesome on vinyl!





Gingerbread said:


> The word is RECORDS, not 'vinyls'. The word vinyl is already inherently pluralized.
> 
> Anyone actually using the word 'vinyls' should be shot.



As someone who released a record during the early crossover period between records and CDs (1988), I vividly recall the torture of trying to mix and master for both formats. The constraints of records like "don't mix too much bass on the inner tracks" vs the relief and simplicity that came with the CD prep.

Having said that, I ventured back into listening to my old record collection a couple of years and my Tower of Power and Michel Colombier LPs sounded awesome!


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## tmhuud (Jul 8, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> Does anyone remember or had a DAT player/recorder? I had one that cost me $2400 many moons hence. Didn't last long, though. The tray mechanism broke.


I had two. The batteries swelled and destroyed both units! 😝


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## Chris Schmidt (Jul 8, 2022)

José Herring said:


> This younger generation is really nostalgic of the 80's and 90's for some reason.


They were better times.


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## GtrString (Jul 9, 2022)

I still remember my 78ths with The Andrew Sisters I had back in the 1980s! Well I had others too.. 

What genres are selling on vinyl now, is it the classics only (like classic rock, rock’n roll, soul ect) or also new music (indie)? Would something like Retrowave sell, or Synth Pop ect

What’s the market?


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## Technostica (Jul 9, 2022)

GtrString said:


> I still remember my 78ths with The Andrew Sisters I had back in the 1980s! Well I had others too..
> 
> What genres are selling on vinyl now, is it the classics only (like classic rock, rock’n roll, soul ect) or also new music (indie)? Would something like Retrowave sell, or Synth Pop ect
> 
> What’s the market?


In the UK, a lot of the top twenty last year were legacy acts:
Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Nirva, Abba etc


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## GtrString (Jul 9, 2022)

Technostica said:


> In the UK, a lot of the top twenty last year were legacy acts:
> Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Nirva, Abba etc


Right, so it’s rebottling the same old shi* again, again..


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## Pier (Jul 13, 2022)

Ableton Live co-creator Robert Henke says that it’s time to stop pressing vinyl and “fully embrace CDs”


“Compact disc, you are underrated and you will always have a place in my heart”




www.musicradar.com





“I still love physical products,” he says, “but manufacturing big heavy plates of plastic and have [sic] them shipped around the globe is a huge waste of energy and resources.”


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## CGR (Jul 13, 2022)

chillbot said:


> I still have a rackmount minidisc player racked in the studio.


Ditto - a Sony and it's still going strong


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## Daren Audio (Jul 13, 2022)

Technostica said:


> In the UK, a lot of the top twenty last year were legacy acts:
> Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Nirva, Abba etc


This year Kate Bush, another UK artist, hit #1 for the first time for "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" since being featured in Netflix's Stranger Things Season 4.

And that vinyl album is sold out on Target.


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## Alchemedia (Jul 13, 2022)

Gingerbread said:


> The word is RECORDS, not 'vinyls'. The word vinyl is already inherently pluralized.
> 
> Anyone actually using the word 'vinyls' should be shot.


I paid good monies for my vinyls when they were still LP's.


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## GtrString (Jul 14, 2022)

Looking into this vinyl “comeback”, it’s also a revival of fckn petro capitalism.. I’m OUT!









Vinyl records’ revival threatens environment and health


Demand for vinyl records is soaring, but there’s something funky about this musical comeback – the energy and chemicals involved with producing the iconic circular discs creates pollution, adds to the climate crisis and may harm our health.




www.ewg.org


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## DoubleTap (Jul 14, 2022)

There are something like a dozen vinyl factories left in the world and no one is building any more - some people don’t even think they would be allowed to build a new one in most western countries. It’s the major labels cashing in as usual. https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2...ta-now-record-labels-are-running-out-of-vinyl


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## MisteR (Jul 14, 2022)

To my mind streaming and digital mess up the concept of the “album”. Vinyl brings that back (although cds are good for that too). On cassettes, the main thing lost to my mind is the mix tape. You made a mix for your friends, it was a gift that took time and effort. Some would draw artwork on the case insert, etc. I can’t imagine anyone cares that you shared a playlist.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jul 14, 2022)

Chris Schmidt said:


> They were better times.


It's a known thing: the more bleak the future, the more popular nostalgia is. 

We're living in very nostalgic times.

That's generally not a good sign.


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## JohnG (Jul 14, 2022)

José Herring said:


> all we really need to do to balance it even further is to start demanding greater royalty payments from streaming services providers


No kidding. If sales of vinyl, measured in dollars, are exceeding those in streaming, it’s at least partly because of the paltry payments we get from streaming. 

Spotify’s market cap is $18.6 billion, with all that implies.


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