BigRedX

Interesting. Unfortunately it's not the whole story, if you read the article fully you will soon realise that it's not as marvellous as it sounds: 1. It's only a carrier signal - not actual musical content. 2. It could only be detected by visual observation of the grooves, not by listening. 3. Requires half speed cutting, not something that is done under normal circumstances. 4. It was only done on a acetate. No indication whether or not these frequencies would survive the mechanical duplication processes to an actual record. 5. The test was done at 10" diameter, where there is significantly more bandwidth available compared with closer to the end of the record (as per one of my previous posts). 6. Not reproducable under normal cutting room conditions, or capable of playback on hifi systems - although there are plenty of audio signals that this applies to when it comes to vinyl. So while it is interesting, it has zero real-world applications when it comes to producing records with audio content.

The problem with vinyl is that it is hard to reconcile the physicality and often luxury of the packaging with the poorly produced lump of plastic within. I love the look of a good record collection with its expansive 12" and 7" sleeves, but as someone whose vinyl mostly consisted of indie/DIY records bought during the late 70 and the 80s, I don't for a moment miss the badly pressed discs contained within. And to get back to the OP I'm not convinced that the current additional expense of vinyl over other formats is either acceptable or can be justified in terms of production costs.

Can you please explain why a better turntable will reduce pops and crackles? I thought that these were due to manufacturing flaws or damage to the record itself. Also while reducing wow and flutter should be a good thing, IMO the relationship of the hole in the "centre" of th record in relation to the grooves is by far the biggest contributing factor. The problem for all analogue music reproduction systems is that they rely on the real-time extraction of the information from the playback media, and any fluctuations in the mechanics of of the playback mechanism will adversely impact on the final sound.

Vinyl suffers from an additional problem that the closer you get to the end of the side the lower the bandwidth that is achievable, because the stylus travels less distance with each rotation of the disc. Compare the outer groove of the average 12" disc which is approximately 925mm long with one near the end which will be around 400mm long but will need to contain the same amount of information, which at 33rpm will be 1.8 seconds of audio.

While it may well be the (re)mastering or the fact that the CD has been produced from the wrong production master (one with a vinyl EQ curve already imposed on the audio), however are you sure it's not simply that you are used to hearing certain albums in certain ways? For instance, my first record player played one side of the stereo field considerably louder than the other. When I was able to buy something a bit better it suddenly revealed extra instruments in the mix which of which I had been previously unaware. Sometimes these additions IMO did nothing to improve the songs and in many cases were a definite step backwards in my enjoyment compared with what I'd been hearing previously. BTW if brick wall limiting had been physically possible with vinyl it would have been common place long ago. As it was, one of the reasons for keeping the running time for singles under 2 1/2 minutes was the fact that they could be cut louder, which made them stand out when played on a jukebox. It didn't affect what you heard on the radio since they were already using brick wall limiting to make life easier for the DJs. Finally, regarding quality, when The Terrortones had the vinyl version of our album produced, the cutting room informed us that for the optimum audio quality each side of a 12" disc should be cut at 45rpm with a maximum running time of 10 minutes. Both reducing the speed to 33rpm and increasing the running time of the side would reduce the audio quality achievable in terms of bandwidth and signal to noise ratio.

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record.

I totally get that. However the potential for playing non-traditional percussions sounds from a drum kit is the main point of electronic drums for me.

I get that. However, I would have been worried that the inserts in the neck which had already been done might not be sufficiently vertical. Then you would have had to match the angle when drilling the body.

IME a monitor for home use is a complete non-starter if you have potential noise issues with you neighbours. To be able to properly hear the drum sounds being generated over the noise of the sticks hitting pads will require turning it up to nuisance volume levels. For at home you will need to stick to headphones.

Solid reasoning. If this had been me, my biggest fear would have been the slight possibility that one or more of the holes in the neck had not been drilled perfectly vertically, and the problems trying to match that in the neck pocket of the new body...

Brave stuff. I thought you were going to do a test run on some scrap wood first before drilling the new body?

Yes. Not sure exactly what will happen but one of my band's EU tour (supporting someone fairly well-known) which was postponed from last year due to Covid is now looking fairly uncertain.

For guitar amps it makes even less sense unless the DI box also includes speaker emulation and perhaps more importantly speaker break-up emulation.

There is zero point in using a post-power amp DI unless the power amp itself makes a significant contribution to the sound, i.e. it contains valves being driven hard. Even then IME it is the least important part (sound-wise) to the signal chain.

Be aware that even electronic kits generate a fair amount of mechanical noise which will be transmitted through the structure of the building into your neighbour's houses. IME simply the sound of the sticks hitting the pads is loud enough to drown out the drum sounds from speakers at reasonable hifi volumes. Not a problem for the drummer if they are wearing headphone but might be enough to set off sensitive neighbours if you play for any length of time. The big problem from my experience is the kick drum. The foot action will sound as though you are constantly stamping your foot hard on the floor. You might get away with it if the kit is situated in a ground floor room with a solid concrete floor, but anywhere else you will need to build an isolating riser for the kit (it will also help with any mechanical noise being transmitted through the stands). It's not as difficult as it sounds. I made one from an old table top with a fairly deep lip. I glued neoprene isolating foam onto the top, then flipped it over and filled the space with carpet underlay. Then on top of that I rested a sheet of 3/4" ply with carpet glued to it. The table was big enough to accommodate the whole kit except the drum stool which was raised accordingly. It was enough to keep my neighbours happy.

They're not. Or at least no more so then any other instrument in the arrangement. Music is the sum of all its parts. Good music is more than the sum of its parts.

TBH I doubt whether I'd recognise anyone from Blur these days. They all look like a bunch of anonymous non-entities (and did during most of their career with the exception of Alex James). There is more to bass than a few bits of wood with some chunky strings on it. There was plenty of bass in music before the invention of the bass guitar and there will continue to be after it has been relegated to being a quirky folk instrument of historical interest only. If you want to be noticed in a band, be an interesting person. Your choice of instrument does not dictate that.

OK, that makes sense. AFAIKS all the parameters are there make up a multi-sample drum kit, but the user interface isn't as user-friendly as EXS24 and if there are no kits already set up for you one you get Reaper, I can see that being a pain. Most of the kits I use were done on the Akai and then transferred to EXS24 so I did all the hard work in the days when there was no alternative. I suppose that's one of the differences between having a £60 DAW (Reaper) and a £200 one (Logic). As someone who has never used any of the drum programming plug-ins you mentioned, how easy is it to customise the kits supplied? For instance if I liked the sounds of most of the drums from one kit but wanted to replace one or two drums (complete with velocity splits) from another kit or completely replace a drum with a multi-sample I have made myself? Also how easy is it to use key mapping that is different to the standard MIDI one? Most of my kits were created in the days before the standard MIDI drum mapping became commonplace and therefore I am used to my drum sounds being on completely different keys to what had become the "norm".

Even that isn't always enough. Basschatters from Nottingham may recall "Wayne's Guitar Shack" which sold reasonable quality entry level instruments and associated musical equipment. At the back of the shop was a rehearsal room that doubled as the live room for a recording studio. Wayne also organised multi-band showcase gigs twice a month at various pubs, as well as doing general small PA hire. So not only would he sell you your first instrument(s), but he would provide somewhere for your band to rehearse, record your first demo and provide you with your first gigs, and PA hire for when you were ready to gig on your own. Unfortunately even he couldn't make this work and eventually went bust and disappeared.

As I said in my OP in this thread, I don't know about Reaper, and the downloadable manual didn't appear to have anything on their sampler plug-in. However as a Logic user I am familiar with EXS24 the sampler plug-in that comes with it, and not only does it come ready with a good number of kits all set up with GSM mapped sounds with velocity splits, but the vast majority the commercial drum sound libraries (certainly all the ones I have used) provide their samples in EXS24 instruments, and also for all the other major sampler plus-ins. I would hope that would include the Reaper sampler. Also, in the days when computers still had 3.5" disc drives EXS24 had the very useful ability to directly read Akai sample discs and translate the samples and instrument settings into EXS24 format, for even more options for drum kits. Besides IME, while they are pretty good, no commercial drum sample set is perfect for my needs and I always end up changing several sounds in a kit for ones I like better from elsewhere (either other ready-made kits or samples of my own).

I would have thought that the sampler plug-in would be ideal for drums. That's how I've always done mine since I dispensed with actual drum machines in the early 90s.

Swamp ash is any of the 40+ species of tree that are described as "ash" that has been grown in swampy conditions. As others have said the wetter growing conditions tend to make the wood less dense once it has been dried out ready for use. Whether it makes any predictable difference to the sound of an instrument is debatable since there are too many variables within the category of "swamp ash".

Thanks! That's interesting reading and although the exact details haven't been disclosed it appears from that article that NY has sold 50% of his writer's share and 50% of the Publishing share (of which he previously owned 100%). What this should mean is that both NY and Hipgnosis have to agree to any song licensing, and given NY's previous attitude to commercial exploitation of his works, especially for advertising, it might not initially be a brilliant deal for Hipgonsis. Deals like this are a bit of a gamble for both parties. NY is expecting that he won't earn more than $300m (2 x the deal price since he still retains 50%) from performance royalties before his death, and Hipgnosis are expecting to earn far more than $150m before the copyright on the songs expires.

As I asked in the other thread, which song revenue streams have actually been bought, and were they owned by the artist involved in the first place? Does anyone actually know?

Also if it was just the publishing, was it actually owned by Neil Young? Normally it's owned by a publishing company.