(CNN Espasol) – This discussion has been going on for years in online forums or meetings of friends, vinyl lovers say that this form provides the most beautiful quality of a product. Supporters Streaming – or digital audio in general – they say music played on sites is high definition. But who is right?
The answer is not so simple, both may be correct. Important is the form.
J.C. Losada, Says the Venezuelan sound engineer and producer Sona Pop CNN There are differences, and even on different platforms Streaming.
Vinyl sound and Streaming
«Yes there is a difference. The vinyl is of very good quality and the CD has high resolution Streaming Quality starts to lose and depending on the site … because every site Streaming Lozada explains that he has worked with artists such as Ricky Martin, Shakira and Carlos Santana.
“We all know vinyl has an amazing sound quality, but it has limits in terms of frequency range and dynamic range, which means size,” says Lozada.
If you take a vinyl in your hand and examine it, you will find that there are grooves or channels in that record, and that is where the songs are. These grooves “read” that information with a needle in the record player and recreate it.
The small channel through which the needle travels into the vinyl is very thin, and the needle can only move a certain amount of motion to reproduce the frequency. If the frequency is too low or too high or too intense, the needle must move fast or it must move physically, ”Losada explains.
First difference: Continuity in sound
To understand digital audio, that is, what we hear on sites like SpotFi or Apple Music, it is necessary to think about the concept behind the video.
“When you talk about digital audio, you imagine the same concept of a movie as 35 or 30 frames per second, and those frames go so fast that your eyes make motion with them. In digital audio it is the same thing. Many photos are taken in a moment of sound. On a CD, for example, you take 44,000 photos of a sound wave in a second, ”he explains.
Those photos, in digital form, are called Samples. According to Losada, they form a sound continuum when placed one after the other.
Very different from what happens in vinyl products. “The audio is continuous in vinyl because it is an electrical signal. So, since it is an electrical signal, there are no barriers, ”says Losada.
According to the Venezuelan manufacturer, the second difference is when we speak against vinyl quality. Digital audio is questionable: what design is a product intended for?
Second difference: registered products for specific formats
“The problem is, before this, when you went and bought vinyl, it sounded the same everywhere in the world. But now this is the same song I released depending on the store you are buying from Streaming, It will be different. So every site has its own algorithm, so there is always the challenge that it is different, ”Losada explains.
For example, recordings such as The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” were designed to play on a record player. For this reason, vinyl recordings do not have repetitive frequencies.
«Much of the music heard today was recorded for that format. We’m going to talk about Bob Marley, we’ve talk about the Beatles, we’re going to talk about the Queen, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, La Fonia. It was recorded and captured with a technology that is compatible with that format, ”says Losada.
What happens when an analog-to-digital product is redesigned?
“It sounds weird because you hear frequencies that shouldn’t be there,” he says.
“For example, dual bass or electric bass, which has a very low frequency that vinyl does not capture, so start putting it on when you go digital. Artifact, As they say in English, you start putting digital tricks into it, and some ‘artifacts’ start to come out that should not come first, ”says Losada.
What a platform Streaming Provides better sound quality?
According to Losada, Tidal – founded by J-Isol – offers the best quality in terms of sound.
“Amazon Music is different than Spotify sounds, Tidal is different than Apple Music. In my experience, accepting high resolution files is the highest resolution tital. “
With numerous Grammy and Latin Grammy Award nominations, Losada explains that for this reason, producers and sound engineers currently offer different combinations to meet the needs of each site or format.
«One thing that needs to be done is if I make or mix an album and the artist says to me ‘Hey, we’re going to release this album in vinyl too’, I give him two different masters. The master CD for vinyl should have a wavelength wider than that, ”he explains.
«Then you can submit multiple masters, one for Spotify, one for Apple Music, one for Tidal. A lot of this is done and offered by different masters depending on the design, ”he says.
Sona Pop CNN
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