Contrarian Views on Vinyl

So once upon a time (or currently, if you're Steve Albini), the fans of vinyl records kind of sort of maybe had a point. The argument went: Well, I'm recording all of my instruments onto analog tape, so let's keep the analog signal chain intact and put stuff out on 7" and 12" instead of CDs, because someone told me once that analog can reproduce some sounds with more fidelity than digital or something like that.

I always thought this was stupid, but whatever. At least the indie labels also put their music out on CDs, so I could ignore the sneering hipsters with their old-school technology.

Jump to the present. Electronic music production is now almost completely digital. Digital synths, digital recording technology, everything computerized. Songs are also mastered digitally. Even the rare artist who uses analog equipment records it using digital media. So then -- why do electronic musicians still put music out on vinyl?! And why is dubstep almost completely vinyl-based?

You see, the argument that it sounds better on analog than digital is patently stupid, given that the music started as digital sound files in the first place. I can't emphasize this enough. It is impossible for a digital sound file to miraculously sound better when it's transferred to vinyl. A basic rule of audio recording is that sound quality does not spontaneously improve as it moves through the signal chain. Yes, encoding MP3s at lower bitrates does reduce quality, but a lossless digital file absolutely does not have lower sound quality than vinyl. I doubt that even the most ardent analog-head would be able to tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a 12".

But wait! you might say. What about DJs? Don't they use vinyl for DJing? And indeed they do. But this is an astoundingly outdated technology. Computer-based DJing is much more powerful and indeed easier to do than DJing on vinyl, and I suspect that's why many DJs turn their noses up at it: After having spent so much time to learn the pointless trade of living in the 1960's and scratchin' it up on the wheels of steel, how dare these noobs come along and use a computer program like Traktor that can create mixes so much more seamlessly? Arrogance is the only explanation. It's hard to change those entrenched ways.

Now, none of this would matter that much if dubstep labels also put their releases out on CD or -- preferably -- as downloadable MP3s from sites like Bleep. But most labels don't, which means that I can't get most of the new dubstep singles (not to mention that most dubstep labels don't have US distribution), which are often released only on vinyl. Yes, I could download them from soulseek; but I really do want to pay the artists for their labors. I listen to music only on my computer or iPod, and I'm not going to buy a turntable simply because many dubstep labels want to resolutely stare into the past rather than look at the future.

I want to point out that some labels are really great about making their releases available digitally through Bleep; fantastic labels such as Planet Mu and Hotflush are an example of what the other labels should be doing.

So, unless you're a dubstep producer recording your analog synths and 909 into your tape-based 8-track, let's please update our technological thinking to, oh, perhaps the mid-80's? Thanks.