Comment by don_loemax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by don_loemax | Hacker News Reader

As a club DJ who selects and plays in a digital format now, I like to leave clicks and pops in when digitizing my "white-labels" or vinyl-exclusive releases (some of the best or most coveted tunes are released on vinyl first in very small runs, months before they are available as downloads). I like to normalize then run the recording through Izotope's Ozone 7 on the "warm and transparent" preset to get it closer in loudness to digital releases I am mixing them with. There is a small community of us who share rips of this type of release from around the world, online, as the best place to pick a lot of this kind of record up is in smaller local genre-specific shops. Black Market soho in London was a Mecca of mine or Rooted Records in Bristol but I live in Cali now and have a hard time keeping up my share ratio but still get a rush when I get a great vinyl rip of a tune earlier than most. It is silly and matters very little to my livelihood but an old tradition in dj'ing that I am glad still survives (having tracks the next Dj doesn't, that is).

Why is this done? Tradition? Certainly it's an extra expense that releasing in pure digital format would not include -- and it's not like all the music is not mastered digitally now anyway -- nobody is mastering on tape and cutting and splicing....

White labels and dubplates in general hearken back to the sound system culture that originated in Jamaica [1]. Mostly a means of getting the newest songs fastest; record something in the morning, press your dubplate that afternoon, play it out that night. The unofficial nature of the recordings makes it easier to hop around copyright stuff and not clear samples, etc. The song Alicia by Mala jumps to mind [2], I don't think it's ever seen a proper release because of the heavy use of Alicia Keys samples.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_system_%28Jamaican%29 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpV7radKuwo

Again, I don't see how pressing a physical recording is making anything faster. It's a step that's entirely unnecessary if you distribute digitally. It must be more of a tradition, or a desire to mix on turntables, or possibly a way to do a limited/controlled release that is not easy to redistribute widely as a digital media file would be?

He did say this, but maybe it wasn't clear. It's faster because you can skip the meaningless bureaucracy associated with obtaining copyright permission for a tiny run - a lot of dance music samples other music. If you try that with a digital release, it can bite you if it blows up.

No, he means like if you write the flac to a flash drive. Just write it to a digital medium, rather than go to the trouble of pressing discs.

Combo of all of those, really. Particularly the exclusivity bit, songs that get pressed like that generally aren't things people are trying to share. For instance, dubplates use acetate and not vinyl, and are really only good for about 50 plays. Lots of exclusives becomes the reason to check out your party vs the one the people a few blocks down are throwing.

>Why is this done? Tradition? Certainly it's an extra expense that releasing in pure digital format would not include -- and it's not like all the music is not mastered digitally now anyway -- nobody is mastering on tape and cutting and splicing....

Actually lots of artists master on tape.

What most don't do is track and mix on tape -- but there are some that do that too.

(and mastering doesn't involve "cutting" and "splicing" much -- that would be mixing).

Dance music is typically released in a stepped fashion - a handful of DJs will receive exclusive dubs, followed by a small release on white label, followed by a general release.

This is a mutually beneficial arrangement for DJs and producers. DJs can increase their audience by playing music that can't be heard elsewhere; This exclusivity provides promotion for a track before general release.

Radio DJs have a habit of speaking over the middle of an exclusive track, to prevent it from being ripped and used by other DJs. Exclusive dubs often mention the DJ by name in the lyrics, a tradition originating in the Jamaican sound system culture.

Vinyl releases are also much more profitable, which can be very significant for niche music with a relatively small market. A typical track download nets the record label 50-70p, but a 12" white label can net £3 to £4. If you only expect to sell a few thousand copies in total, a limited vinyl run can make a big difference to the bottom line.

Your use case makes sense to me. Prior to reading your post, I was always of the opinion that ripping vinyl kills the warmth that vinyl offers in the first place, so why do it?

Thanks for the tips - I rip vinyl for the same purpose.

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