Slash definitely has a point here. The experience of downloading a song from i-tunes is far different from taking a trip to the record store and bringing home a piece of artwork and an entire album.
The idea that the artist becomes ‘faceless’ from the lack of a physical copy with album artwork and other goodies that come from purchasing a record, but at the same time… social media well makes up for that!
Some peoples preference for the added ‘warmth’ that comes from vinyl, is really just poorly recorded bass that gets mixed in with the mids. Accurately recording bass to vinyl is actually an incredibly difficult task.
These days when you buy new vinyl records, it is often just a copy of a digital cd (which completely removes that added “warmth”) and any changes in tone can be chalked up to plain old distortion of the music.
Regardless, Slash makes some excellent points about the differences between digital and vinyl!
In a brand new interview with BitTorrent, legendary guitarist Slash (GUNS N’ ROSES, VELVET REVOLVER) was asked whether he is optimistic about the current state of digital music. He responded: “Constantly shifting is a good way to describe digital music right now. It hasn’t really settled.
“When you think of digital music, there’s so many places to get it, and it’s in such a constant state of being tweaked.
“I’m still waiting for developments on sound quality, but it’s obviously the primary way people listen to music now. I can’t say I’m necessarily comfortable with it, because it’s in this constant state of chaos. There’s so much happening all the time and it’s hard to say what’s next.”
On the topic of what drives him to find other alternatives for digital releases, Slash said: “Being a musician, it’s important to me how a record sounds, how it’s packaged, how you can make it more personable.
“I grew up in the age of vinyl, which is a huge contrast to what it feels like to purchase an album now and what that felt like as a fan, from sonic quality to artwork. Now the packaging is gone and people are recording from their laptops and their phones. It’s drastically changed and become much more convenient and immediate, but it’s become faceless at the same time. I’m excited to see how this changes in the future.”
Speaking about the current vinyl resurgence, Slash said: “During the ’90s, when the digital music thing really took off, it was, like, Wow! Look at this,’ and people didn’t pay that much attention the shortcomings of digital, because it was so exciting. And technology is great, and it’s fun moving into the future and seeing all of these new developments. But I think what’s happening now is we’ve gotten to a point where a lot of kids have gotten turned on to records and artists they’ve never heard before, that were put out before they were born. And the vehicle to listen to those records is this big piece of plastic, and it’s, ‘What the f**k is this?’ [Laughs] It’s an interesting discovery period for everybody.
“I think there’s something to be said for the sound quality on vinyl. I still record to tape because I think it sounds so much better. I’m waiting to see when digital is going to be able to develop a similar tonal quality as vinyl.“I think everybody co-exists now, people are buying vinyl because it’s cool, or because it sounds better, or because hip to have a vinyl collection right now because of digital. And any of those options is cool! For me, the most important reason is sound quality.”
