Why Vinyl Records Sound Bad

There are a million reasons why your brand new vinyl record sounds bad, and it usually isn't just "oh the pressing plant sucks" - let me explain to you all the ways a record can be messed up from conception to shipping, and let's talk about the mystery behind consistently sub par labels.

#vinylrecords #vinylcommunity

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[noxiouglint]

I think a lot might have to do with the fact that people don’t listen to them as much. Many are buying and shelving them, or selling. If more people had quality issues and voiced them then I think things could change. Especially in the recent popularity of having a sealed record for value.

[RyanCoomer]

at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the bufff

[Gabesmusicdiscography]

The record industry probably thinks/knows this is a bubble that will burst so they don’t want to spend the money to build new plants.

[cardnut]

I used to work for CBS Records. I remember going to one of their pressing plants in Georgia. The room that housed the pressing machines was as long as a football field. They used to have 25 pressing machines in there. When I visited in 1986, they only had 3.

[TheAllenTheatre]

So odd you should post this today. This morning, I put on my vinyl copy of Neil Young's 'Harvest Moon, ' and encountered a decent bit of distortion on the title track, and was trying to figure out why. Other records I've played lately have sounded fine, so I didn't think it was my equipment. I blamed the mastering of the album -- it all sounds a little loud to my ears, but there are parts that actually break up a bit. Need a little more investigation, but ...

Anyway, your video gave me some food for thought, on a day when the subject of bad-sounding vinyl was on my mind. Get out of my head, Matt! :)

Best of luck with the store set-up.

[SonicSafari]

Don't get me wrong, I think the mayors should build pressing plants, however the context matters too. For Third Man and VMP, vinyl is their bread and butter, but for Universal & Co, vinyl is only about a 5% of revenue of recorded music, so I can see why they are not rushing to invest (unfortunately)

[duff]

i ordered a brand new Divison bell-pink floyd. the vinyl didnt have any scratches at all, but the first songs didnt play well at all. it was soooo much weird noise.

[mjbfan]

I started back collecting Vinyl a year ago. I notice a few of my new records that are re-issues just sound flat. One day I was playing a record that was pressed in the 70s then I put on a newly pressed record the volume was low. Most of my older records that was pressed in the 60s 70s an 80s. Sounds fantastic. Now I see why some people try to find the original first press Instead of a re-issue. Now I do have some newly pressed records that sound amazing. But I’m noticing more issues with the newly pressed records.

[hortoise]

Thanks for sticking up for GZ. I have alot of great sounding records in my collection that were pressed there

[DerekPower]

Having "done this myself", I keep this in mind when preparing a master for vinyl (and hopefully this will make the master engineer's job as well as the lacquer cutter's): keep bass frequencies mono/centre as well as monitor the high frequencies in the centre (especially where vocal sibilance and hi-hats occur). This is where things like mid-side processing and dynamic EQ can really be helpful in achieving that goal.

To make this simpler: if you know you want to issue something onto a record, make sure it's mastered for it *and* you can even use that as the master period.

===

To address the overall issues, I want to say that it's been a *re*-learning curve to get back into higher capacity record production. I think it was 1990 when the major companies did a complete about-face and issued new releases on cassette and compact discs only. Through that decade, the major record plants were either shut down entirely or reduced to just a few lathes. So going into the 2010s when the record resurgence happened, it was a process of people getting back into their groove (pun slightly intended). Thankfully, there have been successes during this and there are those who were able to get it right away (and yes, this includes you =] ). For others ... well ... thankfully, we can hold the parties accountable and demand better records =]

[elcasho]

The one album that breaks my heart as poorly recorded on ALL formats. No dynamic range, everything turned up to 11. Is M83 Hurry Up we're dreaming. Adore this album but can only play it at soft volume because as soon as you turn up the volume it sounds like sh1t. Like having a beautiful sounding Ferrari but if you go over 40kph it breaks. Completely ruins the experience. If someone can remix the album I will pay a fortune

[scatteredfrog]

One reason I didn't hear mentioned in the video: Record Store Day. Many times I've gotten burned by noisy vinyl, records that are pressed off-center (in one case so much so that the tone arm hypnotized me), etc. All these special and "limited" releases rushed out for that one day -- it sacrifices QC big time.

BTW, the 4-disc vinyl version of the recent Beach Boys box set Feel Flows was either never test-pressed or was auditioned by someone with very bad hearing. The disc containing the Surf's Up album is off-center. The disc containing Sunflower outtakes is very noisy and has scatchy noises that are very loud during quiet parts and in the rills between tracks. And Bruce Johnston's and Al Jardine's voices have so much that I'm pretty sure it caused a rip in my speaker cones. Many users contacted Capitol and whoever owns them today (seems like every day their parent company gets eaten up by a larger company) and were sent replacement discs...that sound exactly the same, complete with the off-center pressing and the exact same crackling noises.

[JANEWAY]

I think the problem boils down to what is always the problem: money. The major vinyl labels only are interested in pushing out product so that they can make more money. They also don’t want to spend the money that it would take to properly correct the problem. So all of this boils down to greed, pure and simple. And unless you’ve come up with a way that will eliminate greed, this is only going to continue.

So, though this isn’t ideal or what should happen, it will have to be individuals like you taking matters in their own hands to do something about this. Big Vinyl, just like Big Pharma and other big industries, couldn’t care less about their customers. They will always be more interested in counting their profits than in putting out a quality product. And so, either we keep paying, or go to digital—which is the last thing vinyl listeners want to do.

[dontmakelemonade]

Sound Logic. Hopefully we'll see these improvements to the process and new pressing plants sooner than later.

[vinyl.masala]

I think you're missing one aspect of this whole "vinyl revival". For 80% of vinyl buyers the records are just another form of merchandise that has been put out by the artist, and they will buy it for the same reasons they are buying t-shirts, pins, tote bags or mugs. They want to support the artist, they want to have contact with physical form of their favourite music or just to express their musical taste by having records on the shelf. In many cases these people will listen to the vinyl record only once and they will be completely happy with it.

The labels have figured out a long time ago that this is just another example of Pareto principle and they have no economical justification to put more effort into quality control, better mastering or even critically listening to the test pressings.

The part of "vinyl community" which is very vocal about the quality of records is not representative to the whole market. Therefore, before I decide to buy a record I'm asking myself a question: is that just a merchandise for fans, or is it a vinyl record for people who want to use it as a primary source of music?

[jacemclain]

Ha, thanks for this video. I've noticed that on Discogs-- look up the page for literally any pressing plant-- and just about all of the comments (if any) will be stuff like "AVOID!!! Worst pressing plant EVER! NO QUALITY CONTROL!" It's like... ok then, so every pressing plant in the world is just bad? lol ok.

[davidlg]

Great video. I agree with all your points. It's a lazy approach by the labels, making money is number one for them but customer service is way down the list. And I believe they rely on the fact that most people won't return their albums so they get away it. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures with your new shop opening.

[melvinramone]

Not so much with issues like skips or non fill being in test pressings but more when it's a case of it just not being a good sounding recoding or master: I wonder how often the problem might be that the job of listening for quality is given to or taken up by a band member who has suffered some hearing loss. We all like the idea of the album "sounding like the band wanted it too" but we forget they are often exposed to a lot of music at high volume and that can take a toll. A band member might not be the best judge of how it sounds.

Also, speaking as someone who fell in love with music to Thrash Metal, early Hip-Hop, and Punk/Hardcore played on cheap boom boxes and the stock stereos in old cars in the 80s: I often really like lo-fi recordings and cruddy sounding releases. Sometimes it takes me back to that feeling of discovering a great band you would only know through word of mouth. Maybe sometimes what you might think of as a terrible sounding release might be something the label, producer or band thinks has a lot of charm.

Thanks for the video!

[theoaktownhellbilly]

I gave new vinyl records as gifts last Christmas. Perhaps 30% of the people I gave them to didn’t own turntables. They were all happy with their gifts because it was their favorite artists and because of the album artwork and a tangible piece of art. I will do that every Christmas. Before August of last year I hadn’t set foot in a record store since 2009. I love this. Thank you for your passion about music and vinyl. A great Non MALT LIQUOR Video.

[Chunksville]

Mastering is the key plus Q/A at the pressing plant get these two right and you should be ok most of the time, a lot of releases today can sound bad, and the weight of the vinyl too makes no difference it’s just a marketing tool. Pop and rock releases standard spec for decades was 140g, I have flat and very quiet sounding vinyl from the 70’s which will sonically sound better than today’s pressings.