Due to rapidly developing innovations in audio technology, today’s musicians and listeners are faced with more ways to create, record, and listen to music.
In general, when new technology is made available to the public, old technology is put away in the attic or even thrown into a recycling can. Think of box-shaped cathode ray TVs that sold for hundreds of dollars ten years ago. Now, those TVs are sitting in trash heaps never to be touched again.
The same thing happened with music equipment to a lesser extent. When CDs surfaced in the 90s, many people stopped listening to their vinyl records and abandoned their entire record collections. Now that we have MP3s and Internet streaming available on cellphones, CDs are collecting dust.
But today vinyl records are making a comeback. The number of record shops in Baton Rouge seems like it’s growing exponentially.
One important product of the recent resurgence of vinyl culture is the communities that form at record shops, and even at the homes of people who want to share their collections with friends.
There’s certainly a thread of nostalgia inherent in the physical act of picking up a wide round vinyl disc and laying it carefully on a player, then dropping the needle and awaiting the first pops of sound. But it’s not all nostalgia. I think there’s something special about vinyl.
The technical differences between vinyl and newer forms of recorded audio like CDs, MP3s or streaming live in the method of storing and recreating captured sound— vinyl records are “analog” recordings while the others are “digital” renderings.
With analog recording, the sound produced is an exact translation of the wave form that the live sound being captured creates.
With digital recording, computers take bit by bit samples of points on a sound wave and use all of these samples to recreate the wave, for your listening pleasure. So many samples are taken that the entire waveform is covered.
Still, I feel as though there’s something different in the analog sound. The sound is warmer. It’s like a crackling wood fire is playing songs just for you.
Artists and production companies are capitalizing on the feeling that so many people have about the extra qualities in analog record. Rock n’ roll musician Jack White is both expanding the vinyl record industry and making quite a bit of money with new features on vinyl records, like the hologram image of an angel that appears when you play his album, Lazaretto.

But the analog/digital distinction is important in more than just recordings. Keyboardists and drummers also must make the choice between analog synthesizers and acoustic drum sets or digital modelling synths and electronic drum sets.
Electronic artist Tobacco, frontman of Black Moth Super Rainbow, is known for his use of almost exclusively analog synthesizers. There’s a strong argument to be made that analog synths simply sound better than digital ones.
Many artists are exploring how to pair retrograde equipment with state-of-the-art equipment. Radiohead is a good example of this. They use digital drum machines and digital loops, mixed with guitars, basses and drum sets to create a different, blended sound. They’re one of the first widely popular bands to have done this, but the tradition continues with plenty of new bands, Alt-J for instance.

The options that we have as producers and consumers of music are so varied that the most important thing we have to realize is the capability these tools really give us.
Simply put, artists who can utilize all the tools they have available hold more opportunity to create innovative work. Similarly, by using an MP3 player on-the-go and a record player at home, consumers get the best of both worlds. In the end, the convergence of analog and digital audio is building the future music, and that, my friends, is what it’s all about.