Olde Musick

With the increasing popularity of downloads, MP3s, MP3 players, iPods, etc., there is talk of compact discs approaching obsolescence.  Once car stereos achieve full MP3/iPod compatibility and iPods and similar players develop the kind of storage capacity which can accommodate the collections of the hardest core music collectors like myself, maybe then we can begin writing the CD’s eulogy.  For now, let’s look at the graveyard...

4 Track Tapes.  Originally referred to as “Stereo-Pak”, these came out before 8-tracks around 1962, and were replaced thereby around 1970.  This was the first format available in cars, as record players were not practical (though tried by Motorola); in fact, it was expressly developed for that purpose (thus the word “CARtridge”).  They look the same as 8 tracks but only have 2 programs per tape, instead of 4.  The tape has to be manually switched from the two programs, instead of switching automatically as on 8-tracks.  They cannot be rewound.

8 Track Tapes.  These were an improvement on 4 tracks, developed by Bill Lear (of Lear Jet fame) and often referred to as “Stereo 8”.  I still remember these being sold in record stores in the 70s, but we never had an 8-track deck, either at home or in the car (my parents were never music buffs and to this day are content with the radio).   I got my first car in 1988, a 1984 model, well after 8-tracks had vanished from the scene.  I have an 8-track deck, but only three cartridges: the Beach Boys Endless Summer (which I now have on all 4 formats: vinyl, cassette, 8-track and CD), Bloodrock 3, and Free Live, of which the Free tape is in by far the best shape.  By now no one around has an 8 track deck or tapes in good enough condition to reliably or fairly gauge their sound quality relative to other formats.  It strikes me that the persistence of the format is due more to nostalgia than any objectively superior qualities.

Reel-to-Reel.  This was developed in Germany in the late 1930s (does anyone remember what party was in power then?) and made commercially acceptable in the US by Bing Crosby.  I remember having one at home ages ago (early 70s); my dad was the only one in our household who knew how to make it work.  Despite not being much of a music buff, he not only knew how to work the reel-to-reel, he also built a stereo receiver by himself from a kit; my dad had an amazing array of skills (!!!).   Much later, we used a reel-to-reel to record my original “Zorak Zoran”/”Infinite Years Ago” demo in 1992 (produced by Luke), then again in ¼” size for the same pair (produced by Tom, with Kyle on bass).  I’ve been told that prerecorded, commercial music has been available in this format, but I’ve never seen a single one to this day.  I tend to associate this format with recording, whether amateur or professional, rather the music playback of existing prerecorded material.

Digital Audio Tapes (DAT).  Developed by Sony in the 1980s but never transferred to the consumer market due to successful lobbying by the record companies.  Like reel-to-reel it has remained in the domain of recording.  I’ve never seen a single prerecorded DAT cassette or known anyone who had a deck for such a purpose.

Vinyl.  This is not quite dead, still surviving among DJs and hardcore audio enthusiasts.  This format developed around the turn of the century, replacing recorded cylinders.  The first standardized speed was 78 rpm, in the 1930s, on a 10” disc, with 3 minutes of music per side, which limited composers’ options on the length of their musical pieces.  The 78 rpm format lasted into the 1950s. Later, speeds of 45 rpm (allowing 8 minutes per side), developed by RCA Victor, and 33 1/3 rpm (20-30 minutes per side, the so-called “long-playing” or LP record), developed by Columbia, became standard.  We noticed, living overseas, that records sounded faster somehow, which was because European electricity runs on 50 cycle 220 volt current, vs. 60 cycle 110 volts in the US.  One major difference between a CD player and a turntable is the ability to change the speed of playback, listening to 45s at 33 1/3 speed so they sound slow, or playing 33 1/3 records at 45 rpm to get that Alvin & The Chipmunks sound.  And of course, playing records backwards to hear all the Satanic messages.

I still have a working turntable and a fairly large vinyl collection, but I rarely listen to them as by now everything’s out on CD, digitally remastered with extra tracks.  While I do consider myself a music buff, with a pair of large Cerwin-Vega speakers, a turntable, a component stereo system (Pioneer), a good quality CD player, and having my DVD player set up to play through my stereo, I was never that much into vinyl. By the time I was old enough to develop my stereo setup in an adult fashion – the late 80s – vinyl was already obsolete and CDs were the standard.  The one advantage of records over cassettes was the ability to pick up the needle and drop it down onto a specific track, as opposed to fast-forwarding or rewinding cassettes, but eventually cassette decks developed the search capability which greatly reduced this advantage.  And the few times where is doesn’t work too well are with songs that run together anyway, in which case it’s equally difficult to find the gap on the record to drop the needle in the right place.  Of course, you’re always paranoid about dropping the needle by accident and either damaging it or scratching the record.  Though I suppose the “snap, crackle, and pop” of an old record is itself a source of warm nostalgia – perhaps someone should figure out a way to simulate it digitally (!).

            When the 40^th Anniversary version of Piper At The Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd’s first album, came out, it came in mono and stereo digitally remastered mixes – yes, they went through the trouble to digitally remaster a MONO mix, apparently because, back in the late 60s, when stereo was fairly new, the engineers spent more time working on the mono mixes than the stereo mixes, and it wasn’t until the 70s that they stopped bothering with mono mixes at all.  The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds had been recorded in mono and couldn’t be truly remixed to stereo until the digital age (prior “stereo” mixes were not true stereo), with the current CD version giving us the complete album, like Piper, digitally remastered in mono AND stereo.

Someone wrote a full article on the issue of mono, sniffing at the Syd Barrett purists as being snobs.  Yet he then went into a similar funk with regard to mono, as if to say only true music fans and connoisseurs can appreciate a mono mix; somehow the rest of us stereo listeners are missing something incredible.  With that in mind I gave the mono mixes of various recordings a listen on their own merits, but came away confused and unimpressed.  How is hearing the same thing from both speakers somehow BETTER than having the various instruments panned out left and right?  In fact, actually having a mono mix to compare, back-to-back, with a stereo mix of the same album shows how much fuller and richer, with more depth, somehow “breathing” more, the stereo mix sounds than the mono.  To me the mono crowd are the Emperor’s tailors, insisting that his clothes can only be seen by the wise.  The same might be said for the few, the proud, who still champion vinyl over CDs.  Objectively, by any means of scientific measurement, CDs have superior quality over vinyl, and stereo is superior to mono.

As for quad.  In the rare instances in which an album is mixed in quadraphonic sound, either early 70s analog or more recent digital 5.1 Surround, I do perceive a difference, both at home through 2 speakers or in the car with 4, though not as rich as you would think.  Dark Side of the Moon had a quad mix, but Nick Mason insists that the trouble of mixing in quad was never quite worth it for the tiny minority of stereo buffs with 4 speakers and the chair positioned exactly right in the middle of the room.  But that didn’t stop Pink Floyd from mounting speakers in the back of auditoriums and panning full quad output for their live shows.

            Vinyl is the first format I ever truly encountered, growing up in the early 70s in the US.  Back then, however, we were children, of course, and didn’t understand such things as not touching the surface of the record or keeping it out of sunlight, so many of our oldest records are warped and scratched.  This was also back when a “record player” would be the self-contained unit with speakers, or part of a marginally more upscale unit that might sit on top of the wooden-framed TV console, all part of a vanished time.  It’s been my experience that the vinyl champions are all my age or older, and cling to the format more out of wistful nostalgia than objective relevance.

Cassettes.  These were developed in the mid-60s by BASF, with the first commercial prerecorded tapes coming out in 1966.  By the late 70s they had replaced 8-tracks, but when CD players finally became reliable in car stereos (no more skipping) they finally lost out to CDs.  I looked in the latest Crutchfield catalog recently, and couldn’t find any tape decks, either for home stereo or cars.  I can’t remember the last time I went to the music store and found a cassette selection, aside from blank tapes, which are still consistently sold.  I still have plenty of them, a dual tape deck, but rarely listen to them anymore.  The advent of truly reliable portable and car CD players, CD-RWs and cheap CD burners has made this format legitimately and truly obsolete.   

            Two major deals with cassettes.  First, this was the first real home-user-friendly format, that is, we could make mixes, both for that special someone and just as a killer road trip mix (my so-called “Ram Air Mix”).  You certainly couldn’t do that with records or 8 tracks, and the ability to do so with CD-Rs these days is a big reason why cassettes are now obsolete.  The second is the Walkman, remember those?  To my recollection, there was never a portable record player, or a portable 8 track player, let alone a portable reel-to-reel player.  The Walkman was the first time you could actually go around listening to music somewhere outside your house or your car, which made the cassette such a great format until reliable portable CD players came around.

CDs.  For that matter, you’ll have a rough time finding CD players these days, except for car stereos.  Since DVD players will play a CD – will even play CD-Rs and MP3 discs that some older CD players won’t read – the consensus seems to be that a CD player, per se, is obsolete.  I beg to differ.  There are three major differences between a CD player and DVD player.  Unlike songs on an album, the individual segments of a movie are not mutually independent (except maybe a concert film).  You may want to skip through different chapters, but there is no reason to program a non-consecutive series of chapters of a movie, which you might do with a CD.  So the programming feature which is appropriate for a CD player is nonsensical on a DVD player.  Also, a random/shuffle feature would make a movie almost completely unwatchable:  who wants to watch a movie in random order??  But this does make sense for a CD.  I don’t use it as often as I simply listen to an album straight through (particularly live albums) but it’s still a useful feature.  The third difference is multi-disc capacity, which is really not useful for a DVD: when one segment is over, either flip the disc or change it.  But a multidisc feature on a CD player is pretty useful, even if, as with random play, you don’t use it all the time, or even very often.

Of course, “shuffle” and “random” are far more possible with the MP3 format of having your entire music collection in a database as an aggregate of computer files, making this format even more flexible than CDs.  Even then, the possibility of having your hard drive wiped out – along with your music collection on it – makes it imperative that you keep CD-R backups of the individual albums.  Furthermore, and this has been noted by several commentators on the issue of CD obsolescence, you can’t appreciate an album cover of an MP3.  Just as CD jewel case inserts are far smaller than the large, gatefold vinyl record jackets, how much more intangible is a medium which exists only as a computer file?  Tool, of all bands, goes that extra mile and makes its CD packaging truly unique.  AEnima has a dual reflecting case, Lateralus has a layered booklet as an insert (like anatomy textbooks) and 10,000 Days has a stereoscope with 3D vision.  I think there are definitely some strong reasons, quite apart from resistance to technological change for its own sake, why the CD format isn’t quite obsolete.