The decade of the twenty-teens (2010-Current) is synonymously associated with the consumer subscription service model. Content-consumers are happy to watch direct-debits leave their account recurrently each month to avail of access to the latest and greatest viral media. Long-term once-off purchase software companies such as Adobe find an improved business model in killing off their perpetual-license Creative Suite in favour of their tailor-made annual or monthly subscription plans to suit a variety of users within their customer base.
This subscription-economy can be large scale purchases, such as the Microsoft Office Suite or the Amazon Web Server, but to most participants in the model, the primary focus is on media consumption.
Consumers ingest ‘cheap’ streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, while also utilizing the ‘Subscribe-and-Save’ functionality to automate the routine purchase and delivery of household products.
Not to be held back by archaic tradition, the music Industry also followed suit with these models, heralding the popular arrival of companies Spotify, Deezer, Google and Apple Music.
Now gone are the days that the majority of commuters on trains and busses all over the world would carry iPods and media-players housing their precious, personally curated library of purchased (or pirated) MP3s, an extra device to take up pocket space along with the mobile phone, keys, wallet or purse. Now, this library can be accessed on multiple devices with an internet connection, allowing for an uninterrupted instant transfer of playlist position once you arrive at your office desk.
One may question, “Why would I move to the subscription model if I want to purchase music to support my favourite artists?” This streaming service contributes in a large-scale manner to the artists income, although in a somewhat limited capacity:
Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artists streams as a proportion of total songs streamed.
It distributes approximately 70% of total revenue.
Some of these services, such as Tidal, even offer high-definition audio streaming, for all the self-proclaimed audiophiles in the general populace. There are two types of Tidal subscription models: Tidal-Premium which offers lossy quality and Tidal-HiFi which offers lossless CD quality (FLAC-based 16-Bit/44.1 kHz) and the MQA audio codec (Master Quality Associated). TIDAL also state that the platform contributes the most royalties to artists whose media is offered on their platform.
With these three categories covered (ease of access to curated music, income support of artists and high quality audio streaming), why has there been such a resurgence in analogue media? The below image titled ‘The Surprising Comeback of Vinyl Records’ shows the staggering rise of vinyl record sales from 2006 to 2018.
Net revenue of Vinyl albums grew 13% to $224 million, but still only accounted for 4% of total revenues in the 1st half of 2019. Revenues from shipments of physical products made up 9% of the industry total for the period.
Sound is a wave of air-pressure created by introducing an object to vibration. Sound as we perceive it can be defined in a SRM model (source-medium-receiver). A source in vibration creates a tone which is translated through a medium, commonly air, and is identified and captured by receivers, our ears. The source is translated by our hearing method to sound as we know it. As the sound is created with an object in vibration, the vibrations reverberate through air particles, creating motion and transporting energy through the medium.
Depending on the frequency of the vibration, sound is perceived in different pitches. If the vibration occurs at a low frequency or rate, it is perceived as a low-pitched tone. With high-pitched tones, the source is vibrating at a high frequency. The frequency of a sound corresponds to the number of complete oscillations, the back and forth movement of the source through a medium over a set period of time. One full-back and forth vibratory motion is referred to as a sine-wave.
Analogue offers artists the simplicity of transporting their music from magnetic tape to Vinyl LP and through to a consumers speakers or headphones while bypassing the varied complications associated with digital audio conversion. To some, this represents the closest link to the artist and for how they intended their followers to hear their creations.
The volume of Vinyl Is governed by its side length and groove depth, therefore meaning the longer the album runtime, the quieter the album is.
Contrary to the assumption of most, modern-day vinyl albums are transposed from high quality, 24-bit exports from mastering software such as Pro Tools.
As part of an interview with Adam Gonsalves, a mastering engineer from Portland, Oregen, David Greenwald discusses the sound qualities of Vinyl.
Vinyl can struggle with highs and lows: High-pitched frequencies (drum cymbals, hi-hats) and sibilance (think “s” sounds) can cause the ugly crackle of distortion, while deep bass panned between the left and right channels can knock around the needle.”
Vinyl is known as a lossy or lossless format, referring to the fact that nothing is lost in its transposition to an accessible medium. Modern day streaming services, as a default, limit the quality of the media streamed and compress to ensure low data transfer to the user’s access device. Therefore, some would identify the convenience of streaming services with a limiting of the experience. That being said, streaming services generally have settings to increase the streaming file quality at the expense of a higher data transfer.
Mathematics describes an idealized version of reality, the reconstruction of a sound wave from a digital file may not perfectly match the vibrations of the sound itself. Does this mean that analogue is a more accurate representation of the audio being replicated? Particles and manufacturing errors or blemishes can upset the sound represented in analogue playback, which means that the playback may in fact colour the lossless vinyl format and drive it further from the original sound than a high-quality digital file would be.
That being said, individuals who relish the idiom of having an authentic engagement through high fidelity audio reproduction might be of the mind set that the all around best way to listen to an early album by the Rolling Stones is through the medium or format for its intended use, the vinyl record; in the same context that a user may vary the equalizer on their digital platform to better represent the genre of music being listened to.
It would be assumed that the advancements of technology in recent years would push analogue trends even further from contention with the digital mediums, and even though there is a vast monopoly of digital users when compared to analogue, the likes of vinyl LPs and tape are still present in today’s society. But is digital sound that horrendous to some audio purists?
Many of these issues stem from two points, experience and compression.
Back to the basics of digital audio; the audio playback that we hear on a daily basis is sound caused by vibrations in air pressure. These vibrations are translated to an electrical current or voltage by an input device such as a microphone. This voltage is recorded in a medium for later use by an audio output device, which endeavors to replicate the vibrations of the original input device. One of the major issues associated with this process is the type of storage medium used and the process in which this voltage data is retrieved. A convoluted storage and retrieval structure can introduce blemishes and noise (known as distortions) to the original signal, altering what our ears interpret through the alternating air pressure.
To avoid such issues, the data can be compressed or essentially re-written in a somewhat different format to take up less space.
Compression of audio in its digitized form equates to smaller file sizes, leading to reduced storage space and efficient audio transmission. Conversion from analogue signal to digital output encompasses audio sampling in discrete, regular timing intervals and quantizing the sampled values into a discrete number of evenly spaced levels. This process used in conjunction with quantization techniques is referred to as Pulse Code Modulation or PCM.
In modern day music production, it is quite a common occurrence for music producers to master a track or album with the goal of dramatically increasing the loudness of the audio output in order to stand apart from another in the consumers mind. This increase in loudness is perceived to evoke emotion in the listener and deliver a sudden intensity and impact. Since the creation and mass adoption (in the past) of the compact disc or CD in the 1980’s, the RMS (average Root Mean Square power) level of music has increased by up to 20dB. To comply with global regulations for broadcasting noise levels, many producers are using compression techniques to lter.
The process of recording audio fluctuations on magnetic tape reels has been used since the conception of sound recording in the 1870s with Edisson’s Phonograph (1877), Oberlin Smith’s idea for magnetic recording (1888) and Valdemar Poulsen’s Telagraphone (1898).
As we know It today, the process for recording audio to cassette tape is achieved by converting electrical audio signals and magnetically ‘etching’ to a reel of tape (magnetically charged cellophane), which contains magnetised particles. These magnetic particles form a pattern once etched or charged, that can be replayed by running an electromagnetic head over this tape. The fluctuations head receptor are tasted to electromagnetic waves which can be channelled directly to an audio output medium (speaker).
As mentioned previously, dynamic range is defined as the ratio of differences between the highest and lowest sound output inherent in a medium of sound, this figure represented in decibels (dB). In a simplified explanation, the higher this value is, the greater the range of volume or intensity (dynamic range). This number can also gauge how an audio medium reserves the loudness level from the original sampling. A low dynamic range can communicate a somewhat cramped sound while a higher dynamic range allows for a greater sound-stage, space between the elements of the recording so as not to muddy each other. Generally speaking, an average quality cassette tape.
The human hearing range , in a generalised explanation, has thresholds between 20Hz for low frequencies and 20kHz for very high-pitched frequencies, depending on the characteristics of the individual. We can separate sub-ranges from this parent range in order to classify the sounds in a musical manner; low frequencies at 20Hz to 300Hz are referred to as bass frequencies, mid frequencies account for the range of 300Hz to 4kHz and anything above the mid-frequency threshold of 4kHz is referred to as a treble frequency.
The response of a frequency in digital recordings is a manner of description and measurement of how well an audio output device can recreate the frequencies of the input device. For an accurate representation, the inout and output frequency range should be identical so the original signal is not coloured or altered. Once achieved, this is referred to as flat frequency response, and if viewed in a graphical manner, both input and output devices would produce identical sine waveforms.
However, achieving this harmonious flat response is sometimes difficult. Mechanical and electrical equipment used in the audio signal chain can cause interference and produce non-linearity which impacts the original sound. The acoustics of the environments of input and output sequentially can also cause issues. As mentioned previously, once a sound passes to the next component in the signal chain, it ideally should pass unaltered to the next link in the chain. However, there are some exceptions to this rule.
The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem states that if the sampling frequency (of the input device) is larger than twice the sampling range or bandwidth of the original signal, then the signal can be reproduced identically via the output device.
In conclusion, one can see that the resurgence of Analogue mediums in the music industry, in primary context, Vinyl records, is due to the experience and tangible interaction, creating a link between the music and the consumer far more complex than just pressing the ‘play’ button on a mobile app. It is not just about routine convenience provided by technological convergence of functions (e.g. multifunctional smartphone) but about ritual immersion and divergence of experiential contexts (e.g. professional turntable). In the case of vinyl, the format is not judged by its portability but rather by its aesthetics and entwinements as an object. This realization has been critically heightened and recontextualized by the general public only when the digital revolution seemed complete and consumption of music became virtual and thus easier than ever
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