Needledrop? WTF?

[unclemack]

I think I've missed something but I keep hearing "Needledrop"...Is this some new cool term? What the hell does it mean?

 

 

Cheers

 

M

[hired goon]

Recording yer vinyl to digital. A vinyl rip. A needle-drop.

 

--Geoff

[Guest kab]

Check out Dr Ebbetts site some good stuff there.  cheers.

Edited March 19, 2014 by kab

[LogicprObe]

I think I've missed something but I keep hearing "Needledrop"...Is this some new cool term? What the hell does it mean?

 

 

Cheers

 

M

 

I've been hearing for at least 5 years.............maybe 10!

[unclemack]

thank you gentlemen... LP I clearly have missed something.

 

Recording your vinyl to digital? That seems akin to turning your wife into a man...why the hell would you do that? ha ha

 

Cheers

 

M

[LogicprObe]

It became more popular when 24/96 recording became easily accessible for general consumers.
At 16/44.1, you were better off with the CD.

[Saxon Hall]

Sounds pretentious.

[LogicprObe]

Sounds pretentious.

 

It was a good way to share records that were rare and not available on any medium.

[Saxon Hall]

It was a good way to share records that were rare and not available on any medium.

I was talking about the term itself , not the process. My Ex had  quite a few Aussie LP's that had never been issued on CD AFAIK so I agree that it is a good thing

[LogicprObe]

I was talking about the term itself , not the process. My Ex had  quite a few Aussie LP's that had never been issued on CD AFAIK so I agree that it is a good thing

 

Sure.

I never liked the term myself but I have failed to come up with a better one that rolls off the tongue as well.

[evil c]

thank you gentlemen... LP I clearly have missed something.

 

Recording your vinyl to digital? That seems akin to turning your wife into a man...why the hell would you do that? ha ha

 

Cheers

 

M

 

Have a few "needledrops" of some of my rarer records - happy to have a comparison with you sometime. 

[Jake]

Sure.

I never liked the term myself but I have failed to come up with a better one that rolls off the tongue as well.

Same here, must be time for a new term top enter the audiophool's lexicon.

 

How about vinyl-tap. 

[LogicprObe]

Same here, must be time for a new term top enter the audiophool's lexicon.

 

How about vinyl-tap. 

 

I like it!

[aasza]

How about vinyl-tap. 

 

There's a record store in the UK called Vinyl Tap

 

Edited March 19, 2014 by aasza

[Jake]

There's a record store in the UK called Vinyl Tap

I will allow that.

[betty boop]

last thing I'd ever want to do is "drop" the needle

[Addicted to music]

last thing I'd ever want to do is "drop" the needle

Drop one of these?

Edited March 19, 2014 by pchan

[Desap]

Why not just call the process an "LP rip" or "vinyl rip" if you must

After all its essentially the same as doing a CD rip to another digital format of your choice eg MP3 (again, if you must).

I've done many LP Rips - for reasons given above, plus convenience via a computer digital playing system (SBT etc) and for playing via a CD or MP3 in the car.

If done properly the LP rips can be very good and difficult to pick from the LP - the easiest way to tell is the silence of the background when the rip is cleaned up well Most of my rips are to 96 or 48kHz, 24 bit flacs and only rarely converted to 44/16 CD's.

[Demondes]

yeah needledrop sounds like a term invented by a kid who started listening to vinyl about 20 minutes ago, and is an expert of course.

 

what the world needs is a collaborative popup needledrop social media hangout.

[mondie]

Its a snappy Americanisim hence the **** factor

[metal beat]

Unless one has a sota a/d converter, needledrops are rather pointless.

[Black Label]

The best needle drops i've heard are by dedicated archivists and feature OOP titles / rare pressings / unique masterings etc. As an example of the accompanying text to such rips:

 

"Satanic Majesties is the true oddball album amongst the Stones 60's catalogue and one that has divided
both critics and fans ever since its release day. By the time this album came out in December 1967, the stereo format reigned supreme in the States and was
slowing taking over in the UK as well. As a result, mono copies are somewhat difficult to locate. Most US
copies ended up being dumped with a cut-out hole. In the UK, quite a bit more mono copies were sold at
the time but only one of the three different pressing variations contained the true one channel mix,
while the other two were sourced from a folddown of the stereo. Regardless, the US pressings should be
considered the true originals, because the album was first mastered at Bell Sound, New York, and save from
Canada, all other pressings were cut from copy tapes.

Much effort on my behalf went into the production of this collection, because I wanted to make sure
to get it exactly right this second time around. Therefore, I invested in various different pressings
(three from the USA, and the one correct pressing from the UK with 1P/P1 on the deadwax). There were
notable sonic differences between all four of them, with the UK copy clearly having inferior soundquality.
While the recording is already somewhat hot and gritty sounding, the UK mono misses definition, has
smeared sounding transients and is more hissy. Among the US pressings I compared (with sets of 1C, 1D &
1H matrices), the 1H came out as the cleanest and most dynamic sounding, so that one was used for the
majority of this recording. Still, one thing all USA copies had in common were the quite noisy surfaces,
and thus I had to fly in some small fragments from the 1C (which was pressed in the 70's).

As a bonus, I have added the only two Beggars Banquet songs which exist in true mono. Street Fighting Man
was taken from the original US 45rpm (there was no UK single of this) and contains at least one different
vocal line that is missing on the well-known stereo version. It may very well be that this mix was prepared
before final vocal overdubs were added. Despite its lo-fi sound, the transfer used here is far superior to
the needledrop that appears on the two official remastered Singles Collection CD sets.

Sympathy for the Devil is the only track on the UK mono album of Beggar's Banquet that is actually a true
one channel mix. The rest of the album is just a straight folddown of the off-speed stereo production master.
When folding the stereo version of this song to one channel, the piano all but disappears due to being
out-of-phase within the stereo image and therefore cancelling itself out. For this reason alone, the song
was remixed to mono".

[betocool]

Unless one has a sota a/d converter, needledrops are rather pointless.

 

I'd like to see you jogging with your in-ears and a TT on your back

 

(Then again, perhaps you don't jog....)

[hired goon]

Unless one has a sota a/d converter, needledrops are rather pointless.

... or unless one wants to listen to a treasured recording away from the turntable (in the car, for example); or one's LP is scratchy/noisy and the needledrop has had some fixes applied so that one does not need or want to play the vinyl again; or one just wants to play some music without the hassle of handling records/changing sides/etc.

I've made quite a few needledrops and don't think any are pointless. YMMV.

(BTW the term 'needledrop' doesn't bother me, you 'drop the needle on the rekkid' and rip the audio ...)

--Geoff

[metal beat]

I'd like to see you jogging with your in-ears and a TT on your back

 

(Then again, perhaps you don't jog....)

 

 

... or unless one wants to listen to a treasured recording away from the turntable (in the car, for example); or one's LP is scratchy/noisy and the needledrop has had some fixes applied so that one does not need or want to play the vinyl again; or one just wants to play some music without the hassle of handling records/changing sides/etc.

I've made quite a few needledrops and don't think any are pointless. YMMV.

(BTW the term 'needledrop' doesn't bother me, you 'drop the needle on the rekkid' and rip the audio ...)

--Geoff

 

 

If one is trying to get better sound than CD, yes needledrops are a great idea.

 

If one is using needledrops as a basis of how good or bad various pressings are, let alone vinyl sound quality, unless your a/d, d/a and implementation of the analog circuits are excellent, it is rather pointless.  A bit like tape recordings from back in the day - no one tape recording is god or DR vinyl rips.

Edited March 19, 2014 by turntable