The Great Format War

[Zalhietzli]

CD, tape, vinyl, CDr, digital (download or stream), smoke signals... What's your favorite format for noise and why ? Which one do you hate ? Why should we even bother with plastic thingies and not go full digital ? Are some formats more suited for certain releases than others ?

Feel free to discuss this and more here, controversial takes only.

I'll start by saying tape is my least favorite format for listening to noise, simply because my stereo is at the other end of the house from my work/music room. Same for vinyls*. Honestly I think I prefer CDs : easier to put on the computer, can be listened in the car and having fewer released on this format means less stuff to keep track of with all the new noise being released.

Also, what's your opinion on CDr ? I remember Sam from Phage saying on the WCN podcast that they were nowhere as good as CDs and that a CDr release shouldn't be marketed as a regular CDs. Are they more prone to failure ? What's your opinion ?
And what about 3" CDr, are people even interested in these anymore ? (I'm asking because I have a box of 25 DVD-type cases for 3" disc, and I wondering if it's worth using them for a self release, or if I should use regular sized CDr.)

Paid digital is good. If I like something and I don't feel paying too much for postage, if it's only on tape or sold out, I don't mind buying it for 3-5€ to directly support the artist.

*That said I have a sweet spot for 7". With how short they are you can't really put it on and go do something else, it's a very "intentional" listening experience.

[adult human]

All in all I believe the perfect noise format is a pro CD. This is a belief that stems pretty much entirely from those being the first things I bought so it's just nostalgia. Can't go wrong with tapes and 7" for splits though.

Regarding CD-R, there are a few reasons they should be considered different and, if you like, inferior to a glass mastered CD. The layer of a CD-R which holds the data is made from a chemical dye where proper CDs are physically imprinted onto a layer of aluminium from a master plate. This makes the information on a CD-R more susceptible to damage, corruption, wear, degradation and so on as the integrity of its composition reduces over time and with use. We're basically talking about info written in ink vs metal. It's also very easy to fuck that info up or interfere with the relationship between the data and sensor which reads it in your CD player if you're putting things on top of the disk with marker, spray paint, labels, stickers and so on. Another thing you hear about less that is a huge factor is that the components, build and mechanics of CD-R burning and playback technology was never standardised, so you end up with MASSIVE variables in quality and reliability when it comes to how the disc was burned or how its played back. Outside of this however, you're still hearing digital 1's and 0's being re-converted into analogue waveforms regardless of whether its a CD or CD-R. So, unless there are other aspects I'm unaware of (likely), there isn't necessarily a difference in the inherent quality of the audio on either. It's far more a matter of the fragility and consistency of the mediums in the long and short term when it comes to the arguments of CD vs CD-R. One will (theoretically) play back on any machine and last about 100 years whilst the other is not guaranteed to last more than 10 years, is much easier to damage and may well not play on certain machines anyway. In this regard they are very different.

With all this said, I have no problem with CD-R. Own and love many! Never felt like they were any less customisable and open to artistic use than cassettes besides the obvious physical differences.

[SS1535]

CD!

[SS1535]

And what about 3" CDr, are people even interested in these anymore ? (I'm asking because I have a box of 25 DVD-type cases for 3" disc, and I wondering if it's worth using them for a self release, or if I should use regular sized CDr.)

While I don't actually own any, I like the idea of 3" CDr/CD releases just for the novelty of it. It sort of feels like the CD response to a 7" record, which is fun.

[holy ghost]

I like tape, CD and vinyl formats, however lately I’m often relieved when an album comes out on CD and I can shell out $15 for it rather than $50. This somehow only applies to noise, other genres I am interested in - metal, punk, jazz, prog, post-punk and soul music (plus others) I’m much more committed to the vinyl format.

And how often am I able to sit in front of my hi-fi and actually listen to a record vs how often am I streaming something in the car or in the kitchen while making dinner? That’s a question for the ages…. Quite frankly I am a fan of the physical format, but I utilize digital conveniences more frequently than I care to admit….

[Capers]

Depends on the sonic qualities of the recording (frequencies, clarity or lack of it...), how the tracks are proportioned and the overall feel of the artist/recording, doesn't it? It's a case to case thing. Some stuff is best suited for tape, some for CD/CDR and some for vinyl. A good example is the quite recent CD reissue of Jason Crumer's Ruth. It was initially recorded for CD, but ended up on tape instead, stripped of all its punch and dynamic. So glad to finally see and HEAR it on CD thanks to WCN. And the other way around, a bunch of 90's noise initially recorded for and released as CDs have been reissued on vinyl in recent years. Some of them work just fine on vinyl as well I'm sure, but some don't, due to track sequences having to be changed and/or the sounds themselves being not optimal for vinyl to begin with.

CDR's are fine. You just don't buy them expecting them to play 30 years from now. I don't take that for granted with tapes either, although the chances are better.

Digital is a great thing to have when life is hectic and your only chance to lsiten to anything is on the bus to work.

[33033]

I'm open to any format.
Digital is fine but my go to now is almost always physical. If I'm at work and it's downtime I'll throw something on YouTube or Bandcamp. But that's few and far between...
I used to loathe tapes but I have 180'd on them. Great format! Cheaper to collect, a little more special feeling. My dad was a huge tape fan (and vinyl fan) and always tried me to get into them. Now that he's passed, it all clicked.
Still love vinyl, always have and will. But my vinyl choices are pickier than they were previously. They have such a prescence and I think I only want to own vinyl I think is "mandatory" for my personal tastes.
CDs are fine too. I think a lot of the hatred I felt around them in the past post-vinyl collecting madness had to do with how as a youth I sorta mistreated CDs by putting them in carrying cases and so on. Now sign me up for them! Never again will I wantonly leave them in little CD piles.
CD-R's are also totally fine by me! Are they actually supposed to degrade? I've got some 19 year old CD-R's of Suffocation and Aghast that work great...?

[violentgrief]

I love tapes but I suspect a lot of that is due to nostalgia as the first music I ever owned was on cassettes. I avoid vinyl purely because my cat broke my turntable many years ago and I never got around to replacing it, and if I do I'll become addicted to buying vinyl and I really don't have the space!

CDs are the best format in my opinion in terms of sound quality, paired with a good sound system played at a relatively loud volume.

Although digital is not my favourite format, it is the one I use the most purely for the convenience. It's also great if there is no physical format for a release because it's sold out or I can't afford the shipping from the US to the UK.

[chryptusrecords]

objectively the "best" format is tape, best for archival purposes, can be as hi-fidelity as vinyl under proper conditions, can hold any length of time in theory, plus a totally mechanical process (ie if you had to re-invent the tape player from scratch you could probably reverse engineer it from a cassette). in reality like Erik says above it clearly depends on the material. if you have an hour-plus of stuff that needs proper high- and low-end response CD is the way to go.

[33033]

objectively the "best" format is tape, best for archival purposes, can be as hi-fidelity as vinyl under proper conditions, can hold any length of time

Also if you get sick of a release you can dub over it and presto, new tape!

[Remi]

I LOVE tapes, I have a stupid amount of overflowing drawers filled with tapes. I also love vinyls but not too much for noise for some reason. I often feel like noise artworks are lacking so I'll only buy noise LPs for some particular artists I really like. Weird packaging is a total no in my book by the way, as you can't store that stuff with everything else and it just takes too much space (and dust.) Keep your art that looks like garbage and/or clutter out of my clean shelves. And I've been appreciating the CD format more and more these last 2 or 3 years. I love recent digipack artworks and for some reason, proper albums on real CDs (CDR's are good for one's car's CD player or storing data) feel like "one made it", somehow, more so than when you have your release out on an LP. I can't explain why.

[SS1535]

Here is something that may or may not be an unpopular opinion somewhat related to this topic (packaging has been mentioned!): I actually like simple slipcases for cds--like the old Troniks releases.

[Bubble-Congeries]

7" and ~10-20min. cassettes are in many ways perfect formats for shorter releases, but I prefer standard CD's in boring old jewel cases most of all. I consume fairly indiscriminantly, though I am not big into collecting LP's except for older releases.

[Zalhietzli]

All in all I believe the perfect noise format is a pro CD. This is a belief that stems pretty much entirely from those being the first things I bought so it's just nostalgia. Can't go wrong with tapes and 7" for splits though.

Regarding CD-R, there are a few reasons they should be considered different and, if you like, inferior to a glass mastered CD. The layer of a CD-R which holds the data is made from a chemical dye where proper CDs are physically imprinted onto a layer of aluminium from a master plate. This makes the information on a CD-R more susceptible to damage, corruption, wear, degradation and so on as the integrity of its composition reduces over time and with use. We're basically talking about info written in ink vs metal. It's also very easy to fuck that info up or interfere with the relationship between the data and sensor which reads it in your CD player if you're putting things on top of the disk with marker, spray paint, labels, stickers and so on. Another thing you hear about less that is a huge factor is that the components, build and mechanics of CD-R burning and playback technology was never standardised, so you end up with MASSIVE variables in quality and reliability when it comes to how the disc was burned or how its played back. Outside of this however, you're still hearing digital 1's and 0's being re-converted into analogue waveforms regardless of whether its a CD or CD-R. So, unless there are other aspects I'm unaware of (likely), there isn't necessarily a difference in the inherent quality of the audio on either. It's far more a matter of the fragility and consistency of the mediums in the long and short term when it comes to the arguments of CD vs CD-R. One will (theoretically) play back on any machine and last about 100 years whilst the other is not guaranteed to last more than 10 years, is much easier to damage and may well not play on certain machines anyway. In this regard they are very different.

With all this said, I have no problem with CD-R. Own and love many! Never felt like they were any less customisable and open to artistic use than cassettes besides the obvious physical differences.

Very interesting ! Yeah the differences between CD and CDr boil down to durability and reliability, and not sound quality. That was my intuition but it is nice to have it confirmed.

Interestingly, from all the replies here there seems to be an almost complete consensus on CD being the "best" format. Yet tape is still the dominant format in the genre, I suspect this has to do with nostalgia or just "following traditions". Or am I mistaken ? I'd be interested to hear what label people have to say about their CD sales. Are they going up signicatively or not ?

[chryptusrecords]

nostalgia or just "following traditions"

ah, the problem is production and manufacturing (as usual), most places won't do CD runs less than 500, if you are lucky you can get 100, but the price point is basically the same if not more for small run of pro CD's, whereas tapes you can do any number at home, lots of diy or 'boutique' dubbing options, your mate with a stack of decks for instance, but nobody can make glass masters for pro CD's at home.

[Capers]

I'd be interested to hear what label people have to say about their CD sales. Are they going up signicatively or not ?

I run Usagi together with my friend Dan. All our titles are in editions of 300 and have sold well. Our latest two, released a month ago or so, has sold a bit slower, but we usually have our money back + more after a couple of week. They sell well! Having said that, we always release two titles at the same time: one we know will sell good and one which is more of a gamble but which we feel should be heard (obviously we want both to be heard, but you get my point I hope). CDs sell well, I'd say. And pressing a digipak in an edition of 300 isnt much more expensive than ordering, say, 150 blank tapes with cases from Tapeline. Tapes are quite expensive now. At least in Europe.

[adult human]

a few places do 100 runs of pro cd now. This was impossible a bunch of years ago but I think as CD has generally become more outmoded in the wider world some plants have had to adapt. I've even seen a manufacturer offering runs of 50! But yes, after a while it doesn't become much more expensive to get 200-300.

[Zalhietzli]

Weird packaging is a total no in my book by the way, as you can't store that stuff with everything else and it just takes too much space (and dust.) Keep your art that looks like garbage and/or clutter out of my clean shelves.

You'd be missing on my magnum opus then !

[adult human]

And the other way around, a bunch of 90's noise initially recorded for and released as CDs have been reissued on vinyl in recent years. Some of them work just fine on vinyl as well I'm sure, but some don't, due to track sequences having to be changed and/or the sounds themselves being not optimal for vinyl to begin with.

Yes, I'm glad to see someone else say this. Records are utterly wonderful - I highly respect the work of the labels getting these editions released and own many myself, but I just don't think they're the best means of reintroducing all this HIGH FREQUENCY, FULL SPECTRUM maniac sound work back into the world, especially given how much more widely and affordably it could be done if CD was being used. The Cold Spring reissue of 'Frequency L.S.D.' is a good example of what I'm talking about. Can anyone attest to how the two compare? Can a vinyl record possibly do justice to the sheer LOUD insanity of that disc? When you then consider the interruption of splitting up hour + long pieces to fit them over 4 sides of vinyl...I don't get it. Nobody likes to admit to the object fetishism of vinyl, even now after years of it! but here we are. It is what it is. Hopefully the originals and CD box sets will become cheaper cos of all the LP reissues. We live in hope.

[Pigswill]

a few places do 100 runs of pro cd now. This was impossible a bunch of years ago but I think as CD has generally become more outmoded in the wider world some plants have had to adapt. I've even seen a manufacturer offering runs of 50! But yes, after a while it doesn't become much more expensive to get 200-300.

That's not terribly surprising. I would expect the price tag to reflect a pro run of such a short amount pretty clearly

My collecting habits have been split down the middle. Years ago, I used to collect CDs almost exclusively. But these days, I buy way more records and digital copies (though still plenty of tapes, CDs, or whatever else I can spin). I think it's because I like the physically large albums more, the analog aspect of playing music is enjoyable, and if I'm buying a CD, I can most likely get the exact same digital recordings immediately anyways. Plus, CDs tend to skuff. And broken jewel cases are such a tragedy. I've also set up the rooms where I listen to music to either play records or stream digital media, not so much play CDs.

Overall, though, I don't care too much. I actually enjoy differences between the same album on different reissues or formats (though maybe not to the extent that Andrew Liles does. Seriously, read his posts Diary of a Madman and The Hole Story). Like Laibach's album Kapital which has lots of large differences between formats which are documented in the Notes section on its Discogs release page

And of course, as already mentioned, some releases have only come out on certain formats. Even digital releases can seem limited if an artist suddenly closes an account or pulls an album without anyone having a copy uploaded elsewhere.

[Remi]

Weird packaging is a total no in my book by the way, as you can't store that stuff with everything else and it just takes too much space (and dust.) Keep your art that looks like garbage and/or clutter out of my clean shelves.

You'd be missing on my magnum opus then !

Sorry about that. Your release looks fine in that I can store the tapes in my shelf, put the cover in a folder somewhere and (unfortunately) forget about it. But I usually can't stand it. It messes with my OCD and ultimately, I just want to listen to the music and read liner notes. Artwork matters a lot to me, but there's a line where the release just stops being a release and tries to be more than that. It's ok but having it at home only makes me feel like a hoarder.

[+hp+]

FINALLY is this the first "beef" on this forum? god i have been waiting MONTHS for some *DrAmA*

[puritanwaste]

There are so many variables to consider when mulling over which format is best for which release—length of release, frequency range the artist wants to capture, production style, presentation, etc.

When it comes to reissues, all I can really say is that I definitely prefer to hear the release on the format it was intended for. Obviously, manufacturing costs, supply chain issues, and longer turnaround times for cassettes and vinyl make this a lot more difficult to pull off and I'm happy grabbing CDs when I need to. However, there are definitely times where the rip itself and the way it was remastered can leave a lot to be desired and make me wonder if anyone really needs to hear this version of the work to begin with. Most folks are doing a great job though and seem to be exhibiting a lot of care.

[+hp+]

ok check this out

320 kbps cbr mp3

you can have album art, commentary and stuff like that embedded in the file, and the nature of tags and comments and shit means you can Immediately access it from your collection using a library or mp3 player and most modern cd players also play mp3s off of compact disc. what do cds hold like 7 or 8 hundred megabytes? thats like almost six hours!

and yeah i KNOW even 320s are Lossy but i Dare Anyone to taste test and tell the difference between 320s and Compact Disc

from the perspective of an artist wanting your music to be as clearly experienced as possible with as little degradation between you and the final consumer as possible its also More Ideal. AAAAAND think about Distrobution problems! Mail Order Postal Service Costs and Taxes Skyrocketing etc

SURE you "can't display" your precious mp3s on a wooden cassette rack screwed into your wall but judging from the "social life" thread most people keep "noise life" a secret or are "dejected obsessed losers with no friends" (+cred points) (and like duh sure you can enjoy looking at it but like if/when you have people over how many are going to be like WOW THE PRURIENT TAPE WITH THE GLOVES! HOLY SHIT)

my personal favorite however is cassette but i like things that kinda sound crappy and i like the smaller lossy squished dynamic range cassette provides (its Comforting)

i know at least YOU are on my side, My Face Her Knee Pads!

[MND]

I like Cd, not only for noise, but for other genres that I listen, I find them it easier to listen to, store them and make a backup of them.

As for someone that runs a label, I do tapes because the audience I have is pretty small, I'm unable to move/sell/trade 50 tapes, so doing 200-300 Cds is a no no to me, I also live in a pretty small house, so having to move boxes all the time to do my day to day life things gets tiring.

About other points that people made and I want just to add my 2 cents:
*Releasing tapes atleast for me, it's interesting for the DIY aspect, the crazy and odd packages is something I like, things that get done on labels like Cipher, Oxidation, Fusty, ect, and I also get that they are hard to store and ship which also sucks haha.
*As for Cdrs, I don't mind them at all, them having no longevity, is something I haven't experienced which I'm confused, it's probably that I don't play them that much? Few months ago, I found some burned cdrs from like 18 years ago, when I was in middle school and they all still played fine, so I have no idea.