New Analog Disc Music Medium Combining CD + Vinyl Coming Quickly

This week, music producer T Bone Burnett (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Counting Crows, O Brother, The place Are Thou?) introduced a brand new analog disc medium for music he is developed known as “Ionic Originals.”

And he promised the expertise transcends the sound high quality of CDs and vinyl. To not point out digital streaming and different mediums, as Selection reported.

In a photograph offered to press, a prototype disc held up by Burnett seems to be very very similar to a silvery vinyl file. That is smart, it might appear, as a result of it is manufactured by portray lacquer onto an aluminum disc, with the recorded sound then etched on it in a spiral.

Vinyl LPs include PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic with no steel parts. Customary compact discs include polycarbonate plastic with a steel layer, often aluminum. This unites components of the 2.

It virtually looks as if the method merges present vinyl manufacturing with the way in which mastering engineers create steel “stampers” (and take a look at acetate discs) to press these information within the first place. Stampers are often used as “masters” for duplication, and so they do not typically attain listeners since they are not made in massive numbers.

In a press launch, Burnett positioned Ionic Originals as one-of-a-kind objects. (Ah, OK — so kinda like take a look at pressings?) He stated it is the “first breakthrough in analog sound replica in additional than 70 years.”

An Ionic Unique “is the head of recorded sound,” he continued. “It’s archival high quality. It’s future-proof. It’s one in every of one. Not solely is an Ionic Unique the equal of a portray, it is a portray. This portray, nevertheless, has the extra high quality of containing that music.”

Burnett already has a significant artist onboard for the primary Ionic Originals launch. In accordance with Pitchfork, the producer lately labored with Bob Dylan, re-recording a few of his basic materials to emerge because the debut Ionic Unique. (No launch date was specified.)

Burnett has additionally began an organization known as NeoFidelity Inc. to deal with the distribution of the discs. The producer, who’s been engaged on the challenge for a number of years, hopes to “reset the valuation for recorded music” that some really feel has slid throughout the streaming period.

From the Ionic Originals press launch:

An Ionic Unique is the head of recorded sound. It’s archival high quality. It’s future proof. It’s one in every of one. Not solely is an Ionic Unique the equal of a portray, it’s a portray. It’s lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc, with a spiral etched into it by music. This portray, nevertheless, has the extra high quality of containing that music, which will be heard by placing a stylus into the spiral and spinning it.

When describing the standard that raises analogue sound above digital sound, the phrase ‘heat’ is usually used. Analogue sound has extra depth, extra harmonic complexity, extra resonance, higher imaging. Analogue has extra really feel, extra character, extra contact. Digital sound is frozen. Analogue sound is alive.