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Born in 1973, I mainly listened to CDs and it was only much later that I rediscovered vinyl. I had a negative preconception, as my experience was limited to the family turntable, and I didn’t
expect to get such a good result: charm outweighs pure fidelity, and listening has a natural, immersive and non-tiring feel. With the improvement of DACs and the advent of computer based hifi,
the situation has changed: maintenance, wear, surface noise and the poor quality of certain pressings have taken their toll on this idyll.
Digital correction showed its potential to make listening more faithful, and I asked myself: what if I could get the best of the two worlds?
So I came up with the idea of using AI and, more specifically, machine learning to teach an algorithm the difference between a CD and a vinyl record, so as to rediscover the charm of analog
listening.
This is how the Vinyl Shaper plugin was born… Putting it into practice required a lot of experimentation, and I decided to keep three presets, as there are many different cases depending on the
recordings.
The tonal balance can also be different, which is why the plugin lets you navigate between the “vinyl” and “CD” curves.
As this plugin requires quite a lot of computing power, it is limited to a frequency of 44100 kHz (which is also consistent with sources that have undergone a not always happy analog-to-digital
transfer).
There’s nothing preventing you upsampling after the plugin to take advantage of the best DACs.
I hope you enjoy listening to music this year, and I wish you all the best “diginalog”!
Vinyl Shaper is available for testing here