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Something I teased in last week's entry was getting my hands on some physical CDs, which I spent a good chunk of one of my days completely scanning. As I strangely do actually know a little bit about physical media printing processes from my wasted time in college, I thought it'd make for a nice, simple post that you can see some pretty scans from. Native resolution versions available here for now.
I finally picked up a physical copy of an insanely good album from internet legend Neil Cicierega, released under the Lemon Demon pseudonym, partially to answer a couple questions I had with my...less than official copy I had before, regarding the bonus commentary track. To briefly summarize, the commentary track advertised is released as an MP3, while the actual mastering (technically remastering) of the tracks themselves are lossless. But what caught my attention on unboxing that I'd had never gotten to really experience before is, how much physical media releases spoil you.
Maybe I'm not used to getting nice things, but there's a lot of clear detail and love put into everything here, and I knew I had to go about scanning as much of it as I could. The first detail that stood out to me though was...
The discs were...red, and it didn't even occur to me at the time that it was possible to color CDs anything else but clear and reflective. It also peeks out from under the front label as well, giving the disc a subtle but distinct red outline that just makes it feel more...imposing somehow.
What others may find cooler though was the pages of art in the little booklet, occasionally paired alongside...
Lyrics, which I'm a little more familiar with. It's kind of a strange window into physical media I hadn't gotten the chance to experience like this before, especially something I thought I knew quite well. This little intimate window into a physical release of an album I've listened to well over a dozen times was something I was, holding. It was mine.
But, the coolest part to me are the details a scanner can pick up that your weak eyes may not, just like a spectrogram can show you details in a song you can't hear. What you're seeing is a rosette pattern, and the illusion it can give off is called the Moiré Effect. Both of these you can get the basic details of from this article, but to summarize it, that's just how modern printing works. Everything is a series of dots that your eyes blend together to make a single clean image. Scanners also pick up an incredible amount of detail in the art and physical media that you might not have caught on to otherwise.
Apologies for this post being a little late and short, flight stuff always disorganizes me. I'll be in California next week to possibly hunt down some more subjects to write about, but shouldn't disturb the weekly flow of these any further. Hope you enjoyed the post as usual !
(2023-5-22 Update: Fixed broken Imgur links, migrated to imgbb, and added [M-Mu] tag)
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Wyndia
This is super cool! I still have the old version of the cd so I was wondering if the newer ones looked similar, super cool scans dude
Oh thanku, glad you enjoyed the scans, it was fun compiling them all ! đŸ’›
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Felix
Those color CDs always remind me of PS2 discs. That's the only time I've frequently seen CDs with some reflective color other than silvery. Never seen red though
Huh, that's a good point actually, I know PS2 disc color had to do with CD vs DVD printing standards, but I also distinctly remember PS1 discs were black too, though I think that had to do with copy protection stuff
by Aethena; ; Report