OK, my title here is a bit of a sweeping statement. Digital music is not killing all pubs, and we can all point to some establishments that seem to thrive playing mp3s and CDs. However, most readers will be painfully aware of the rate of pub closures over recent years, and it is my suggestion that digital music – especially mp3s – are driving people away from pubs rather than enticing them in.

Many musical pubs are popular for the recorded music they play as well as live bands. A good example here is the Bell in Bath, but a few years ago it became apparent that almost everyone who came to hear the Sunday lunchtime bands would leave immediately after the musicians fnished. The pub would empty within 30 minutes of the band fnishing, and I wondered, “why did they all leave so rapidly?” Last year the pub began playing records instead of CDs when the bands fnished, and the effect was dramatic. Many more people stayed on for the afternoon and later. A vinyl-only policy has also helped boost receipts on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, suggesting “Digital (CDs, Mp3s) = empty pub” and “Analogue (Records, Bands) = full pub”.

A possible explanation may be found using an analogy with visual experience. Suppose you travelled to Paris to see the Mona Lisa, and when you got there you found you were looking at an enlargement of a low-resolution jpeg. Instead of being able to see brush strokes, pig- ments, fabric and signs of genius, you would see pixels in 256 colours.

To record sound digitally, the smooth musical waveform is ‘sam- pled’ thousand of times a second and represented by a series of numeric values.  These values are then converted back to an approximation of the original wave by the digital player. In principle however, no digital recording is able to reproduce the original wave accurately. To make things worse, mp3s were designed to compress music into the smallest practical fle size to be transferred across the web in the days of dial-up connections. While a jpeg can be good enough for a web page, far more detail is needed for a large high-quality print. In the same way, CDs and mp3s can sound reasonable on ear buds or in a small room, but played in a larger room – a pub for example – the loss in detail becomes apparent and the auditory ‘pixels’ become more prominent than the music itself.

Many ‘experts’ maintain that a sampling rate of 44.1kHz (usual for CDs and many mp3s) is high enough to trick our ears into hear- ing something that is close to the original sound, and many people are apparently unaware of the limitations of digital playback. However, 44.1kHz is only just one octave above the highest range of many human ears, and some have suggested that this generates an effect similar ‘The Mosquito’, a high-pitched noise machine that is sometimes deployed to prevent people loitering where they are not wanted (e.g. outside off licences). In other words, it is possible that mp3 players actually repel people from pubs, albeit on a subconscious level. Music fans in Bath will be of no doubt that something drastic has happened to close so many fne musical pubs – the Porter Butt and the Hat & Feather are two prominent examples, while pubs like the Old Green Tree and the Star in Bath (which play no recorded sound at all) are as busy as ever.

As Luke Daniels, former landlord of the Cornubia in Bristol (where he always had a record player available for his and customer use), explains: “I am defnitely a vinyl head... There is certainly a noticeable difference between formats, with vinyl being much more revealing – you notice and can hear more of the sounds that were recorded. And you seem to have a more emotional reaction to the music played, because it is analogue. This is a subconscious thing. In a nutshell, vinyl sounds clearer and fuller and you enjoy the music more...” Vinyl is on offer at the Bridge Inn in Bristol, where arrangements are very relaxed when I visit. The turntable is easily accessible to customers, and a varied collection of 33s and 45s includes all-time classics from Hendrix, Floyd and the Doors. Many genres are represented and the collection is frequently bequeathed more vinyl from regulars. Pints of guest beers ‘Xmas Cheer’and ‘Charlies Angel’ are gleefully consumed while I’m delighted to fnd that most records are in remarkably good condition. When customers are queuing to put records on, a ‘one side rule’ is in operation, but our hosts are happy for us to choose what we want this evening. As well as three shelves of vinyl available downstairs, there’s a ‘special collection’ housed elsewhere for safekeeping. A fruit machine was removed three years ago to make space for the records and has been “the best thing that ever happened to the pub since the telly broke” according to the regulars. Kasia the landlady is very happy with the arrangement, as it keeps customers happy and there are few records here she doesn’t like.

Regulars generally keep an eye on things, and are on hand for help if you’ve never operated a turntable before – they laugh retelling the story of one customer who tried to play an LP still in its sleeve.

Of course there are some people who continue to defend digital reproduction – but not usually in places that offer a vinyl alternative.

Some claim, for example, that “in an otherwise noisy pub you can’t hear the difference” but I do not agree. Ironically, while customers may not be able to hear the ‘music’ clearly in a noisy pub, the digital ‘sizzle’ distortion (characterised by its high pitch and consistency) is often the most prominent contribution from the speakers. A poor quality system will also amplify distortion in favour of a pure signal, and in both cases the physics of waves dictate that distortion travels further across a room than lower frequency sounds, for the same reasons that the ‘tinny’ sound of someone’s ear buds can fll an entire railway carriage.
Get your records out, or try sampling the extensive selection at the Bridge Inn where they have a turntable which can be used any time. In Bath, the Bell hosts ‘open decks’ on Thursdays, ‘bring your own vinyl’ sessions on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, plus vinyl Djs Friday and Saturday nights. Needless to say, both pubs have great selections of real ales.

All your views welcome.
Simon Rigby ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )