Does analog move more air. . . ?

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lonewhitefly said:
personally, I would never make any musical or audio decisions based on any "double blind" A/B-type testing. The immediately apparent differences between analog and digital are very subtle (virtually undetectable with the variety of variables in any test). The difference is more apparent over time and reveals itself as something that you "can't quite put your finger on". It's a kind of magical energy which is just not there in digital. And I think those who believe in magical energy may be more drawn to analog, while those who don't would easily choose digital because of the obvious practical advantages.
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Sorry, but as soon as you know whether something you're listening to is digital or analogue, preconceptions start to come into play and you start hearing differences--the "something you can't put your finger on" perhaps--that aren't genuinely there. That's human nature--and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.

That said, there are also many practical advantages in analog as well (long-term archiving [i.e., future proof]), workflow, destructive nature, etc.)
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Really? What about oxide shed, tape stick, diminishing supplies of hardware, etc. etc. Analogue is no more future proof--and I have a few old reel to reel tapes I can no longer play to prove it. Workflow, on the other hand, is a personal preference. The most I can say is that digital is "different". Sometimes I miss the simplicity of analogue but, at the same time, I'm doing things I simply couldn't have done in an analogue world. This doesn't just apply to the basics either. As I type this, I'm downloading several gig of wave files recorded by my son in the UK (he is also involved in the audio world) for a previous client of mine for me to do some mixing and editing on and then send back electronically. Try that in an analogue world!
 
Bobbsy said:
Sorry, but as soon as you know whether something you're listening to is digital or analogue, preconceptions start to come into play and you start hearing differences--the "something you can't put your finger on" perhaps--that aren't genuinely there. That's human nature--and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.
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That's a valid concept that's been mentioned here and there, but I don't really think it's that simple. It's sort of like saying love isn't real because you can't put your finger on what makes you fall in love with another person.

In my case, the 'strange something' came before romanticizing analog equipment. The strange something I couldn't put my finger on that was present in all of my favorite recordings and strangely lacking in many other recordings I listened to. The weird thing that made me want to listen to my cassettes more than my CDs even though it was more inconvenient to do so and I hated certain characteristics of cassette.

There's a lot of 'I like that, what makes that happen?', THEN researching and experimenting to find out what it is and how to achieve it.

I would gladly accept any modern product that could do the job that the big, cumbersome equipment does if it really is capable of achieving the same result.

For instance, I've held onto my cheap Chinese-made $200 Alvarez 12-string guitar for many years. I've tried to replace it with many other far more expensive guitars ... reissue, vintage, made in USA. None of them achieve the same result as this guitar.

I spent over $1200 seeking out, buying and refurbishing a special audio mixer to replace my old Teac 5. Ultimately, I lost almost all of my money and kept the Teac because it worked better for me.

You see, I dislike a lot of elements of analog recording; there are severe limitations ... but I have LEARNED that in order to achieve the results I like, you have to BATTLE AGAINST the process to some degree, and accept these limitations.

I've moved large, difficult recording machines across the country several times. I've put money into repairing them. I've gone months without recording because of technical problems.

I've stressed and strained over trying to realize a symphony in my head on only 4 or 8 tracks of tape. I've lamented about how much better it sounded before the bounces. I've squeezed 20 tracks onto 8. I've nearly ruined magical performances because something crapped out.

I've made do and moved on.

And it always comes out filled with the wonder, presence and character that you cannot obtain without working for it.

Do you really think people can be so romantic and psychologically brainwashed that we would deal all of these things if it really doesn't make a difference?
 
Bobbsy said:
Really? What about oxide shed, tape stick, diminishing supplies of hardware, etc. etc. Analogue is no more future proof--and I have a few old reel to reel tapes I can no longer play to prove it. Workflow, on the other hand, is a personal preference. The most I can say is that digital is "different". Sometimes I miss the simplicity of analogue but, at the same time, I'm doing things I simply couldn't have done in an analogue world. This doesn't just apply to the basics either. As I type this, I'm downloading several gig of wave files recorded by my son in the UK (he is also involved in the audio world) for a previous client of mine for me to do some mixing and editing on and then send back electronically. Try that in an analogue world!
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Oxide shed - minor inconvenience

tape stick - ?, i don't even know what this is

diminishing supplies of hardware - this is not real. Something like an Ampex 440 will still be running (or be perfectly refurbish-able) long after we're gone. The computers that we are using to type on this forum will be obsolete within 10 years however.

By the way, tape being such a volatile medium with all of these problems generally refers to a specific era (early '70s-early '90s) of backcoated tape. Scotch 111 is by far the most reliable tape ever made. It was introduced in 1949 and most examples still play back fine and sound brilliant. That's 50+ years of reliability so far ... some digital masters from 10-15 years ago have all kinds of problems.

Aside from that, you don't even need electricity to play a vinyl record -- they are by far the most future-proof format.

yeh, you can do plenty of things with digital you cannot do with analog. but there are things you can do with analog that you cannot do with digital ... this is something many people don't seem to be willing to accept.
 
Lost masters, whether analog or digital, are due to incompetent engineering. It is easier to make digital backups last forever because they are easier to copy, but either way if the data doesn't exist in at least two places, it doesn't exist. Now I make a copy of an important session first to the second hard drive in my box, second to archival-grade CDR that I stick in my media safe, and third uploaded to the FTP server space I pay for. Yeah, if I stop paying that disappears, but that is the fourth copy of the data. All of that can be done within an hour (the FTP is slowest).

I haven't lost any of my recordings, tape or digital, since 1990. Before then . . . eh, I lost all the recordings I had, which were mostly silly and all on single cassettes with no backup. By lost I mean the cassettes disappeared somewhere, which is odd because none of my commercial cassettes did (I sold all the vinyl, but not the cassettes, most of them I ran until death). That was before my days of "engineering" :o
 
mshilarious said:
Lost masters, whether analog or digital, are due to incompetent engineering. It is easier to make digital backups last forever because they are easier to copy, but either way if the data doesn't exist in at least two places, it doesn't exist. Now I make a copy of an important session first to the second hard drive in my box, second to archival-grade CDR that I stick in my media safe, and third uploaded to the FTP server space I pay for. Yeah, if I stop paying that disappears, but that is the fourth copy of the data. All of that can be done within an hour (the FTP is slowest).

I haven't lost any of my recordings, tape or digital, since 1990. Before then . . . eh, I lost all the recordings I had, which were mostly silly and all on single cassettes with no backup. By lost I mean the cassettes disappeared somewhere, which is odd because none of my commercial cassettes did (I sold all the vinyl, but not the cassettes, most of them I ran until death). That was before my days of "engineering" :o
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true, lost masters are due to human negligence.

Factoring in the inevitable human element, I think analog is a safer bet long-term.

Your response seems to support my theory. You're listing all of these things you have to do (which many people will not do) ... and this is only for 'important' masters. What if something is deemed 'unimportant' today and later becomes important (certainly the case with many older masters from the '60s-'80s)?

Let's say John Lennon grew up in the digital age and all of his private home demo recordings were done on his laptop. Over the years, he upgraded, replaced computers, things crashed, etc. I would guess it would be easier to find his recordings in a closet in a shoebox filled with cassettes than it would be to locate them on this variety of hard drives. That's what I mean by future-proof. Yes, things get lost, accidents happen, etc ... but the physical is more likely to stick around than the virtual. it's also more likely to be retrievable by others this way.

real-life examples: I'll bet most people reading this have lost a lot of digital photos over the last few years that were never printed (I know I have). I'll bet the photos that were printed are still sitting in an album or drawer somewhere.

I myself have nearly every analog recording I've made (important or not) since I started as a teenager in 1997. Everything plays back fine. Anything that was done digitally in the same time frame in previous bands I was in, etc. seems to be long gone unless it was burned to CDR, and some of the CDRs have begun to deteriorate.

If we want to predict the future, all we need to do is look to the past. Even recent history shows analog to be a more reliable means for storage. Digital's ever-changing nature means constant upkeep, which sort of defeats the purpose of the concept of an 'archive'.

some reading:

http://www.hometheater.com/content/digitally-stored-music-vanishes

http://sarantakes.blogspot.com/2011/05/blog-lxxviii-e-books-just-say-no.html
 
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lonewhitefly said:
For instance, I've held onto my cheap Chinese-made $200 Alvarez 12-string guitar for many years. I've tried to replace it with many other far more expensive guitars ... reissue, vintage, made in USA. None of them achieve the same result as this guitar.
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I've got an Alvarez 12 string too and it is easily the best 12 string I've played. Seagull has a good one too. I don't think it was made in China though. This is probably from the nineties. As what happens a lot with 12 strings, the bridge lifted and I got some warpage in the top, but they have these "bridge jigs" now you can mount inside the guitar to pull the face back down and keep it flat. They work pretty good.
 
lonewhitefly said:
true, lost masters are due to human negligence.

Factoring in the inevitable human element, I think analog is a safer bet long-term.

Your response seems to support my theory. You're listing all of these things you have to do (which many people will not do) ... and this is only for 'important' masters. What if something is deemed 'unimportant' today and later becomes important (certainly the case with many older masters from the '60s-'80s)?

Let's say John Lennon grew up in the digital age and all of his private home demo recordings were done on his laptop. Over the years, he upgraded, replaced computers, things crashed, etc. I would guess it would be easier to find his recordings in a closet in a shoebox filled with cassettes than it would be to locate them on this variety of hard drives. That's what I mean by future-proof. Yes, things get lost, accidents happen, etc ... but the physical is more likely to stick around than the virtual. it's also more likely to be retrievable by others this way.

real-life examples: I'll bet most people reading this have lost a lot of digital photos over the last few years that were never printed (I know I have). I'll bet the photos that were printed are still sitting in an album or drawer somewhere.

And in any case, I'm comparing like-for-like: One reel of tape vs. one folder in a hard drive. One vinyl record vs. one CD.

If we want to predict the future, all we need to do is look to the past. Even recent history shows analog to be a more reliable means for storage. Digital's ever-changing nature means constant upkeep, which sort of defeats the purpose of the concept of an 'archive'.
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I'll go technology one leap ( OK maybe 2) backwards. I am still copying 78rpm gramophone recordings to a "more permanent" media in this case digital. HA! Theres nothing wrong with the 78 source material. On top of that it truly can reproduce without electricity, simply mechanical. system, but I digress. Tape seems similar in terms of long term viability, barring sticky/shed which is an anomaly, not the norm. It would be easier to find a machine to play back an analog recording made in say 1980 versus a digital recording made in the same time. When is the last time you saw a 10" floppy drive. Digital's rapid forward march has it changing technologies at ever decreasing intervals, or it seems to me. At some point the technology stops supporting backwards compatibility whether 10 years or 20 or..so if someone isnt making a concentrated effort o convert them to new file systems or whatever, they are being lost, are they not?
 
mdainsd said:
I'll go technology one leap ( OK maybe 2) backwards. I am still copying 78rpm gramophone recordings to a "more permanent" media in this case digital. HA! Theres nothing wrong with the 78 source material. On top of that it truly can reproduce without electricity, simply mechanical. system, but I digress. Tape seems similar in terms of long term viability, barring sticky/shed which is an anomaly, not the norm. It would be easier to find a machine to play back an analog recording made in say 1980 versus a digital recording made in the same time. When is the last time you saw a 10" floppy drive. Digital's rapid forward march has it changing technologies at ever decreasing intervals, or it seems to me. At some point the technology stops supporting backwards compatibility whether 10 years or 20 or..so if someone isnt making a concentrated effort o convert them to new file systems or whatever, they are being lost, are they not?
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exactly ...

ha, I'll bet those 78s outlast the 'upgraded' format you're transferring them to! honestly though, 1/4" tape is probably a good bet to archive 78s. even if the tape goes 'sticky' over the years, it can still be baked and played back to transfer down the line. a lost or degraded digital file is generally bad news. 10% loss in analog means 10% of the audio might be compromised; 10% loss in digital usually means 100% screwed up.
 
Corvette said:
I only wish George Carlin were still alive and could be convinced to do a skit on analog vs digital.
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I think Carlin’s pothead jokes about loss of long-term and short-term memory pretty much covers it. If people could remember beyond last Tuesday we wouldn’t have to repeat everything every time. I have an unusually good memory I know and it’s probably to the point of not being fair to mere mortals here.

I don’t know what it feels like to forget info and what everyone here has said already since I’ve been a member, but Holy Mother of God! Is the average person as represented on these forums really as forgetful as they appear? I can’t imagine that person would be able to remember how to drive a car from one week to the next. It must be people aren’t listening and really don’t care about learning something they didn’t know before. Why would someone not want to become correct even if they stand corrected once in a while to get there? People are funny creatures…. or they really have done way too much Marry Jane.
 
But we're at 22 pages already. I'm sure we can go for the record in terms of "two divergent opinions that will never meet" postings.
 
. . . And what's the deal with CDs?. . . They don't even fit in your pocket !. . How can you call something "compact" if it doesn't fit in your pocket? . . .

Oh, I'm sorry. . .That's Jerry Seinfeld. . .
 
lonewhitefly said:
true, lost masters are due to human negligence.

Factoring in the inevitable human element, I think analog is a safer bet long-term.
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Maybe, but tons of tape has been lost to negligence or practical considerations. A lot was simply thrown away. Other tape was recorded over, sometimes another session, sometimes other tracks on the same session.

Most people are going to be too lazy for proper backup procedures, tape or digital, that's the reality. Where is your tape stored? Your house? Is it protected from fire? Do you have backup storage offsite in a fireproof location?

It is so cheap to make multiple copies and offsite copies of digital music that is facilitates the process *if* the engineer isn't completely lazy.

One can also release music to the public via any number of sites which means that many more copies will likely be created and stored in various locations.
 
The name of this thread should be changed to "How many Trolls can you fit in a thread?"

Thanks to mshilarious for being where the rubber meets the road and simplifying an uncomplicated but complex issue by using proper analysis. I'm still waiting for the results to your challenge, just not holding my breath, lol.
 
NYMorningstar said:
The name of this thread should be changed to "How many Trolls can you fit in a thread?"

Thanks to mshilarious for being where the rubber meets the road and simplifying an uncomplicated but complex issue by using proper analysis. I'm still waiting for the results to your challenge, just not holding my breath, lol.
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"Trolls"? Or people with legitimate opinions and arguments?

VP
 
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