For all you old guys

[guitarfreak12]

Ok I don't know what forum to put his in. So if it belongs somewhere else, tell me.
I just have a general question/discussion, For all the guys who have been recording for more than 10-15 years. Before all this digital stuff started becoming more available.
Analog recording and digital back then from my understanding was very hard. Not that this stuff isn't hard now. but it required more patience, more creativity, and stamina. I think it was more of an art form than it is today. Just to get what you wanted down perfect, and not lose everything in the process seems like it can be very trying. Plus So much more talent seems to have been required. I say this, because I have tried some analog stuff, and I have been around analog before. And I could not record what I have recorded with the minimal amount of experience I have, if it wasn't for the ease of digital. Albums can be created in a fraction of the time it used to take. This is what I gathered anyway.
So my question is this, are any of you who learned how to record in the analog world, a little resenting of the ease and sometimes lack of respect that comes from the faster, easier less analog world. Do you get a little pissed off that someone can now just come along and do what ever he can think up with jest ten or twenty clicks of his mouse, when before it took you 40 hours of sleepless worry. And it really can only cost you the price of a small program, in come cases free (assuming you already have a computer) and a cheap mic and pre, and turn out some alright stuff, when it took you thousands of dollars and four times as much time, to turn out alright stuff. I know that I used to get pissed off when I grew up (being the oldest of 4) and saw my parents letting my siblings get away with stuff I never would have been able to do. That's a weird analogy, but it's all I got. I may be way off, and please don't think I respect guys who have only the digital experience any less, because you are still better than me at what you do. And I might have accidently started some bad thoughts in my way. But I have sort of a different respect for the guys who know a different world of recording, when it was really hard.

[Han]

Actually I find recording in the analog domain a lot easier, I can record 48 tracks simultaniously without any problem and with a killer sound.

Back in the late fifties/early sixties, all what engineers had was a two track tapemachine and a simple mixing board. Yet the recordings of Bill Putnam Sr(Frank Sinatra) are among the best I've heard so far.

These days we are jabbering about monitor X and microphone Y, don't forget guys like Bill Putnam had to design and build their own equipment, because it just wasn't there. He designed one of the best sounding studio's in L.A. whitch had a money flow of one million dollars per month as I've read somewhere.

Digital may be very convenient and one can make any crappy musician sounds good, but that doesn't mean it's any better. The tape I record today can be played in a hundred years from now. The DAT will not, nor will any hard drive work when it's in a closet for five years.

Remixes can be made from recordings of Beatles and Rolling Stones. Will it be possible to make a remix from PT recordings in 2050?

No, recording in analog isn't hard at all, you just got to have great musicians.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Digital and analog both have challenges. The great thing about now is you have a choice in the matter, and a hope to do something good sounding on less than professional gear.

When I started as a hobbyist (1988) the only things you could afford was a 4 track cassette portastudio that sucked and cost 1200-1500 bucks by itself.

[glimmer_doll]

I think all the digital stuff has made for a lot of lazy productions. There's a lot less ingenuity, hard work and love going into recording music today. And having everything handed to you so easily also makes you appreciate it less...

I understand the interest in a home recording aspect...but for pros, i think it's just inducing laziness...

Welcome to todays society of convenience and disposability

[guitarfreak12]

Originally Posted by glimmer_doll

I think all the digital stuff has made for a lot of lazy productions. There's a lot less ingenuity, hard work and love going into recording music today. And having everything handed to you so easily also makes you appreciate it less...

I understand the interest in a home recording aspect...but for pros, i think it's just inducing laziness...

Welcome to todays society of convenience and disposability

Thats exactly what I was trying to make a point of, I think we've lost our creative edge in a way and love of it because it's so easy to click on a reverb plugin, or use the thousands of presets on any given effect. Not to mention these so called "musicians" today who just patch together a bunch of loops that were almost put together for them on some website or preset, they just added some words. Plus, look at how many people are putting out records, compared to even 5 years ago. Everyone who has got any fame, not even 15 min, more llike 2, is puting out an album, not they're songs, they just can be "made" a good singer like Han said. I never said that digital was better. Analog, when it done by the right people is always better than digital. Trust me, that's not what I meant. I just meant, it's easier, and less emotional.

[lpdeluxe]

I always thought the difficulties were part of the creativity. When you want stereo drums, bass, rhythm & lead guitars, vocals & backups, and maybe a little pedal steel or mandolin and 4 tracks, you had to think about things a little bit. Now I've got 128 tracks and somehow I don't know if the same amount of creative sweat goes into it any more.

But I wouldn't go back to analog if you held a gun at my head!

[A Reel Person]

I don't know about analog being harder, or 40 hours of work with sleepless worry. It's not that analog was harder, but digital's become too easy, that some things are taken for granted,... like the notion that everyone can do it the same or better, based on platform or gear itself. Digital or analog, good recordings take a lot of ingenuity, know how and ear training, to get above "alright" results.

I don't begrudge that you might take 4x more time on analog, than digital. It's not necessarily true, or cast in stone, like that. It may be the opposite, or a matter of perception. For some people, flipping a simple toggle switch is quicker than paging through menus and submenus, to access the same function.

Not all 4-track cassettes were created equal, but I would never paint them all with a broad stroke that they suck. They don't suck, in the least, if you're talking about the high end Tascam Portastudios. Fostex 4-trackers were never that great, although Yamaha had some progressive designs in 4-track cassette all-in-one'rs. There's a whole spectrum of 4-track cassette based units. (8-track cassettes from Tascam & one from Yamaha, too!)

To the true analog enthusiast, digital's not "all that". Why begrudge that people choose to use something that basically sucks, namely, a mocked up digital image of a mixer and recorder, on a computer screen. Honestly, if you really get the optimum out of analog gear, digital hifi's not that spectacular in comparison. To just assume that digital just kicks analog's ass all over the playground, is a kneejerk reaction to all the hype you've heard, and somewhat of a misconception.

Digital and analog recording gear are just tools, and there's a wide variance of sound quality you'll get, mostly based on the talent behind & in front of the mics. Beyond that, it's more of a personal preference, of the user's environment you'd feel most comfortable working in. There's a difference in sound quality you'll get with either digital or analog, and you just have to choose your preference, based on your own ears.

I've seen the digital "revolution", and very soon after it all began, there became an insatiable need to get digital to sound more like analog. Analog, itself, was already on a development curve to maximize hifi audio, to begin with, all those years up until it was dropped.

People who go on about unbearable hiss of analog tape & everything about inferior sound quality, are just exaggerating, plain & simple. Where's the hiss on Rumours, Quadrophenia, The Magician's Birthday, or any live Hendrix performance ever taped? (...besides the bootlegs). You can't tell me those are not superior pieces of hifi sound works. And that's just a few examples.

I've used both analog & digital, at my own home recording level (not pro), and I think you have to try a lot harder to get a pleasing sound on digital than analog, and not the other way around. Where analog becomes more difficult, is in editing, where digital's really taken the cake on that one.

However, you'll hardly hear people exclaiming the excellent editing of an album, as a part of what's exciting about the sound, with only a few exceptions. More likely, you'd be inclined to rave about sound quality.

Bottom line, we're so far down the road now, with digital & the PC culture, that digital recording is able to exist in this mythical superiority, by virtue of being the only game in town. It's taken for granted that digital is better, mostly by people who've never experienced analog recording, first hand.

However, I'm here to tell'ya, digital isn't "all that" it's cracked up to be, and some right thinking, level headed people with perfectly fine hearing and sound judgment, prefer analog.

The good part, is there's plenty of true analog recording gear that still exists, that it's not all the "legends" that old farts like me would paint for you. Real people are still making plenty of good recordings on analog gear,... and in the end, there's room for everyone to do what pleases himself best.

If I were relegated to a recording world with no analog recording, I'd simply give it up, rather than slog through the uninspiring and flat world of screens and menus. Same for digital gear in analog formats, it's a bit more tolerable, but not as great as the real thing.

However many people flock to digital recording, the better, and it won't sway the real analog enthusiast. In a real world comparison, the gap between analog and digital sound quality is not that stark or mind blowing, to say categorically that digital blows away analog. The notion of the overwhelming superiority of digital over analog is just a self perpetuating myth, that by virtue of having no analog gear in comparison, is equivalent to getting away with "the big lie".

... & you heard it here, first.

Now, don't get me started, or I'll lay a really long post on'ya'asses!

[lpdeluxe]

It's true that a LOT more people are into recording now that PC and hard drive digital recording are relatively inexpensive, but success still comes with hard work, obsessive attention to detail, and -- of course -- great music well performed. The kids who think you can buy an all-in-one box and get the same results you hear on the top 40 are wrong...but for all the many who try it out, get disappointed and go on to something else, there will a few who figure out what they want to do and find the tools to do it with. I'm not into the great "which is better - analog or digital?" debate because the digital gear available to me RIGHT NOW is 'way better than the best analog gear I was ever able to afford. But I don't buy into the idea that digital somehow lets me off the hook. Somebody said, "it's not the arrow, it's the Indian," and that's forever true. Someone else asked "where are the digital Beatles?" Coming in due time, coming in due time. Meanwhile one of the joys of affordable recording is that we get to listen to entire generations reinventing the wheel and replicating our mistakes....

[guitarfreak12]

REEL, Delux.......solid, very solid.

This is what I wanted to hear.

[lascalaboy]

I think they are both mediums that have their good and bad points and are suited to their own uses. A bit like photography... film or digital? It's like asking an artist which is better, oils or watercolours? they are both mediums to be used. It just so happens that some of us are born into the digital age and find it easier to use digital.. but that's ok. Those who prefer analog, that's ok too...

[Wireneck]

But tape is so WARM?

[MadAudio]

Okay, here's my take, and you'll have to forgive any rambling as I am PWD*.

I've been messin' around with tape since I was a toddler, but I got seriously bit by the audio bug in the mid-'80's. I was playing guitar in a local post-punk band, and our bass player had bought a Tascam Porta-One that he didn't like, and thought I might want. At the time, I had been experimenting with two cassette decks and a cheapo Radio Shack mixer. I'd record an instrument (usually drums first) onto the first deck, then play that back through the mixer while playing another instrument, usually the bass, into the second deck. I'd continue the process until I had a complete song (and a lot of hiss). So the Porta-One was a blessing. It was then that I really started learning about the why's and how's of audio. It wasn't enough that I could record a bunch of tracks easily. They had to sound good. So I started learning about mics, processing, mixing, engineering, everything I could. (I eventually went to a local recording school, but I found I had already learned a great deal on my own.) And this was all in the analog realm. Digital was still blossoming, and it was an expensive and exclusive medium at the time. I recorded at some of the best local studios, and got to "talk shop" with the engineers (Don Zientara and Jim Fox spring to mind), and they shared some great info that I still use today.
So when digital started becoming affordable, I was already armed with a lot of theoretical knowledge and practical experience that made the translation easy. All that time spent learning in the analog realm was worth every second. But DAMN I love the ease of digital editing. One band I was in used to produce our own radio spots for gigs that would play on DC101 and WHFS. We recorded them all on my Tascam 38. Man! Doing punch-in's for SFX or music beds could be a pain, especially after a few beers! When I got the computer into the picture, it was a pleasure to make those spots. And the stuff I can do with songs now would take ages in the analog realm.
But I'll tell you, after spending some time here and reading some great insights, I think I want to try summing my computer mixes through my board instead of doing it all in the box. I do miss tweaking outboard gear, and actually riding faders and stabbing at mute buttons during a mix. It's almost like you're playing an instrument....

So what does this all mean in relation to the start of this thread? I'm old enough to remember a time when CD's didn't exist, and now I'm making them at home. Fair is what you want it to mean. Either you pursue your passion or you don't. Who gives a smeg what "kids today" can do? I see "kids today" impaling themselves with metal, or having ink injected into their skin, but it doesn't make me envious!

Reel, I am diggin' everything you said.

*PWD: Posting While Drunk.

[Ronan]

In truth we are not really discussing analog versus digital; we are arguing linear versus randam access recording and editing mediums..but I digress.

I guess I am an old fart even though I get to be a 30 somthin' for a few more years. I started on analog but was an early adopter adopter of the role of computers in music. I was using computers for sequencing etc in the mid 80s and I would be surprised if there was anyone on this board that has been using Pro Tools longer than me (there are probably lots of guys here better than me at running PT!).

As a guy that bounces back and forth and often combining the two, I find they are very different. Editing is easier on a computer, but not really the whole flow of working. I often find that I can make records a lot faster on a 2 inch machine than a DAW. In the analog world you commit to decisions and move on. On a computer you end up dicking around with stuff later.

But most importantly the experience of working on analog vs. a computer is a different experience for all involved. especially the musicians. I usually find musicians more creatively involved when there is not a computer in the room, and also when there is not a computer to "fix" things later the musicians will work harder and play with more intesity. The extra effort ends up on tape.

Also when you are trying to create sounds with out a computer you generally get more creative results that are more unique. Oh yeah and there is that whole thing about analog still sounding better.

[MadAudio]

Originally Posted by ronan

and also when there is not a computer to "fix" things later the musicians will work harder and play with more intesity

Yes! And that's another misconception that needs to be quelled - the idea that if something doesn't sound good at first, it can be "fixed in the mix." I have spent the last year working on a CD, and the artist and I are both on the same page as far as the importance of the inital capture.

[Middleman]

Ok, I go back to reel to reel homerecording which predates the Fostex and Tascam portastudios day.

Analog or digital for me? Digital all the way.

Home recording 1977:
Tape alignment, head cleaning, splicing, figuring out which track was active and which was in passive mode. No home compressors or limiters. SM57 or SM58 or one of the Unidynes was pretty much it. Special effects were Fender Reverb units standalone or actually using the ones in a Fender Amp. Tascam Model 3 mixers, these were very cool and represented the first step in providing homeboys a virtual studio experience. 2 track or 4 track reel to reels had just dropped below $1000. Along with the mixer and mics you were at $2000 minimum for home recording.

The thrill of it was sound on sound recording which entailed bouncing 3 of 4 tracks to 1 then the remaining 2 tracks to 1 to get a total of 7 tracks of data out of a 4 track machine. At the end of the day you sat around wondering "Why doesn't this sound like the stuff on the radio".

Home recording 2004:
Hardrive recording with backup capability. UAD-1 cards which emulate all of the top compressors and limiters. Automated mixing in software. Under $500 exceptional condensor mics. Preamps from $500 to $1000.

Back in the day you had no access to synths or strings to fill in your musical creations. Today you can buy a software package or hardware synth with every sound known to man.

So, I would rather have the digital technology of today but I wish there were a few more visionary musicians to lead the ranks into a more creative space. That is what is lacking in my mind. The number of live music establishments in the past vs today is another part of the situation. I wish muscians today had more, non- bar locations to jam. There is better technology available today but less creativity in the music.

[AlexHerd]

Check out the May/June issue of TapeOp magizine. There is a huge piece about Walter Sear that address that very question Check out his "What Have They Done With My Art" articles. http://members.aol.com/searsound/articles2.html Though I don't really agree with him on a lot of stuff, its still an interesting read...

[CGibson]

Wow guys! There are some great and lengthy post here.

It's hard for me to compare the two worlds when you have to compare dollars also.

One problem with analog is it takes a lot of money before you get real quality. But once you reach the real Quality stage, digital can't touch it.
In order to record high quality analog you have to have everything before and after the tape spotless.

Just a few examples:

1. The A.C. current must be ultra clean with large back-up power supply. You can’t have dirty power or noise floor is way out of control. You also can’t loose power when tape is spinning at the speed of light or you can trash a very expensive tape or machine.
2. The preamps can't be made by any co. that sells through MF
3. The Mics cost more than my car
4. The board cost more than my entire studio
5. All gear must be maintained daily to assure performance.

So if you compare dollars, the digital will win every time.
But if you compare quality of the best of both worlds the analog will win every time.
If you compare ease of use, the digital will win every time.
Unless we breed new musicians that don't know the meaning of cut and paste.

So would I go back to my days of analog?
Sure...if I had endless amount of funds.

But for now the digital world does a hell of a job with almost no over-head.

C

[Bulls Hit]

Originally Posted by Han

Digital may be very convenient and one can make any crappy musician sounds good, but that doesn't mean it's any better. The tape I record today can be played in a hundred years from now. The DAT will not, nor will any hard drive work when it's in a closet for five years.

Remixes can be made from recordings of Beatles and Rolling Stones. Will it be possible to make a remix from PT recordings in 2050?

I don't go along with this. Tape media is just as, if not more, prone to degenerate over time.

When Jimmy Page got hold of the old 8, 16 and 24 track tapes of live Zep shows from the 60's & 70's as material for How the West was Won and DVD, they put up the 1st tape and the coating started peeling off onto the heads. It had just jellified. They had to bake the tapes in an oven for a couple of days just to get one shot at digitising them.

And yeah it was a PT rig that saved them

[Han]

Originally Posted by Bulls Hit

I don't go along with this. Tape media is just as, if not more, prone to degenerate over time.

When Jimmy Page got hold of the old 8, 16 and 24 track tapes of live Zep shows from the 60's & 70's as material for How the West was Won and DVD, they put up the 1st tape and the coating started peeling off onto the heads. It had just jellified. They had to bake the tapes in an oven for a couple of days just to get one shot at digitising them.

And yeah it was a PT rig that saved them

I know about that problem, I've baked many tapes, but the problem is caused by bad storing conditions. A tape that's stored in an airtight bag, together with a 10g sachet of silica gel, will not detoriate.

When you got hold of an old tape, always try to play it backwards (a tape should be winded tail out) for a couple of feet and look for shed.
If so, bake it, try to play it again, still shedding? Back in the oven and bake it again, if neccesary bake it for a whole week. It will be playable like new tape and if needed you can bake a tape many times, so in 2104 a tape, any tape can be played. I've baked a number of 2" tapes with live shows of George Clinton a while back.

Besides that, a tape machine is not very complicated, not as complicated as a DAT machine or harddrive.

"And yeah it was a PT rig that saved them"

Yeah, but the sound wasn't the same anymore, now was it?

[Han]

I must say that I like this thread very much, great posts and I like the way it devellops, not the 1433th analog/digital debate. Keep it like this my friends.

Analog and digital both have their weak and strong points, I use them both.
Back in the early 90's, we studio engineers used DAT as the final medium, everything got mixed to DAT. Then came the CD recorder, not bad either, but still no match for a Studer two track. These days I use the PC like I used the DAT and CDR, but in 24/96 and the editing is a joy, compared to tape.

I remember when the Tascam MX2424 came, there was an article in a Dutch magazine about it, written by a young guy who apparently had non experience with hi end analog.

His article started with something like: I can't imagine that there are audio engineers that still use analog tapemachines. Analog suffers from hiss, hum, wow and flutter, so the best you can do is trow anything that's analog out of the window.

I wrote him a letter, but didn't get any reply. A little later a band came in and had brought their MX2424 in order to compare it to the Otari two inch tape machine and so we did. We recorded a song to both machines. I have a DDA-AMR board that's wired for two 24 track machines and has a tape A and tape B button, so it's very easy to compare two machines.

Anyway, the sound of the MX2424 wasn't bad at all, but it was significantly different from the two inch machine, which has a more silky hi end and more punch in the lows. Nevertheless they decided to use the MX2424.

Ater some four songs, the 9GB harddrive was full, so we ended up to use the two inch anyway.

You guys must realise that a DAW has to work very hard when mixing 50+ signals and the sound doesn't get any better. An analog mixing board can mix hundreds of signals with ease and at lightspeed.

A Neve 80 series board has a freq response fom zero (DC) to many hundreds of kiloherzes. A tube (an invention from 1906) will have no problem at all with a freq of gigaherz's and will do it's job in a couple of nanoseconds. This is something a digital device can only dream of.

When I record an acoustic guitar, with a nice SDC mic to a two inch tape machine with Dolby SR, the sound is so spectacularly nice that I can't imagine it can be recorded any better. And there is no hearable hiss or wow, flutter or whatever.

But when I have to record a crappy singer, who has no timing, I fix it in Cubase SX.

Have a very nice day!

[acorec]

Originally Posted by guitarfreak12

Ok I don't know what forum to put his in. So if it belongs somewhere else, tell me.
I just have a general question/discussion, For all the guys who have been recording for more than 10-15 years. Before all this digital stuff started becoming more available.
Analog recording and digital back then from my understanding was very hard. Not that this stuff isn't hard now. but it required more patience, more creativity, and stamina. I think it was more of an art form than it is today. Just to get what you wanted down perfect, and not lose everything in the process seems like it can be very trying. Plus So much more talent seems to have been required. I say this, because I have tried some analog stuff, and I have been around analog before. And I could not record what I have recorded with the minimal amount of experience I have, if it wasn't for the ease of digital. Albums can be created in a fraction of the time it used to take. This is what I gathered anyway.
So my question is this, are any of you who learned how to record in the analog world, a little resenting of the ease and sometimes lack of respect that comes from the faster, easier less analog world. Do you get a little pissed off that someone can now just come along and do what ever he can think up with jest ten or twenty clicks of his mouse, when before it took you 40 hours of sleepless worry. And it really can only cost you the price of a small program, in come cases free (assuming you already have a computer) and a cheap mic and pre, and turn out some alright stuff, when it took you thousands of dollars and four times as much time, to turn out alright stuff. I know that I used to get pissed off when I grew up (being the oldest of 4) and saw my parents letting my siblings get away with stuff I never would have been able to do. That's a weird analogy, but it's all I got. I may be way off, and please don't think I respect guys who have only the digital experience any less, because you are still better than me at what you do. And I might have accidently started some bad thoughts in my way. But I have sort of a different respect for the guys who know a different world of recording, when it was really hard.

Well, the fact of the matter is that a great album done any way you cut it is the same amount of work. You can't get something for nothing.

Back when analog was the only thing around, it was all in the performance. Musician's had to rehearse and get their shit together because an analog edit was a big deal. Engineers really did editing as a last resort as it is not really too healthy to cut the tape. So, the time was in the practicing and arrangement of the music. When the band was ready, the analog tape rolled and the songs were done in a few (or more) takes. After that, the overdubs were done over a period of time.

Now we have the digital stuff. Today, the "engineer" is not so much a "sound" guy as he is a "computer" guy. They make the basic tracks and spend most of the time editing on the computer. This takes TONS of time in itself. The end product is close to perfect but has been hacked to death (in the worst case). The main problem today is that basic tracks are being done by many engineers who don't understand the fundementals of recording and passing off really bad tracks to a pro mixing engineer. The pro mixing houses are complaining about this regularly and they say it is getting worse. So, the time involved has been shifted from the band in the analog days to the mix engineers in the digital days.

Digital is too easy to make bogus tracks with the premise that we will "fix-it-in-the-mix"

Go to MARSH website and get into the "Distorted Guitars" thread and you will start to understand the problem with the digital production industry today.

[manning1]

just a few comments.
i think its all in the hands of the user and how good he is as an audio engineer. i'm still learning after too many years on both analog and digital and just do the best i can. FOR ME i wouldnt go back to analog.
i never went dat for mastering when the dats came out because i was warned about possibly tape leeching over time.
so beware if you you have any dat masters. do back ups to another medium.
there were some articles on this a few yrs back in MIX magazine
or maybe studio sound. forgotten which.
i think you can do excellent songs in either medium if you have the chops.

[lpdeluxe]

...I have recorded a 17-track song and the singer's out of tune. He wrote the song and arranged it, there ain't no way we're going to find another person to sing it. Bring on the Auto-Tune!

There is a perception that any kind of crap performance is acceptable because of all these tools we have, but I still tell people "you perform it, I record it." I don't even mention the ability to fix things because as soon as a musician hears "fix it in the mix" (s)he starts to get sloppy. That's a hell of a way to run a railroad, in my opinion.

But if you're obsessive, man! You can tweak til the artist's grandchildren are asking about "that CD grandpa was supposed to be working on when he died."

[LRosario]

My beef with digital was that it never had the warmth of analog. This seems to be changing recently with super audio CDs.

Of course over time, you learn to appreciate both. But to continue the stamina of your question, analog recording isn't as flexible as digital is, but you bet I still rely on both.

My philosophy: "Take the best of both worlds"

[lpdeluxe]

BUT I firmly believe that a lot of the bad rap digital gets for lack of "warmth" (or maybe an excess of "coolth?") is that so many more beginning tweezeheads are recording on digital than ever did on analog, with predictable results.

Note that I did NOT say that **your** digital mixes aren't warm because you are a stumblefingered flopwit, and in fact I think your mixes are toasty warm as they are, and at the next opportunity I will tell your mother exactly that.

Take the best of both worlds, indeed. The last time I looked, it's STILL the 21st Century.