Beginning to Dislike Analog...

C

Cloneboy Studio

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I'm a fairly analog guy. Up until 4-5 years ago I had nothing but disdain for digital mixers, digital recorders, plugins, softsynths, virtual analog, DAW's, audio software and the concept of doing music "in the computer", physical modeled guitar amps, etc.... Around 1999-2000 digital hard disk recorders were finally hitting a price point, sound quality and feature set that was appealing enough to begrugingly acquiesce that 'this is the future of recording' and that it may not be a bad time to look into it for myself. Stuff like plugins, softsynths/virtual analog, and digital mixers seemed like nothing more than a bad joke, however....

So for the most part in the last number of years I've used a digital hard disk recorder coupled with as analog a front end that I could manage, and analog effects as often as possible (if not analog, then outboard).

Then I start working at this studio with a Mackie D8B digital mixer and HD24/96 recorder. I got accustomed to the convenience of a digital mixer, and plugins, etc.... (i.e. the dark side).

And then there's the session I had today, which has to go down as one of the worst sessions of my life, something worthy of a Mixerman-esque writeup I'm sure, but that's for another time. Anyway, to make a longer story a bit shorter, the studio was robbed a few times last month (3 times!) and they made off with half of the D8b, laptops, samplers, etc... needless to say we are pretty screwed at the time being while the new gear is waiting to come in from the insurance claim. So I agree to do a session using my A&H System 8 24x8 mixer and HD24/96 and lug the beast down there.

I was shocked! I couldn't get the sounds that I got from the D8b or even near the quality--even though I know the A&H dusts the preamps and eq's in the D8b.... I totally hated every track that went through the analog mixer. It was almost surreal. Plus I missed the 'punch and go' mentality of the D8b with how fast you can work.

Am I starting to *prefer* the sound of digital? This ever happen to anyone else?
 
I don't know if this qualifies, because, well you know what I have for gear, but I have used analog 4-tracks for years, and when I stepped up to digital, I could not believe how easy it was to do edits and play around with the recorded tracks to get a certain sound. I was doing things I couldn't have done, or known how to do with analog. Not to mention the added number of tracks I was able to do, and not lose quality with bouncing tracks... I will never go back (except maybe to re-learn what I am not missing).
 
:D Yo CB:

Well, I really dug my Tascam 488 8 track cassette box; however, when I moved into digital and DID NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE TAPE to rewind, I never thought of putting the 488 back on the rack.

And, as Rocketman said, many other things one can do with digital gear.

But, I have to say, the Tascam did a good job with sound but I still don't want to plug it back in.

Green Hornet :cool: :D
 
Dislike analogue mixers? because they are more footery or the sound that comes out them? Or that you cant route an input to any channel on any layer you please?
I have used analogue mixers and they have advantages and disadvantages. The buttons are all layed out for you and you only have one layer to worry about. But also the buttons are only layed out for you and you only have one layer to play with.
 
I loved my Tascam 244 Portastudio but I love my Korg D1600 even more. I was never anti-digital or (or even uncle digital) but I'm glad I waited for hard disk recording and skipped digital tape. My DAT recorder and the DAT tapes were pretty unreliable (actually they were reliable - they could be relied upon to glitch and drop-out whenever it was most important that they didn't) and that put me off digital tape. When I emigrated I sold the DAT and used HiFi VHS instead.
 
The Green Hornet said:
:D Yo CB:

Well, I really dug my Tascam 488 8 track cassette box; however, when I moved into digital and DID NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE TAPE to rewind, I never thought of putting the 488 back on the rack.

And, as Rocketman said, many other things one can do with digital gear.

But, I have to say, the Tascam did a good job with sound but I still don't want to plug it back in.

Green Hornet :cool: :D
Click to expand...
Holy $&!tt, my opinion counted! :eek: It's a good day after all! ;)
 
Strange thing is today I uploaded and boffo mixed the drum tracks we recorded and I thought they came out workable. Maybe I was just in a pissy mood yesterday from the terrible session (band was 4 hours late, smoked dope in the parking lot and half the band fell asleep for two hours--including the drummer that was supposed to be doing takes at the time, was 300 bucks short of the 50% deposit... etc, etc, etc...)

Let's not forget I showed up at 6 AM to set up my stuff in the studio to configure it with the headphone monitors, nearfields, patchbays, HD24XR, etc... I basically did a full studio installation including running cable under the floor before the band got there.

Here is an mp3 sample of the drum test:



Recording info in case anyone cares:

Kick drum: AKG D112 6" from outside of hole, Audix D4 on beater side
Snare: Rode NT1 on top, SM57 underneath
Toms: Audix D6 on high tom, and another on the low tom
Overhead: CAD M177 (pair)

Recorded on an Allen & Heath System 8 24 channel 8 buss to an Alesis HD24XR. Various plugins used to mix it in 10 minutes--Blockfish, C1, Renaissance EQ and Paragraphic EQ. Finally, I hit it with marginal (+4.4 db at -0.1 limit) L2 Ultramaximizer to boost the track a bit for the demo.

Maybe I haven't lost faith in analog mixers. Man I was in a bad mood last night because of those morons being late, taking drugs, being unprepared, in addition to the aforementioned equipment problems.

I must have been losing my mind, because I was wanting to sell my mixer for something that worked faster, but I should know better because the preamps and eq's on it are pretty spiff. :)
 
That sounds fucking GREAT! Don't give up the ship, that hole is patchable!
Eddie
 
The official decision we made is that since the DXB mixer is coming in this week we are going to retrack everything Friday and Saturday night doing all-night sessions. However, I'm going to drag the A&H mixer down there to use as a front end to the digital mixer. :)

This is the first time I used the A&H to track acoustic drums. Normally it is only part of my personal home recording setup, but I dragged it out to do this session in lieu of the studio being mixerless because of a burglary. We have been down for SIX WEEKS now waiting for insurance, Mackie to build the darn mixer, etc, etc, etc...

We have to get to work big time, because the studio went from having about 10k in the bank to 0 because of all the additional security, cameras, and new back door and front door we had to install.

However I must admit then when doing sessions fast, nothing beats a digital mixer. I hope I never have to work on all analog again... which is sad because a few years ago that's ALL I worked on. I guess if I had a big enough patchbay it wouldn't bug me... because even when I was using analog I had it patched and normalled to work fast. I only had about half the patchbay/cabling around to set it up! There was, however, tons of AES cable that was useless in my predicament laying around from the D8B. :)

Oh, did I mention the burglars stole my favorite mics? The AKG 414BULS are gone. I don't know what to do for overheads anymore. I had to use those CAD mics because they are the only LDC pair around the studio because of the 414's.... depressing. I should buy another NT1 so I can at least use those, which are ten times better than those M177's. I really, really hate CAD mics. Heck, I would have killed for some C2000's! :eek:
 
Rokket said:
That sounds fucking GREAT! Don't give up the ship, that hole is patchable!
Eddie
Click to expand...

Actually because it was just a test I was too lazy to gate the snare, which would reduce that obnoxiously loud high hat. :) Other than that, I'm digging the sounds, although the toms are a bit distorted when the drummer really lays into them.
 
I am hearing some room ambience on the snare (could be added reverb mm) and has a wee after ring at times. The kik doesnt have enough oomph, its a bit muffled for my likeing. Should sound good in with the rest of the mix. Nice drumming.
 
No artificial reverb was used.

The sound bites the drummer had me listen to were very ambient, so that's what I went for. The drummer really hits hard, so the snare would occasionally ring, but it was so minor that I figured it was no big deal--I didn't want to kill the snare sound because of it with dampning, etc...
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
...they made off with half of the D8b
Click to expand...

The top half? The bottom half?

Seriously, my respect for you and your dedication to this BBS has increased many times in the last few days --- and I want some of that coffee you must be drinking to have energy for everything you've posted lately - drum check MP3, HUGE and very good explanation of how to make a drum machine sound realistic, a little ragging on your clients (we all need to vent once in a while) and so on.

Keep it up, Cloneboy!
 
Oh the burglars stole the mixer part of it... you know the 'bright and shiny' portion? :) The CPU/power supply part is still in its rack underneath the console area. Unfortunately because of all that robbery related stuff a bunch of projects are gathering dust on the HDR24/96 (AES only--no analog inputs), including what I consider to be the best sounding project I've worked on yet.

Don't give me too much credit for long posts... I can type around 120 words per minute.

I actually quit all caffeine about a month and a half ago. It's amazing I can still function. :eek:
 
ssscientist said:
Seriously, my respect for you and your dedication to this BBS has increased many times in the last few days --- and I want some of that coffee you must be drinking to have energy for everything you've posted lately - drum check MP3, HUGE and very good explanation of how to make a drum machine sound realistic

Keep it up, Cloneboy!
Click to expand...

Drum machine? Realistic? Holy sh*t!!! Where can I find this thread!!!! :eek:


Sorry to hear of the theft. :o Been there to a slightly lesser extent, and all loss aside, the distrust and paranoia I felt after that I'd not wish on my worst enemy...
 
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