Does analog move more air. . . ?

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Further to the archive issue, I think a poll on the topic would be interesting: how many people have a full offsite archive of all of their multitrack originals, and whether those archives are tape to tape, tape to digital, or digital to digital? I bet the compliance would be dismal for all options. How many people have an at least fire-resistant method of local storage?

It does occur to me that if you want a tape backup of a tape multitrack master, you'd need two multitrack machines plus the cost of tape, which for 2" 15ips would run about $1200 for a full album (CD-length let's say) for master + backup, plus offsite storage costs. Whereas the same amount of music on archival grade DVD-R would be about $50, or about $100 on archival-grade CD-R, which has a longer projected life than DVD-R but of course takes a lot more discs.
 
Victory Pete said:
Oh, the 150kz bias signal? Well it certainly ain't from A/D D/A conversion!:listeningmusic:
You dont hear it because you dont have "Bat Ears". It is there.

VP
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Are you sure it isn't filtered out by the output electronics on the tape deck? It obviously doesn't make it too far down the chain from the tape deck...
 
Followup question: when Dennis Wilson sang "You got so much soul you blow my mind", did he mean that the object of his affection had many reel to reel tape recorders?
 
Farview said:
Are you sure it isn't filtered out by the output electronics on the tape deck? It obviously doesn't make it too far down the chain from the tape deck...
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Well, I am sure it gets attenuated being such a high frequency, and I assume that was the intention in its development. I could record silence then look at an output waveform on my O-scope and see what is there.

VP
 
On the other hand, people like Ry Cooder (Bop til You Drop) and Stevie Wonder (Hotter Than July) were early adopters of the original tape based digital systems and they're no slouches. My vinyl copy of "Bop til you Drop" still has a sticker on it saying "first digital recording" and it's wonderfully recorded and mixed.

There's no "better". The right tools in experienced hands can do marvelous recordings in either digital or analogue--but less talented people can mess up with either.
 
Victory Pete said:
Well, I am sure it gets attenuated being such a high frequency, and I assume that was the intention in its development. I could record silence then look at an output waveform on my O-scope and see what is there.

VP
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Please do. It's not a great idea to let what is really RF into an (external) audio circuit, because if said circuit does not have sufficient bandwidth you can get aliasing into audio, just like any other kind of RF interference. So since the deck manufacturer does not know where the signal is going from there it would behoove them to filter it.

In fact, a tape deck has a de facto bandwidth of half its bias frequency because of IMD products with the bias tone. I imagine what happened to my poor cassette is a filter was placed on input & maybe output too to avoid that fate against its relatively low frequency bias--if the distortion is too large then you can get modulation products of modulation products, those can occur at less than half the bias frequency although I expect that would not occur in a quality deck.
 
I found this bit interesting, from a highly reliable source:

How to Bias Analog Tape Recorders — Blackmer Design

The analog tape recording process actually samples at two rates: twice the bias frequency (as every half cycle drops to the level where the signal is retained near the trailing edge of the record gap) and at the random rate of the asparity noise. Asparity noise is produced by the statistical distribution of oxide particles in the record head gap vs time. This noise is different from the simple fixed thermal noise of an amplifier, which stays at one level, regardless of the level of the signal. If you put a tone through a tape recorder and watch the output on a spectrum analyzer, you will see that as the signal level is raised the noise rises up around it in a mountain, with peaks at the odd harmonics. The truth of the matter is that tape recording is shaped noise. It is a non-linear transfer process that produces noise-like sidebands for every frequency in a complex signal. This is a major componant of the tape sound.

Another distinctly aspect of tape is the approach to saturation. The tape headroom sound and the mechanism that produces it are very different from the way an amplifier overloads. As level is increased, the tape, again by a noise-like process of statistical distribution, gradually runs out of magnetic domains that can hold each higher energy level. Also, at high flux levels the present signal is self-erasing the just previous one. These effects together produce a gentle “S” shaped onset of distortion, the famous tape compression.

There are also time delay dispersion effects in the magnetic recording process that do some rather odd things to the time relation between low and high frequencies. As an experiment, fly an impulsive signal, like a kick drum with a good sharp high frequency edge, a strong deep bass thud and a clean, well defined start time, from your Pro-Tools (or whatever) editor into an analog tape recorder. Now fly the reproduced tape signal back into Pro-Tools and try to line it up with the original. Something funny happens; when the two high frequency energy peaks line up there is energy appearing well before the main spike in the tape processed signal.
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mshilarious said:
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.
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I'm not talking about unlikely extremes; I'm talking about 'most likely' scenarios. Most average recordists (this is 'home recording', right?) are not going to be performing endless backups for their everyday work. Most home recordists are not going to have everything go down in a blaze of smoke either.
 
mshilarious said:
Followup question: when Dennis Wilson sang "You got so much soul you blow my mind", did he mean that the object of his affection had many reel to reel tape recorders?
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Leave Dennis Wilson out of it! He was 'analog only'! Strangely, after Dennis died, the Beach Boys switched to digital.
 
I think Beck might have been saying this, but this isn't a debate about the merits of analog vs digital but a debate about what more accurately represents the test equipment. And digital SHOULD win because the test equipment is the exact same thing that the digital format is. Everything should match up inside the box! Test equipment is not your ears, but digital wins!
 
Victory Pete said:
Maybe he should speak for himself.

VP
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I did. . . And then I gave up when it all went downhill. . . These days I'm just one of several breaks from the intensity and animosity that has more or less dominated this thread. . . This thread was, I think, my second post. . . It's quite a place you have here. . . :)
 
SteveM said:
I think Beck might have been saying this, but this isn't a debate about the merits of analog vs digital but a debate about what more accurately represents the test equipment. And digital SHOULD win because the test equipment is the exact same thing that the digital format is. Everything should match up inside the box! Test equipment is not your ears, but digital wins!
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Test equipment doesn't have to be digital. On an earlier thread on this topic we had an EE state that he had both analog and digital test equipment; each had its strengths but in the end they pretty much did the same thing. Funny how nobody challenged him after that, but they certainly did before.

What do you have to say about the Blackmer stuff I posted? That was quite interesting, later on the page they describe how the same signal processing can be accomplished with a fully parametric and fully analog circuit. I think somebody may have built something like that . . . ;)

Anyway, digital has not won at this point because nobody has bothered to take a few simple measurements of their tape recorders. So, I'll stay here until somebody gets off their duff.
 
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