2" vs Digital Audio Recording

[miroslav]

I would surmise that the reason you can hear timing errors and tuning problems more on digital is because you can hear more detail because everything isn't softened and smoothed together.

Probably very true, but then it does kinda support the notion that analog/tape makes things sound "better" because it smoothes/softens away the "irregularities".

Yeah...there are ways to achieve it with digital too, but too often digital forces you to change/relearn things just so you can end up with the same result that analog/tape gave up rather easily under the right conditions.

It kinda reminds of my skiing days when the "short" 150-180cm skis started becoming the new norm back in the late '90s, while we were all still skiing long boards (205-210cm). So I tried them a couple of times and always found them to be wiggly and unstable, whereas my long boards would just slice beautiful turns through anything.
The demo rep says to me, "well, you have adjust your style of skiing, and then you'll be able to appreciate the short skis and make smooth, stable turns just like you do with the long boards".
I asked him why I would want/need to go through all that when my long boards already did all that.

But again...I'm not knocking digital. I started using it back in the early 90's when it was still kinda’ crude, especially at the home-rec level. I spend more time now in my DAW than I do working with tape...but that's 'cuz tracking to tape is pretty straightforward/fast, whereas once it's in the DAW, it takes time to edit/comp/etc.

Last year I was mixing a song that was tracked first to tape and then transferred to the DAW, and I decided that the vocals just didn't come out like I wanted them, and I also decided to rewrite some of the verses. So rather than firing up the tape deck, I decided to just do the new vocal track direct to DAW.
Man...it just didn't sound right compared to the existing tracks that were recorded first to tape. There was this edginess to the new vocal track that I could not EQ out.
I then took that new DAW vocal track, and sent it out to my 2-track tape deck and then right back into the DAW off the deck's playback head...and that fixed it instantly. Now it gelled with the other tracks easily.

Anyway...love my tape...love the DAW (well, actually, I hate working in the computer/DAW, but I love what I can do with it).

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Probably very true, but then it does kinda support the notion that analog/tape makes things sound "better" because it smoothes/softens away the "irregularities".

It all hinges upon what one's definition of "better" actually is or means. Does "better" mean less accuracy and more "coloration" or does it mean accurately reproducing the signal, "irregularities" and all?

People who grew up on tape and vinyl tend to prefer that sound because that's what they grew up on and are used to, not because it's actually a more accurate reproduction method - it's not, not by a longshot. It's just like those younger folks who only know music that has either been recorded or re-pressed/re-mastered since 1990 don't think that low crest factor productions sound that bad, because that's what they have grown up on and are used to, and therefore are imprinted to preferring that kind of sound.

The answer to which one is "better" depends upon who you ask.


And Farview is absolutely right aboutthe early days of digital. There are unfortunately a lot of stubborn "old-timers" who judge digital solely by the first generation of CDs and players they heard when they first came out around 1982 or so. Many of those WERE overly brittle or harsh-sounding because the early-generation converters sucked compared to today. That was fixed relatively quickly (within a couple of years), but by then the stubborn ones had already made their judgment and "heard" it in all future digital recordings, whether it was actually there or not.

G.

 

[dintymoore]

♪ there was a boy... ♫

My Holy Grail is nature.

When I stand out in the field behind my house, you can hear the wind rustling the trees and the treble is beyond perfect. It's super feathery and doesn't hurt one iota - completely devoid of any harshness.

That's what I want. No way around it, my friend's Dad's 2" MCI 24 track sounded way, way closer to those trees than any digital I've heard so far.

 

[grimtraveller]

There is also a lot of bias with the older folks who were around for the first generation of digital. Early CD's were harsh and brittle sounding for a few different reasons

1. Converters were really new and not very good. They were really only 12 bit converters.

2. Some of the high end in a mix would have to be attenuated with de-essers and the like to not overload the the cutting head when creating a vinyl record. They didn't do the same thing for the CD, so all the brightness was still there to annoy the senses...and mode worse by the crappy conversion.

3. The low end would have to be controlled with EQ and compression to work with vinyl. On CD, none of that would have to happen...so it didn't.

4-26. For vinyl, there was lots of other processing needed to fit the music on the record. That was the sound of music as everyone knew it. The selling point for digital was that you didn't have to do any of that to the mix, so they didn't. That left you with the raw mixes stuffed into crappy converters. Compared to the heavily massaged mixes that ended up on vinyl, they were thin, harsh and stark.

If you are introduced to something and it just sucks, that will be your impression of it. Every time you are faced with it again, you will be looking for that suckage.

I would surmise that the reason you can hear timing errors and tuning problems more on digital is because you can hear more detail because everything isn't softened and smoothed together.

Whether or not you think it sounds 'better' or not is subjective. If that is the sound you are going for, great. If it isn't, you're stuffed.

Sheesh Kebab !
If that's all true, this could be the damning torpedo in the analog/digital debate.


But whose ship does it sink ? Who needs the submarine and lifeboats ?

 

[PDP]

alot of music is mastered 'brighter' these days with more top end, which some people may perceive as 'harsher'.

I think "harsh" refers to the character of the sound, throughout the whole spectrum.

 

[mshilarious]

This reminds me of my 2nd year of college in 1990 studying OP-AMPs. At the time I had a stoned lab partner working with me. We were working the math and testing the THD of an OP-AMP. I remember him saying, "Dude, I don't know why we gotta learn this, transistors suck at amplification." I remember being total confused by his remark. I thought to myself, "Is it possible mister stoner had some deep insight into the inner working of silicon?" When I told him that the math and testing showed the THD was good out to 3 decimal places, do you know his reply was?

"Dude I don't care what the math says. All I know is that when I play my guitar, tubes make better amplifiers. Transistors don't amplify signals good. That why you should never use transistors to amplify sound."

Opamp is a topology, not a device. If your lab partner was a non-puss, he should have built his opamp with tubes.

PS: "Transistors don't amplify well"

 

[mshilarious]

The good news is that supposedly there are some nice advances in convertors coming. For now I suffer with my crappy PCI card, but I think we're gonna see some good stuff using USB 3.0 and PCIe, especially for the guy who only has a few hundred here or there.

PCI, PCIe, and USB 3.0 are all just transmission protocols. Most converter ICs output a variety of formats like I2S or left justified, some have onboard capability to output AES or S/PDIF, or act as a USB transceiver.

None of that has anything to do with quality of conversion.

 

[mshilarious]

I think it has something to do with the tape vrs digital. It seems like people using digital are always asking ways to smooth this or that, terms like gel, gloss etc always seem to be used. I thought it was just us amateurs but I think he has a point.

Classical engineers don't say things like that.

 

[benage]

I think "harsh" refers to the character of the sound, throughout the whole spectrum.

Yeah, but what I meant was boosting the high end especially tends to exaggerate this quality.

 

[miroslav]

It all hinges upon what one's definition of "better" actually is or means. Does "better" mean less accuracy and more "coloration" or does it mean accurately reproducing the signal, "irregularities" and all?


The answer to which one is "better" depends upon who you ask.

Of course...it's a very personal, subjective thing. Some people like things smooth and soft-edged, others like them sharper with harder contrast.

It's sorta’ like the 35mm film and video comparisons. From my perspective, even with 20/20 vision, the eyes don't see things with as much sharpness and contrast as how video seems to capture the light, and HD tends to exaggerate that even more.

Likewise, it seems to me that our ears naturally prefer sounds that are smoother and softer-edged, instead of harsh and shrill.
But yeah...it depends on who you ask which they consider is “better”...or maybe "more pleasing" is a more accurate term.

I just wonder why there are so many plugs intended to make things more “analog and tape like” sounding, a.k.a. more "warmer"...etc. It kinda’ makes me feel that more people ARE looking for smoothness and softness in their audio VS edgy and grainy sounds, but yeah, there's a lot of music out there that is edgy sounding and still sounds pretty good, though I'm not sure if that was always intentional or just the accidental byproduct of their production process...?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think "harsh" refers to the character of the sound, throughout the whole spectrum.

"Harsh", like "better", has a different meaning for every person who uses it. But usually when people use it in the confines of the "digital sound" they are referring to the high end above 5k, starting with the sibilants and going up from there. Usually when there is a "harshness" to lower frequency stuff, it's due to the addition of higher frequency noise and artifacting to the perception of the lower frequency fundamental.

Half the problem is that digital simply has more efficient higher frequency response than most analog, and those that weren't used to actually being able to hear 13k without 3-5 dB of attenuation felt that as "harsh". The other half was the aformentioned problem with early digital converter design.

The third half () was engineers and producers not yet used to the new medium who tended to let the harshness be harsh at first, enamored with the new frontiers of HF handling that digital did provide;much like the engineers with all the psychedelic or at least over-shifted panning schemes that were a small fad when steeophonic headphone playback became popular.

G.

 

[PDP]

Ok,

Very Edgemacational.

 

[Tim Gillett]

BTW for the purposes of the discussion it doesnt have to be 2". Huge 2" tapes had to be used to fit all those tracks in at reasonable quality. For one or two tracks, 1/4" or 1/2" would be just as good.

I've heard digital recordings referred to as "clinical" in a perjorative sense.
But isnt clinical what we require of a recorder? What comes out is what came in. Hardly a liability in a recorder.
You may as well say the signal from the mic and preamp is "clinical" too, or that the voice of the vocalist is "too clinical". But that's his voice!

It's not really true that analog tape muffled the highs. A cheap or slow speed recorder might have, but pro machines were flat, out to the limits of human hearing. You only started to compress the highs if you drove the tape into saturation.

I suspect some recordists track or master to tape because they dont know how to properly use compression, and driving tape into saturation is the easy way to apply some gentle compression without having to learn the skills to operate a comp limiter.

Tim

 

[Ephi82]

I really think the comparison of Digital to 2" tape is more of HOW the music was recorded and engineered as opposed to the medium.

Listen to Katy Lied (Steely Dan), and Let it Bleed (Stones).(CD versions are fine)

The musicians played with great dynamics, and it's captured wonderfully and faithfully on tape. I need to repeat, the musicians played with DYNAMICS. The Stones recording even says to "Play this Record Loud". I remember a lot of records having that printed on them because while capturing dynamics is appreciated by many, ALL prefer music that is a little louder than not. (The explains some trends in today's music, more later)

Digital earned a bad reputation when the music industry greedily used masters designed for vinyl, and did CD transfers with crappy A-D converters. You bet it sounded harsh and brittle, but for the average consumer, who had a Technics turntable, 60 Watt Pioneer Receiver and some Advent or KLH bookshelf speakers, the CD's kicked ass!

If you haven't done this yet, go to Amazon and see if they have your favorite vinyl album, or 1st generation CD available in a remastered for CD version. Anything remastered using DSD is great, any one of the Beatles remastered is a revelation, as well as Rumors, Hotel California, I could go on all day.......

Ok OK, you are going to say: see, the superior sound of music originally recorded using tape can now be heard as intended by the average consumer.

Yes, and No:

Do the "sonics" of Katy Lied sound better than almost all modern digital recordings? YES (IMO)

So this means tape is better that digital? NO

Are almost all modern digital recording mastered for maximum loudness and compressed and eq'd to death? YES (yuk!)

Is it impossible to get the same quality and sonics that we hear in 2" tape recordings using digital? NO

You just have to want to record, mix and master with the same "sonics" as the goal. By the way, you also need the same level of musicianship and performance, something IMO that is hugely lacking in a lot of what is popular today! (i'm an old grouch, deal with it!)

 

[RRuskin]

A common mistake back in the day when labels began to release CD versions of their catalogs was to use the eq'd safety copy of the master that was generated when the original lacquers were cut. There is significant high-end boost involved to compensate for all the losses that occur from going from tape to lacquer to stamper and finally to plastic. CD's don't require this at all. Is it any wonder that CD's derived from these tapes sounded harsh?

 

[dintymoore]

How to spot the guy with a hairpiece in a crowd: it's the guy with the most hair.

Ever notice that? The guy wanted hair for so long that when he got the chance he went overboard.

That's what happened in sound. During the whole analog tape era, everybody was just squeezing and squeezing the treble out. More treble, more treble. It was a battle between cymbals and tape hiss.

So like the bald guy, when "free treble" arrived with the digital era, people went apeshit.

Where that happened to a bonkers degree was in drum samples. Have you even heard a kick drum that sounded like the average kick drum sample? The ratio of treble to bass in those samples is like 10:1, and real life is nearer 1 part treble to 9 parts bass.

Cymbal samples - don't get me started. They record all of them way, way too loud. A ride cymbal should barely move the needles. And when they record them hot and you turn them down it sounds horrible.

 

[miroslav]

Cymbal samples - don't get me started. They record all of them way, way too loud. A ride cymbal should barely move the needles. And when they record them hot and you turn them down it sounds horrible.

I'm sure the drummers here will disagree... ...but I think the entire kit in a lot of music these days is too loud and too forward/central in the overall mix.
Yeah, I know it's one way to make the music "drive" harder...but I prefer them more balanced with the rest of the instruments, even though I do feel that drums are probably the key instrument in modern music.
I just don't like that slap in the face and punch in the gut with every snare and tom hit....but to each his own.

Maybe it has something to do with the "demise" of guitar solos and other traditional "lead" instruments in a lot of current Rock/Pop music...?
These days it's mostly just a lot of rhythm instruments, even during the solo breaks in songs.

 

[dintymoore]

What I notice is that if I record cymbals alone I like the sound best if they are in the -20 to -30 neighborhood. If I record them louder they sound crass, plus they'll never be that loud in the final mix.

I'm a particular fan of 50's K. Zildjians and they are the hardest thing to record I know of. The sound is just so complex. They never sound like they do in the room once recorded, and it seems that the lower I can record them the more accurate it is to the live sound.

I find it much easier to record say a Paiste or A. Zildjian cymbal and get something more like the original sound.