Tom Scholz and analog tape as EE

[Farview]

Indeed, a wise person is careful not to cross that line.

But many people are not wise, or maybe not wise enough to perceive that distinction. I think a statement like "you have to use Marshalls" is often used as a synonymous statement to "I use Marshalls because they work for me" without too much thought being given to it.

There is a benefit to the person who makes a declarative statement like "you have to use Marshalls". The listener (who may be even less wise) is impressed by the superior knowledge of the speaker, and goes out and buys a Marshall, thus reinforcing the speakers view and validating that declaration.

^This!!! I can think of about a dozen times I've heard a statement like this from someone off the top of my head. I am also plagued from time to time with someone walking into the studio with some crazy setup because (insert drug added 70's rock icon) made some off handed comment in 1975 that was taken out of context, but my client decided to base his entire musical life around it because his hero said that that was "the only way to get stuff done". Look at how many people blew up their marshalls with variacs because EVH lied about how he gore his guitar tone...

 

[miroslav]

For me there is nothing to "get to the bottom of..."

For you?

I've been 100% clear in my position...so while I am interested in the discussion, I am not just looking to sort out stuff in my head by questioning others in order to validate some unspoken position.
That's why I said I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it...because you keep looking for validation.
The problem here is that Scholz is not here to answer all those questions you have for him...so you want others to answer them for you so you can use that as your validation.

My views, while indirectly supported by some sections of the audio community...are also views that came from my own hands-on experience. I didn't just read about them and then adopt them.
They are not absolutes, but they are valid for me in my environment.

Guys like Ethan, Jay, Gecko....also have a good deal of hands-on experience, and I respect their opinions even if we have some differences, because I know their views are valid to them in their environment, though I don't see some them as absolutes either. There are way to many variables and tons of subjectivity.

But I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it....

 

[miroslav]

Look at how many people blew up their marshalls with variacs because EVH lied about how he gore his guitar tone...

Like.... ...you mean he didn't?

 

[Lt. Bob]

I think part of the problem is that people want others to use specific words when they say something and to me that's silly.

I find it perfectly ok for someone to say, "The only way to get that sound is with a Marshall cranked into V30s"
The fact that it's his opinion goes without saying.

Basically anytime anyone says anything about how something sounds or describes their own processes for achieving it .. it's always their opinion.
I disagree with the idea that they must always without fail go thru a disclaimer of "This is only my opinion" or "this is what works for me" ...... they're excited or passionate about something and they say it that way. So what?

I think it's just getting pendantic to insist that they must say it just this way and anything else makes them a bad or dumb person trying to insist their way is the only way.
In this case some people have read ALL sorts of things and motivations for what Sholtz said when it's clear to me that he was simply stating how he feels about it.

If some newbie can't understand that these sorts of things are all very driven by personal taste and/or opinions .... then that's something they need to learn as well.
It's almost like speech Nazi's going around declaring certain speech as immoral or something.

 

[GONZO-X]

all i know is, scholz' sound and writing, sold a butt load of albums.

RIP brad

 

[Farview]

Like.... ...you mean he didn't?

Nope. That guy that he said modified it, didn't modify it either. That was just the way that head sounded with him playing through it. He was very secretive about how he got his sound, so he came up with a couple stories over the years to throw people off... It worked.

 

[Farview]

all i know is, scholz' sound and writing, sold a butt load of albums.

RIP brad

A very long time ago, in a different era, in a different marketplace, etc... Like with most things, they are of a time and if you take them out of that context, they would not sell.

 

[Mo Facta]

I recently had a very candid conversation with Ron Saint Germain. We started talking about digital plugins and he, of course, detests all of them. He has an emotional connection to analogue equipment and he is convinced that it trumps digital in terms of sound quality and musical and emotional appeal.

I don't blame him for his views, nor do I contest them. It's hard to argue with someone whose discography has sold a quarter of a billion albums. However, eventually, we got to the point that he admitted that the problem is not with the technology - there is digital equipment out there that can sound quite beautiful - but rather it's because of whose hands it's in.

The problem is a lack of context and experience. These days very few people work on analogue and the large majority of people who work in music production have never touched a tape machine. This creates a lack of vision and ability in that domain. It also creates a sense of "trying to emulate the silver bullet of analogue". Further, part of Ron's point was that through the 70's to the 90's there were approx. 35,000 albums released a year. At this point there are 1.2 MILLION albums released a year and that's 100,000 per month. The sheer saturation of the sound engineer field by hacks has produced a million different approaches, some good, most bad, and almost all of them utilize quick and dirty digital technology.

Digital, IMO, can produce beautiful recordings. So can analogue tape. But as always, it's the KNOWLEDGE of the person driving it that gets results.

Saying that, there are a million other pitfalls to digital such as autotune, microscopic editing and making performers sound better than they really are. These techniques are actually doing a dis-service to the industry because they create a "that's good enough, we'll fix it in post" mentality that is nothing but a contingency to what recording used to be: capturing great performances.

Everything's changed. Performances, overall equipment quality, and workflow. One thing will never change, though, and that is the requirement for a set of ears that can transform live music into a recorded emotional response THROUGH the technology. This is something that takes years to achieve.

The art of recording is not to be taken lightly. It takes dedication and hard work. It is science. It is art. What ever your tools, if you have the right vision and mindset, you can accomplish great things.

Cheers

 

[miroslav]

....through the 70's to the 90's there were approx. 35,000 albums released a year. At this point there are 1.2 MILLION albums released a year and that's 100,000 per month.

I knew it was a lot, but didn't know it was that much!

Well yeah...YouTube, MeSpace, etc...has created thousands of "artists", "producers" and "engineers".
Kinda' brings it home that the initial ideals and selling points about digital making it easier for the home-rec guy to "make it"...were somewhat of a wet dream.
Sure...you can churn out a "product" easier these days, but so can 100,000 other people....per month.
Not that's one serious competition scale.

Oh...and I agree with you that it's science and art combined. There's so many ways to get to the finished product and that will affect it's quality, that getting lost in the "numbers" of one piece of gear is almost pointless.
Just work the problem with your tools as best you can.

 

[Ethan Winer]

So then are you implying that all the pros and design engineers who are holding their analog positions are doing that only for the sake of perpetuating "false myths" and with the main goal to sell high-priced gear and/or to stroke their own egos...?

I'm not implying, I'm stating it outright. A freeware EQ plug-in that's designed properly, and most are, has raw fidelity better than is theoretically possible with the finest analog design and highest quality components. This is easily provable fact, not opinion, as long as we agree that the "fact" is raw fidelity and not euphonic distortion which is a different issue.

So what is a hardware vendor to do now that most people work ITB? All they can do is make up stuff about why their "analog" or "tube" products are better. They either attack digital for being "harsh," or claim its "damaging phase shift" destroys clarity, or that DAW summing narrows the sound stage, and so forth. This is the entire reason I made my AES Audio Myths video and wrote my Audio Expert book, to dispel nonsense and explain how audio fidelity is defined.

--Ethan

 

[grimtraveller]

W o a h !

 

[GONZO-X]

A very long time ago, in a different era, in a different marketplace, etc... Like with most things, they are of a time and if you take them out of that context, they would not sell.

it's simple history, that's all.

everything else is assumed.

 

[miroslav]

I'm not implying, I'm stating it outright. A freeware EQ plug-in that's designed properly, and most are, has raw fidelity better than is theoretically possible with the finest analog design and highest quality components. This is easily provable fact, not opinion, as long as we agree that the "fact" is raw fidelity and not euphonic distortion which is a different issue.

So what is a hardware vendor to do now that most people work ITB? All they can do is make up stuff about why their "analog" or "tube" products are better. They either attack digital for being "harsh," or claim its "damaging phase shift" destroys clarity, or that DAW summing narrows the sound stage, and so forth. This is the entire reason I made my AES Audio Myths video and wrote my Audio Expert book, to dispel nonsense and explain how audio fidelity is defined.

--Ethan

I can't answer for what each manufacturer of analog gear claims or what if any objections they raise to digital audio...but the bottom line is that lots of people use digital and analog too, for a reason, and it's not just because they bought the hype.
If all you use are test numbers to prove why one is better than the other...that's not any kind of proof.
Also...there is this constant thumbing-of-nose by digital proponents that analog is just about adding things like "euphonic distortion", and that while "some may like that" it doesn't mean analog beats out digital.

Hey...I disagree.
I mean, if a manufacturer of analog gear wants to just argue from the point of "numbers"...that's their choice and they can live or die by that....but that's NOT what people listen to or find more pleasing/preferable.
You can try and minimize it by calling it nothing more than "euphonic distortion"...but if some folks prefer it, then you need to accept it that to them it DOES sound better and not keep on trying to argue that "it can't be possible", "your equipment is broken", "it's all in your imagination"....etc.

"Better" is a personal choice thing, and you will NEVER prove it with pure numbers.
If you want to lay down a bunch of criteria about how "better" is going to be defined, and you want to use "numbers" as the absolute proof...that's a whole other argument that I don't think anyone here is making.

All that said...I don't see high-end analog gear production dying off, if anything, it's booming. IMO, the folks that are winning out are those who have married analog and digital and use both in their SOP to derive what they think sounds best. No amount of "tests and numbers" can prove them right or wrong.....

I'll take a Manley or GML or Tube Tech..etc....any day over anything that comes in a CD sleeve....
As much as I've expanded my digital rig the last few years, and have way more software than I ever did before....I haven't and will not stop buying analog rack gear, and if anything, I've been slowly unloading my "middlin" rack gear and buying up when I could afford it, and very new piece of analog gear has added positively to my rig....
...it's got nothing to do with hype or numbers, I am 100% convinced that my analog tracking front end and my analog mixing back end make things sound better than just the pure ITB/DAW stuff (which I do in the middle of the production process).
Prove me that I'm wrong and that to me it doesn't sound better.

 

[Lt. Bob]

I can't answer for what each manufacture of analog claims or what if any objections they raise to digital audio...but the bottom line is that lots of people use digital and analog too, for a reason, and it's not just because they bought the hype.
If all you use are test numbers to prove why one is better than the other...that's not any kind of proof.
Also...there is this constant thumbing-of-nose by digital proponents that analog is just about adding things like "euphonic distortion", and that while "some may like that" it doesn't mean analog beats out digital.

Hey...I disagree.
I mean, if a manufacturer of analog gear wants to just argue from the point of "numbers"...that's their choice and they can live or die by that....but that's NOT what people listen to or find more pleasing/preferable.
You can try and minimize it by calling it nothing more than "euphonic distortion"...but if some folks prefer it, then you need to accept it that to them it DOES sound better and not keep on trying to argue that "it can't be possible", "your equipment is broken", "it's all in your imagination"....etc.

"Better" is a personal choice thing, and you will NEVER prove it with pure numbers.
If you want to lay down a bunch of criteria about how "better" is going to be defined, and you want to use "numbers" as the absolute proof...that's a whole other argument that I don't think anyone here is making.

All that said...I don't see high-end analog gear production dying off, if anything, it's booming. IMO, the folks that are winning out are those who have married analog and digital and use both in their SOP to derive what they think sounds best. No amount of "tests and numbers" can prove them right or wrong.....

^^^^ I agree with all of this ^^^^^


Look, I've been playing and recording for 45+ years and tuning pianos for 40. I'm known among the music communities I've worked in for having 'good ears' and I know people with extrordinary ears much better than mine which are pretty darned good.
Music isn't all in the specs.

For me, I hear a difference between good analog and 16/44.1 digital. I couldn't care less what someone claims to be able to 'prove'.
But note ..... in these discussions I ALWAYS say 16/44.1 digital because once you go to 24/96 the differences disappear to my ears and to most of the golden ears also.

There is a fair amount of evidence that having the freqs cut off at 22k causes some problems in sound and a fair amount of evidence that being able to capture higher freqs than that, even though they're inaudible, affects the freqs you DO hear.
The rule from almost everyone is trust your ears and I do trust mine. I know what I hear ...... I know the difference between more accurate timbre reproduction and euphonic distortion for instance.

While I realize none of you are in a position to judge if my ears are really that good ..... I know they are and that's why I'm pretty indifferent to anyone not believing it.
Allow me to point out that we also have no way to judge Ethan's ears simply because he wrote a book.

I'm not taking a side in this argument ...... I know what I hear and prefer and why I prefer it.
If others want to imagine some sort of agenda or self-indulgence as being my motivation they are wrong but free to believe as they wish.

What I've said and always say is that you can make excellent recordings with either process.
And music and sound really can't always be reduced to specs.
I can have two amplifiers which measure identical and they can sound very different from each other even though they measure identically.
There's more to this stuff than we are currently able to measure.

But there's far too much angst and anger over this subject ...... pick a platform and get to recording.

 

[Tim Gillett]

At first, the guy who claims he can "hear a difference" superficially trumps the other guy who says he cant. The first guy appears smarter, more discerning, has better hearing, better listening skills. The guy who admits he cant tell any difference appears to be deaf to some important ingredient.

But until it's put to the test, it's just one man's word against another. Until you dont know which source you are listening to it's just words, and either could be right.

These internet forum exchanges are like that. Unless we meet together, see the whites of each other's eyes, and agree to submit to the same double blind listening tests, under the same controlled conditions - which cannot be fudged - it's just a lot of keyboard strokes. There's no personal committment to the possibility of being proved wrong - before your peers.

"I know what I hear" means nothing. Talk is cheap.

 

[miroslav]

WOW...Tim finally got it.

Trying to come to some clear, absolute conclusion via forum debate is often futile and pointless when talking about other people's views without experiencing first-hand what they experienced.

Tom Scholz just let out a sigh of relief .....

Yeah, talk is cheap.
Let us know when you set up that end-all double blind test......

 

[grimtraveller]

You know, I'm not at all sure what all the arguing has been about or why !

 

[miroslav]

You know, I'm not at all sure what all the arguing has been about or why !

I was trying to get a sense of thread's purpose/agenda awhile back...because I couldn't tell what it's real goal was...
...and I'm still not sure what Tim was really after, though I've said what I think it was really about.

The whole Scholz thing was just a vehicle for some other, underlying stuff...I don't think anyone really cares all that much about what Scholz had to say in some insignificant interview that probably very few music/audio guys even noticed.

 

[ido1957]

Is this thread/argument still going? Now it's Friday night I guess everyone will start drinking and arguing even more....lol

 

[miroslav]

Naaa....I find that the weekends actually mellow out things because everyone wants to do their own thing and get some R&R.