DAW vs Classic Reel to Reel, Bitter?

[bigwillz24]

Bigwillz24, I think you have misread the question at hand.

Uhmm okay... I might have. Let me go re-read the topic... Yep I would have given the same answer.

I'm not asking for personal preference, but wondering if anyone is annoyed at how easy it is to get into recording now.

Uhmm okay... again, why do you care what the next man or woman thinks?

Also, the reason I said to spend your time elsewhere is because if you keep instagating shit and you probably would start a debate.

What shit? I don't see any shit. I spend my time where I please. It's a freaking forum.

I have read through the analog vs digital debates, as if there was even a debate there.

Good for you. You want a medal for it?

It's mostly just "I like anaolg because it's warm and digital is too plain," or "Analog is yesterday, digital is clean, easy and practical," hardly a debate more of just people repeating their opinions over and over and over.

Uhmm yeah... I said that, man you learn fast.

Don't try to talk to me like some kid, I'm married, live with my partner, and self-employeed making damn fine money. Don't judge me on my age.

Well if you act like a kid you get treated like one. I don't care what you make or what you got. If you didn't notice the smileys and can't take a joke maybe you need to go hang out at rp or something where the forums moderated from assholes like me who poke fun and "instigate" debates over stupid shit like digital and analog.

Oh and just to answer your question and show how much of a prick I am.

What's wrong with it being easier? That's what happens over time in any field . It's called technological advances, however; you still have to know the basics or you won't be able to record your way out of a paper bag whether you are using digital or analog.


Good day to you sir and have a merry fuckin Christmas.

 

[Dogman]

If it takes the fun out of doing this, it sucks.

If you love using the equipment, and tinkering, that's a big part of what this whole homerecording is about.

Shit, I started in '84, with a cassette 4 track. Still have many of those recordings. Fun to listen to, but they suck. I like computers, and software, so the DAW is cool...but whatever gets the music to my ears...I don't give a shit about the equipement. The musician is core.

 

[Cyrokk]

What does everyone think, are we DAW users spoiled?

No. Bottom line is that whether you use analog or DAW, the most important parts of the recording are the songwriting, performance, and what kind of room it was recorded with along with the mics that were used to pick up those sounds. Those things have a learning curve that is far steeper than simply learning how to operate a mechanical gizmo that picks up sound vibrations.

As for ease of use, while I do all my tracking digitally, I find mixing in the box to be a complete pain in the ass. My preference is to export the tracks to an analog desk where I be more hands-on.

 

[Dogman]

As for ease of use, while I do all my tracking digitally, I find mixing in the box to be a complete pain in the ass. My preference is to export the tracks to an analog desk where I be more hands-on.

How do you do your mixing???.........what equipment and stuff?

I do everything on pc....it's all I have. I suck though...

 

[mixmkr]

I found that musical talant was more of an issue then to get a good recording than it is nowadays. Also, some experience and skill was needed so you didn't bury your tracks in tape hiss and/or other inherint negatives.
Typically, it is relatively easy to record a fairly clean track on a computer, that could easily have better "specs" than a recording done years ago. However, I am finding that nowadays, things can easily be as complex as calibrating a 2" deck and patching gear and syncing machines. It's just different stuff. Personally, I am having a bear trying to get virtual instruments and the like to really work EASILY. To me, that is just as hard as some of the tasks required for analog machines.

I think it is incredible what you can do with DAW and for how little money you have to really invest. In the 70's, high quality studios where out of the question for the home recordist, unless you were financially independent.

One last item... I think the focus has drastically shifted in what many people are concerned with during the recording process. A good setup years back typically had good gear, you hooked it up and on you went. Today the importance of what preamp, etc... seems to be overly important.

 

[danny.guitar]

I'd love to be able to mix out of the box. I hate moving little sliders and shit with the mouse. It's tedious.

 

[true-eurt]

If it takes the fun out of doing this, it sucks.

If you love using the equipment, and tinkering, that's a big part of what this whole homerecording is about.

Shit, I started in '84, with a cassette 4 track. Still have many of those recordings. Fun to listen to, but they suck. I like computers, and software, so the DAW is cool...but whatever gets the music to my ears...I don't give a shit about the equipement. The musician is core.

Oh yeah...? Well I started back in '70 with a tape recorder and cassette from Radio shack...or from somewhere like that..no, make that a reel to reel...they didn't have cassettes yet...

 

[Cyrokk]

How do you do your mixing???.........what equipment and stuff?

I do everything on pc....it's all I have. I suck though...

One of the things I did when I first signed up here was do some search on the equipment I had, which was basically just an ADAT XT and a Studiomaster 16x2 channel analog mixer. I was pretty happy to discover that my mixer is a damn good piece of gear and at that time, the biggest problem people had with computer mixing was that digital summing didn't sound nearly as good as with analog.

So I figured the best thing for me would be to build my setup around that mixer. I pissed off the wife by dropping a shitload of cash into an RME Hammerfall soundcard with ADAT lightpipe I/O, with two 8-channel expansion boards allowing me to plug into my Studiomaster.

So, when I record, I plug into my ADAT interface, which feeds directly into my pc (I also recently discovered that the preamps on my mixer crap all over my piece-of-shit Art Tube Pre by a height of several miles, so I'm letting said shitpiece collect dust).

When I mix, the tracks in Samplitude are exported through the RME's expansion boards into my analog mixer. The master outs go back into the ADAT, and thus back into the pc, creating a nice non-latency loop with any "signal loss" coming from the analog board.

I do some volume edits in Samplitude, but any macro fader controls, dynamic panning, or EQ cuts I do on the analog mixer.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

I was just reading on another thread about "Flying in" which preceeded the clever banter and I got to thinking:

Are you more analog guys that record to tape bitter about the guys using DAWs and hard drives to record? I know DAWs have made things a lot easier, and I feel bad that I didn't have to ever go through a reel (haha, I crack myself up) headache and have been spoiled by my new school approach to recording. I'd like to do some reel to reel so I can say I did it. Should I just not waste my time though? does it really matter. The fact of my matter is that I record to a hard drive and can edit a waveform easily, I don't have to cut anything or flip anything over.

What does everyone think, are we DAW users spoiled?

I'm an analog guy and I'm definitely not bitter about shit.

I have a very nice 16 track, 1 inch machine and a 44 input console that allows me to do what I want and need to do. It's what I learned on and am quite comfortable with it and always pleased with the sound quality I get from my primitive set up.

About the only thing that I dislike about DAW systems is not the system itself but the abuse many newer recording musicians use it for when it comes to cutting and pasting parts together that they could never play live in a million years. It lowers the talent bar and in general lowers the end product by allowing hacks to pretend that they are actually talented musicians when in fact, they suck.

It's kind of like plastic tits collagen injections and lyposuction...it's cute from a distance but it ain't real.

If you use your DAW to capture your talents rather then use it to create your talent, I have no problem with the gear itself.

What ever floats your boat.

Cheers!

 

[danny.guitar]

About the only thing that I dislike about DAW systems is not the system itself but the abuse many newer recording musicians use it for when it comes to cutting and pasting parts together that they could never play live in a million years. It lowers the talent bar and in general lowers the end product by allowing hacks to pretend that they are actually talented musicians when in fact, they suck.

Agreed.

They'll never get better as musicians though and if they ever play live they'll have a hell of a time.

I personally got a lot better since I started recording because I would have to do 50+ takes to get it right. And I'm a perfectionist so that doesn't make things any easier.

 

[Cyrokk]

About the only thing that I dislike about DAW systems is not the system itself but the abuse many newer recording musicians use it for when it comes to cutting and pasting parts together that they could never play live in a million years. It lowers the talent bar and in general lowers the end product by allowing hacks to pretend that they are actually talented musicians when in fact, they suck.

When I first met my wife, she wasn't all that impressed when I told her I was a musician with a home studio because she thought I was either one of those guys who thinks he can play because he can play "Axle F" on his casio keyboard, or a guy that actually could play a song on an instrument, but not all the way through and had to sample each and every piece as you described.

Those are the only two times I've known her that I was able to prove her wrong.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What I was trying to get at was that it seems to take a certain skill to record to a reel, where as anyone can plug a mic into their SoundBlaster card and record.

But that's just my point, Cult. There is no difference. Anybdy can plug a mic into an open reel tape deck and record just the same way as they can with a soundblaster card. This is exactly what people from Les Paul to Alan Lomax to my grandfather with his old Sony used to do. When I built my first home studio back in '79, recording everything to a Teac 3340 4-track (which was the real tits at the time) and a Pioneer RT1020L two-track SWS, I had no mixer the way we know them now. We jerry rigged our signal paths the same way newbs to this forum do now with their stuff.

It doesn't take any more skill to record to tape than it does to record to Soundblaster. Both will come out sounding like crap if you don't know what you're doing and will sound decent if you do know what you're doing.

Honestly, the main difference between today and, say, 30 years ago, are that people have more money today. Even adjusting for inflation, the standard of living has gone way up. This, combined with the the decreasing costs of electronic processing power has put technical (if not sonic) capabilities that used to be only available at The Power Station recording studio in the hands of your average teen.

Does that make the old guard bitter? Not in and of itself, no. Not the technology. What makes them bitter is that all that teen does these days is cop a hack of Cubase, and they are hanging out Internet shingles calling themselves "studios", "mastering engineers", and - if you're into hip hop - "producers", even though they couldn't record or mix a decent track to save their lives.

It cheapens the industry, it cheapens the titles, and it insults those who actually are qualified to have those titles and perform those duties. But it's not the gear or it's availability or its cheapeness that's at fault; it's the poeple who try to short cut and easy button themselves to those titles that are at fault.

G.

 

[beezelbubba]

Agreed.

They'll never get better as musicians though and if they ever play live they'll have a hell of a time.

I personally got a lot better since I started recording because I would have to do 50+ takes to get it right. And I'm a perfectionist so that doesn't make things any easier.

See,I've been through that and found that it mearly slowed down my creativity.I want what's in my mind transfered to media as efficiently as possible.No other consideration is allowed.I have nothing to prove.There is stuff I've written and recorded that will never be played live.
In light of all that,I think you'll have to agree that I'm right, you're wrong, and digital is better than analog!

 

[danny.guitar]

See,I've been through that and found that it mearly slowed down my creativity.I want what's in my mind transfered to media as efficiently as possible.No other consideration is allowed.I have nothing to prove.There is stuff I've written and recorded that will never be played live.
In light of all that,I think you'll have to agree that I'm right, you're wrong, and digital is better than analog!

Well if that's what you have to do to get what's in your mind, onto tape (or disk ), then go for it.

I'm just more of a believer that the recording process should just be that, recording a good performance. Not creating one.

When I first started, I have admittedly tried editing a track for timing mistakes, or creating rhythm loops or whatnot, but I could never do that effectively and make it to where it wasn't obvious.

I finally decided to practice and that's when my recordings started to get better.

But I think the important thing is to have fun recording.

 

[Dogman]

But I think the important thing is to have fun recording.

Yes...........

 

[beezelbubba]

I'm just more of a believer that the recording process should just be that, recording a good performance. Not creating one.

Why?

When I first started, I have admittedly tried editing a track for timing mistakes, or creating rhythm loops or whatnot, but I could never do that effectively and make it to where it wasn't obvious.

It's a skill that gets honed through practice.

I finally decided to practice and that's when my recordings started to get better.

Like I said before, I recorded that way for years because there was no other way.What is it about your recordings that is better?Does that quality of your recording improve by the 10th take?
I still play on my recordings.Much of what I'm doing is taking out redundancy.Why should I play the chorus riff again and again if I nailed it right the first time?If it is meant to be repeated here, here and here, why not past it there, there and there and move on to the next challenge?
I suppose I should also say that I have four kids, so my time recording is at a premium.I need to get things done, and done quickly.

 

[danny.guitar]

Why should I play the chorus riff again and again if I nailed it right the first time?If it is meant to be repeated here, here and here, why not past it there, there and there and move on to the next challenge?
I suppose I should also say that I have four kids, so my time recording is at a premium.I need to get things done, and done quickly.

That's what I used (try) to do. Record each section of the song once (verse, chours, etc.) and then just paste them all accordingly. Never worked out well for me.

What is it about your recordings that is better?

Sounds more natural to me. But then again I never practiced copying/pasting or editing.

I used to not be able to get through a whole song without messing up, even on a simple rhythm track. But after forcing myself to play it over and over again I no longer have that problem. I think my technique has improved a good deal since then, which makes my playing sound better, which makes the song sound better.

 

[Cyrokk]

See,I've been through that and found that it mearly slowed down my creativity.I want what's in my mind transfered to media as efficiently as possible.

Just this last year I discovered this: that you can really screw up tracks by slowing down your creativity. When you work on a new song, the more you try to perfect it, the more you get bored with it and the more stale the recording becomes. At least from a self-production standpoint, your recordings come out much better if you get that fucker tracked the minute you call it done from a songwriting standpoint.

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

think you have misread the question at hand. I'm not asking for personal preference, but wondering if anyone is annoyed at how easy it is to get into recording now.

That's a very slanted question. Its sounds kinda like...

"Any of you cranky old analog farts bitter about what us whiz-bang kids can do with a cheap DAW these days? Just askin...."

Even if that's not what you meant.

I see what you're asking, though, and no its not annoying. I think its great that musical creativity and expression is so easily accessible. It doesn't mean that recording itself is any easier than it ever was... it just means that the tools to do so are within reach of more people.

I never met a mic that could place itself, a room that tuned itself or a compressor that set itself perfectly- software or hardware. These things are no easier than they've ever been- BUT there is a LOT more information out there for idiots like me.

Most of what I know about mics I learned from Harvey's Big Thread. Its the reason I emerged from years of lurking here, actually. Between that and the years of experiementation and work with mics since I actually have a fighting chance of getting the sound I want with the gear I have- whether its going to Pro Tools, ADAT or 1/2" doesn't make that much difference. There is a difference but Joe and Sally Listener probably aren't going to notice it or care.

So the real value these days, beyond the cheap and decent DAW gear around, is the *information* available about how to use it.

-C

 

[TragikRemix]

i wish i was able to use tape, but i can barely make good stuff with a DAW.

i think that old school reel to reel engineers are absolute geniouses as far as recording goes. it takes alot of talent and patience to work with tape, especially editing and junk.

either way, it's all about the music!