doing a report on Analog VS Digital recording... want your input!!!

[buryher17]

Hey dudes. I'm writing a compare/ contrast paper for my ENC1102 class on Analog Vs Digital recording and wanted to ask the experts on this page some questions and just general knowledge that I could put in my report. I've been doing a lot of research so if you don't want to respond with answers and tell me to "research better" then please don't... I've been doing my research I just need a little help with some things. I'd really appreciate some good answers from you amazing recording engineers out there.


The few questions I have left to throw in my paper are......


1. What are the first brands of digital recorders (ADAT and multi-track mixers) other than alesis.

2. What is the first sample rates known for digital recording... always 24 bit etc? What are the compare/ contrast to todays sample rates and the early 90s

3. What are your top 2 analog tape recorders and your top 3 digital recorders (ADAT and mixers)

4. What is the true difference in HD recording (ie: the new pro tools HD studios).... (i personally don't know much about the whole HD concept.)

5. What are the advantages of recording via Analog (tape recorders). (i need as many as you can give... i only have some, i personally am a digital man )


That's pretty much all I can think of right now... my brain is very jumbled around trying to learn as much as possible so I don't look stupid writing this. My teacher is a licensed pro tools user and happened to go to recording school as well as school for becoming an english professor.... so I don't want to look dumb. Any information you guys want to give on analog/digital recording please post! I don't care if it's the most obvious things, It can at least remind me if I had forgotten about it through this mess of information.

Thanks guys!!!!!

 

[bennychico11]

two quick things as I'm running out...first, sample rate and bit depth are two different things. Do a google search on them, but you brought up 24 bits (bit depth) when asking about sample rate (sample per second recorded)

and second, there is no such thing as HD audio. The title of Pro Tools HD is just a meaningless title. HD doesn't stand for "hi-def" as it does in the video world.

 

[pipelineaudio]

1. What are the first brands of digital recorders (ADAT and multi-track mixers) other than alesis.

This is a common misunderstanding. The Alesis adat was actually at the tail end of digital tape, not the beginning. Most would probably say that the ADAT is what gave digital its bad name, previously digital recording was seen as something good.

The two formats you would usually find in professional use were the DASH (Sony PCM3324, Sony PCM 3348, TASCAM DASH and Studer D-827, used 1/2" tape), the ProDigi format (mitsubishi x-850, otari dtr-900 on 1" tape), DAT (NOT to be confused with ADAT), and the PCM F1 Format

3M had the first commercially available tape recorders AFAIK, but they werent exactly spread around

2. What is the first sample rates known for digital recording... always 24 bit etc? What are the compare/ contrast to todays sample rates and the early 90s

It was all over the board. The most common ones thru the 80's and 90's were 16 bit 44.1khz/48khz. For one legend about the sample rate and size choice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc#Storage_capacity_and_playing_time

3. What are your top 2 analog tape recorders and your top 3 digital recorders (ADAT and mixers)

Im not sure what this question asks

4. What is the true difference in HD recording (ie: the new pro tools HD studios).... (i personally don't know much about the whole HD concept.)

It means PT has now caught onto what the other apps were doing in 1995

5. What are the advantages of recording via Analog (tape recorders). (i need as many as you can give... i only have some, i personally am a digital man )

No need to decode it, theoretically any well preserved tape will play back on machines which could be used in the future. Digital info is stored in a specific way and wont be immediately readable without the same format of a reader. Some people use tape distortion and saturation as a form of compression. Tape can have a sound of its own.

 

[buryher17]

two quick things as I'm running out...first, sample rate and bit depth are two different things. Do a google search on them, but you brought up 24 bits (bit depth) when asking about sample rate (sample per second recorded)

and second, there is no such thing as HD audio. The title of Pro Tools HD is just a meaningless title. HD doesn't stand for "hi-def" as it does in the video world.

thanks a lot. i really appreciate it. I actually will admit I never understood the bit sample per second. Like i understand the concept of sample per second but I don't understand the numbers cause I just don't know that much about sound in general.

and the whole HD thing that's really nice to know, I thought it did mean Hi Def.. i figured maybe that whole set up was made to be used with video/sound... i figured it was some rediculous set up created for video and sound recording.

 

[buryher17]

This is a common misunderstanding. The Alesis adat was actually at the tail end of digital tape, not the beginning. Most would probably say that the ADAT is what gave digital its bad name, previously digital recording was seen as something good.

The two formats you would usually find in professional use were the DASH (Sony PCM3324, Sony PCM 3348, TASCAM DASH and Studer D-827, used 1/2" tape), the ProDigi format (mitsubishi x-850, otari dtr-900 on 1" tape), DAT (NOT to be confused with ADAT), and the PCM F1 Format

3M had the first commercially available tape recorders AFAIK, but they werent exactly spread around



It was all over the board. The most common ones thru the 80's and 90's were 16 bit 44.1khz/48khz. For one legend about the sample rate and size choice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc#Storage_capacity_and_playing_time



Im not sure what this question asks



It means PT has now caught onto what the other apps were doing in 1995



No need to decode it, theoretically any well preserved tape will play back on machines which could be used in the future. Digital info is stored in a specific way and wont be immediately readable without the same format of a reader. Some people use tape distortion and saturation as a form of compression. Tape can have a sound of its own.

May i say your answer to question 5 is perfect. Thank you so so much. All thsi info is really helpful. I will definately be using a lot of this in my paper! And all i kept seeing is how the alesis ADAT was like the "first" one ever and it was so huge, but maybe it is really saying that it was the first of which to be spread so widely? IDK, i will definately mention the brand you told me about.

Is it possible I can get your Full name for use of my citations?

Thanks

 

[bennychico11]

thanks a lot. i really appreciate it. I actually will admit I never understood the bit sample per second. Like i understand the concept of sample per second but I don't understand the numbers cause I just don't know that much about sound in general.

and the whole HD thing that's really nice to know, I thought it did mean Hi Def.. i figured maybe that whole set up was made to be used with video/sound... i figured it was some rediculous set up created for video and sound recording.

bit depth has to do with the resolution of each sample (rate) that is recorded. Sample rate has to do with the samples per second taken from a signal. Every audio signal that is sent into a computer goes through a converter. To convert this signal into binary language (1's and 0's) it needs to take samples...or pictures....of parts of the audio. CD sample rate is 44.1kHz. This means it takes 44,100 little pictures of the audio that comes into your computer. 44,100 pictures make up one second. It's similar to how frame rates work with video.
Now each sample also has a bit depth resolution. In a 24 bit project, you are basically using 24 bits to describe one single sample of audio. So in one second you have 1,058,400 bits of information describing what's going on right then. The computer can translate all this into audio and play it back for you.


regarding the Pro Tools HD thing, no HD doesn't have anything to do with sound for video. Before PT HD it was known as Pro Tools TDM (Time Division Multiplexing)...and when they brought out the new line of product the just decided to call it HD. There isn't anything HD about it really. It does support a higher sample rate but just don't get confused thinking it's something for HD video. Those are two different things. Pro Tools HD is just a marketing "gimmick."

 

[rayc]

have you posted in the analogue (yes, that's the correct spelling) section of the forum?

 

[chris.Pocket]

Tape recordings.

Hey man. This is a cool paper topic. I wish I did one like this when I was in school.

Anyway, I just finished these recordings using a TASCAM Portastudio 424 mkii. The option to record digitally was always there, but IMO, analog sounds better.

myspace.com/CopperPocket

An interesting topic to get involved in, is the fact that on average music is being listened to on cheap computer speakers and ipod headphones. This is even more obvious on a college campus.

I have found that music recorded on analog machines sounds better than their digital counterparts when played through these simple speakers.

In a way, music production technology has gone leaps and bounds in a short time, but does the music actually sound better?

 

[pipelineaudio]

And all i kept seeing is how the alesis ADAT was like the "first" one ever and it was so huge, but maybe it is really saying that it was the first of which to be spread so widely? IDK, i will definately mention the brand you told me about.

The history of the ADAT is like a anticlimax to recording technology. Its probably easiest to think that the ADAT was to digital recording, what a tascam 4 track cassette portastudio is to 2" analog recording.

The analogy can only go so far, as the ADAT's DID have the advantages of digital, such as copying cleanly and exact reproduction pass after pass (in theory anyhow, in reality they munched tapes and broke almost every time you pointed at one. Common sarcasm of the day was "yeah ADATs are fun! Make sure you buy two for every one you need)

EQ magazine and the projectstudio/ 8Buss mixer revolution was born on the backs of the ADAts. The whole "Prosumer" side of the industry came up so fast that the whole of MI was moving to establish a new, lower standard of "good enough". Once the Alanis ADAT album came out, it really was open season. Then we got volume wars and all the other goodies that came with "good enough"

The really neat thing about ADAT to me is, the lightpipe really worked...and years and years after the last ADAT ate its last VHS tape, so many of us use lightpipe today in converters, soundcards, console I/O and other stuff.

Is it possible I can get your Full name for use of my citations?

Yes, Aaron Carey pipelineaudio.net

 

[buryher17]

The history of the ADAT is like a anticlimax to recording technology. Its probably easiest to think that the ADAT was to digital recording, what a tascam 4 track cassette portastudio is to 2" analog recording.

The analogy can only go so far, as the ADAT's DID have the advantages of digital, such as copying cleanly and exact reproduction pass after pass (in theory anyhow, in reality they munched tapes and broke almost every time you pointed at one. Common sarcasm of the day was "yeah ADATs are fun! Make sure you buy two for every one you need)

EQ magazine and the projectstudio/ 8Buss mixer revolution was born on the backs of the ADAts. The whole "Prosumer" side of the industry came up so fast that the whole of MI was moving to establish a new, lower standard of "good enough". Once the Alanis ADAT album came out, it really was open season. Then we got volume wars and all the other goodies that came with "good enough"

The really neat thing about ADAT to me is, the lightpipe really worked...and years and years after the last ADAT ate its last VHS tape, so many of us use lightpipe today in converters, soundcards, console I/O and other stuff.




Yes, Aaron Carey pipelineaudio.net

Thank you so much! I just added you into my paper with the quote on why analogue is better. :] Thanks for all the help everybody! You don't understand how much I appreciate it!