End The Battle!

  • Thread starter Thread starter 13th_Omen
  • Start date Start date

Which "sounds" better, analog recordings or digital?

  • analog

    Votes: 11 39.3%

  • digital

    Votes: 17 60.7%
  • Total voters
    28
On MY budget digital sounds better.

I think the pepsi vs. pencils sums it up best.
 
This is because it is an opinion, not a definite.
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Alright, it may very well be an opinion, so here I am just trying to get everyone's opinion, for shits and giggles.. you know! I just want to know, haven't you ever been challenged to this digital vs. analog contraversy? Well, i might still tell him we are both right, but I will also give him the poll results and all of the input from you guys just to prove one thing to him... they are both going to produce high quality results (if done correctly of course) BUT............. in the long run, digital is less expensive, lwer maintance, more flexible, and given the preceeding.... more worthy of an investment!!
 
Correct me if I’m wrong. What I understand is that with amateur gear the best one can achieve is merely "Good". One could never reach "Damn Good." For instance lets say I’m recording a cover of Hotel California. With my set up (Taylor, Sm81, Rnp XT20- onboard converters) The best that I could ever possibly do compared to the original Hotel California would be just "Acceptable"
 
Not at all. I'd like to think the Eagles would sound like the Eagles no matter if it was on ADATs or 2". It still comes down to the tune/performance.
 
Gin or Vodka?

Scotch or Rum?

Hamburgers or HotDogs?

Missionary or DoggieStyle?

43 or 44?






Whatever floats your boat
 
MISTERQCUE said:
Gin or Vodka?

Scotch or Rum?

Hamburgers or HotDogs?

Missionary or DoggieStyle?

43 or 44?






Whatever floats your boat
Click to expand...

MISTERQCUE is deciding between: Behringer or Nady! :p
 
VSpaceBoy said:
Strange Leaf,
you said .."I'm not saying that one is better than the other.... but if we cut it down to the plain sound, the analog wins hands down."

That is not a fair statment to me.

The goal of digital is quality, not color. The idea is to get zero artifacts, and to color the way that we want to later. To record analog just means your planning your color up front and not going back and changing it later. Not nessesarily good or bad.

To me I would rather, per say, record a completely dry vocal and go back and color it later. I can run it through "analog" tubes, a reverb box, bounce it off some tape, or damn near anything later. Because the source is clean. <or at least as clean as I can get it on MY gear> No different than tracking on tape or tracking Hi Fi and bouncing it on tape.

One thing to remember too is what "sounds" good is simply what we associate with sounds that we like. We tend to go after sounds and methods mimiced from things we like, and if THEY said they did it THAT way then damn, we sure as shit need to do that way too and OUR stuff will be just as good. All a frame of mind. Ever notive how you change your mind of what "sounds" good after hear other things?

Last thing too, I always remember that movie The Rock when Nick Cage spends $200 on that Beetles record in the begining and when asked why not spend $15 on the CD, he says.. "It sounds better". I often think, I bet he couldn't even tell the difference if it was recorded digital, and mixed down through "vinylish warmth" to a cd.
Yes that sounds like alot of work, but again its control.
On analog, you commit, digital you control.

Just my thoughts, and now I'm done..

SpaceBoy
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I hear you. But I think you misunderstood me a little.
What I meant was that analog has a better sound cause digital doesnt even have a sound. (in a way)

I didn't say that analog is better than digital, cause there are more to it than the sound alone.

Example:
You talk about bouncing some tracks to tape and back to add color. Thats a fairly common move, if you got an analog deck.
But NO ONE bounces any tracks to a harddisk and back to get a "digital sound". The signal would come back more or less (depening on A/D D/A) exactly the same.

THAT's what I mean when I say digital doesn't have a sound. Hell, it ain't supposed to have either. That's the whole idea.

Myself, I record digital, so I'm not here to rack on that media.

But digital has it's strength in editing, no highfrequency loss over time, transferable through internet etc etc

Analog has some problems, like maintaing and aligning the machines, tape loose information over time etc, but still we can accept all it's faults and shortcomings. Why ? Cause it has that sound. It sounds better. That's the only thing that analog does better, and that's why people bounce tracks to analog reels and back.

That doesn't mean I believe one is the better recording medium than the other. If I had to choose one, I'd take digital. But as I'm setup now, I use both. And that's the best of both worlds.
 
But the discussion may be irrelevant. People have different opinions, and all that works for each person is fine.

I totally agree that a skilled engineer can get a good sound out of any of the two. Actually, it's quite easy. They're both excellent to record on.
 
not to take this off- subject (debate) ...

Regarding Track Rat and Blue Bear's comments:

Blue Bear quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Track Rat
I guess my opinion is if you can't make a decent digital system sound good, it's more of a problem with the engineer, not the medium.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bingo!


Blue Bear quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Track Rat
I just feel that the summing in an analog console sounds MUCH better to my ears. YMMV.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mine too....!


***************

Please help me understand something: can one get the sound of "analog summing" using an analog board but digital (say Pro Tools) multitrack source? Or does the digital sound already "suffer" from each track having been D/A'd individually? In other words, does the accumulated affect of D/A conversion on 16 tracks negate any benefits of mixing that source down to two tracks in analog realm?

Holy crap, am I even making sense? :eek:
 
Re: not to take this off- subject (debate) ...

geekgurl said:
Please help me understand something: can one get the sound of "analog summing" using an analog board but digital (say Pro Tools) multitrack source? Or does the digital sound already "suffer" from each track having been D/A'd individually? In other words, does the accumulated affect of D/A conversion on 16 tracks negate any benefits of mixing that source down to two tracks in analog realm?

Holy crap, am I even making sense? :eek:
Click to expand...
Yeah, you're making sense.:cool: That's exactly what I'm doing. The computer playsback from Cakewalk through the 2408 to the HD24 which functions as a 24 channel soundcard. That I mix through my analog console. And as far as I'm concerned, the conversion is not a problem at all. I find the converters in the HD24 clocked with the GenX6 sound very good. And the whole point of going through the console IS to alter the sound.:D
 
Why no option of hybrid chains using both? Thats what I use. A good engineer can make a tape deck and a $2 mic sound good. Its all about what you are trying to capture, and how much money you want to spend getting what you want.
 
...and,

I dont have a lot (let say about any :|) experience with analog recording,(exept when I was in the damn Musitechnic shcool) but, am I wrong or if decent analog gear will be WAY more expensive than decent digital setup?

I now own a Fostex R8, but it doesn't 100% work, and I got it free so I dont complain. It need a good clean up, witch will certainely cost a few box, cuz the 1st track doesn t record well at all. It record, but you can still hear what was there before so..not very usable for now.

Anyway, I think I prefer assign my signals thru my 01v's adat outputs to my Nuendo Audiolink 96 adat inputs, witch is not a noisy path at all (or thru my VoicemasterPro pre) than assign whatever to the R8. Maybe, when I'll get this unit thru a doctor it will be better, or maybe if I had a huge 24 tracks studer, otari, whatever, I'll appreciate these.

I'm pretty shure that, when we are talking about HOME studios, we may get better results witch cheap/accesible digital gear than with cheap/accessible analog gear.

I may be wrong!!! Let me know :)

Fred
 
Right Fred.

On my budget, the best I could ever hope for is an 8-track. On my PC, my imagination runs wild.

The funny thing is that after years of recording on 8-tracks, I've got this habit of planning all of my recordings for 8-tracks.

Now that I can have 16 or even 24, I really don't know what to do w/all of them yet.

For me, going from 8-track analog to PC recording is kind of like going from a 4-track to 16 track. I feel like a little kid all over again--All those crazy ideas I had when I was limited are now possible.

And I think digital sounds good.
 
I haven't read every post within this thread, but I would say...

Digital is not sound, it is the numbers one and zero that create sound.

Analog is sound.
 
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