Still allergic to digital ?

[grimtraveller]

To be clear, just because someone is recording in an all digital format doesn't mean they have to use every digital tool at their disposal

And that's important, that all tools are just that ¬> tools.

Many artists choose to not use autotune, or even click tracks

I've never used autotune in my life and I have no intention of ever doing so. I'd rather get people hitting the notes and if we fall out, as has happened, well, I'll deal with the fall-out !

The tools used are a choice made by the artist, producer, and engineer

My amps and preamp happen to be analog ~ I wouldn't swap them for anything.

Ok.....you're allowed to go back in time to record Beethoven on piano. How cool! You can bring either an analog setup or a DAW / digital setup to do the recording...but not both. Which do you bring? Why?

I'd bring my Akai DPS12i for the simple reason that it's what I know well and am used to.

I think you just like to debate/argue

Well, I can't deny that. I do like to debate. And 'argue' to all intents and purposes is just another word for 'debate'.

Never was I implying that music should only be done with the whole band in the room

I wasn't saying that this is what you were implying or stating. I was pushing back against what you did say, which was "recording analog is contributing to real old fashioned musicianship. As in get a guitar or two, a bass, drums, vocalist (s) to play and record music.
Yeah, you can do the same thing with digital, but old school lends itself to real musicians more."
I don't agree with that in and of itself and was using some olde-world examples to demonstrate that much of what is ascribed to be digital workflow and methods existed long before there was such a thing as digital.

And that could be done analog or digital.

It's not being argumentative to point out that the old school doesn't necessarily lend itself to real musicians more.

 

[RFR]

And that's important, that all tools are just that ¬> tools.

I've never used autotune in my life and I have no intention of ever doing so. I'd rather get people hitting the notes and if we fall out, as has happened, well, I'll deal with the fall-out !

My amps and preamp happen to be analog ~ I wouldn't swap them for anything.

I'd bring my Akai DPS12i for the simple reason that it's what I know well and am used to.

Well, I can't deny that. I do like to debate. And 'argue' to all intents and purposes is just another word for 'debate'.

I wasn't saying that this is what you were implying or stating. I was pushing back against what you did say, which was "recording analog is contributing to real old fashioned musicianship. As in get a guitar or two, a bass, drums, vocalist (s) to play and record music.
Yeah, you can do the same thing with digital, but old school lends itself to real musicians more."
I don't agree with that in and of itself and was using some olde-world examples to demonstrate that much of what is ascribed to be digital workflow and methods existed long before there was such a thing as digital.

It's not being argumentative to point out that the old school doesn't necessarily lend itself to real musicians more.

I don’t like to debate or argue. It’s always a competitive activity to some extent. There’s a winner and loser, an ‘I’m right you’re wrong’ mentality.

Here on the forum I just try to state my opinions. I’m not proclaiming anything as fact or some kind of gospel truth. Just my opinions. Take em or leave em.

Even in your last post you’re still trying to debate/ argue. That tells me your goal or mission is to try to punch holes in my opinions, you’re trying to ‘win’ the debate.

Well, I didn’t sign up for or pay for an argument .

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Ok.....you're allowed to go back in time to record Beethoven on piano.

Beethoven would be just as perplexed at either.

 

[rob aylestone]

I’ve been thinking about this and what tests and experiments I can do with the gear available to me but the problem now is that at some point, we have to be digital to let others hear it? I could record on this phone and stick it up for us to listen. One a to d in the iPhone end of process. If I plug in a mic to a reel to reel and hit record I’ve still then got to convert it to digital so the recording must be inferior. The record and replay cannot make it better quality. Clearly it will be changed. Perhaps to me with it plugged into decent monitors it will be really good analogue but I cannot capture that essence of quality so how can I convince you. There’s a really good set of videos on YouTube from a tape recorder museum collection but the recordings they play are terrible because despot what they hear in the room we don’t capture that? It’s clearly like home cinemas. Relax in those comfy seats with a great sound system and you go wow! But watching it on YouTube sounds dreadful. We’re now at the stage where people’s analogue systems may well be excellent but we just don’t know without converting to digital

 

[DM60]

This is long (~17 minutes), but I think many would find it interesting.

 

[Pinky]

I’ve been thinking about this and what tests and experiments I can do with the gear available to me but the problem now is that at some point, we have to be digital to let others hear it? I could record on this phone and stick it up for us to listen. One a to d in the iPhone end of process. If I plug in a mic to a reel to reel and hit record I’ve still then got to convert it to digital so the recording must be inferior. The record and replay cannot make it better quality. Clearly it will be changed. Perhaps to me with it plugged into decent monitors it will be really good analogue but I cannot capture that essence of quality so how can I convince you. There’s a really good set of videos on YouTube from a tape recorder museum collection but the recordings they play are terrible because despot what they hear in the room we don’t capture that? It’s clearly like home cinemas. Relax in those comfy seats with a great sound system and you go wow! But watching it on YouTube sounds dreadful. We’re now at the stage where people’s analogue systems may well be excellent but we just don’t know without converting to digital

Don't think too much about it. The recent discussions (debates) have never been about whether someone can get a good recording using analog gear, it's the insistence that analog is superior that raised eyebrows and pushback. I 'carefully' listen to a lot of 1960s- early 1980s music, much of it in high resolution and/or surround, nearly all of it recorded originally on analog of various and sometime dubious quality. All of it sounds very good, even to this day. The caveat is that the original masters had some limitations, most often background noise/hiss from the tape medium, that modern digital tools help to cleanup and the clarity now available in these recordings is remarkable. Albums like Yes's "Fragile" immediately come to mind, never a BAD sounding recording but had audible hiss in the quieter sections of music that vanished on the remixes done by Steven Wilson a few years ago. Now they quite literally sound like they were recorded yesterday, in a good way. I know there's some people in the surround music community who are analog fans, and appreciate the before and after many of these older recordings experience when remixed. But there's also many in the analog community who don't listen to surround music and have never heard these remixes, so they just assume they're garbage and the origins are perfect/superior. Hearing is believing, so as someone listening to surround remixes since 2001 and owning many of the same releases on vinyl and cassette back in the day, I feel like an objective set of ears. There is zero way I will ever accept the argument analog is superior.

 

[TalismanRich]

I'm curious as to what the record mastering folks are using today, after the fire at the Apollo mastering plant some years ago. Had DMM become the standard process for mastering vinyl, or does MDC provide enough lacquers for the market? I haven't heard of anyone else stepping into the arena to fill the hole left by Apollo's fire.

 

[rob aylestone]

I've been looking at the plants who have youtube videos - one stated for vinyl he needed 96K 24 bit files - nothing else will do. So what exactly constitutes the vinyl experience? It seems that pretty much it's digital recordings? Hmmmmmm

 

[snow lizard]

This is long (~17 minutes), but I think many would find it interesting.

Interesting video.

This reminds me of a story I heard while watching an AES presentation a while back about audiophiles. There was an audiophile speaking about his $275k listening room with the one leather recliner chair in the perfect listening position where he would go in and listen to his audiophile grade vinyl and cry being moved by how pristine and beautiful everything sounded.

Later they had an engineer that recorded what was considered to be an audiophile grade recording. It was a folk project - just a guy singing and playing acoustic guitar. He was asked about the sessions and his process. Turns out there was zero budget for this project. They couldn't afford a studio so it was recorded in a house with vaulted ceilings. The recording chain was a stereo ribbon mic into an amp on to a Scully 2 track machine. So Dude played and sang his songs and they sent the tapes to mastering. That's it. No mixing. No studio. Not a whole lot of shit in the signal path - just bare essentials.

 

[grimtraveller]

I don’t like to debate or argue

Evidently.

It’s always a competitive activity to some extent

It can be.
But that's dependent on the mentality of the people involved. You see, though you may find this hard to believe or accept, one of my reasons for enjoying debate is that I like to glean from other people. I really do enjoy understanding people's thought processes and trying to understand what has brought them to where they are at that moment in time.
I don't see it as essentially competitive, although in saying that, I'm not beyond competing. I'm reasonably confident in my thoughts and fairly firm in some of my opinions, but not to the extent that I've become that island that no man is.

There’s a winner and loser, an ‘I’m right you’re wrong’ mentality

In many things that get discussed, there are elements of our opinions that are right, wrong, somewhere in between, in need of further information and thought etc.
So what if you happen to think I might be wrong about something and you point it out ? You may well be right and that food for thought may well be just what I'd need at that point, even if it takes me a while to see it.

Here on the forum I just try to state my opinions. I’m not proclaiming anything as fact or some kind of gospel truth. Just my opinions. Take em or leave em

There is absolutely no point in engaging in human discourse with other humans if one's opinions are gilt-edged diamonds that no one is allowed to pick up off the ground.
There again, if I happen to comment on your opinion 🗣, you could just take your own advice and leave it alone, just take it or leave it......

Even in your last post you’re still trying to debate/ argue. That tells me your goal or mission is to try to punch holes in my opinions

You make me sound like a saboteur 🗡 from the French resistance , circa 1943.
My 'goal' wasn't to punch holes in your opinions. I disagreed with some of your opinion and rather than insult you by saying something crass and unthinking like "what a load of shit, lol !" I stated that I disagreed and backed that disagreement up with why I disagreed.
Mummy brought me up to be a gentleman.

Well, I didn’t sign up for or pay for an argument .

But...but...it was a freebie that you won by being the 1,000,000th poster !

 

[grimtraveller]

Beethoven would be just as perplexed at either

I like the argument {sorry, the observation} that the composers 𓀊 of Beety's era were the original mixing engineers, in the way the orchestra was set up and the way the music was arranged to highlight the different places the band {sorry, orchestra } were stationed and the instrumentalist's relative volumes .

This is long (~17 minutes), but I think many would find it interesting.

I really enjoyed it. Thoroughly interesting.
As an observation, it is definitely a "looking back" project that is marvellous if one wants to play jazz and sound like 1959 or thereabouts. Fact is though, the majority of recording artists didn't want to sound that way or record that way once multitracking took hold.
It would have been interesting to try to record Cream or Hendrix or Deep Purple in there. I don't even think you could have done much Motown in there.

The recent discussions (debates) have never been about whether someone can get a good recording using analog gear, it's the insistence that analog is superior that raised eyebrows and pushback

I completely agree.
Personally, I don't find either superior because they are what they are. I have never heard hiss so bad on a record or tape that it was ever an issue for me as a listener.
But what do I know ?
I'm just a record on your stereo,
A bit of plastic 🕳spinnin' round....
I'll keep on moving and a' grooving
Until the neighbours turn me down !

 

[60's guy]

But that's dependent on the mentality of the people involved.

I've always enjoyed reading your posts until today. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[TalismanRich]

Some of you might be interested in this interesting and innovative tape format.

A New Triumph in Tape

 

[RFR]

Evidently.

It can be.
But that's dependent on the mentality of the people involved. You see, though you may find this hard to believe or accept, one of my reasons for enjoying debate is that I like to glean from other people. I really do enjoy understanding people's thought processes and trying to understand what has brought them to where they are at that moment in time.
I don't see it as essentially competitive, although in saying that, I'm not beyond competing. I'm reasonably confident in my thoughts and fairly firm in some of my opinions, but not to the extent that I've become that island that no man is.


In many things that get discussed, there are elements of our opinions that are right, wrong, somewhere in between, in need of further information and thought etc.
So what if you happen to think I might be wrong about something and you point it out ? You may well be right and that food for thought may well be just what I'd need at that point, even if it takes me a while to see it.

There is absolutely no point in engaging in human discourse with other humans if one's opinions are gilt-edged diamonds that no one is allowed to pick up off the ground.
There again, if I happen to comment on your opinion 🗣, you could just take your own advice and leave it alone, just take it or leave it......

You make me sound like a saboteur 🗡 from the French resistance , circa 1943.
My 'goal' wasn't to punch holes in your opinions. I disagreed with some of your opinion and rather than insult you by saying something crass and unthinking like "what a load of shit, lol !" I stated that I disagreed and backed that disagreement up with why I disagreed.
Mummy brought me up to be a gentleman.

But...but...it was a freebie that you won by being the 1,000,000th poster !

To that, I’ll just say you certainly have more free time on your hands than I do.

 

[rob aylestone]

i've been watching videos by this fella - while I disagree with some of the content (it's sort of like posts here) he does make lots of solid comments - worth a look.

 

[spantini]

This doesn't go very deep, but there are a few interesting spots :

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105762127

 

[TalismanRich]

Rob
I watched the video, and kept waiting for the answer to his question. It was a bit like listening to a politician at a debate. You get all the background and stories about why things are the way they are, but in the end, the answer is never stated. His comments about how the stylus is tracking this microscopic groove that was put there by this microphone which is then creating a tiny voltage that his amp then increase and pushes the speaker to create the sound, the ritual of choosing the record, taking it out and cleaning it, placing on the turntable, the fact that your quietest room will probably still have a noise floor of 35-50 dB, and how he has come to accept the clicks and pops and surface noise from records.

All that has ZERO to do with whether vinyl can sound better than digital.

What said more to me was that he was doing his recordings at 96kHz/24bit, not direct to master tape or direct to disk.

I also watched some of his other videos, like the one on the Rega P10. Lots of background on how Roy Gandy designs turntables. Interesting, but somewhat long winded.

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Rob
I watched the video, and kept waiting for the answer to his question. It was a bit like listening to a politician at a debate. You get all the background and stories about why things are the way they are, but in the end, the answer is never stated. His comments about how the stylus is tracking this microscopic groove that was put there by this microphone which is then creating a tiny voltage that his amp then increase and pushes the speaker to create the sound, the ritual of choosing the record, taking it out and cleaning it, placing on the turntable, the fact that your quietest room will probably still have a noise floor of 35-50 dB, and how he has come to accept the clicks and pops and surface noise from records.

All that has ZERO to do with whether vinyl can sound better than digital.

What said more to me was that he was doing his recordings at 96kHz/24bit, not direct to master tape or direct to disk.

I also watched some of his other videos, like the one on the Rega P10. Lots of background on how Roy Gandy designs turntables. Interesting, but somewhat long winded.

If there’s anything I do not like, it’s when people give long winded stories/explanations on things. Happened to me at work last week. A manager at another department gave a long story on his experience when he was younger that could have been much more succinct. By the time he was done, he said “another story I have...” and I just quickly said “sorry, I have to get back to work right now,” and he made his second story quick and succinct. I get really antsy when people talk and talk and I’m clearly understanding what’s about to be said.

 

[grimtraveller]

To that, I’ll just say you certainly have more free time on your hands than I do

It was pretty free !

I've always enjoyed reading your posts until today. I'll just leave it at that

Every author has one bum novel in them.
Even if it's a best seller !!

 

[RFR]

It was pretty free !

Every author has one bum novel in them.
Even if it's a best seller !!

All irrelevant. Meaningless. Just words on a screen. ‘Scuse me, real life is calling.