The new myth about digital . . .

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The old myth: "Digital recording is inherently a cold, sterile sounding recording medium."

The NEW myth: "The bad rap digital recording gets about being cold and sterile sounding is a myth."

The idea that myth number one is a myth . . . is in itself a myth all it's own.

Digital is an ACCURATE recording medium. It is BOTH warm AND cold at the same time. And it is neither. The fact that it imparts no warmth that isn't already present durning tracking or mixdown, pretty much equates to digital NOT being "warm." From yet another perspecive, it IS indeed cold and sterile COMPARED to the sound of quality, saturated analog tape, in most peoples' subjective opinion.

But being cold COMPARED to something else doesn't make it cold, right? Just because Florida doesn't usually get as hot as Southern California doesn't make IT cold. From what we have been discovering through our experiences, digital recording doesn't take warm-sounding inputs and "chill them" or make them less sterile than they were coming in.

Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as cold. Cold does not exist, in theory. What does exist is "Lack of heat." Digital recording can be said to lack heat - or heat of it's own, to be more accurate. However, an exteme lack of heat can have a very real (and dangerous) presence, and drastic effects on the warmth of objects that come in contact with it. We indeed perceive it as a very real thing, just like we would perceive a lack of oxygen a real phenomenon. Certainly, digital doesn't have this type of "heat-lacking."

So what's the truth? The truth is digital recording is "room temperature." I expect all of you to write this down and post it on your refrigerators. You can even write a clever reminder: The contents of this frige are COLD. My digital recordings are not, unless I put them in here. :) You can also post another reminder on your oven: "Place recordings in here for added warmth."

And on your microwave, you can post something like: "Place recordings here to unevenly heat the outside while leaving the inside cold."

On your blender, you can post: "Place recordings here and add ice cream, milk, and hershey's syrup to make a tasty shake."
 
this is exactly (kinda) how i rationalized digital recording, its not cold, just accurate.
 
What really bothers me, though, is when people who think they know-it-all act all smart and point out that spending money on tube and analog gear in an attempt to warm up the sound of your digitally-recorded tracks is a big waste of time . . . because "digital isn't cold".

But I say yes it is cold and sterile sounding - COMPARED TO traditional recording mediums that incorporate valves and analog tape, that is. What I mean is just because it isn't a cold medium doesn't mean it is warm either! Of course your recordings can benefit tremendously from quality tube gear or other means to "warm" up your signal. Especially considering that you don't have the analog tape saturation to help out!
 
This know-it-all that "acts all smart and point out that spending money on tube and analog gear in an attempt to warm up the sound of your digitally-recorded tracks is a big waste of time . . . " disagrees with you 100%..........

If you need to "warm-up" a digital recording, then either you didn't record it right in the first place, you've got bad gear (bad converters), or your engineering skills plain suck.

The reason I object so strongly to faux tube is that people mistakenly believe the "tube marketing" hype and buy crap gear in an attempt to get a sound they could have gotten all along if they had simply tracked it right in the first place.

The recording media gets blamed instead of their own lack of skills or poor gear. "I recorded digitally and it sounds crappy - I know it's not my recording skills, it MUST be because someone else told me digital is sterile..." :rolleyes:

Yeah... right... gimme a fuckin break......

On top of that, rookies especially tend to think faux tube is in the same league as genuine tube gear such as the good stuff, which simply isn't the case.

People can mouth-off all they want that digital is this or that - what they can't do is use the medium as an excuse for poor recording skills!

Bruce
 
The only difference I can tell between a good digital recording and a good analog recording is tape saturation.

A lot of pop music is about the illusion of reality. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever read Playboy? Have you ever dated a girl that was in Playboy? Playboy is the illusion of reality of the girl next door. The girls you actually date are the actual girls next door.

The thing about recording is that not all of us have the skills or talents to produce Playboy, that is, an illusion of reality that the public finds pleasing. Most people who record and most people who make music produce something that is more like the actual girl next door.

When you say digital sounds cold or some other sort of rubbish like that you are blaming the medium for all the shortcomings of the producer, engineer, artist and songwriter. If they did their job, then you have an illusion of reality that you'll find pleasing and never even wonder if it was digital or analog.
 
Don't forget that a lot of the knocks against digital were aimed at 16-bit/44.1 digital which is actually limited in some ways. After all, 16-bit is 25 year old computer technology and was the first ever digital medium. What other 25 year old computer stuff do you use? None; because it is crap! The current stuff is accurate but the old stuff had a limited dynamic range, poor low-level resolution and a lot of jitter because they didn't even know what jitter was.
So the criticisms of old 16bit stuff were not totally wrong and it's just hung over 'till now even though the new stuff is fine; because once people don't like something, they can be hard to convince it's been improved.
 
24 bits and Dithering

I am not sure if this is related but I read something about 24 bit recording and that dithering adds noise to the lowest eigth bits of a 24-bit signal so that tat adding this noise to the lower eight bits increases their amplitude and pushes some of the information contained in those bits into the 16th bit. So, the effect is that certain information that makes reverb tails smoother and low level information smoother or more present and less truncated is present and those truncating effects is what creates the edgy digital sound that may in part be what people have referred to as cold. This has been compared to bias on analogue so that it may in fact mean that this perceived coldness of digital was merely the early uses of digital before dithering and 24 bit, before the technology matured. This was possibly a similar event in the analogue history as the pre bias and post bias recording. In other words, digital no longer has the initial limitations it once had and so the early "myth" that may very weel have been grounded in some level of truth no longer is applicable and, therefore, the need for tube front ends will fade or be seen as less important and the faux tube gear will disappear.

I am sure someone with more knowledge of these things could elaborate on this and confirm it or debunk it.
 
While I am no expert and aware of my ignorance I have read and analyzed alot of the info on this and have come to some conclusions that I have not seeen spelled out this way yet.

1. According to the "experts" modern didital 24 bit with good converters, samplers etc is very accurate in reproducing what was recorded.

2. 100% Accuracy may or may not be a desirable trait. If you have great equipment in preamps, microphones and a good recording environment plus well honed skills high accuracy is a very desirable thing. If you (like me) have suboptimal equipment and record at home where your equipment is tucked in a entertainment type center in your bedroom so it fits the wifes home decor requirements and unless you win the lottery you will never have a single dedicated room to record in something more "forgiving" and "faux" has a more desirable trait than accuracy.

3. The questions are will most of these "faux" products deliver what they promise? - very doubful. Can some of these things get us with very limited resources closer to where we want to be? - possibly.

I see alot of us obviously in two different groups:

Professional in that you do it for a living or (want to) and actually get some income to re-invest and can justify the expenses.

"Blue Collar Hobbyist" in that you want to get as close to professional results as you can and to learn everything you can but you know you will never be able to afford any $1,000 per unit preamps, mics or compresors.

This all seems very obvious on the surface to everyone I'm sure but alot of the debates on this site about what equipment is worthwhile fails to take into account what each individuals goals and expectations are.

I have great respect for Bruce and Harvey Gerst etc and I learn alot from them but I'm still in 4-track cassette territory and got into that 8 years ago planning on doing most everything DI with headphones because they make you think you can do that when you buy your first four track and you all know what happens. You get terrible sounding mixes and you try to scrape up cash to get enough equipment just to get decent enough demo's to play for friends with out being ridiculed for the sound quality.

Bruce and everyone I understand 100% about what you are saying about digital not being "warm" or "cold" it is just more accurate than we want it to be sometimes. Some of us are never going to have an acoustic guitar, room with good acoustics or an amp that sounds good enough to us live to start so we dont exactly want accuracy.


We are hoping for affordable things that will make our $200 Takamine sound a little closer to a $1000 Taylor. I definitely understand the frustration with the marketing hype that twists misinformation to make a buck off the unsuspecting. I bought not one but two 3630's (used at least) believing the ads' that billed them as the industry standard.

What I have learned from you is to do everything I can to get the best sound I can get with what I have to work with at the very beginning before it goes to tape or digital.
 
FWIW, my understanding is that at the major label level over 85%
of the time the initial tracks are done on 2" analog tape at 30 ips,
before the majority hit a digital system like Pro Tools for editing/mixing.
 
Believe it or not, I actually agree with Bruce 100% that "cold, sterile digital" should not and cannot be used as an excuse for poor recording techniques. Sometimes, it almost seems like there's a digital "witch hunt" going on, and yes, there are always going to be manufacturers who will attempt to capitalize on this by offering the latest, glowing "ultra-tubified" gizmo or whatchamajiggy. "Watch that tube glow!" :)

What I am trying to point out is that warmth is a lot more like decibals. You can't measure a decible increase as an absolute value, or expression of spl. Rather, it is a relative value, meaning an increase is X% louder than it was before.

Now imagine we have a talented, competent engineer/producer. We'll call him "Butch." Now suppose Butch starts on a major recording project for someone like . . . oh, I don't know, how about Smashing Pumpkins or Garbage? Now Butch just so happens to know his way around the drums, too. To begin the mixdown project, Butch starts out by mixing all of the drums down properly, and he just so happens to prefer doing it in digital for the editing capabilities.

Upon playback, he notices something lacking that he can't quite put his finger on. Relying on gut instinct alone, Butch decides to do another D/A conversion to tape just so he can "stand" the sound of it. "Ahh. Much better" Butch says to himself with a satisfying grin as he plays back an analog version of what he earlier felt was an "unlistenable drum track." A garbage track. :) He later attributes this to the "cold, harsh, accuracy of digital" that just grates him on drum tracks. Satisfied, he dumps those BACK to digital, and all is well in the world of Butch.

But was it really the "coldness or accuracy" of digital that got to him? Was there really a noticeable coldness to it that could be described in "degrees" or measurements of cold? Absolutely not. But does that mean it doesn't exist? Well, in an abstract sense, it does exist. What Butch is used to hearing is the saturation of magnetic particles that imparts pleasing harmonics and a more natural compression.

In other words, warmth! When recording straight to digital, the LACK OF warmth he is so used to hearing is PERCIEVED as being COLD. Now getting back to my decibal analogy, the coldness is there only in RELATIVE terms (compared to the tape hes' used to) What he's really hearing is accuracy.

But then again, what does Butch know? :) He's only a ficticious character, right? And his records kind of suck. NOT ! ! ! Butch is one of the all-time masters of his craft. And I'm afraid there are scarce few mistakes this guy makes or poor technique that he has to try and hide or cover up with analog. He just prefers the sound.

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/mar97/butchvig.html
 
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I'm definately no expert (just a hobbyist) but I fell victim to the cheap tube preamp myth (you know,how it warms up the sound).I bought an Art "tube"MP and what a waste of money.Noise is no substitute for warmth and as your ears and equipment grow you hear the truth become glaringly clear;the Art MP is a piece of shit.The harshness in my recordings was not caused by the medium but by the cheap gear I used and throwing another piece of noisy gear like the faux tube preamps only adds to the problem.I was using the MP (POS),a Mxl 2001p mic (POS),Nanoverb (POS) and a Nanocomp (POS),my recordings never stood a chance.To some extent it is not how much money you spend but rather how you spend the money.Actually what I use now cost less than that cheap equipment and gives me much better results.I currently use an Audio Technica 3525 ($150),an M-Audio Audio Buddy ($80) and I use the Blue Line shareware pluggins.Much cleaner and more WARM sounding since I dumped all that cheap shit.I sold the nanocomp and nanoverb but the Art sucks so bad that I'm hesitent to sell it,if I sold it for what I think it's worth I'd be about $10 richer.By the way I definately ain't no gear snob,I live on a fixed income so every dollar I spend has to mean something and I think that cheap "tube" gear is a tremondous waste of money.
 
But chess... you're comparing apples and oranges....

The average hobbyist doesn't have Butch Vig's skills, or access to gear. They are relying almost solely on marketing hype, forum communities (such as this one), and their own (possibly quite limited) experience.

While I understand what you're getting at, it simply doesn't translate to most home-recordists who are having a difficult enough time getting good sound down on low-budget or sonically-limited gear in the first place!

Do you really think that the average home-recordist (which, very likely tends toward the PortaStudio side) will REALLY be able to notice the difference between a poor pre and a good pre (solid-state, OR tube!)??? Their gear doesn't let them hear the difference anyways!

So they don't get the sound they want... "oh... well, I heard that digital recording is cold and sterile - that must be what they mean -- I'd better buy a tube XXXXXX to help me!"

God, this must be heaven for manufacturers as more and more rookies and novices buy into the hype!

"heh-heh, just slap on some more flourescent paint there boys, we'll call this one the SUPER-TUBE-PREAMP -- more tube warmth than any other gear - WITHOUT THE TUBES! The fools... they'll never know... just make sure the casing can't be opened!"

Maybe *I* should start manufacturing faux stuff -- sounds like I'd make A LOT of money!!! ;)


Bruce
 
here's my take...

why is Digital described as Cold...because our only other reference "ANALOG" was designed such that when it added distortion it added the type that's pleasing to the ear and compared to Digital there was a lot of Distortion to go around, compared to Digital.

there is distortion that "SOUNDS" good "WARM" and there's distortion that does not "HARSH". Analog can be the former and Digital is the latter.

we always end up describing in terms what we already know, and we know that Analog can sound real good. now we have Digital and it sounds different and for sure it's designed to be very accurate. accurate is good but the problem is that our reference is a medium that added pleasing sounding distortion.

i think a good analogy is Tube Guitar Amps compared to Solid State Guitar amps. i think it's safe to say that Tube Amps can distort better "WARMER" that Solid State Amps. now some like the Solid State sound, but it's not the workhorse tube guitar amplification is. i would describe Solid-State tube amps as being "COLD"..."HARSH"..."STERILE". why, because our reference is "WARMER"..."SMOOTHER"...whatever.

accurate is not "COLD" unless compared to a less accurate "WARMER" reference...

digital is not "COLD" unless compared to a warmer reference...

so is Digital innately COLD...NO...but, YES when compared to our reference...ANALOG.

and so on...
 
ANALOG - A wood burning stove.

HIGH END ANALOG - A wood burning stove using mesquite wood.

DIGITAL - Tupperware that keeps your food from spilling onto the floor.

HIGH END DIGITAL - Tupperware that actually keeps your food hot.

Tupperware is not a stove. It does not cook your food, it just keeps it warm. Our ears have become accustomed to cooked food, but we've had many bad meals cooked on wood burning stoves by chefs that could not cook. We've also had some tasty dishes cooked by chefs and stored in tupperware.

digital recording technology has gotten to the point that a decent home studio digital setup (soundcard and breakout box) is equivalent to having one of those old tascam 8-track reels with the built in mixer where you used the 8th track to sync timecode so you could run your midi sequencer at the same time as your audio. It's not an SSL board but with the mic-pres on my AudioSport Duo, i'm ok.

DITHER (24 to 16) - orange juice from concentrate is never as good as fresh OJ.
 
To use the amp analogy you wouldn't be comparing a tube amp to a solid state amp but instead one of those cheap solid state amps with a tube thrown in against a solid state amp.I don't think we are discussing real tube equipment,more like solid state designs that incorparate a tube running at very low voltages.

I use a cheap solid state mic preamp (Audio Buddy) and my 3525 doesn't sound harsh at all through it (my Mxl 2001 still sounds like shit).My Art Mp always sounds shitty,possibly usable for an effect on a individual track but hardly for use on a mix.I can understand running a mix through expensive analogue equipment but that is no way comparable to running a mix through an Art Tube MP or someother cheap unit.

Bruce I think the average hobbyist (like me) could easily tell the difference between good pres or bad pres given a chance to hear them.I know that you are limited to a large degree by weak links in your recording chain but even recording with a soundblaster card or a digital portastudio the differences are painfully obvious.I think the lack of exposure to different pieces of equipment is the most limiting factor.I may not be able say that brand x is better than brand y off the top of my head but if I listened to them both I could tell shit from shinola.
 
Randy Yell said:
Bruce I think the average hobbyist (like me) could easily tell the difference between good pres or bad pres given a chance to hear them.I know that you are limited to a large degree by weak links in your recording chain but even recording with a soundblaster card or a digital portastudio the differences are painfully obvious.I think the lack of exposure to different pieces of equipment is the most limiting factor.I may not be able say that brand x is better than brand y off the top of my head but if I listened to them both I could tell shit from shinola.
Click to expand...
I agree with you Randy.... I wasn't trying to imply that hobbyists don't have good ears... generalizations are dangerous things, but when I say average, I tend towards the lower end of that average for demonstrative purposes.

Of course, there are skilled recordists doing great things with low-budget gear - but I doubt it's the "norm"!

Judging from the clips I get asked to critique (via email), and some of the stuff I hear from the MP3 clinic - most are too lo-end sounding to assume that most people really are doing great things with cheap gear. So adding "faux tube" to the mix is not likely to give much improvement!

Bruce
 
Blue Bear Sound said:

Judging from the clips I get asked to critique (via email), and some of the stuff I hear from the MP3 clinic - most are too lo-end sounding to assume that most people really are doing great things with cheap gear. So adding "faux tube" to the mix is not likely to give much improvement!

Bruce
Click to expand...

this is a tad off subject, but I tend to disagree(and agree), on the fact that there is some extremely fine stuff heard in the mp3 clinic. And, I'd bet not many has invested over 30 grand in their home setup...which to me spells out "cheap gear." (ala less than a mid priced car now a days). Yeah..much is lo-end sounding, but ALOT is pretty kick ass over there. I'm not claiming my stuff approaches commercial final quality at all, but stuff from Longwavestudio, the song recently from Warlock, and others, is very high quality in my opinion. ...making it a BECOME a "norm" for home recordist to get exceptional quality.

However I agree, an Art mp isn't going to help them either....nor do they probably use faux stuff either. I certainly don't.

so...did I get off subject enough and talk about a completely different subject than originated?:D
 
Bruce I agree with you 100% on the faux tube gear.I think if more people had the opportunity to hear pres like the Art Mp ab'd with clean pres (even lower end pres like the audio buddy or Mackie's)they would be convinced although what happens then is you hear other weak links like your mics.When I was using the 2001 I would be thankful for noise,anything to try to mellow out that POS!! :D
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
So they don't get the sound they want... "oh... well, I heard that digital recording is cold and sterile - that must be what they mean -- I'd better buy a tube XXXXXX to help me!"
Click to expand...

P.T. Barnum used to say: "There's a sucker born every minute.' And unfortunately, if these people get sucked in to the tube hype, it's their own fault for not doing their research or talking to Blue Bear. Bad gear is bad gear, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. If it isn't the "Ultratube," they get lured in on, then it will probably be a "Squire" Stratocaster, Eurorack, or whatever else. :)

I see no reason why an intelligent hobbyist couldn't improve the perceived warmth of their mixes by investing in something legit. For "faux" tube, the Digitech unit comes to mind, and for all-valve, the Peavey isn't a bad choice. They just have to learn to manage their expectations. The benefits won't be night and day, and yea, they will get more out of better recording techniques, if that's their problem.

Either way, it's not a new argument, nor is the "digital myth" a new revelation. It all boils down to a simple concept: Crappy gear sucks . . . good gear doesn't suck . . . and no gear in the world is substitute for proper techniques and knowlege.
 
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And before I get off my soap box, I have one more thing to say:

If you are one of the people who do not like the ART Tube MP, then chances are you are either:

a) using it wrong. Use only balanced cables and keep them far away from other power cables and supplies.

b) expecting too much out of it (for $100 it isn't going to magically transform your crappy mixes).

c) not using it for the right application. In my opinion, the ART Tube MP is an average preamp, a GOOD effect, and a GREAT D.I. box (for the money). The problem is they market it as a mic pre, which is probably it's weakest function.

d) living close to a radio transmission tower. Don't laugh. I failed to mention that the MP has no RF rejection. Rememer, balanced cables only, stay away from antennas, radio towers, and microwave ovens.
 
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