The new myth about digital . . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessrock
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Re: Misterqcue

Misterqcue,

No, Stephen George. He doesn't work For Electric Lady. He's an independent producer whose been doing a lot of work there. Ciao.

Stevez
 
Caution: Non CoheaRANT

I wanted to interject If I may...some history...

The original argument for warm cold, didn't have anything to do with the engineer doing the recording and mixing. The original argument had more to do with the digital converters. The design as far as when and what kind of filters were to be used were the primary cause. The quickest analogy would be something like ATRAC and MP3 compression techniques. The original thought on converter design allowed for incorrect interpolations, changing the content of the actual data being converted. If your " IF THEN" statements within a algorithmic string are based on bad assumptions then what gets converted will sound different than what typically gets monitored prior being sent to tape or disk. Think of the earlier converters being eqaul to ATRAC...worse than 16 bit non linear conversions. Digital doesn't start sound "like" analog until you get converters that are more linear and the bit depth and sampling rates compete with the human ear in sensitivity. Some would argue that would be 24 bit at 196 Khz sampling rate. This whole problem of coldness is why dithering was invented. In my mind dithering is similar to bias, an evil required to increase headroom...give me dynamic range for $1500 Bob...

Anyhow, CD's are a 16 bit interpolation of the source media.... If a cd sound colder than another, it may be the Mastering Facility...or it may not. It could be the Engineer who mixed it or the the guy/girl who tracked it. It could be the guy/girl who sampled it, converted it, respampled it or whatever...but like Bruce said in a different context.... Generalizations (generalisations for Aussies) are typical bad ideas.
If you record something on a $400,000 API/ 2 inch 24 Otari with tons of tube outboard gear, your CD will only be as good as the weakest link... which is.... the last conversion to digital....16 bits....

to many variables to blame just one thing....

Peace,
Dennis
 
I think digital is regarded as sounding cold because the time digital came out is also the time cheap preamps came out, and cheap sounding mics came out, and I shudder to even mention the word, PLUGINS.

I've never known a studio owner who uses digital with GREAT outboard gear to say digital is cold. Many examples immediately come to mind.

I used to think that my recordings sounded grainier than pro stuff, and they did, and then I upgraded

CONVERTERS
CLOCK
PREAMP
MICS
REVERBS

and suddenly, the difference I am hearing between the pros and mine is that they have better ears, more experience, and better monitoring.

I've also noticed something. I am not completely sure yet, but I think that the fewer digitally recorded tracks, the better.

When monitoring my sound module with only two tracks, it sounds fine. When I record each instrument individually for mixing, I lose something.


Ps. Plugins, especially reverbs, are best left out of the mix.
 
Ps. Plugins, especially reverbs, are best left out of the mix.
Click to expand...
There are a few exceptions but VERY few. Reverb plugs, in my experience, suck.
 
okay, so a lot of people have mentioned using both analog and digital when tracking.... such as the reference to butch vig and what not....

but why are people mentioning recording to digital, THEN sending it to tape and back into the computer?
wouldn't it make far more sense to record to tape first, then dump it all into pro tools (or whatever), so you only have to go through one conversion?
I mean, even with the best converters on the market, the less A/D and back you have to do, the better....
 
I think that's where the mega-buck a/d and d/a converters start to pay off. It will matter a lot if you're doing all those conversions on the kind of gear most of us are using.

It does make a lot more sense, thoug, and most of the top producers I have heard interviewed mention tracking to tape, and then converting to Pro Tools for editing and mixing. There are a growing number of producers, however, who are adding yet one more conversion to send those tracks to an external board for mixing. Their rationale is that they do not believe in the summing capabilities of a digital mixer, but they still like to use PT for the editing.

And for using the cool reverb plugins. Ha ha. Just kidding. :)
 
Misterque--that's why there are those of us who still pay the price to buy vinyl. Yes it's still made and enough people prefer it to 16/44.1 CD's that it shows little sign of dying out totally. But since they might only press 40,000 of a record, it's relatively expensive. As for dithering, it is like biasing. By raising the noise floor; it causes the recorder to record more low level sound and in the process records stuff you want as well as the noise. Modern converters are a BIG reason digital sounds fine today. Also jitter, which is distortion caused by clock errors and fluctuations. If there are clocking errors, the D/A converter produces sound other than was intended. Jitter is a big reason Toslink is usually considered an inferior sounding hookup method. For some reason I don't quite understand it induces jitter. The more jitter the harsher the sound. Lastly, the converter is responsible for the final sound. After all, the D/A converter actually produces the sound you hear. It simply produces the sound it is told to produce by the computer data. Did you know that a non'linear converter can actually produce the wrong NOTE. Some out of whack cd-players (usually cheap) will make things sound out of tune or in extreme cases play a whole different note than the data means for it to play even with the same data. You, after all, don't have the direct connection with the original event you have with analog. Fortunately, the gear we all have is modern stuff for the most part so we don't run into these problems much. But all mediums, whether analog,digital or smoke-signals all have their pros & cons. Still, current digital is affordable and far superior to any analog gear any of us can afford.
 
Lt. Bob said:
>>>But all mediums, whether analog,digital or smoke-signals all have their pros & cons.......
Click to expand...

Personally, I think the smooooothness of a smoke signal, far outweighs the.....ah... umm....err....tsssp tsssp..
 
Also a good strong smoke signal can--uh--it can--hmmm- What was I saying?
 
I have recorded as a drummer and a guitarist in both digital and analog... I found the two experiences completely different! I enjoyed these experiences, but found the digital less pleasing in the end. I won't elaborate, but I felt the sound WAS different. when recording music it is about the taste of all the people putting the energy into the project(musicians and engineers) and where they want the recordings to touch the listener. accuracy vs. warmth. that says alot about who your trying to reach and where the recordings come from...
 
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