Beck said:
Generally good post, Tim G. But I might add that the term "Analog warmth" did not exist until the advent of digital recording.
The terms distortion, tape compression and saturation existed, but analog warmth as it is used today simply means, “Not digital.” It was the perceived harshness of digital high frequencies that gave birth to and popularized the term. It is a relative term.
Many of the finest producers and engineers used analog tape compression to great effect with distorted guitar and snare, so that’s nothing new. In fact it was not uncommon to have certain tracks biased differently to maximize this effect.
When tape is used as a transparent medium it still has the advantage of not introducing undesirable characteristics unique to digital processes. The exaggerated quality achieved through tape saturation is just one use of tape. The misconception that this is the only element that separates analog from digital is the cause of much confusion.
Analog warmth = the absence of digital coldness.
~Τιμόθεος B
Tim B.
If "analog warmth" means today simply "not digital" maybe that's gonna lead to confusion.
The standard analog tape machine test, subjectively anyway, was and is listening to source and then tape interchangeably, and listening for a difference. At best, there is no appreciable difference.
The same test we should apply to digital.
Whether analog tape or digital, a recording that is practically indistinguishable from the source, is not "cold" but faithful. In the same way, a witness who faithfully tells the truth in court is not "cold" but honest. If we take it to its logical end, a liar is "warm" and an honest person is "cold": hardly the right way of putting it.
What's the difference between a faithful analog tape recording and a faithful digital recording? In practice, nothing. Both are faithful. If one is "cold" then so is the other.
If early digital recordings were harsh (compared to the
source signal they were supposed to be capturing) then they were harsh BY THAT STANDARD.
But that's the point. The standard is the source signal, not the analog or digital recording of it.
I didnt say using analog tape compression was new. I said that NR meant you now
didnt have to venture into saturation if you didnt want to. Nobody was forced not to distort. If tape distortion was the effect they wanted, producers could still do it as much as they ever did. An option is not a directive. It opens up possibilities. It doesnt decide for you.
"Analog warmth" was a production tool then and still is today. But its absence should not be called "digital coldness" any more than
not overdriving the analog tape, then or now, results in a necessarily deficient recording.
If we are to say, and rightly, that analog tape when used transparently does not introduce the undesirable characteristics of digital recording, we should be fair and admit that when used transparently (How else can you use digital? Trying to get "warmth" by overdriving it sounds like a train wreck as Tim, you once rightly said. But then so does any analog amp sound, even in an analog tape machine, when clipped to a square wave.) digital equally avoids the weaknesses of analog tape recording.
I agree that tape saturation/compression/distortion is not the
only element that separates analog tape from digital recording but I dare suggest it's usually the only
useful analog tape advantage, unless we are to say that there are great practical uses for tape dropout, wow and flutter, phase non linearities and any other weaknesses of analog tape
that the makers tried so hard to minimise or eliminate. and long before digital came along in a practical way.
For my money, tape saturation/distortion/compression is the only normally
desirable analog tape characteristic.
THAT, I suspect, explains the position largely of analog tape recording in the world today, however we might lament that state of affairs, and however we might continue to use analog tape and machines for all sorts of good reasons, including still making excellent recordings, with or without the warmth.
Regards, Tim G