Why digital is superior to analog

[DrewPeterson7]

To the original OP - When writing your thesis, if you include everything in this thread and change the topic to "Why You Shouldn't consider Music as a Career" I think you'll have a hit!

 

[Seafroggys]

That guy better come back to this thread, I'd be disappointed we yelled at each other for naught.

 

[noisewreck]

Anyway, I think there's absolutely no denying that, whatever the reason, "modern" music would be very different without America.

Absolutely.

 

[XLR]

This car is full of high explosives. It is here to destroy this thead.

 

[mshilarious]

Mods, since this wankfest of pseudo-ethnomusicology has nothing to do with recording I suggest you move it to the Cave.

Or the Cat forum.

Really? I was thinking about sticky status

 

[Dogman]

This car is full of high explosives. It is here to destroy this thead.

The gasoline in that car is too expensive to explode....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

In many countries, rock and jazz are not what's mostly played on radio in many countries.

OK, you're right; I overstated the specifics there. I think on the main points that count, though, we're actually more in agreement than not.

Well, as to whether you wanted me to concentrate on the first sentence where you talk of American pop music "of any era", or the second one which talks about VH-1 - which is not about music, otherwise it would be called MH-1 - I got confused.

And yes, Mozart *was* pop music in his time.

Drew, yes, I agree that Louis Armstrong was pop in the 20s-30s, but - not to be picky - not because of "Wonderful World". That wasn't recorded until 1968 . Back in his "first" heyday before WWII, you only occasionally heard him sing, he was all over that horn most of the time. In his later years he kind of re-invented himself in the studio (and on TV) and moved more and more to vocals and less and less horn, mostly because after years of playing that thing so hard, he actually started having lip problems which gave him problems continuing playing his instrument.

But you do make an excellent point about the young age and immigrant heritage of the US of A and the whole melting pot thing; I have no doubt that it was that kind of culture that helped make this part of the world a fertile petri dish for musical incest and evolution.

And yeah, things can be traced back much before us in many ways; hell, take it all the way back to the early development of the Western music scale by the ancient Greeks if you want.

But it remains true that there is a definitive and noticeable punctuation break in music styles right around the turn of the last century with the advent of ragtime and folks like Scott Joplin, that coincided well with the birth of recoding technology.

And the genealogical progression from ragtime to metal and beyond has been is very well researched and documented buy thousands of scholars from may countries and ethnicities. Yes there are tons of incestuous musical relationships and cross-pollinations which make it a messy geneology on the specific by-song or by-artist level, but the general paths are well known.

As are influences from other countries (can any one say "Paul Simon" or "David Byrne"...just for some more recent examples, so that you don't think I'm wallowing in the Great Depression or something ). But those influences, whether from the immigrant's traditions early on or whether from simple experimentation and creativity later on, were still run through the filter of American music history and experience. Nobody would mistake "Me and Julio (Down By The School Yard)" as an actual Latin song, but rather as an American song with and American take on the Latin rhythms and music styles it explores, with American music structure still evident in it as well.

G.

 

[noisewreck]

So none of this is motivated by the fact that I happen to be an American citizen. I'm proud of my country in many ways, and I love it, but I don't wrap myself in the flag nor think that we are superior to everyone else in everything and every way. Nor is it because I am an ignorant American who is blind to what's going on all over the planet. My eyes are open as an internationalist. On the same token, George, as a foreign national, you shouldn't have to feel so defensive about the fact that America is the major musical influence of the last 100 years. That's just how it goes. No need to get upset about that.

You know, reading back some of my posts, I can see how I come across as defensive. But I am not. I am not denying there is a major american influence all over the world. I don't feel bad about it either, it is what it is... well maybe except for Russian rap

And while my tastes tend to lie more towards aggressive genres and wacked-out electronica, I do appreciate good music, musicianship and artistry in any genre, from any country. By the same token if I hear something in my preferred genres and it sucks, I say it sucks, just because something is IDM or speed metal does not automatically mean "it's good music" in my mind

However, as you don't appreciate me making blanket statements (although, I repeatedly stated it was purposely made to be stupid to make a point), I have beef with blanket statements in general. You keep repeating that people mostly listen to music throughout the world that's directly influenced by American music, and I keep saying that's not true, even if there are rock and jazz bands in those countries and from time to time they see/listen to it on TV/Radio. Greeks like their Bouzuki, Iceland is in their own weird and wonderful world, Russia and the Eastern European block are still quite unique in their music, so on and so forth.

While I am not denying that many in those countries like to listen to jazz and rock, and love American pop (hell, when I was growing up in what was then the USSR, all kids in my age were trying to do Michael Jackson impersonations, break-dancing and all that), they listen to their own folk music or their own "country" (not the style but the idea, if you will) music that's close to their heart.

And just to make a point I have no problem with the American influence. But I still think that 90% of (ok... I'll concede... TODAY'S) pop is crap

And I still don't like the fact that most of the music nowdays is written in 4/4.

 

[darrin_h2000]

What I think is funny is all the bands out there who cite the Beatles as an influince while they all look and sound like Led Zeppelin...with the exception of Badfinger everybody who does an interview for VH1 is full of shit

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What I think is funny is all the bands out there who cite the Beatles as an influince

Ain't it the truth. I think the real "influence" there is that many of them want to be as famous as the Beatles .

G.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You keep repeating that people mostly listen to music throughout the world that's directly influenced by American music, and I keep saying that's not true

And I admitted fault in that and corrected my overstatement in my last reply. In bold caps just to make it official: I MISSTATED THE FACTS THERE; I WAS WRONG!

As usual with most folks in these kind of discussions, we agree on main principles, but argue over some of the details, most of which are usually inadvetantly false by way of bad communication. You rant, I rant, details get fuzzed in the heat of rant, and that fuzz is what we wind up arguing about .

G.

 

[SonicAlbert]

You keep repeating that people mostly listen to music throughout the world that's directly influenced by American music, and I keep saying that's not true

It would be more accurate to say that most people throughout the world listen to music that is influenced by Western music. If you check out popular music from many nations, you'll hear the strong western influence on it. Of course, each people adds their own particular flavor and variations.

 

[Beck]

This car is full of high explosives. It is here to destroy this thead.

Don't try that with a VW Polo.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh3GJc9-HOw

 

[noisewreck]

It would be more accurate to say that most people throughout the world listen to music that is influenced by Western music. If you check out popular music from many nations, you'll hear the strong western influence on it. Of course, each people adds their own particular flavor and variations.

I'll buy that, since most of the world does now consist of decendants of some european decent, the Americas, Australia, although large chunk of eastern countries are very strongly influenced by their own heritage, naturally. However, I'll concede that at least in such things as use of tonality and tonal relationships, and the wide-spread use of the 12-tone scale, the influence is overwhelming.

 

[noisewreck]

As usual with most folks in these kind of discussions, we agree on main principles, but argue over some of the details, most of which are usually inadvetantly false by way of bad communication. You rant, I rant, details get fuzzed in the heat of rant, and that fuzz is what we wind up arguing about .

Of course we agree on main principles! But it's FUN arguing over the details and getting fussy

 

[noisewreck]

That stuff reminded me of this guy. If you live near one of these installations (artworks? whatever they are) do yourself a huge favor and visit one.

Thanks for the link! I like sound installations. They get really creative. LACMA here in LA hosts sound installations from time to time. Which reminds me, I should check their calendar

 

[noisewreck]

African percussion is also way more structured than many outsiders give it credit for, and can take a similarly long time to become versed in the style (despite what hippie drum circles everywhere will have you believe ).

BTW if you want to listen to a great musical example of marriage between African and Western music, check out Juno Reactor's "Hule Lam" on "Shango" album. I love that album in general, but "Pistolero" (which he did with Steve Stevens) and "Hule Lam" (which was a collab with Amampondo) always take my breath away.

Personally, this is one of my favorite aspects of the era that we live in and one positive aspect of globalization and yes, the Internet. There is a lot more collaboration between musicians across the globe and fusion of music heritage and styels going on, if not in the mainstream, at least in the background which I hope will eventually make it to the mainstream.

 

[Seafroggys]

What I think is funny is all the bands out there who cite the Beatles as an influince while they all look and sound like Led Zeppelin...with the exception of Badfinger everybody who does an interview for VH1 is full of shit

heh, that's true

I wish Badfinger was bigger....and lasted much longer. Damn lead guy offing himself. They were a terrific band, really.

 

[hardwire666]

Analogue gives you much more head room.

How do you figure?

Depending on the tape you can go up to something like +6db. I think there were some cases where you could even go to +8db. But, I can't say for sure as that was a while ago, and I am 100% digital with no analogue experience. With digital you go passed 0db, and you are distorting. This is just something I learned from someone who was mixing before I was born. So, that's +29 years that teacher had on me. If I remember correctly it had something to do with the natural compression that can occur with tape.

 

[ofajen]

Depending on the tape you can go up to something like +6db. I think there were some cases where you could even go to +8db. But, I can't say for sure as that was a while ago, and I am 100% digital with no analogue experience. With digital you go passed 0db, and you are distorting. This is just something I learned from someone who was mixing before I was born. So, that's +29 years that teacher had on me. If I remember correctly it had something to do with the natural compression that can occur with tape.

What you are discussing is the different nature of digital and analog systems:

Digital systems can be frightfully linear up to their top value ("full scale"), above which they immediately clip because there is nowhere higher to go in a world of zeroes and ones when you have them all flipped on. To create headroom in a digital system, you pick a level below "full scale" as your reference level (for an "average" signal level) and that dictates the amount of headroom you set for your peaks to avoid clipping, which you do want to avoid because it doesn't sound nice.

Analog systems start to distort at some point above their reference or average level and the distortion gets progressively more as you increase level and then at some point you reach a maximum level (with a lot of distortion) beyond which increasing input does not give you more output. The gradual nature of that distortion can be exploited to add a sense of "intensity" to the recording and also to compress a signal and reduce the ratio of peak to average level known as "crest factor".

However, each system can be operated so as to give appropriate headroom, there is just a difference in response as you approach the maximum level, and that has to be taken into consideration as you set levels.

Cheers,

Otto