Would you do analog recording ?

[mdainsd]

Indeed.

 

[ecc83]

"Anyway...when did "better" sounding audio product for music recording only concern itself with classical music recording?
If anything...in the big scheme of modern audio recording productions, classical is not what I would call the driving force or deciding factor.
Is that's your only argument for a "documentary" approach to audio recording....? "

Not at all. Our mate Greg L has dobbed in. Now there is a man that has spent a lot of time and money developing the specific sound he want from his guitars and especially amps and speakers.
I am pretty sure he does not want some arty-farty "prodooocah" messing about with his hard won tone.

There is in my mind a huge difference between "recording" an event be it Mozart or Motorhead and "telling the truth" and a collaborative venture when musician and recordist (often the same person of course) are creating a complete, integrated work.
One is the Proms, the other Sgnt Pepper.

For the former you need digital for the whole truth. For the latter, whatever suits your purpose.

Bad analogue recordings? Legion mate. If you had been reading The Gramaphone or Hi Fi News in the 60's and 70s you would have found many references to wow* on pianos (and some out of tune!) and excessive hiss.
There were of course many other criticisms of acoustics, mic placement, tempi etc. That is what well bred reviewers are for!

*Mind you, some of that was because they couldn't put the bloody hole in the middle!

Dave.

 

[Greg_L]

Not at all. Our mate Greg L has dobbed in. Now there is a man that has spent a lot of time and money developing the specific sound he want from his guitars and especially amps and speakers.
I am pretty sure he does not want some arty-farty "prodooocah" messing about with his hard won tone.

Aint that the truth. I'd stab a motherfucker in the scrotum with a #2 pencil before I let him tweak my kind of sound.

 

[miroslav]

I am pretty sure he does not want some arty-farty "prodooocah" messing about with his hard won tone.

WTF does that have to do with anything or the topic in the thread?

So....are you saying that people who record/recorded with analog/tape "messed about" with the audio in some artsy-fartsy way....but everyone who records digital is "telling the truth".



I think there's WAY more messing with the audio in the digital domain than there ever was in analog-only days.
If anything, there was more "telling the truth" when it was just going down on tape and through a mixer...than there is these days in the digital world. Even the cheapest DAW app comes with more tools to mess the audio up with than a tape deck, mixer and a few pieces of outboard gear offered back in the day.

Tell me....regrdless if it's analog or digital....how many people would you say simply put up a mic and never touch that recorded signal again unitl the end?

Recording music for the most part is a production...not a documentation.
It's all in the production, not the recording format...and you can do equally well working in either analog or digital or some combination of the two together.
Some of you guys need to get over all this "digital just makes it better" nonsense.

 

[Greg_L]

Who said "digital makes it better"? I personally don't think digital makes anything better or worse, but modern digital fucks things up less than tape.

For me, I want an accurate, clean, clear, repeatable recording of whatever I'm recording. Digital is better for that. From there I can fuck it up however I see fit.

 

[Armistice]

Miro's in the mood...

 

[Greg_L]

Miro's in the mood...

Yeah he is. We all know he gets this way when anyone dare have an opinion that differs from his tightly held beliefs. It's been a while though. He's been laying low. He's way overdue. Go get em miro!

 

[miroslav]

Who said "digital makes it better"?

John is always on that path...because he views recording as documentation...I guess so does Dave now.

Point I'm making is...who the fuck cares about some extreme dynamic range or absolute absolute transparency if the final production will apply all sorts of "mangling" that does away with that anyway...?

It's like saying there's a major difference if you salt your stew while it's in the pot...VS...when you put in your plate.
If you cooked it....you would know how it tastes, so there's no difference.

I mean....c'mon...if you look at 90% of plugs, they are emulations of tape/analog tones, so when people are selling "digital purity" as somehow the better approach....it's kinda hypocritical to just look at the initial recording stage and ignore the rest of the production.

I'm not arguing specifically against digital or only in favor of analog...I'm just saying it's a stupid comparison to try and draw some line between them. I thought we got over this analog VS digital crap awhile ago...?

 

[miroslav]

We all know he gets this way when anyone dare have an opinion that differs from his tightly held beliefs.

That's just it...I'm not on either side, I'm for both analog AND digital....some of you guys are the ones with "tightly held beliefs."
There's a few "analog only " fanatics over in the Analog forum....and then we also have the "digital is always better" fanatics.

I'm not in either camp. I'm open-minded about tape/analog AND digital.

 

[Greg_L]

I don't know who the fuck John or Dave are, but I don't really disagree with you. This entire discussion is fucking pointless and stupid.

That's just it...I'm not on either side, I'm for both analog AND digital....some of you guys are the ones with "tightly held beliefs."
There's a few "analog only " fanatics over in the Analog forum....and then we also have the "digital is always better" fanatics.

I'm not in either camp. I'm open-minded about tape/analog AND digital.

You know that I think tape-only people are nostalgic idiots that are just entertaining themselves, and most digital nazis are clueless goofs that don't know any different anyway, but to each his own. I don't care what anyone uses. I prefer digital, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it. Whatever.

 

[miroslav]

I don't know who the fuck John or Dave are, but I don't really disagree with you. This entire discussion is fucking pointless and stupid.

Thank you...that's ALL I was trying to say when I saw that this thread was stirred up again.

(John Willett earlier on this page...and ecc83/Dave (Mr. Blackstar).


Oh...I wanted to mention to you eariler....if you get Mix, this month in "Classic Tracks" they cover the recording of the Ramones "R&R High School" sessions....if it interests you.

 

[Greg_L]

Thank you...that's ALL I was trying to say when I saw that this thread was stirred up again.

(John Willett earlier on this page...and ecc83/Dave (Mr. Blackstar).


Oh...I wanted to mention to you eariler....if you get Mix, this month in "Classic Tracks" they cover the recording of the Ramones "R&R High School" sessions....if it interests you.

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I'd love to check that out. I have no idea what "Mix" is though. Is that a magazine or something? Do they have an online version? I don't read analog magazines.

 

[John Willett]

"Better" being a very subjective, personal definition, as there's really no way to measure it when you're working at the upper-end in either format.

You can measure wow and flutter, modulation noise, and all the other non-liniarities that are added by a tape recorder, for example.

Why do you think recording engineers went digital in the 1980s? It was to eliminate all the distortion and non-liniarities caused by analogue recording.

It's only the loudness wars causing clipping and distortion and the added distortion caused by using loads of plug-ins that make people want the distortion of analogue to mask them.

 

[John Willett]

Thank you...that's ALL I was trying to say when I saw that this thread was stirred up again.

(John Willett earlier on this page...and ecc83/Dave (Mr. Blackstar).

It was altruistica that re-launched this thread - I was just answering someone who posted after him.

 

[ecc83]

"So....are you saying that people who record/recorded with analog/tape "messed about" with the audio in some artsy-fartsy way....but everyone who records digital is "telling the truth"."

..................NO......................

Dave.

 

[Bobbsy]

I grew up with analogue and was using razor blades to edit quarter inch tape before I was 12.

For the whole time using analogue tape, people spent many hours and thousands of dollars trying to eliminate some of the effects that fans now find the attractive "analogue sound".

Me? I've had fun with both mediums but the fact is, I'm just too lazy to use tape these days and find that digital does everything I want and need...more easily and cheaply. Others have differing opinions and more power to them.

 

[John Willett]

"So....are you saying that people who record/recorded with analog/tape "messed about" with the audio in some artsy-fartsy way....but everyone who records digital is "telling the truth"."

No - where on earth did you get that from?

You can "mess around" in both analogue and digital to your heart's content.

But a pure digital recording has less non-liniarities and less distortion than a pure analogue tape recording - that's simple physics.

I'm not against analogue at all, if that is what you want.

 

[John Willett]

I grew up with analogue and was using razor blades to edit quarter inch tape before I was 12.

For the whole time using analogue tape, people spent many hours and thousands of dollars trying to eliminate some of the effects that fans now find the attractive "analogue sound".

Me? I've had fun with both mediums but the fact is, I'm just too lazy to use tape these days and find that digital does everything I want and need...more easily and cheaply. Others have differing opinions and more power to them.

Agreed - I was recording pure analogue for about 10 years before I went digital back in 1983.

So I am very well acquainted with analogue tape and all its foibles - I am well used to cutting and splicing tape to a high standard for broadcast.

But I found that analogue was just not good enough and I was always fighting against the limitations inherent in the system.

And it was so EXPENSIVE - I never reused tape, and with (even back in the 1980's) tape costing about £15 for an hour's recording it cost a huge amount of money (and £15 in 1980 is probably equivalent to about £150 in today's money).

But all the distortions and problems inherent with analogue tape recording meant that I went digital as soon as I could - back in 1983 when I bought my Sony PCM-F1 system - and was doing digital overdubs back then. "Music Week" even did a piece about me as I was the first to release an album digitally overdubbed in the UK (that's bouncing to and fro between two digital stereo recorders and an analogue mixer - yes, you get lots of DA and A/D conversions, but the noise floor still stays way below that of analogue tape and without the wow and flutter modulation noise, etc. inherent with analogue tape).

 

[ecc83]

No - where on earth did you get that from?

You can "mess around" in both analogue and digital to your heart's content.

But a pure digital recording has less non-liniarities and less distortion than a pure analogue tape recording - that's simple physics.

I'm not against analogue at all, if that is what you want.

"I" did not write that John!

And attached shows that the loudness war is far from a new thing. (scanned from Studio Sound AUG '77. I am sure they won't mind!)

Oh! And as for costs John. The same issue lists a Neve disc cutting lathe at £28,000...In '77 FFS!
Dave.

 

[miroslav]

It was altruistica that re-launched this thread - I was just answering someone who posted after him.

To the dungeons with him!

But a pure digital recording has less non-liniarities and less distortion than a pure analogue tape recording - that's simple physics.

John...I'm not arguing against that.
It's just that you, and a few other born-again digital lovers, always try to use that as some sort of "proof" that digitally recorded music will sound "better".

I'm saying that unless you ARE just documenting a recording session, where you have ZERO intention of applying anything to the audio after it's recorded ....none of that physics "proof" is really relevant, since everyone else always strives to get the "analog" non-linear sound once the audio is in the digital domain.

I'm for using both.

I also don't think that in the majority of studios they use digital mainly for its linear capability, rather the use of digital audio is centered more around the easy of audio manipulation...and not so much documentation...and that goes even double for the home-rec crowd where it is mostly an ITB world...unlike the commercial studios where they use a ton of analog gear pre & post digital recording...including tape.

IOW...the "digital is linear, therefore it's better" is generally a pointless argument, but one you make often.
That's why this analog VS digital debate has become silly.
I say....let's just let it go and agree that these days music production has many options for better audio thanks to both analog and digital.

Wishing everyone a digital and analog XMas.