Analog

[john]

Hey

Does anyone use analog recording anymore?

I use a mix of analog and digital signal chains (analog mixer, some outboard, PC, software processors, hardware digital processors.

I like analog gear to an extent, but almost everything is digital in home recording.

I just wondered to what extent it is still being used...

Cheers

John

[Nightwolf]

Lot's of people try to fight the digital march (my Dad for one), but you can't beat it. Analog is destined to fade away IMHO. I might be doing some analog this weekend, I'll post what I find.

Peace,

the other John

[hariossa]

my only analog experience comes from using a 4 track tascam cassette recorder some years ago, I still have it here, but I don't use it anymore...

there's a lot of blah blah about the warmness of analog equipment, but nowadays you must be Alan Parsons to tell the difference; you have all this emulations of classic compressors, eq's, distortions... and this "vintage warmer" by psp that everybody praise... so there's no going back. (and the easyness of use of the digital domain is a BIG plus!!).

[Steve]

I have always thought that the 'Warmth' of analog was just a different way of describing hiss! When I listen to my old 4 track recordings, I cringe at the bad quality. Give me digital any time!

[ATom2]

There was an old lady,

Who sat on a tree,

That fell one day in the bog.

It killed her you see,

And now I go there,

To sit on that Anna Log.

Koppee rite ATom2

[Prometheus]

I still use analogue signal chains, because I think there is something about working with analogue, especially with EQ and compression... My desk is analogue too... I don't know if analogue outboards will be around forever, but I have noticed a lot of companies prefer to sell even their digital algorthims in outboards to avoid the whole intellectual property theft issue... It must be hard going to spend loads of man hours creating a beautiful compression algorithm only to see it appear cracked on a warez site within a week...

I do use digital editing to cut out all the unwanted bits of hiss on the unused parts of tracks, because when you have 40 tracks with his on them, it certainly builds up... I suppose at the end of the day, the wise sceptic would never dismiss analogue or digital equipment...

Edited September 20, 2005 by Prometheus

[john]

I still use analogue signal chains, because I think there is something about working with analogue, especially with EQ and compression... My desk is analogue too... I don't know if analogue outboards will be around forever, but I have noticed a lot of companies prefer to sell even their digital algorthims in outboards to avoid the whole intellectual property theft issue... It must be hard going to spend loads of man hours creating a beautiful compression algorithm only to see it appear cracked on a warez site within a week...

I do use digital editing to cut out all the unwanted bits of hiss on the unused parts of tracks, because when you have 40 tracks with his on them, it certainly builds up... I suppose at the end of the day, the wise sceptic would never dismiss analogue or digital equipment...

Hey

I work very in a very similar way. I like getting hands on, probably because I started in purely analog studios.

Now I record onto a hard disk, and use lots of DSP power to provide production tools, but I still use my analog mixer.

Somehow, analog has become a lesser medium, but digital and analog are distinctive and different, each with pros and cons. Now, I like the best of both worlds!

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

Hey

I work very in a very similar way. I like getting hands on, probably because I started in purely analog studios.

Now I record onto a hard disk, and use lots of DSP power to provide production tools, but I still use my analog mixer.

Somehow, analog has become a lesser medium, but digital and analog are distinctive and different, each with pros and cons. Now, I like the best of both worlds!

Cheers

John

Yeah, I like this approach as well. With my spirit desk, you can see the routing in front of you and it is easy to trace any problems that might develope... The Studio I served my time in had a digital Yamaha 02R 96, and the routing in this was almost metaphysical, taking place within switchable digital layers... It was so easy to get lost up your own arse doing mixes with loads of tracks... I prefer analogue to record and digital to edit...

http://www.geocities.com/thetrueprometheus/images/Grom.JPG

[john]

I have always thought that the 'Warmth' of analog was just a different way of describing hiss! When I listen to my old 4 track recordings, I cringe at the bad quality. Give me digital any time!

Hey

The warmth was often the EQ shaping caused by a combination of imperfections in the electric circuit accidentally shaping the frequency response, and Frequency response compensation meant to combat imperfections in the electric circuit. Valve equipment in particular creates this "warm" sound. Transistors also often have their own sound too.

Other than editing, digital has one great big advantage. You can route cables all over the place, transmit it across the airwaves, and noise will have very little impact. That said when you do get digital crosstalk, it cannot be ignored because the audio strem is corruputed.

One thing you can't do in digital is overdrive the inputs. Ok you can, but it just becomes glitches. In analog it become quite an attractive distortion sound...

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

Hey

The warmth was often the EQ shaping caused by a combination of imperfections in the electric circuit accidentally shaping the frequency response, and Frequency response compensation meant to combat imperfections in the electric circuit. Valve equipment in particular creates this "warm" sound. Transistors also often have their own sound too.

Other than editing, digital has one great big advantage. You can route cables all over the place, transmit it across the airwaves, and noise will have very little impact. That said when you do get digital crosstalk, it cannot be ignored because the audio strem is corruputed.

One thing you can't do in digital is overdrive the inputs. Ok you can, but it just becomes glitches. In analog it become quite an attractive distortion sound...

Cheers

John

This is true... even in 24 bit, digital clipping is horrendous... It tends to produce dropouts instead of distortion. That said I would never be without my digital equipment now, even though I still think you get a more pleasing mix putting analogue processors in the signal chain than you do with pro tools plugins... Hell, I wouldn't be without the analogue gear either... I was acutally thinking of buying an akai reel to reel from ebay, just to experiment with mastering on to it...

I've never had my A - D converters up at the full 192KHz sample rate, the file size would be too drastic, but 24 bit makes a night and day difference in the dynamic range... I don't think you can actually hear any difference when you go above 44.1 anyway... You only need to sample two points on a soundwave to recreate it perfectly since they all follow a precise curve, and I sure as hell can't hear above 22 Khz... Hooray for Harry Nyquist...

[Donna]

I've always used anna-log...just a little 4-track.

(and feeling like Rumplestiltskin, just woke up re: digital. I'll learn a lot from reading

you guys' discussions tho it's all greek to me presently)

[john]

I've always used anna-log...just a little 4-track.

(and feeling like Rumplestiltskin, just woke up re: digital. I'll learn a lot from reading

you guys' discussions tho it's all greek to me presently)

Hi Donna

No worries. It was all greek for every one of us at some point. If anything you just learn to get passed the embaressment of asking others. That and carry a Greek dictionary with you.

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

I've always used anna-log...just a little 4-track.

(and feeling like Rumplestiltskin, just woke up re: digital. I'll learn a lot from reading

you guys' discussions tho it's all greek to me presently)

if you use analogue, digital is only gonna make your life easier...

[BongStuff]

if you use analogue, digital is only gonna make your life easier...

Maybe so - but at the end of the day does it make our music any better?

I'm re-listening to a lot of my old Beatles right now. Would Revolver or Sgt. Pepper

ever have sounded as good if recorded in a squeaky-clean ProTools studio?

BS

[Prometheus]

Maybe so - but at the end of the day does it make our music any better?

I'm re-listening to a lot of my old Beatles right now. Would Revolver or Sgt. Pepper

ever have sounded as good if recorded in a squeaky-clean ProTools studio?

BS

Would that be the same Revolver that was recorded in the multi million pound Abbey Road Studio with the squeaky cleanest pre amps with the lowest signal to noise ratio that an limitless budget can buy?

All a digital set up does is make the signal processing and editing easier... If you like analogue compression and EQ, there's no reason why you can't patch analogue units in...

[BongStuff]

Would that be the same Revolver that was recorded in the multi million pound Abbey Road Studio with the squeaky cleanest pre amps with the lowest signal to noise ratio that an limitless budget can buy?

All a digital set up does is make the signal processing and editing easier... If you like analogue compression and EQ, there's no reason why you can't patch analogue units in...

Wow such sarcasm! :

Yes, EMI, who owned Abbey Rd., funded the recording of Sgt. Pepper especially with no financial limits.

But you could never describe the sound of that album as squeaky clean!

Its varispeed and tapeloop heaven. I would not sound as

good done on ProTools. Ever notice how Strawberry Fields drifts in pitch throughout?

With digital it would have been perfect. And worse for it!

It's not just about patching in your anna-log kit.

BS

[Prometheus]

Wow such sarcasm! :<img src=" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

Yes, EMI, who owned Abbey Rd., funded the recording of Sgt. Pepper especially with no financial limits.

But you could never describe the sound of that album as squeaky clean!

Its varispeed and tapeloop heaven. I would not sound as

good done on ProTools. Ever notice how Strawberry Fields drifts in pitch throughout?

With digital it would have been perfect. And worse for it!

It's not just about patching in your anna-log kit.

BS

George Martin was the best studio engineer alive at the time, since I wasn't born back then, and they had the best equipment available at the time and unlimited resources in terms of manpower and musicianship, including orchestras, bizarre instruments from all around the planet, loads of exotic drugs and one of the pioneering stereo setups...

And yes, I've noticed how Strawberry field is a splice of two pitch shifted recordings, and I know that was an unprecedented blend of audacity and genius at the time on Martin's part, however today any engineer worth his salt could create that effect in his sleep. As a matter of fact, I was made to use time stretches and pitch shifts during my training as a sound engineer...

In fact, today, there is absolutely nothing on Sgt Peppers that could not be emulated easily in a $1000 project studio. We have everything they had and stuff they never dreamed of... If you want a revox sound, you can emulate it digitally, or go on ebay and buy a revox... Having more and superior technology at your disposal can only make things better, if it is used properly, not worse...

Britney Speir's recordings, for all that her songs are IMO for the most part banal trash, are vastly superior in production terms to anything ever dreamt of in the sixties. The amount of skill, effort, technology and engineering prowess that has went into them is frightening... If you can't hear that, your ears must be painted on...

Of course, if you'd rather have a studio with 500 yards of cabling running around it, reel to reel tapes that require constant maintenance and depolarize every time there is a solar flare and master onto vinyl disks with a puny dynamic range that smash the reading needles to bits at the slightest phasing problem under 1000 Hz then be my guest. I'll happily stick with 24 tracks -> Converters -> Virtual Tape -> CDR any time...

Edited October 6, 2005 by Prometheus

[BongStuff]

George Martin was the best studio engineer alive at the time, since I wasn't born back then, and they had the best equipment available at the time and unlimited resources in terms of manpower and musicianship, including orchestras, bizarre instruments from all around the planet, loads of exotic drugs and one of the pioneering stereo setups...

And yes, I've noticed how Strawberry field is a splice of two pitch shifted recordings, and I know that was an unprecedented blend of audacity and genius at the time on Martin's part, however today any engineer worth his salt could create that effect in his sleep. As a matter of fact, I was made to use time stretches and pitch shifts during my training as a sound engineer...

In fact, today, there is absolutely nothing on Sgt Peppers that could not be emulated easily in a $1000 project studio. We have everything they had and stuff they never dreamed of... If you want a revox sound, you can emulate it digitally, or go on ebay and buy a revox... Having more and superior technology at your disposal can only make things better, if it is used properly, not worse...

Britney Speir's recordings, for all that her songs are IMO for the most part banal trash, are vastly superior in production terms to anything ever dreamt of in the sixties. The amount of skill, effort, technology and engineering prowess that has went into them is frightening... If you can't hear that, your ears must be painted on...

Of course, if you'd rather have a studio with 500 yards of cabling running around it, reel to reel tapes that require constant maintenance and depolarize every time there is a solar flare and master onto vinyl disks with a puny dynamic range that smash the reading needles to bits at the slightest phasing problem under 1000 Hz then be my guest. I'll happily stick with 24 tracks -> Converters -> Virtual Tape -> CDR any time...

Yeah some interesting counters there. Please don't think I'm on a "digital sucks" rant though.

I've just finished writing, recording and mastering a piece for a commercial radio station this evening

and didn't use any cabling of any kind, let alone 500 yards - apart from the headphone lead!

( and yes I do use cans because I have real ears )

Britney top40 trash does indeed all sound pretty good - but all the same. It's been a long time

since I've heard something of that ilk that really stands out with innovative production.

So yes, accepted digital does make things easier. But has the digital era produced another George Martin

genius?

BS

[Prometheus]

Yeah some interesting counters there. Please don't think I'm on a "digital sucks" rant though.

I've just finished writing, recording and mastering a piece for a commercial radio station this evening

and didn't use any cabling of any kind, let alone 500 yards - apart from the headphone lead!

( and yes I do use cans because I have real ears )

Britney top40 trash does indeed all sound pretty good - but all the same. It's been a long time

since I've heard something of that ilk that really stands out with innovative production.

So yes, accepted digital does make things easier. But has the digital era produced another George Martin

genius?

BS

Well, before I go any further let me just say Kudos to you for taking my rather pompously worded post so well. I had one or two drinks in me at the time and thought, "Good Lord! This man doesn't think I'm discerning enough to listen to Sergeant Peppers!"

I think the digital era is the culmination of the work of a lot of Geniuses like George Martin and Alan Parsons. I think a lot of the tech stuff we have today must have been on their wishlists. In fairness, I think there are still a lot of great engineers around today, but maybe because it is a field that has very much come into it's own and become an art form itself, they perhaps don't stick out as much as they would have in days of yore... I was actually watching a film called "Bright Young Things" the other day, based on an old Evelyn Waugh Novel, and it struck me how incredibly clever and meticulous the sound engineer, who's name escapes me, had been. There was a remaster of an old Gene Crouper (spelling) song on the soundtrack which had been fantastically well restored... Another unlikely place was a Rachel Stevens song that I recently saw featured on the Richard and Judy show one afternoon and downloaded, because the crystal clear quality of the vocals was just incredible... I was also impressed with the guy who recorded the last Muse album, who was going to such lengths to get the sounds he wanted that he actually recorded a kick drum in a swimming pool with the driver of a speaker!!!

This to me is what it's about for a sound engineer, being willing to go to any place and any lengths to get that specific sound that you're looking for...

But a sound engineer with the kind of genius that George Martin had? That's a pretty tall order, but what the hell, you're looking at him...

[Prometheus]

Britney top40 trash does indeed all sound pretty good - but all the same. It's been a long time

since I've heard something of that ilk that really stands out with innovative production.

I think that's a little bit unfair... I've almost never heard any mix that I haven't learned something from...