The old "analog is better than digital" crap again

[David Polich]

Old analog crap.... LOL

Well I'm an old schooler 42 years and I can put up a two track mix that blows away most of what I hear in digital and prove there was a better sound from those wacky 16 track locked up machines than what we have today. Further, we could VSO multitrack which eludes multitrack digital for some reason any time we wished. This was one of those generic production effects used my Geoff Emerick and Martin during the Beatles era of which we have lost site of I'm afraid. Why not put a knob on DP to do this? They can't?

I'm still mixing to 30ips 1/4" audio for my final mixes from digital for some of what I miss. My ATR 102 keeps my spirits up.

As for the flexibility of editing, everyone knows nothing can touch todays workstations so even a live 16 x 2 locked up must be transferred to properly have the best of both worlds I digress. Many of the major bands are doing it this way by cutting in the studio24track, although I like 16 better for noise and sound, Then transferring.

With the improvements in computers these days I use digital and all my projects sit at SR 88.2 -24bit. Sonically not bad but not as pleasing as the previous well aligned 16 track at 30ips with new tape. It's a human ear thing I think, tape saturation etc. and lets not forget the hassle of keeping it all going. Were all way to lazy to go back and too cheap to by the tape, arn't we?

Maybe there are better sounding IOs out there than my RME Firefaces that do a better job but as I look at the specs for headroom most are limited to +18. An analog machine's HR was always +27. So what's with that considering digital is spewing out at +8? I have to run my RME at -10 to keep things sounding correct, fortunately they have this feature, which brings me to + 28. If you have not tried this I would advise it. I was told by an engineer that to put current followers in todays IOs to increase the headroom would heat the damn things up so much they would be burning themselves out in no time and no MFGer wants that.

You younger guys who didn't grow up with analog just don't know.

Yeah, well, I grew up with analog and don't miss it in the least. Not any of it. The first time I heard an ADAT recording, I thought, "that's for me".
And digital converters today are light-years ahead of those old ADAT converters.

There are personal preferences, and there is fact. The fact is that analog
does not sound better than digital. Where would the empirical proof be for
that? You can't prove it because "better" is not measurable.

Mixing to tape? Great if you happen to have an old tape machine around.
Recording to 24-track analog? Great if you have an old 24-track machine around. Few people do.

Aligning heads...de-gaussing...noise floor...3 lousy songs on a reel of tape...can't back-up tape...can't move things around with tape...
tape deteriorating...noise buildup with bounces...cutting and splicing tape
together...sync'd machines taking an age to lock together...nope, don't miss
any of that. Never will.

For me, analog will never sound as good as digital. I guess that's an opinion...but I'm sticking to it.

[FMiguelez]

Question:
In average, how long would a good quality reel of tape last? How many playbacks before it gets damaged or starts showing wear-off signs? Just curious.

[Little Known]

Question:
In average, how long would a good quality reel of tape last? How many playbacks before it gets damaged or starts showing wear-off signs? Just curious.

From memory, circa mid-80's. 1 (2 inch) reel = 400 dollars = 15 minutes of recording. Good for only project. You could "rent" tape if you were on a tight budget but you always had problems with print-through from the previous project.


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[James Steele]

Aligning heads...de-gaussing...noise floor...3 lousy songs on a reel of tape...can't back-up tape...can't move things around with tape...
tape deteriorating...noise buildup with bounces...cutting and splicing tape
together...sync'd machines taking an age to lock together...nope, don't miss
any of that. Never will.

Yeah... all good points. I never was engineered with analog, but I recorded quite a few songs in analog studios in San Diego years ago and I do remember a few limitations that touched me personally. In one instance, I don't miss running out of tracks and having to decide if you really want to record OVER your last take that was "good" and risk losing it, to go for something "better."

Another time, a band I was in recorded our drums, bass and some basic rhythm guitar parts for a song, only to come in a few days later to begin overdubs and discover that a tech had come into the studio and recalibrated the 2" multitrack machine. Apparently the tape speed was off when we tracked, and the tech had "fixed" this. Now all our tracks were either sharp or flat (can't remember which now) and as I recall the studio had to eat the cost for us to do our rhythm tracks over again. I'm thinking it might have been possible to keep the drums and don't know why we didn't. Could have been that the pitch change made it sound off to us.

Again, I realize that in a perfect world, we would just assume a properly adjusted tape machine, but there were a lot of studios I knew of back then that probably weren't as conscientious as they should have been about keeping their analog tape machines within spec.

[Gravity Jim]

Humans have evolved huge brains with a unique primary function: recognizing patterns and making continual judgement calls on what is the better course of action. This is virtually all your brain does all day long, whether you're editing audio or picking an apple out of a bin.

So when we're confronted with a choice where no one option is "better," they're all just "different," our brains insist one picking the "better" one.

This is how we get into these arguments. Analog isn't better than digital: it's just different. Nobody can listen to "The Nightfly" (16-bit tracking!) and say that digital doesn't sound great when you know how to use it. Same goes for analog and "Abbey Road."

[Shooshie]

Humans have evolved huge brains with a unique primary function: recognizing patterns and making continual judgement calls on what is the better course of action. This is virtually all your brain does all day long, whether you're editing audio or picking an apple out of a bin.

So when we're confronted with a choice where no one option is "better," they're all just "different," our brains insist one picking the "better" one.

This is how we get into these arguments. Analog isn't better than digital: it's just different. Nobody can listen to "The Nightfly" (16-bit tracking!) and say that digital doesn't sound great when you know how to use it. Same goes for analog and "Abbey Road."

"…90 minutes, from New York to Paris… by 76, we'll be A-Ok!…"

One of my favorite recordings of all time. Also one of the first ever marketed on CD.

[kinnylandrum]

I love that tune, and that record, too Shoosh.
How are the fires?
KL

[Shooshie]

I love that tune, and that record, too Shoosh.
How are the fires?
KL

Still a'blazin'. Can't see them from here, but the sky is an unnatural beige color, especially out toward the west.

How're the earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes?


Shoosh

[kinnylandrum]

The floods have receded mostly, hopefully the hurricanes are over for the year, and who knows about the earthquakes. Increasingly Biblical, no?

[James Steele]

Cue the locusts.

[HCMarkus]

FM inquired how long a reel of tape lasts... I'm thinking you mean "how many times can I record over the same piece of tape?" As long as you get a really good erasure (using a bulk tape eraser) you could record mixes or whatever to the same tape many times, dumping back into DP and the digital world in which music distribution now takes place, before erasing.

A cool current implementation using multitrack analog is called CLASP. Check it out.

[SixStringGeek]

Now, if you gave me a REAL orchestra... that's another thing! That I'd kill for!

It is hard to get more analog than that.

[Timeline]

Yeah, well, I grew up with analog and don't miss it in the least. Not any of it. The first time I heard an ADAT recording, I thought, "that's for me".
And digital converters today are light-years ahead of those old ADAT converters..

ADAT is digital dude.

How many passes on 2" tape? I would not do any more than 10 if tracking new. Oxide shed and edge track wear would be the clue. Different machines mash tape more than others. Studers are the best. Ampex before ATRs the worst although there is a guy in Orange County making rollers to replace the fixed guides. The machine then is awesome.

[Shooshie]

ADAT is digital dude.

Eh? Eh??? Dave's not here!

[Timeline]

ADAT is digital dude.

Eh? Eh??? Dave's not here!